English Church. This saint was a native of Athens, and came into France in 715, having first disposed of his patrimony to charitable uses. He was afterwards made Abbot of the Abbey at Nismes. On one occasion, he gave his coat to a sick mendicant, who was cured miraculously by putting it on. Hence he became the patron of beggars he was likewise the patron of cripples, and he is related to have raised the dead son of a prince to life, and made a lame man walk. He died in 750.

As St. Giles avoided all high places, and sought out the sorrowful in remote spots, the church erected in his honour is always placed at the extremity of a town or city. Thus, we have the St. Giles's of Oxford, Northampton, and Norwich. But, more to our illustration is the St. Giles's of London, originally a village in the north-west suburb, and named from an hospital for lepers, dedicated to St. Giles: hence it was called St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. It was noted for its numerous inns; it had also its mansions, but from very early times its population were, for the most part, poor. The association is still more evident in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, a parish upon the verge of old London, almost upon the City wall. Its present church is the successor of an edifice founded in 1090, near the City wall postern, called Cripplegate from an adjoining hospital for lame people, (Camden,) or from the numerous cripples begging there. (Stow.) Hopping Giles is a cant term for one who limps.

St. Giles is represented with a hind, its head in his lap, (from the one that took refuge with him;) and a branch of a tree sprouting before him (the thorny bush not to be penetrated).

Bartholomew Fair.

This great Metropolitan Fair was formerly commenced on September 3rd, St. Bartholomew's Day, Old Style. It originated in two fairs or markets, proclaimed on the Eve of St. Bartholomew: one fair was granted to the Prior of St. Bartholomew, with fields for clothiers and drapers, who had their booths and standings in the churchyard, the site now Cloth Fair; this fair was granted by a charter of Henry I.; and within its limits was held a Court of Pie-poudre, to punish infringements upon the laws of the fair, its disputes, debts, &c. The second fair, for the sale of cattle and goods, with tolls and profits, was granted to the City of London by Charles II., "to be held in the field of West Smithfield." The "Cloth Fair" greatly declined from the reign of Elizabeth, and the Corporation licensed mountebanks, conjurors, &c., and allowed the second fair to be 14 days. Here were motions or puppet-shows of Jerusalem, Nineveh, and Norwich; and the Gunpowder Plot played nine times in an afternoon; wild beasts, dwarfs, and other monstrosities; operas, and tight-rope dancing, and sarabands; dogs dancing the morris, and the hare beating the tabor; Punchinello, and drolls of every degree. In 1708, the fair was curtailed to three days; in 1840 it was restricted to one day and it has since been discontinued. Yet the fair was once attended by the wealthy and high-born; for we read of the Ladies

:

Russell, Northumberland, and Shaftesbury returning from Bartholomew Fair in 1670, loaded with fairings for themselves and children.

Roasted pigs were among the chief attractions of this fair: the Puritans railed against it; "the very calling it a Bartholomew Pig, and to eat it so, is a species of idolatry," occurs in Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, where Ursula, the pig-woman, tells us the price of the pigs: 58., 5s. 6d., or even 6s., surely as dear in James the First's time as a guinea lately. In a description of the fair in 1641,* we read of “the pig market, alias pasty-nook, now Pie Corner, where pigs are all hours of the day on the stalls, piping-hot, and would cry (if they could speak), Come eat me!'"-Pig was not out of fashion when Ned Ward wrote his London Spy, in Queen Anne's time. Another luxury was the Bartholomew Fair ox, roasted whole, of which Osborne speaks.

The Old and New Style.

The New Style was adopted at London, September 2nd, 1752. The year did not always begin on the 1st of January, but was considered as commencing on the 25th of March. This being the cause of great inconvenience, (especially in carrying on a correspondence with foreigners), was remedied in this country by an Act of Parliament, passed in 1751, by which it was enacted that the 1st of January, 1752, should be reckoned to be the first day of the year; and eleven days in that year succeeding the 2nd of September (what would have been the 3rd being called the 14th), were thrown out. Accordingly, the year 1751 had no January, February, nor March, up to the 24th inclusive; and September wanted eleven complete days.†

According to Sir Harris Nicolas, the New Style was adopted as follows:-By Denmark, France, Holland, and most of the Low Countries (some towns excepted), most of Italy, Lorraine, Portugal, and Spain, in 1582; by German and Swiss Catholics, in 1584; by Poland in 1586; by Hungary, in 1587; by German and Swiss Protestants, and the remaining parts of Holland, &c., in 1700; by Tuscany in 1749 or 1751; and by Sweden, in 1753. It is not yet adopted in Russia.

* One of the perfect records of its class,' and the last picture, drawn from the life, of this great metropolitan fair, is that by William Hone, in his Every-day Book, 1825. It extends through two sheets of the work, and describes the fair of that year with Dutch-like fidelity, from Hone's repeated visits, illustrated by several characteristic woodcuts by Samuel Williams, one of the most conscientious and artistic engravers of his day. A large volume of the History of Bartholomew Fair, by J. R. Morley, was published in 1858; but nothing can exceed Hone's faithful transcript, aided by his own taste for the odd, out-of-the-way, and grotesque.

An effort was made to reform the Calendar in this country as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1584-5, and a Bill for that purpose read a second time in the House of Lords, after which no notice occurs in the Lords' Journals of the proposed measure.

The Great Fire of London.

The Anniversary of the Great Fire, Sept. 2nd, 1666, was long kept as a holiday at some of our public offices; and by regulation, the black sword of the Lord Mayor is to be used on this day, when formerly, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs went to St. Paul's in their black gowns, and no chains, and heard a sermon. Lilly, the Astrologer, foretold both the Great Fire and the Plague, as follows:

In the year 1656 the aphelium of Mars, who is the generall signification of England, will be in Virgo, which is assuredly the ascendant of the English monarchy, but Aries of the kingdom. When this absis, therefore, of Mars shall appear in Virgo, who shall expect less than a strange catastrophe of human affairs in the commonwealth, monarchy, and kingdom of England? There will then, either in or about these times, or near that year, or within ten years more or less of that time, appear in this kingdom so strange a revolution of fate, so grand a catastrophe and great mutation unto this monarchy and government, as never yet appeared; of which, as the times now stand, I have no liberty or encouragement to deliver my opinion, only it will be ominous to London, unto her merchants at sea, to her traffique at land, to her poor, to her rich, to all sorts of people inhabiting in her or her liberties,

BY REASON OF SUNDRY FIRES AND A CONSUMING PLAGUE.

This prediction, in 1666, led to Lilly's being examined by a committee of the House of Commons, not, as has been supposed, that he might "discover by the stars who were the authors of the Fire of London," but because the precision with which he was thought to have foretold the event gave birth to a suspicion that he was already acquainted with them, and privy to the (supposed) machinations which had brought about the catastrophe.

Defoe describes the Monument as "built in the form of a candle," the top making "a handsome gilt flame like that of a candle." We have heard this gilt vase of flames jesuitically described as representing the City Swordbearer's cap.

The Great Fire broke out at about one o'clock on Sunday morning, September 2nd, and raged nearly four days and four nights. It consumed almost five-sixths of the whole City; and without the walls, it cleared a space nearly as extensive as the one-sixth part left unburnt within. The flames extended their ravages over a space of ground equal to an oblong square of a mile and a half in length, and half a mile in breadth. One of the inscriptions on the Monument states that "the ruins of the City were 436 acres [viz. 373 acres within the walls, and 63 without them, but within the liberties]; that of the six-andtwenty wards, it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half-burnt; and that it consumed eighty-nine churches, four of the City gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a great number of stately edifices, 13,200 dwelling-houses, and 460 streets." A curious pamphlet upon the Burning of London, first published in 1667, estimates the loss at 7,335,000/.; but it is believed to have been nearer 10,000,000l. sterling.

Not more than six persons lost their lives in the Fire. The offensive legends charging the Roman Catholics with being the incendiaries were

added in 1681; obliterated in the reign of James II., but recut deeper still in the reign of William III., and ultimately erased in 1831.

The Great Fire was thought to verify an old prophetical saying of Mother Shipton's-that Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be, the greatest city of the three.

Holyrood Day.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, or Holyrood Day, formerly kept in England, Sept. 14th, was instituted in the seventh century, to commemorate the recovery of the True Cross by the Emperor Heraclius, from Chosroes the Persian, who had carried it away from Jerusalem.

Of its restoration to Jerusalem, the following legend is narrated. The Emperor, attired in his imperial robes, bore it upon his back along the road where it had once been carried by the Saviour; but when he came to the gate leading to Mount Calvary, an insuperable resistance checked his progress. The Emperor and his attendants stopped in mute amazement; but Zacharias, the bishop of Jerusalem, better divined the cause. "Consider," he said, "O Emperor, whether that triumphal ornament, in one who bears the Cross, is accordant with the humility and poverty of Christ." Heraclius, struck by his words, threw off his robes, and with bared feet, and clad in a plebeian garment, found no difficulty in carrying the cross to the church on Mount Calvary, whence it had been taken by the Persians. Hone mentions, from an old manuscript, that at Eton School was a play-day, (probably Sept. 14th,) when the scholars wrote verses on the fruitfulness of autumn, and the deadly cold of the coming winter, and then went out to gather nuts, which they presented to their masters.

This day, they say, is called Holy-rood day,
And all the youth are now a nutting gone.

Grim, the Collier of Croydon.

The emblem of the Exaltation is a king kneeling and worshipping the Cross, held by a person in heaven.

St. Ferrol's Day.

September 18th is dedicated by the Western Church to St. Ferrol, "a tribune or colonel" at Vienne, in France, where he suffered martyrdom, A.D. 304. The Anniversary of this Saint is celebrated at Marseilles with great pomp: the houses and ships are decorated with flags and streamers; and a procession passes under several arches hung with boughs, before it stops at the altars, which are covered with flowers. In the pageant are gardeners, who carry wax-tapers ornamented with flowers, as well as vegetables and fruits, and nests of birds; butchers in long tunics and hats à la Henri IV., armed with hatchets and cleavers, and leading a fat ox dressed with garlands and ribbons, and the horns gilt. There are also in the procession young girls in white, adorned with flowers; maidens dressed as nuns and sisters of charity; boys as angels, abbots, and monks, &c. The streets are strewed with flowers, and the procession having reached the Quay, the prelate here blesses the seamen of the port, and bell-ringing and music succeed.

St. Matthew's Day.

Matthew, called also Levi, was the son of Alphæus, and a native of Galilee. Though a Jew, he was a publican, or collector of the Roman taxes: i.e. taking the customs on persons and goods passing over the Lake of Genesareth. While thus employed, he was commanded by our blessed Lord to "follow him," which he did instantly. After our Lord's ascension, Matthew continued, with the other Apostles, to preach the Gospel in Judea. He is thought to have died a natural death. St. Matthew is the earliest as well as the longest of the four Gospel writers, and relates some very remarkable facts not noticed by the other Evangelists. His Gospel was originally written in Hebrew, and translated into Greek, when, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the language, and everything connected with the Jews, was held in great contempt.

St. Matthew's Festival (Sept. 21) was instituted 1090, and is celebrated in the Church of England. On this day, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Governors of the several Royal Hospitals in London, hear a sermon preached at Christchurch, Newgate-street, and then repair to the great hall in Christ's Hospital, where two orations are delivered, one in Latin, and the other in English, by the two senior grammar-scholars.

St. Maurice's Day.

The 22nd of September is the festival of St. Maurice and his Companions of the Theban legion, who are said to have been cut to pieces by the rest of the army, by order of the Emperor Maximian, in the Valais, at the spot where the present town of St. Maurice is situated, because they would not offer sacrifice. Here is an ancient abbey, whose mitred abbot bears the title of count, and is immediately subordinate to the Pope. There is annexed to the abbey a college, in which the classics, mathematics, physics, history, and geography are taught.

This saint is represented carrying a fuller's club; or he is expounding a book held before him by a young man.

Crack-nut Sunday.

Within the memory of aged parishioners of Kingston-upon-Thames, the congregation in the parish-church were accustomed to crack nuts during Divine Service, on the Sunday next before the eve of St. Michael's Day. Young folks and old alike joined in the cracking; and the custom is thought to have had some connexion with the choosing of the Corporation officers on Michaelmas Day, and of the annual feast attending it. Still, the oddity was not peculiar to Kingston; for Goldsmith makes his Vicar of Wakefield say of his parishioners: "They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true-love knots on Valentine morning, eat pancakes at Shrovetide, showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas Eve."