air. On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on St. Peter and St. Paul, the Apostles, every man's door being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John's wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of glass, with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames Street, &c.'

"This pleasing picture is in a great measure confirmed by other writers, and even by one, who speaks of the custom only incidentally, and in illustration of his doctrines. 'Seie to me,' says Bishop Pecock, good sire, and answere hereto; whanne men of the cuntree uplond bringen into Londoun in Mydsomer-eve braunchis of trees fro Bischopiswode, and flouris for the feeld, and bitaken tho to citessins of Londoun, for to therwith araie her housis, schulen men of Londoun receyving and taking the braunchis and flouris, seie and holde, that the braunchis grewen out of the cartis, which broughten hem to Londoun, and that the cartis, or the hondis of the bringers weren groundis and fundamentis of the braunchis and flouris? Goddis forbade so litel witt be in her hedis. Certes though Crist and his apostlis weren now lyvyng in Londoun, and wolde bringe, so as is now seid, braunchis fro Bischopis-wode, and flouris fro the feelde into Londoun, and wolden hem delyvere to men, that thei make therwith her housis gay into remembrance of St. John the Baptist, and of this that was prophecied of him, that manye schulden joie in his burthe,' &c.

"Hutchinson, also, in his history of Northamptonshire, shows that the day was celebrated with kindred festivities, as indeed it no doubt was through the whole island. His words are, another custom used on this day, is to dress out stools with a cushion of flowers. A lair of clay is placed on the stool, and therein is stuck with great regularity an arrangement of all kinds of flowers so close as to form a beautiful cushion; these are exhibited at the doors of houses in the villages, and at the ends of streets and cross lanes of larger towns, where the attendants beg money

i.e. garlands of with or willow, upon which the flowers were wreathed.

from passengers, to enable them to have an evening feast and dancing. This custom is evidently derived from the Ludi Compitalii of the Romans; this appellation was taken from the Compita, or cross lanes, where they were instituted and celebrated by the multitude assembled before the building of Rome. Servius Tullius revived this festival after it had been neglected for many years. It was the feast of the Lares or household gods, who presided as well over houses as streets. This mode of adorning the seat or couch of the Lares was beautiful, and the idea of their reposing on aromatic flowers and beds of roses was excellent. The chief part of the ceremonies and solemnities of this feast used by the Romans, as we are told by the poets and historians, was exhibiting the household gods, crowning and adorning them with chaplets and garlands of flowers, and offering sacrifices up and down the streets. Suetonius tells us that Augustus ordered the Lares to be crowned twice a year. We are not told that there was any custom among the Romans of strangers or passengers offering gifts. Our modern usage of all these old customs terminates in seeking to gain money for a merry night.'

"Before quitting this part of my subject, I have yet a few words to add in regard to bonfires. This term has been derived by some from the circumstance of the fires having been originally made of bones. Thus, Fuller says, 'Some deduce it from fires made of bones relating it to the burning of martyrs, first fashionable in England in the reign of King Henry the Fourth. But others derive the word (more truly in my mind) from boon, that is, good, and fires; whether good be taken for merry and chearful, such fires being always made on welcome occasions.' It is hard to say which of the divine's derivations is the most absurd. The more probable explanation seems to be that of Dr. Hickes, and which has been adopted by Lye in the Etymologicon of Junius-namely, that it was derived from the Anglo-Saxon-bælfyr, a burning pile,-by the change of a single letter only-baal in the Islandic signifying a conflagration.

"It appears, too, among other ceremonies, that on these occasions a wheel covered with lighted straw was taken to the top of a hill and rolled down, which we may presume

was originally intended to symbolise the approaching descent of the sun, then in its highest place in the zodiac. But as the early idea faded away under the influence of Christianity, an idle superstition took the place of a beautiful symbol, and people fancied all their ill-luck rolled away with the wheel. The church, too, had its own version of the matter, and one not a jot more rational than the popular belief, the wheels according to the priests signifying that the fame of St. John, who had been falsely supposed to be Christ, diminished on the appearance of the latter, just as the sun was then beginning to descend from the highest point of the zodiac.

F

"The bonfires were only one feature in the festivities of this season, though I have given them precedence because in their very nature they point out the pagan origin of the whole. A yet more striking part of the Midsummer pageant was the array and marching of the city watch, as we find it described by Stow. Then had ye besides the standing watches all in bright harness, in every ward and street of this city and suburbs, a marching watch that passed through the principal streets thereof. The whole way for this marching watch extendeth to three thousand two hundred tailor's yards of assize; for the furniture whereof with lights there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred by the chamber of London. Besides the which lights every constable in London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his cresset; the charge of every cresset was in light two shillings and fourpence; and every cresset had two men, one to bear or hold it, another to bear a bag with light, and to serve it, so that the poor men pertaining to the cressets, taking wages, besides that every one had a straw hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning, amounted in number to almost two thousand. The marching watch contained in number about two thousand men, part of them being old soldiers of skill, to be captains, lieutenants, serjeants, corporals, &c., wiflers, drummers, and fifes, standard and ensign bearers, sword-players, trumpeters on horseback, demilances on great horses, gunners with hand-guns, or half hakes, archers in coats of white fustion, signed on the

MIDSUMMER WATCH OF LONDON.

329

breast and back with the arms of the city, their bows bent in their hands, with sheaves of arrows by their sides, pikemen in bright corselets, burgonets, &c., halberds, the like bilmen in almaine rivets and apernes of maile in great number; there were also divers pageants, morris-dancers, constables, the one half, which was one hundred and twenty, on St. John's Eve, the other half on St. Peter's Eve, in bright harness, some overgilt, and every one a jornet of scarlet thereupon and a chain of gold, his henchman following him, his minstrels before him, and his cresset light passing by him, the waits of the city, the mayor's officers for his guard before, all in a livery of worsted or say jackets party-coloured, the mayor himself well-mounted on horseback, the sword-bearer before him in fair armour, well mounted also, the mayor's footmen and the like torchbearers about him, henchmen twain upon great stirring horses following him. The sheriffs' watches come one after the other in like order, but not so large in number as the mayor's; for where the mayor had, besides his giant, three pageants, each of the sheriffs had, besides their giants, but two pageants, each their morris-dance and one henchman, their officers in jackets of worsted or say party-coloured, differing from the mayor's, and each from other, but having harnessed men a great many, &c. This Midsummer Watch was thus accustomed yearly, time out of mind, until the year 1539, the 31st of Henry VIII., in which year on the 8th of May a great muster was made by the citizens at the Mile's end, all in bright armour, with coats of white silk, or cloth and chains of gold, in three great battles, to the number of fifteen thousand, which passed through London to Westminster, and so through the Sanctuary, and round about the park of St. James, and returned home through Old-borne. King Henry then considering the great charges of the citizens,' (jealous rather of so large an armed force), 'for the furniture of this unusual muster forbad the marching watch provided for at Midsummer for that year, which being once laid down was not raised again till the year 1548, the 2nd of Edward VI., Sir John Gresham, then being mayor, who caused the marching watch, both on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, and of St. Peter the Apostle, to be revived and set forth in as comely order as it hath

been accustomed, which watch was also beautified by the number of more than three hundred demilances and light horsemen prepared by the citizens to be sent into Scotland for the rescue of the town of Haddington, and others kept by the Englishmen.'

"St. John's Eve and Day, as the shadowy relics of a Pagan festival, were naturally connected with a multitude of superstitious observances. Thus the rain, if it should fall on this day is particularly injurious to nuts, a fact which is allowed by that arch-protestant, Hospinian, who even attempts to assign a cause for it, though he has the grace to say he has heard some maintain the opinion to be vain and superstitious. It was a famous time too for charms and divinations, which appear to have been of various kinds. Not the least singular of these was the drawing of lots, which we find mentioned with much other curious matter in the scholiasts on the sixth Trullan council-'The demoniacal mystery of fires and drawing lots prevailed till the time of the most holy patriarch Michael, who was the prince of philosophers in this queen of cities, and in this manner. On the 23rd evening of the month of June, men and women assembled on the sea-shore and in certain houses, and adorned some first-born maiden like a bride. After they had feasted, and leaped and danced in Bacchanalian fashion, and had shouted as was their wont on holidays, they poured sea-water into a narrow-necked vessel, and flung into it some articles belonging to each of them; then, as if the maiden had received from Satan the faculty of predicting future events, they would interrogate her in loud voice as to their good or evil fortunes; hereupon she would draw out any of the things thrown into the vessel, which the foolish owner receiving imagined he was now more certain as to the good or evil that would happen to him.'

"Another superstition of the day may be deduced from the following tale told by Bovet, with all the simple earnestness of Defoe in his narrative of Mrs. Veal's ghost. 'At South Petherton, in the county of Somerset, lives a gentlewoman (very well known to all the neighbouring gentry) whom I cannot mention without an honourable respect, having often had the happiness to have been entertained