The several Inns of Court are closed to the public upon this day, to prevent the claim of right of way.

In Northamptonshire, this custom being for the purpose of marking and retaining possession, is named Possessioning; and buns are distributed to the boys in the procession, in order to impress the possession upon the memory, should the boundaries hereafter be disputed.

It was formerly a practice at Lichfield, on Ascension Day, for the clergymen, accompanied by the churchwardens and sidesmen, followed by children bearing green boughs, to repair to the several springs, and there read the Gospel for the day, after which cakes and ale were distributed. During the ceremony the doors of the houses were decorated with green boughs. This custom is founded upon one of the early institutions of Christianity-that of blessing the wells and springs.

This is also St. Ambrose's Day: he was born in his father's palace at Arles, in Gallia Narbonensis; he studied the civil law, and practised as an advocate at Rome; then settled at Milan, A D. 374, and succeeded Bishop Auxentius. He died at Milan, April 4th, 397. He was distinguished by his eloquent preaching and pious life; and is said to have written the hymn of Te Deum on the occasion of the baptism of his great convert, St. Augustine.

Well-flowering in Derbyshire.

This ancient observance is kept up, on Holy Thursday, with much spirit, at Tissington, in Derbyshire. The wells are thus dressed or decorated: flowers are inserted in moist clay, and put upon boards cut in various forms, and surrounded with laurel or whitethorn, so as to give an appearance of water issuing from small grottos. The mosaiclike flowers are inscribed with scripture texts varied each year. A sermon is preached in the church, whence a procession is formed to each well, where psalms are read by the clergyman, and sung by the parish choir. The flowers used in the decorations and inscriptions are daffodils, Chinese roses, and marsh marigolds, white and red daisies, buds of the larch, purple primroses, hyacinths, and auriculas. The day concludes with music and other festivities.

The custom at Tissington is referred to the gratitude of the villagers

Mayor's View of the Thames," passed away when the Conservancy of the river was taken out of the hands of the Corporation of London. This View was an

affair of state and conviviality, and cost the City several hundred pounds. The Lord Mayor and his party proceeded to Oxford by land, and thence came down the Thames in the gilded state barge, with gay shallops, &c. At the corporation boundary-stone at Staines, the civic party disembarked, wine was drunk on the stone, money thrown among the spectators, &c.; and such sheriffs and aldermen as were not "free of the waters," were bumped at the stone; and similar observance was made at other boundaries. The last grand View took place in August, 1846 (minutely described in the Illustrated London News, No. 224); the subsequent Views being much shorn of their festivities. Of Lord Mayor Venables's" View," in 1826, an account was published by the Mayoralty Chaplain, in a small octavo volume, which has become a book rarity.

But

for their being better supplied with water than their neighbours. we read of great well festivals in Syracuse; and the Fontinalia of the Romans were religious observances dedicated to the nymphs of wells and fountains, in which rites flowers were thrown upon streams, and wells were decorated with floral crowns; pilgrimages were made to wells, and chapels built in honour of the fountains. Throwing flowers upon the Severn, and other rivers of Wales, is unquestionably a relic of this ancient usage, Milton sings of the goddess Sabrina :

The shepherds at their festivals,

Carol her good deeds loud in rustic lays,

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream,

Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils.

Dyer, in his Fleece, more minutely describes this floral rite :

With light fantastic toe, the nymphs

Thither assembled, thither every swain;

And o'er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers,

Pale lilies, roses, violets, and pinks,

Mixed with green of burnet, mint, and thyme,
And trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms:
Such custom holds along th' irriguous vales,
From Wrekin's brow to rocky Dolvoryn.

Whitsuntide.

On the day of Pentecost, which succeeded the Ascension of Our Lord, the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles, and produced the most astonishing and extraordinary results. The gift of tongues came upon them; and they were enabled to address the inhabitants of different nations, each in his own language.

Whit Sunday, or Whiten Sunday, was named from its being one of the stated times for baptism in the ancient church, when those that were baptized put on white garments, as types of that spiritual purity which they had received. In Roman Catholic countries, the priests, on this day, cast flowers from the upper ambulatories of their churches, upon the congregation of the faithful assembled in the nave below. Birch boughs are used as a church decoration on Whit Sunday, in Shropshire. It was also the custom, on this day, to suspend a silver dove from the roof of the church, and to let it slowly down, during some part of the service, as an emblem of the descent of the Holy Ghost:

On Whitsunday whyte pigeons tame in strings from heaven flie,
And one that framed is of wood, and hangeth in the skie;
Thou seest how they with idols plaie, and teach the people to;

None otherwise than little gyrles with puppets use to do.-Barnaby Googe. Whitsuntide was formerly kept with many feasts called Ales, because much ale was then drunk: thus there were bride-ales, clerk-ales, giveales, lamb-ales, leet-ales, Midsummer-ales, Scot-ales, and several more. Stool-ball and barley-break were, also, Whitsun sports: in "antient tymes," too, Whitsun plays were acted: at Chester, they were twenty

five in number, and were performed for above three centuries, annually. The Morris Dance was another Whitsun sport; and Fairs were common, more especially in the neighbourhood of London. Aubrey, in his account of North Wilts, has left us the following account of Whitsun Ales (temp. 1711): "There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather's days; but, for Kington St. Michael (no small parish) the Church Ale of Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is (or was) a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, &c., for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there, too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c.; the ancients sitting gravely by, and looking on.' Sir John Suckling, in his "Ballad upon a Wedding," hints at the rustic beauty present at these festivals:

The maid, and thereby hangs a tale.
For such a maid no Whitsun ale
Could ever yet produce.

We remember a good specimen of the Whitsun Ale Jug, in Mr. Crofton Croker's museum: it bore the inscription " WHIT 1649,” with a flourish beneath. Mr. Douce has thus described the Whitsun Ale:

Two persons are chosen, previously to the meeting, to be Lord and Lady of the Ale, who dress as suitably as they can to the characters they assume. A large empty barn is provided for the Lord's hall, and fitted up with seats. Here the company dance, and each young fellow treats his girl with a ribbon or favour. The Lord and Lady are present, attended by the steward, sword-bearer, and macebearer, with their several badges, or ensigns of office. They have likewise a trainbearer or page; and a fool or jester, dressed in a parti-coloured jacket. The Lord's music, consisting of a pipe and tabor, is employed to conduct the dance. Some persons think this custom a commemoration of the ancient Drink-lean, a day of festivity formerly observed by the tenants and vassals of the lord of the fee within his manor; and the glossaries tell us that this Drink-lean was a contribution of tenants toward a potation or Ale provided to entertain the lord or his steward.

Miss Baker describes the celebration of a Whitsun Ale early in the present century, in a barn at King's Sutton fitted up for the entertainment, in which the lord, as the principal, carried a mace made of silk, finely plaited with ribbons, and filled with spices and perfumes, for such of the company to smell to as desired it: six Morris dancers were among the performers. In a Whitsun Ale, last kept at Gretworth, in 1785, the fool, in a motley garb, with a gridiron painted or worked on his back, carried a stick with a bladder, and calf's tail. Majordomo and his Lady as Queen of May, and My Lord's Morris (six in number), were in this procession. They danced round a garlanded May-pole. banquet was served in a barn; and those who misconducted themselves were obliged to ride a wooden horse, and if still more unruly, were put into the stocks, as my lord's organists." Although this buffoonery has long ceased, Whitsuntide in the same districts is still one of the most joyous seasons of the year.

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On Whit-Tuesday is delivered in St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, a "botanical sermon"-the Fairchild Lecture,-for which purpose funds

were left by Thomas Fairchild, who had the Ivy Gardens and a vineyard at Hoxton:* he wrote the City Gardner, 1722: and his name appears in the Hoxton rate-books as early as 1703. Dying rich, he left to the parish of St. Leonard 507. (increased to 1007. by the parishioners), the interest to be devoted to a lecture "On the wonderful works of God in the creation, or on the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of the creation." In 1856, the Fairchild Lecture was delivered at St. Leonard's by the pious and eloquent Samuel, Lord Bishop of Oxford. It was formerly the custom of the President and several Fellows of the Royal Society, to hear this sermon preached. In 1750 the day was Whit Sunday, when Dr. Stukeley attended, and was afterwards entertained by Mr. Whetman, the vinegar-merchant, "at his elegant house by Moorfields; a pleasant place encompassed with gardens well stored with all sorts of curious flowers and shrubs."

At St. Briavel's, in Gloucestershire, on this day, several baskets of bread and cheese cut into small squares, are brought into the church, and after divine service, are thrown from the galleries among the people, and scrambled for. This custom preserves to the poor of St. Briavel's and Hewelfield, the right of cutting and carrying away wood from 3000 acres of coppice land; and to supply the bread and cheese, every housekeeper is assessed twopence.

At Lichfield, on Greenhill was formerly held a Court of Array, on Whit-Monday; and here a fête, called the Bower, is still given on that day. The Court of Array was a view of men and arms as old as the time of Henry V., who ordered every man to keep in his possession arms and armour, according to his goods and station, whence the enrol. ment of a regular army took place. These statutes were repealed; but the custom was in part continued: there was a procession of constables and armed men, with drums beating, preceded by morris-dancers, Maid Marian, tabor and pipe, &c., and posies (originally images of Saints), afterwards emblems of trades, and puppets or garlands borne upon halberds; firing of volleys by the men-at-arms, &c. The armed men and firing are dispensed with; but the procession and Bower retained.

Hocking, raffling, the pigeon-holes, the pageant called Kyngham, (a representation of the wise men's offerings, supposed to have been kings, and buried at Cologne,) bull and bear-baiting, horse-racing, &c., were common at Whitsuntide. At Kidlington, in Oxfordshire, on the Monday after Whitsun week, a fat lamb was provided; young women with their thumbs tied behind them ran after it, and she who caught it with her mouth, was styled Lady of the Lamb. It was then killed, dressed, and with the skin hanging on, carried on a long pole before the Lady and her

* Fairchild's gardens, best known as "Selby's gardens," extended from the west end of Ivy-lane to the New North-road, but the ground is now covered with houses. Fairchild died in 1729, and was buried in the "Poor's Ground," Hackneyroad. In his employ was William Bartlett, a simpler, who died aged one hundred and two years; his son James, also a simpler, lived to the age of eighty.

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companions to the green, attended with music and a Morris dance of men, and another of women. The rest of the day was spent in dancing and festivity. Next day, the Lady and her companions, with music, presided at a feast made of the Lamb, part baked, boiled, and roasted. Hocking, i.e., stopping the way with ropes, and pulling up the passengers for a donation, was an Easter Monday and Tuesday sport. It very ancient, being mentioned by Herodotus, Pausanias, and Vegetius; and is supposed to be instituted from the Roman Regifugium, to commemorate the emancipation of England from Danish tyranny, by the death of Hardicanute. Corvel says that Hock Tuesday money was a duty given to the landlord, that his tenants and bondmen might solemnize that day on which the English mastered the Danes, being the Second Tuesday after Easter week. In some places, it became extinct in 1578; in other places, not till 1640, and perhaps later.

In Thompson's Etymons of English Words, 1816, hock-tide is an old English name given to festivals, but particularly to those of Christmas and Easter. It afterwards became heyday tide, hockday tide, hoity toity, and highty tighty, to denote rural pastime. Hock memey, or Christmas, is literally, the festival of the lengthening day, from the German, mema, to increase; and the Germans at this day call a wedding feast hochzeit, hock-tide.

The term continues to be used in Brittany and Scotland; and "in the northwest of Wiltshire, and west of Berkshire, Hocktide sports are still kept up."D. Macintosh; Proc. Ethnological Society, 1861.

William Howitt very sensibly remarks upon these celebrations :"In all the pageants and processions that were ever seen, there is nothing more beautiful than those light wands with which they walk, each crowned with a nosegay of fresh flowers. As I have met these Whitsuntide processions in the retired villages of Staffordshire, or as I saw them in the summer of 1835, at Warsop, in Nottinghamshire, I would wish to see them as many years hence as I live. If we are to retain any rustic festival at all, we cannot, I think, have a more picturesque one, or at a pleasanter time."

At Whitsuntide the students of Winchester College break up with the solemn performance of the well-known ode or song of Dulce Domum, the celebration of which is invariably attended by the leading clergy and gentry of the town and neighbourhood. Its origin is involved in mystery, as well as the occasion of its composition: tradition ascribes it to a youth in a state of melancholy, wasting his life in fruitless sorrow, at his separation from home and friends.

Trinity Sunday and Monday.

The importance of the Trinity in the regulation of our three great feasts has been thus illustrated. The most ancient rubrics mention only the festivals of the Passion, of Easter, and Whitsuntide. Christmas dates from the fourth century. The end designed by the observance of these festivals was to call to mind the benefits of the Christian dispensation, to excite Christians to holy living, to offer thanks for providential mercies, and to aid in the cultivation of Christian graces. The discourses which were delivered on these occasions always referred to the most important