Cakes made of flour, eggs, and tansies, whence they derived the name of tansays, or tansy-cakes, were eaten about this time, the bitter herb being considered a great purifier of the blood, and very necessary after the long fish-diet. These cakes were often made the prizes at games of football, races, &c.*

Hock, or Hoke, Day or Tide.-The derivations of this word are so numerous, and at the same time so uncertain, that it is not worth while to trouble the reader with them. According to Douce, it fell upon the second Tuesday after Easter, while ancient writers say it was celebrated on the quindena Paschæ. The custom of the day was for both men and women to hold a rope across the road, barring the way, and pulling to them the passers by, who were obliged to pay a toll, which was supposed to be appropriated to pious uses.

St. George of Cappadocia, the hero of our nursery tales, in conjunction with the dragon, claims the 23rd of April. Many of the miracles attributed to him were rejected by the Council of Nice who in his case seem to have been troubled with an unusual access of discretion; for after all they were not out of the usual order; it was only pretended that he could neither be drowned, nor crushed by the imposition of enormous weights, nor burned by red-hot iron or boiling lead, nor be destroyed by being confined in a brazen bull heated to a white heat, all of which things Hospinian pronounces to be suspicious and unworthy of a martyr.† He is too fastidious.

naves stationariæ et in eis juvenes plurimi ut eripiant percussorem flumine absorptum cum primo emersus comparet, vel summa rursus cum bullit in unda."-Stephanides, in Stow's Survay, p. 577.

* De Orig. Fest. Christ. p. 79.

+ Authorities for this may be found in many works. See Lewis' Presbyterian Eloquence, p. 17. Brand's Pop. Antiq., &c.

In former times it was the custom for people of fashion to wear blue coats on St. George's day; because, as some will have it, of the abundant flowering of blue bells in the fields about that season; or, according to many, because blue was the national colour, as Saint George was the national saint; and, therefore, the one was appropriate to the other.

St. Mark's Day or Eve-was observed, not as a fast, but as a day of abstinence, which in the Church of Rome meant very different things.* On fast-days it allowed but one meal in four-and-twenty hours; while on days of abstinence, provided the people abstained from flesh and made but a moderate meal, they were indulged in a collation at night. The reason of this privation, originally ordained by Saint George the Great, the Apostle of England, was that they might imitate Saint Mark's disciples, the first Christians of Alexandria, who under his guidance were eminent for piety and fasting. Many allusions are made to this by old writers; and Davies tells us that "upon St. Mark's Day after Easter, which was commonly fasted throughout all the country, and no flesh eaten upon it, the friars with the monks had solemn procession and went to the Bow, or Bough, Church with the procession, and had very solemn service there and one of the monks did make a sermon to all the people of the parish that came thither." Nor was the day without its superstitions. Brand was informed by a clergyman of Yorkshire, that it was a custom of the people of that county to "sit and watch in the church porch on St. Mark's Eve from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. The third year-for this must

* Wheatley, Rational Illustration, p. 201, fol. Lond. 1720. + Ibid. p. 202.

Ancient Rites, &c. of the Church of Durham, published by J. D. of Kidwelly, p. 156, 12mo. London, 1672.

be done thrice-they are supposed to see the ghosts of all those, who are to die the next year, pass by into the church."* Hone gives a long account of a similar custom prevailing in Northamptonshire, but his unsupported authority is hardly a sufficient voucher for such details.† Brand also states, that it was at one time a custom to bless the corn upon this day.

THE BURNING CLIFF AT HOLWORTH.

HOLWORTH CLIFF is situated on Ringstead Bay, six miles east of Weymouth, and constitutes a bulwark between the farm of that name and the sea. It should be understood, however, that the Burning Cliff is not an original formation, but an union of fragments detached by natural. causes from the two principal elevations of the parent rock. These are composed of distinct substances ; and it is to their combination, acting chemically, that the present phenomenon has by many be en attriuted.

It is now upwards of thirty years since the combustible materials began to separate from the main cliff, and most probably from the same causes that have formed the whole line of the undercliff at the back of the Isle of Wight, a phenomenon which is there known under the name of a landslip. In this case nearly three more years elapsed before the whole mass had finally settled below; and much the same time passed before the first symptoms of the phenomenon showed themselves in the form of a vapour hovering above the loose surface. Dense ex

halations shortly afterwards succeeded; and finally in March, 1827, slight flames were seen issuing here and there from any chance cracks or crevices in the soil. The general curiosity soon becoming excited by these appearances, the ground was dug up and laid open, when it was found that most of the scattered streams of smoke they had observed must have arisen from rain filtering

through the chinks in the earth upon the hot substance below. An attempt was then made to bore as near as possible to the largest apertures, but the calcareous fragments threw such obstacles in the way of the labourers that it was speedily abandoned.

Towards the end of April, however, it was resolved to try a second experiment, when on the first day their efforts only elicited the appearance of a few sparks. On the second they were more successful, the workmen suddenly coming upon a vast body of fire that resembled a smelter's furnace; but when they had dragged out a quantity of this ignited matter, they were obliged to desist by the heat and effluvia it emitted, and left it exposed on the ground, where it continued to burn till the following morning.

From this time the appearances of smoke and fire continued to increase with little intermission, till about the fifth of September the ground opened in three places, eastward of the original fissure. These crevices were of some magnitude, and, the outer coating of mould being removed, vivid fire was seen amidst the interstices of the lime-stone. In a few days the earth cracked open in seven more places, from each of which a thick smoke poured forth, while the heat proceeding from the fissures was so intense as in a few minutes to ignite any inflammable matter that was applied to them. By the first of October the fire had so much extended its sphere of action that the surface of red hot stone in one of the apertures occupied a space full three feet square; and the entire limit of the smoking crevices, which at first was limited to about six feet, had now spread in length from east to west, till it reached very nearly a hundred feet.

It would seem that after this time no excavations of any magnitude were made, the inhabitants of Weymouth