At Walsingham, in Norfolk, where formerly stood a celebrated abbey, and which was always a place of peculiar sanctity, the Wishing Wells are still extant. They are described as two small circular basins of stone, placed to the north-east of the site of the priory church, and connected with the Chapel of the Virgin. Their water had formerly a marvellous efficacy in curing disorders of the head and stomach

-the special gift, no doubt, of the Holy Virgin, which she has resumed now that the majority of Englishmen are heretics! Yet she has graciously substituted one which seems to me of infinitely greater value. This is nothing less than the power, also given, as the reader is aware, to other wells, of accomplishing all human wishes. To attain so desirable an end, you must place your right knee, naked, on a stone placed for that purpose between the two wells; and you must do this with a proper amount of faith. You must then plunge your hands, up to the wrist, into the water of the wells, which are near enough to admit of the immersion. Now form your wish! But remember never to utter it with the lips, at any time, even to your dearest friend, or to yourself in the solitude of your chamber. Withdraw your hands, and swallow as much of the water as can be contained in the hollow of each. Within twelve months your wish, if your faith has attained to the proper maximum, will undoubtedly be fulfilled!

Healing Wells are scattered all over the kingdom. St. Madan's, in Cornwall, should be noticed, because so good and great a man as Bishop Hall could

gravely record his belief in the reality of a cure which its waters wrought upon a cripple. At Tottenham, in Middlesex, the Bishop's Well was considered peculiarly beneficial to invalids. And it is very probable that in many other cases the reputation was not altogether undeserved. The water might possess some mineral or chalybeate constituents, whose nature being unknown, their efficacy would seem altogether miraculous.

Then there were Divining Wells, which, by the motion of their waters, or in some other mysterious manner, foretold the events of the future. If you took the shirt or shift off an invalid, and flung it into the well of St. Oswald, near Newton, if the garment floated, its wearer would recover; if it sank, all hope must be abandoned. At St. Michael's in Banffshire, the oracle was given by an immortal fly, which was never absent from its duty. If the sober matron longed to know the issue of her husband's illness, or the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain, they visited the fly-guarded well. If the fly appeared cheerful, the votary returned well pleased; if dejected, she went back with a sad brow and tearful eyes. A well at Inveresk always foretold a coming storm by the rumbling noise it made; another, at Oundle, in Northamptonshire, invariably drummed before any important event occurred.

A curious superstition attached to the well of St. Keyne, in Cornwall, whose crystal water bubbles out beneath a leafy canopy of four venerable trees— ash, oak, withy, and elm. Southey has told the legend in a humorous ballad:

666

St. Keyne,' quoth the Cornishman, 'many a time
Drank of this crystal well,

And before the angel summoned her,

She laid on the water a spell :

"If the husband, of this gifted well
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man henceforth is he,

For he shall be master for life.

"But if the wife should drink of it first,-
Oh, pity the husband then!'

The stranger stooped to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.

"You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes!'
He to the Cornishman said:

But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.

"I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;

But i' faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church!""

From the reverence with which wells and foun tains were regarded, and the general belief in their marvellous properties, sprang the custom of Welldressing. The villagers went forth, on certain days, in gay procession, and with much singing and merriment, to decorate the favourite spring with boughs of trees and garlands of flowers wrought into fanciful devices. In some places it was the custom for the clergyman of the parish and his choir to take part in the ceremony, praying and singing psalmsa custom observed at Tissington, in Derbyshire, until a very recent period. The historian of Nottingham says: "By a custom beyond memory, the mayor and aldermen of Nottingham and their wives have been used on Monday in Easter week, morning prayers ended, to march from the town to St. Anne's

Well, having the town waits to play before them.” Dr. Plot tells us that at Brewood and Bilbrook, in Staffordshire, the people were wont, on Holy Thursday, to adorn their wells with boughs and flowers. "This, it seems, they do, too, at all gospel places, whether wells, trees, or hills; which being now observed only for decency and custom' sake, is innocent enough." I might multiply my examples; but it is enough to say that throughout the kingdom the festival of Well-dressing was regularly observed. Nor can we deny that the motive-to praise God for the blessing of pure water-was highly laudable, even if superstition were too frequently blended with it. Our ancestors, it seems, believed too much; let us take care lest we believe too little!

66 Next him September marched eke on foot;
Yet was he hoary, laden with the spoil
Of harvest riches, which he made his boot,
And him enriched with bounty of the soil.”

SPENSER.

HAT a change in the aspect of our English landscapes since last we glanced at them! In the mid-summer they wore all the bloom and freshness of early manhood: now they are ripe with the full vigour of maturity. The promise of the year has

been fulfilled. The song of Nature has swelled into its richest and grandest diapason. The husbandman's toil has won its own reward, and the fields are golden with the spoils of harvest. Everywhere in orchard, and garden, and on the plainsthe earth pours out her wine and oil, the abundance of her fatness. The vine droops with the burthen of its purple clusters, like a graceful maiden beneath the splendour of her ornaments. Against the wall hangs the rare downy cheek of the blushing peach; the ruddy nectarine nods on its stem; the plum sports its yellow or purple spheres amidst the dark