The raining saint in Flanders is St. Godeliève, and in Germany there are three raining saints. One of the days is the Seven Sleepers. The legend for the raining for forty days attributed to a saint is, perhaps, a substitution for one belonging to a Wedenite or Wodenite god, as the phenomenon rests on a meteorological fact. Christmas became a substitute for Yule, the Paschal Feast for Easter, St. John's Day for Midsummer, and so forth.-Hyde Clarke; Notes and Queries. St. Margaret's Day. St. Margaret, by refusing the love of Olybius, prefect of Antioch, drew upon herself his cruel revenge. He ordered her to be torn with steel combs, and her lacerated flesh to be scorched with hot coals; and that she should be then plunged into cold water. This was prevented by an earthquake, and a dove from heaven setting a crown of gold upon her head, and healing her wounds: an event followed by the conversion of 5000 men, besides women and children. Before her execution-for, notwithstanding such a phenomenon, the prefect persisted in his purpose -she prayed specially, that women in childbirth, who should call upon her for assistance, should find relief: thence she was regarded and invoked as the patroness of persons thus situated. Her death was commemorated on July 20th, which used to be celebrated with much festivity. St. Margaret is represented treading on, or piercing a dragon with cross; sometimes holding a book, sometimes wearing a crown. In the Golden Legend, she holds, between her hands, in a praying position, a cross bottonée; below appears the head of a lion or beast biting her robe; but it must mean the dragon which assailed her, and was expelled by the sign of the cross. In the British Museum is a carved ivory group of the fourteenth century, said to represent St. Margaret issuing from the back of a dragon, from the mouth of which hangs the end of her dress. St. James's and St. Christopher's Day. Various customs are in use in different parts of the kingdom, with a view to increase the apple crop in some countries, prayer, in others drinking and rhymes, and in one instrumental music is added. In the Manuale in Usum Sarum, now in the vicarage library of Marlborough, there are two beautiful Latin prayers to be said on St. James's and St. Christopher's Day, July 25th, in the orchards, when the trees were to be sprinkled with holy water: this custom applies to Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. In Devonshire, to this day, a bowl of toast and cider is taken into the orchard on Christinas Eve, a piece of toast is put on the principal tree, and verses are repeated as follows: Apple tree, We wassail thee, To bear and to flow Apples enow. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! In Somersetshire, in the neighbourhood of Minehead and Dunster, a similar custom prevails; and in Sussex, near Horsham, "blowing the trees," or wassailing, is performed by young men blowing cows'-horns under the apple-trees, and each taking hold of a tree, repeating verses of the same origin as those used in the three other counties. In Normandy, too, the apple-trees are blessed in similar form. And in Herefordshire, on this day, the following distich is current :— Till St. James's Day is past and gone, There may be hops, or there may be none. The rector of the parish of Cliff, in Shamel hundred, Kent,by old custom, annually distributes in his parsonage on this festival, a pie and a loaf to as many persons as come to demand them: the expense of this dole is stated to amount to 157. per annum. Old St. James's Day (July 25th) was the first day on which oysters were formerly brought into the London market; and there was an old notion that whoever ate oysters on the first day, would not want money throughout the year. Yet this does not accord with another conceit, more than two centuries and a half old-that oysters are unwholesome in all months that have not an r in their name.-Dyet's Dry Dinner, 1599. St. James is represented with a club and a saw. St. Christopher is always represented in England by a gigantic figure carrying our Saviour over a river. St. Christopher was the patron of field sports, whence figures fishing, wrestling, &c., accompany his picture. A silver figure of the saint is said to have been once worn by sportsmen: his figure in our churches is commonly placed opposite the south door, or just within it; abroad, at the gates and entrances, because it was held that whoever saw this image would be safe from pestilence. The Greek Christians represented St. Christopher with a dog's head, like Anubis, to show that he was of the country of the Cynocephali. Herb Christopher is named from the saint. A magic power has been attributed to his staff in these lines from the British Apollo, p. 117: Alas! there's no need Of wings or of steed, St. Christopher's staff 'tis but mounting, You'll fly like a witch, With broom at her breech, Nor fear any tempests rencountring. St. Anne's Day. St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, is celebrated on the 26th of July in the Latin and English churches, and on the 9th of December in the Greek church. By an ancient tract, written by Hippolytus the Martyr, it appears that St. Anne was third daughter of Matthew, a priest, by Mary his wife, and that she was married to Joachim in * Hence, probably, St. Christopher was chosen as the sign of the old inn opposite Eton College, and much frequented by the Etonians. Galilee; that Mary, the eldest sister of St. Anne, was married in Bethlehem, and became the mother of Mary, surnamed Salome; and that Sobe, the other sister, was married in Bethlehem, and had for daughter Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist. The wedding-ring of Joachim and Anne has had its due share of veneration: it was kept by the nuns of St. Anne, at Rome, and is said to have worked miracles; it was stolen during the sacking of that city under the pontificate of Clement VII., but was wonderfully brought back and laid upon a stone by a crow. St. Anne is represented with a book in her hand. St. Anne's Hill, near Chertsey, in Surrey, is named from a chapel erected on its summit about 1334, and dedicated to St. Anne: a rude fragment of a wall are the only remains. Near the top of the hill is a fine clear spring, which is stated to be seldom frozen over when other springs are so; and hard by it lay a huge mass of brescia, which, in Aubrey's time, was called the Devil's Stone, the people believing it could not be moved, and that treasure was hid beneath it: the stone was, however, removed and destroyed many years ago. Near Eton is Queen Anne's Spring, so named from her being the first great personage who had recourse to it: Queen Charlotte had the water conveyed to Windsor Castle, and George III. had a stone placed over the spring, inscribed with a cipher and date. The estimation in which the name of Anne was held is shown in the great number of thoroughfares in London called by her name, attributable to the important events of the reign of Queen Anne, and the extension then made in the metropolis. Her reign has been called the Augustan age of English literature. It produced Addison, Arbuthnot, Congreve, Pope, Prior, Steele, and Swift, writers of high excellence in their particular walks, but scarcely to be compared with the great poets of the age of Elizabeth, or with a few other illustrious names of a succeeding generation, such as Milton and Dryden. St. Ignatius Loyola. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Order of Jesus, or, as they are generally called, the Jesuits, died on July 31st, 1556, in his 65th year. He was 40 years of age when he first conceived the plan of his new Society, and it was ten years more before he could obtain the sanction of the Pope; yet so rapid was its progress that before the death of Loyola, the Jesuits possessed upwards of 100 colleges, besides professed homes; and early in the 17th century, it was computed that there were upwards of 20,000 Jesuits, all subject to one general, absolute and perpetual. Loyola proposed to devote his plan entirely to-1. The education of youth. 2. Preaching, and otherwise instructing grown-up people. 3. Defending the Catholic Faith against heretics and unbelievers. 4. Propagating Christianity among the heathens and other infidels by means of missionaries. Two centuries and a quarter elapsed from the institution of the Jesuits to their suppression by Pope Ganganelli, in 1773; but in 1814, Pius VII. revoked the brief of Ganganelli; formally setting it aside, and re-establishing the Society of Jesus throughout the world. The Jesuits have rendered great services to education, literature, and the seiences. In so numerous a body as that of their Society, men of various tempers and opinions must be found, some of whom, through a strained casuistry or fanatical zeal, arrived at totally different conclusions from those of the more sober and honest part of the community. The Jesuits found their way into England under Elizabeth, in whose reign several of them were implicated in conspiracies against the Queen, for which they were executed: but the learned men of the Society had declared that no reason, political or religious, could justify an attempt against the life of a sovereign, however heretical. In the reign of James I., the Jesuit Garnet was tried for having participated in the Gunpowder Plot; and after exhibiting throughout his examination a great aptitude for equivocation, he was condemned and executed. Hence jesuitical came to be popularly employed for designing, cunning, prevaricating; and one of our latest lexicographers defines the Society as distinguished for craftiness; "hence a Jesuit is a crafty person, an intriguer." The missions of the Jesuits were most important, and in many respects beneficial. For example, writers of very different opinions-Raynal, Montesquieu, Robertson, Muratori, Southey, and others, have done justice to the paternal administration of the Jesuits in Paraguay. In Farm-street, Berkeley-square, is the church of the Immaculate Conception, built at the expense of the Jesuits, and the first church ever possessed by the Order in London; it was opened in 1849. "Confraternities of the Bona Mors, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary," are established in this church. The services are performed by Jesuits. Lammas Day. August is named from Octavius Cæsar, better known as Augustus, when the Senate, to pay the same tribute to him as had already been rendered to Julius Cæsar, decreed, that to commemorate his many triumphs, should from him take the name of Augustus, which we call August. The Saxons called it Wead-Monat-wead, signifying a covering or garment, and thus they expressed the beauteous clothing of the ground in harvest. Gule of August, or Lammas Day, is explained by Gule, from the Celtic or British wyl or gule, signifying a festival or holiday, and meaning the holyday of St. Peter ad Vincula in this month, when the Peter-pence were paid. Lammas is by some derived from lamb-masse, from the tenants who held lands of the cathedral church in York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad Vincula, holding their tenure by bringing a live lamb into the church at high mass. Öthers derive it from a Saxon word signifying loaf-mass or bread-mass; because on this day our forefathers made an offering of bread from new wheat. At Exeter, this day is signalized by a fair, the charter of which is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed, and carried through the city on a long pole, decorated with flowers and ribbons, and attended with music, the parish-beadles, &c. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and then the fair begins; on the removal of the glove, the fair terminates. The Anniversary of the Accession of the House of Brunswick to the British Throne, August 1st, 1714, was formerly celebrated. "Dogget's Coat and Silver Badge" rowed for on this day, annually, on the Thames, was bequeathed by Thomas Dogget, the comedian, in commemoration of the above event. His bequest is in the direction of the Fishmongers' Company, who have added four money-prizes. They are presented to the winners after dinner at Fishmongers' Hall, on August 1st. Thomas Dogget was born in Dublin. He first appeared on the Dublin stage; and subsequently, with Robert Wilks and Colley Cibber, became joint-manager at Drury-lane Theatre. He was a friend of Congreve, who wrote for him the characters of Foudlewife in the Old Bachelor, and Ben in Love for Love. He died in 1721. Tom Dogget, the greatest sly drole in his parts In acting was certain a master of arts; A monument left-no herald is fuller, His praise is sung yearly by many a sculler; Ten thousand years hence, if the world lasts so long, When old Noll, with great Lewis and Bourbon, are forgot, Written on a Window-pane at Lambeth, August 1, 1736. The Garrick Club possess an original portrait of Dogget. There is also a small print of Dogget, representing him dancing the Cheshire Round, with the motto, Ne sutor ultra crepidam. St. Wilfrid's Day. On the Saturday after Lammas Day, the inhabitants of Ripon, in Yorkshire, keep the festival in honour of their patron, St. Wilfrid, by going out to meet his effigy, which is brought into the town with grotesque ceremony; and as St. Wilfrid was the reputed inventor of the gamut, the fiddle is not forgotten in this commemorative procession. The effigy is described as a jolly, Dr. Syntax-like figure, with cocked hat and top-boots, and he is carried about tied on a cart-horse. Next day, Wilfrid Sunday, is dedicated to St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York in the seventh century, to commemorate 'whose return from exile to his favourite monastery at Ripon, in the Saxon times, is the object of the festival. In the fine old minster wherein he is buried, full service is performed, and the praises of the great Saxon Saint are proclaimed. On Monday and Tuesday, horse-races have been held since the year 1713: women were formerly the riders at one of the races. The Transfiguration. Our Blessed Lord's glorified appearance on Mount Tabor is commemorated on August 6th, in the Anglican Calendar. The Greek Church instituted this festival as early as the year 700; but the Latins did not celebrate it until 1456, when Pope Callixtus passed a decree for its general observance, to perpetuate the remembrance of the raising of the Siege of Belgrade by Mahomet II. It is alleged, however, that this H |