In similar articles for the Archdeaconry of Northumberland, 1662, the following occurs: "Doth your Parson or Vicar observe the three Rogation Dayes?"

In others for the diocese of Chichester, 1637, is the subsequent : "Doth your Minister yeerely, in Rogation Weeke, for the knowing and distinguishing of the bounds of parishes, and for obtaining God's blessing upon the fruites of the ground, walke the Perambulation, and say, or sing, in English, the Gospells, Epistles, Letanie, and other devout Prayers; together with the 103d and 104th Psalmes ?"

In Herbert's Country Parson (1652), we are told: "The Countrey Parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good and harmlesse. Particularly, he loves Procession, and maintains it, because there are contained therein four manifest advantages. First, a blessing of God for the fruits of the field. 2. Justice in the preservation of bounds. 3. Charitie in loving, walking, and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if there be any. 4. Mercie, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution and largess, which at that time is or ought to be used. Wherefore he exacts of all to be present at the Perambulation, and those that withdraw and sever themselves from it he mislikes, and reproves as uncharitable and unneighbourly; and, if they will not reforme, presents them."

In the accounts of the Churchwardens' of St Margaret's, Westminster, under A.D. 1555, occur the following items—

"Item, paid for spiced bread on the Ascension-Even, and on the Ascension Day, 1s."

1556.

❝Item, paid for bread, wine, ale, and beer, upon the Ascension-Even and Day, against my Lord Abbott and his Covent cam in Procession, and for strewing herbs the samme day, 7s. 1d.”

1559.

"Item, for bread, ale, and beer, on Tewisday in the Rogacion Weeke, for the parishioners that went in Procession, Is."

1560.

"Item, for bread and drink for the parishioners that went the Circuit the Tuesday in the Rogation Week, 3s. 4d."

"Item, for bread and drink the Wednesday in the Rogation Week, for Mr Archdeacon and the Quire of the Minster, 3s. 4d.”

1585.

"Item, paid for going the Perambulacion, for fish, butter, cream, milk, conger, bread and drink, and other necessaries, 4s. 8d."

1597.

"Item, for the charges of diet at Kensington for the Perambulation of the Parish, being a yeare of great scarcity and deerness, £6. 8s. 8d.”

1605.

"Item, paid for bread, drink, cheese, fish, cream, and other

H

necessaries, when the worshipfull and others of the parish went the Perambulation to Kensington, £15.

What is related on this head in Walton's Life of Hooker is extremely interesting: "He would by no means omit the customary time of Procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his Perambulation: and most did so in which Perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people: still inclining them, and all his present Parishioners, to meekness, and mutual kindnesses and love; because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of infirmities."

"On Ascension Day," says Sir John Hawkins in his History of Music, "it is the custom of the inhabitants of parishes, with their officers, to perambulate in order to perpetuate the memory of their boundaries, and to impress the remembrance thereof in the minds of young persons, especially boys; to invite boys, therefore, to attend to this business, some little gratuities were found necessary; accordingly, it was the custom, at the commencement of the Procession, to distribute to each a willow-wand, and at the end thereof a handful of points, which were looked on by them as honorary rewards long after they ceased to be useful, and were called Tags.'

In the churchwardens' accounts of St Mary-at-Hill, in the City of London, 1682, are the following entries

£. s. d.

"For fruit on Perambulation Day I O O
For points for two yeres

2 10 0"

And in the books of the Chelsea functionaries we read

"1670. Spent at the Perambulation Dinner 3 10
Given to the boys that were whipt
Paid for poynts for the boys.

O

. O 2 O.

The second of these entries alludes to another expedient for impressing the recollection of particular boundaries on the minds of some of the young people.

It appears from an order of the Common Council of Newcastleupon-Tyne, dated 15th May 1657, that the scholars of the public grammar-school there, and other schools in the town, were invited to attend the magistrates when they perambulated the boundaries of the town.

On Ascension Day, the magistrates, river-jury, &c., of the Corporation of the above town, according to an ancient custom, make their

The following occurs in Herrick's Hesperides, and seems to prove that children used to play at some game for points and pins

"A little transverce bone,

Which boyes and bruckel'd children call
(Playing for points and pins) Cockall."

annual procession by water in their barges, visiting the bounds of their jurisdiction on the river, to prevent encroachments. Cheerful libations are offered on the occasion to the Genius of our wealthy Flood, which Milton calls the "coaly Tyne :"

"The sable stores on whose majestic strand

More tribute yield than Tagus' golden sand."

In the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital the Genius of the Tyne is represented pouring forth his coal in great abundance. There is the Severn with her lampreys, and the Humber with his pigs of lead, which, with the Thames and Tyne, compose the four great rivers of England.

Heath, in his History of the Scilly Islands (1750), writes: "At Exeter, in Devon, the boys have an annual custom of damming-up the channel in the streets, at going the bounds of the several parishes in the city, and of splashing the water upon people passing by." "Neighbours as well as strangers are forced to compound hostilities, by giving the boys of each parish money to pass without ducking: each parish asserting its prerogative, in this respect."

The word Parochia, or Parish, anciently signified what we now call the diocese of a bishop. In the early ages of the Christian Church, as kings founded cathedrals, so great men founded parochial churches, for the conversion of themselves and their dependents; the bounds of the parochial division being commonly the same with those of the founder's jurisdiction. Some foundations of this kind were as early as the time of Justinian the Emperor. Before the reign of Edward the Confessor, the parochial divisions in this kingdom were so far advanced that every person might be traced to the parish to which he belonged. This appears by the Canons published in the time of Edgar and Canute. The distinction of parishes as they now stand appears to have been settled before the Norman Conquest. In Domesday Book the parishes agree very near to the modern division.

Camden tells us that this kingdom was first divided into parishes by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 636, and counts 2984 parishes.

The Lateran Council made some such division as this. It compelled every man to pay tithes to his parish-priest. Men before that time payed them to whom they pleased; but, without being sarcastical, one might observe that since then it has happened that few, if they could be excused from doing it, would care to pay them at all.

The following is the account given of "Procession Weeke" and "Ascension Day," in Googe's Translation of the Regnum Papisticum of Naogeorgus

** Now comes the day wherein they gad abrode, with Crosse in hande, To boundes of every field, and round about their neighbour's lande: And, as they go, they sing and pray to euery saint aboue,

But to our Ladie specially, whom most of all they loue.

When as they to the towne are come, the Church they enter in,

And looke what Saint that Church doth guide, they humbly pray to him,

That he preserve both corne and fruite from storme and tempest great,
And them defend from harme, and send them store of drinke and meat.
This done, they to the taverne go, or in the fieldes they dine,
Where downe they sit and feede a pace, and fill themselues with wine,
So much that oftentymes without the Crosse they come away,
And miserably they reele, till as their stomacke vp they lay.
These things three dayes continually are done, with solemne sport,
With many Crosses often they vnto some Church resort,

Whereas they all do chaunt alowde, wherby there streight doth spring,
A bawling noyse, while euery man seekes hyghest for to sing."-
"Then comes the day when Christ ascended to his father's seate,
Which day they also celebrate, with store of drinke and meate.*
Then every man some birde must eate, I know not to what ende,
And after dinner all to Church they come, and their attende.
The blocke that on the aultar still till then was seene to stande,
Is drawne vp hie aboue the roofe, by ropes, and force of hande :
The Priestes about it rounde do stand, and chaunt it to the skie,
For all these mens religion great in singing most doth lie.

Then out of hande the dreadfull shape of Sathan downe they throw,
Oft times, with fire burning bright, and dasht asunder tho,

* The following is from Hasted's History of Kent

"There is an odd custom used in these parts, about Keston and Wickham, in Rogation Week; at which time a number of young men meet together for the purpose, and with a most hideous noise, run into the orchards, and, incircling each tree, pronounce these words

"Stand fast root; bear well top;

God send us a youling sop,
Every twig apple big,

Every bough apple enow.'

For which incantation the confused rabble expect a gratuity in money, or drink, which is no less welcome; but if they are disappointed of both, they with great solemnity anathematize the owners and trees with altogether as insignificant a curse.

"It seems highly probable that this custom has arisen from the antient one of Perambulation among the Heathens, when they made prayers to the Gods for the use and blessing of the fruits coming up, with thanksgiving for those of the preceding year; and as the Heathens supplicated Eolus, God of the Winds, for his favourable blasts, so in this custom they still retain his name with a very small variation; this ceremony is called Youling, and the word is often used in their invocations."

Armstrong, in his History of Minorca (1752), speaking of the Terminalia, feasts instituted by the Romans in honour of Terminus, the guardian of boundaries and landmarks, whose festival was celebrated at Rome on the 22d or 23d of February every year, when cakes and fruits were offered to the god, and sometimes sheep and swine, says: "He was represented under the figure of an old man's head and trunk to the middle without arms, which they erected on a kind of pedestal that diminished downwards to the base, under which they usually buried a quantity of charcoal, as they thought it to be incorruptible in the earth; and it was criminal by their laws, and regarded as an act of impiety to this Divinity, to remove or deface any of the Termini. Nay, they visited them at set times, as the Children in London are accustomed to perambulate the limits of their Parish, which they call processioning; a custom probably derived to them from the Romans, who were so many ages in possession of the Island of Great Britain."

The boyes with greedie eyes do watch, and on him straight they fall,
And beate him sore with rods, and breake him into peeces small.
This done, the wafers downe doe cast, and singing Cakes the while,
With Papers rounde amongst them put, the children to beguile.
With laughter great are all things done: and from the beames they let
Great streames of water downe to fall, on whom they meane to wet.
And thus this solemne holiday, and hye renowmed feast,

And all their whole deuotion here is ended with a ieast."

The following customs, though not strictly applicable to Parochial Perambulations, can properly find a place nowhere but in this

Section

"Shaftsbury is pleasantly situated on a hill, but has no water, except what the inhabitants fetch at a quarter of a mile's distance from the manour of Gillingham, to the lord of which they pay a yearly ceremony of acknowledgement, on the Monday before Holy Thursday. They dress up a garland very richly, calling it the Prize Besom, and carry it to the Manour-house, attended by a calf's-head and a pair of gloves, which are presented to the lord. This done, the Prize Besom is returned again with the same pomp, and taken to pieces; just like a milk-maid's garland on May Day, being made up of all the plate that can be got together among the housekeepers."-Travels of Tom Thumb.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1795), parish of Lanark, in the county of Lanak, we read of "the riding of the Marches, which is done annually 'pon the day after Whitsunday Fair by the Magistrates and Burgeses, called here the Landsmark or Langemark Day, from the Saxon gemark. It is evidently of Saxon origin, and probably established here in the reign of, or sometime posterior to, Malcolm I."

At Evesham in Worcestershire there was an ancient custom for the master-gardeners to give their work people a treat of baked peas, both white and grey (and pork), every year on Holy Thursday.

IT

MAY-DAY CUSTOMS.

"If thou lovest me then,

Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of MAY,
There will I stay for thee."

Midsummer Night's Dream, act i. sc. 1.

T was anciently the custom for all ranks of people to go out a Maying early on the 1st of May. Bourne tells us that, in his time, in the villages in the North of England, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of that day, and, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, to walk to some neighbouring wood, where they broke down branches from the trees and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This