The Reader must content himself with this Explication, which I think not an improbable one, at least till a better can be found. In joining the scattered Fragments that survive the Mutilation of antient Customs, we must be forgiven if all the Parts are not found closely to agree; little of the Means of Information is transmitted to us that little can only be eked out by Conjecture. I have sometimes thought that the obsolete Sports of the antient Hoc-tide, an old Saxon Word, importing the Time of Scorning or Triumphing*, which must have been about this Time of the Year, might have degenerated into the April Fooleries. But I find no Authority for this Supposition, and insert it as a mere Conjecture. Hoke Dayt, was an annual Festival, said to have been instituted in Memory of the almost total Destruction of the Danes in England by Ethelred, Anno. 1002. See Lambard, Blount, Heylin, Vers tegan, Strutt, Watt's Glossary to Matt. Paris, &c. If I were asked to turn this "Fools' Day" into Latin, methinks it could not be more aptly rendered than by "Dies irrisorius.”And so I find some of our best Antiquaries translate the Saxon Word pucx-daeg. † Hardeknuto mortuo, liberata est Anglia extunc a servitute Danorum: In cujus signum usque hodie illa die, vulgariter dicta Hoxtuisday, ludunt in villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis jocis. J. Rossi. Ant. Warwic. Hist. p. 105. MISCELLANEOUS ADDITIONAL RE MARKS. TO the Observations on the Rag Well, Chapter VIIIth, add the following: Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, ridicules a superstitious Prayer of the Popish Church," for the Blessing of Clouts "in the Way of cure of Diseases." Mr. Hanway, in his Travels into Persia, Vol. 1. p. 177. tells us, "After ten Days Journey we ar"rived at a desolate Caravanserai, where we found nothing but Water.-I observed a Tree with a "number of Rags tied to the Branches, these were έσ so many Charms which Passengers coming from "Ghilan, a Province remarkable for Agues, had left there, in a fond Expectation of leaving their "Disease also on the same Spot". He tells us that Sneezing is held a most happy Omen amongst the Persians, especially when repeated often.-That Cats are held in great Esteem, and that in that Country too they have a Kind of Divination by the Bone of a Sheep. To the Observations on Chapter XXVII.--In the Appendix, No. 2. to Pennant's Tour, the Rev. Mr. Shaw, in his Account of Elgin and the Shire of Murray, tells us, that in the middle of June, Farmers go round their Corn with burning Torches in Memory of the Cerealia. To the Notes Page 335.-It is customary at Ox ford ford to cut what we in the North call the Groaning Cheese in the Middle when the Child is born, and so by degrees, form with it a large Kind of Ring, through which the Child is passed on the Christening Day. Slices of the first Cut of the Groaning Cheese are laid under Pillows in the North, for the same purpose with those of the Bride-Cake. The BrideCake is here sometimes broken over the Bride's Head, and then thrown among the Croud to be scrambled for. It would be thought here very unlucky to send away a Child the first Time its Nurse has brought it on a visit, without giving it an Egg, Salt, or Bread. 1 To the Observations on Chapter XIV. FoolPlough, add “Aratrum inducere moris fuit Romanis, cum urbem aliquam evertissent, ut eam funditus delerent. Vocabular, utriusque juris. a Scot. J. C. in verb. Aratrum." It is remarkable that in some Places where this Pageant is retained, they plough up the Soil before any House, at which they have exhibited, and received no Reward. The Morris-Dance, in which Bells are gingled, or Staves, or Swords clashed, was learned, says Dr. Johnson, by the Moors, and was probably a Kind of Pyrrhick or Military Dance. Morisco, says Blount, (Span.) a Moor; also a "Dance "Dance so called wherein there were usually five Men, and a Boy dressed in a Girl's Habit, whom they called the Maid Marrion, or perhaps Morian, "from the Italian Morione, a Head-piece, because "her Head was wont to be gaily trimmed up."Common People call it a Morris Dance." To the Note on Toast, Page 342, add, "In the "Tatler, Vol. 1, No. 24, it is said that the Word, "in its present Sense, had its Rise from an Acci"dent at the Town of Bath, in the Reign of "Charles the IId: It happened that on a public Day a celebrated Beauty of those Times was in "the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of her Ad"mirers took a Glass of the Water in which the "Fair One stood, and drank her Health to the Company. There was in the Place a gay Fel"low, half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and r swore, though he liked not the Liquor, he would "have the Toast: He was opposed in his Resolu"tion; yet this Whim gave Foundation to the pre"sent Honour which is done to the Lady we men"tion in our Liquor, who has ever since been called "a Toast." I am not able to controvert this Account, but am by no means satisfied with it. The Wit here is likelier to have been a Consequence, than the Cause of this singular Use of the Word; it puts one in Mind of the well-known Reply of a Mr. Brown, in some late Jest Book, who, on having it observed to to him, that he had given a certain Lady a long while for his Toast, answered, "Yes, but I have not been able to toast her Brown yet." Archbishop Tillotson tell us, "That in all Pro "bability those common juggling Words of Hocus Pocus are nothing else but a Corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous Imitation of the "Priests of the Church of Rome in their Trick of "Transubstantiation &c." Discourse on Transub. Ser. 26. The subsequent passage from Gay may be added to the Incantations of rustic Maids, relative to their Lovers. P. 344. "At Eve last Midsummer no Sleep I sought, Our rural Virgins in the North, are said to use some singular Rites in fasting what they call St. Agnes' Fast, for the purpose of discovering their future Husbands. Mr. Strutt, speaking of the Sports of Children in his English Era, tells us "Their Amusements were "much the same with those at present played over by the young Lads of this Age, as trundling Hoops, "Blind-Man's Buff, playing with Tops, shooting "with Bows at Marks, and swimming on Blad |