of June, and on that very day shot forth leaves, and flourished like its usual species. This tree is gone, and in the place thereof stands a very fine walnut-tree of the common sort. It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credulous; and, though not an uncommon walnut, Queen Anne, King James, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings from the original. Among Ray's Proverbs, the following is preserved relating to Saint Barnabas : "Barnaby Bright, The longest day and shortest night." It was formerly believed that storms were prevalent on this day. So in the ancient Romish calendar,—“ Barnabæ Apost. tempestas sæpe oritur." The author of the Festa Anglo Romana says, p. 72, “This Barnaby-day, or thereabout, is the summer solstice or sunsted, when the sun seems to stand, and begins to go back, being the longest day in the year, about the 11th or 12th of June; it is taken for the whole time, when the days appear not for fourteen days together either to lengthen or shorten." CORPUS CHRISTI DAY AND PLAYS. CORPUS CHRISTI DAY, says the Festa Anglo Romana, p. 73, in alı Roman Catholic countries is celebrated with music, lights, flowers, strewed all along the streets, their richest tapestries hung out upon the walls, &c. The following is Googe's translation of what Naogeorgus has said upon the ceremonies of this day in his Popish Kingdom, f. 53. "Then doth ensue the solemne feast of Corpus Christi Day, Who then can shewe their wicked use, and fond and foolish play: His armes that beares the same two of the welthiest men do holde, And over him a canopey of silke and cloth of golde. Foure others used to beare aloufe, least that some filthie thing Should fall from hie, or some mad birde hir doung thereon should fling. Christe's passion here derided is with sundrie maskes and playes, And sundrie other pageants playde, in worship of this bred, A number great with sacring belles, with pleasant sound doe ring. A number great of armed men here all this while do stande, To looke that no disorder be, nor any filching hande : For all the church-goodes out are brought, which certainly would bee This bread eight dayes togither they in presence out do bring, blast; Such fayth the Pope hath taught, and yet the Papistes hold it fast." In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 229, I find the following extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts at Kingston-upon-Thames, relating to this day 66 "21 Hen. VII. Mem. That we, Adam Backhous £. s. d. 27 Hen. VII. Paid for packthred on Corpus Christi Day 4 0 0 0 0 1 This," Lysons adds, "was probably used for hanging the pageants, containing the History of our Saviour, which were exhibited on this day, and explained by the Mendicant Friars." The Cotton MS. Vesp. D. viii. contains a Collection of dramas in old English verse (of the fifteenth century) relating principally to the History of the New Testament. Sir William Dugdale mentions this manuscript under the name of Ludus Corporis Christi, or Ludus Coventriæ, and adds, "I have been told by some people, who, in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this city." Antiq. of Warwickshire, p. 116. It appears by the latter end of the prologue, that these plays or interludes were not only played in Coventry, but in other towns and places upon occasion. [This MS. was edited by Mr. Halliwell in 1841, for the Shakespeare Society. The elder Heywood thus alludes to the devil, as a character in these mysteries,— "For as good happe wolde have it chaunce, See "the In the Royal Entertainment of the Earle of Nottingham, sent Ambassador from his Majestie to the King of Spaine, 1605, p. 12, it is stated that on Corpus Christi Day, greatest day of account in Spaine in all the yeare,” at Valladolid, where the Court was, "the king went a procession with all the apostles very richly, and eight giants, foure men and foure women, and the cheefe was named Gog-magog." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, 17 and 19 Edw. IV., Palmer and Clerk "Garlands on churchwardens, the following entry occurs: Corpus Christi Day, xd." I find also, among the ancient annual church disbursements, "For four (six or eight) men bearing torches about the parish" on this day, payments of Id. each. Among the same accounts for the 19th and 21st years of Edw. IV. we have: "For flaggs and garlondis, and pak-thredde for the torches, upon Corpus Christi Day, and for six men to bere the said torches, iiijs. vijd." And in 1485, "For the hire of the garments for pageants, js. viijd." Rose-garlands on Corpus Christi Day are also mentioned under the years 1524 and 1525, in the parish accounts of St. Martin Outwich. Pennant's Manuscript says, that in North Wales, at Llanasaph, there is a custom of strewing green herbs and flowers at the doors of houses on Corpus Christi Eve. [On this day the members of the Skinners' Company of London, attended by a number of boys which they have in Christ's Hospital school, and girls strewing herbs before them, walk in procession from their hall, on Dowgate-hill, to the church of St. Antholin, in Watling-street, to hear service. This custom has been observed time out of mind.] Nares, in his Glossary, p. 103, says this festival was held annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in memory, as was supposed, of the miraculous confirmation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation under Pope Urban IV. Its origin, however, is involved in great obscurity. ST. VITUS'S DAY. JUNE 15. IN the Sententiæ Rythmicæ of J. Buchlerus, p. 384, is a passage which seems to prove that St. Vitus's Day was equally famous for rain with St. Swithin's: "Lux sacrata Vito si sit pluviosa, sequentes Triginta facient omne madere solum." Googe, in the translation of Naogeorgus, says: "The nexte is Vitus sodde in oyle, before whose ymage faire Both men and women bringing hennes for offring do repaire: The cause whereof I doe not know, I thinke for some disease Which he is thought to drive away from such as him do please." See a Charm against St. Vitus's Dance in Turner on the Diseases of the Skin, p. 419. [The following rural charm on parchment was actually carried by an old woman in Devonshire, as a preventive against this complaint: THE Pagan rites of this festival at the summer solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used at the winter solstice at Yule-tide. There is one thing that seems to prove this beyond the possibility of a doubt. In the old Runic Fasti, as will be shown elsewhere, a wheel was used to denote the festival of Christmas. The learned Gebelin derives Yule from a primitive word, carrying with it the general idea of revolution and a wheel; and it was so called, says Bede, because of the return of the sun's annual course, after the winter solstice. This wheel is common to both festivities. Thus Durand, speaking of the rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist, informs us of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll a wheel about, to signify that the sun, then occupying the highest place in the zodiac, is beginning to descend, and in the amplified account of these ceremonies "Rotam quoque hoc die in quibusdam locis volvunt, ad significandum quod sol altissimum tunc locum in cœlo occupet, et descendere incipiat in zodiaco." Among the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, 2345, Art. 100, is an account of the rites of St. John Baptist's Eve, in which the wheel is also mentioned. The writer is speaking" de Tripudiis quæ in Vigilia B. Johannis, fieri solent, quorum tria genera." "In Vigilia enim beati Johannis," the author adds, "colligunt pueri in quibusdam |