In former times it was the custom for people of fashion to wear blue coats on St. George's day; because, as some will have it, of the abundant flowering of blue bells in the fields about that season; or, according to many, because blue was the national colour, as Saint George was the national saint; and, therefore, the one was appropriate to the other.

*

St. Mark's Day or Eve-was observed, not as a fast, but as a day of abstinence, which in the Church of Rome meant very different things. On fast-days it allowed but one meal in four-and-twenty hours; while on days of abstinence, provided the people abstained from flesh and made but a moderate meal, they were indulged in a collation at night. The reason of this privation, originally ordained by Saint George the Great, the Apostle of England, was that they might imitate Saint Mark's disciples, the first Christians of Alexandria, who under his guidance were eminent for piety and fasting.† Many allusions are made to this by old writers; and Davies tells us that "upon St. Mark's Day after Easter, which was commonly fasted throughout all the country, and no flesh eaten upon it, the friars with the monks had solemn procession and went to the Bow, or Bough, Church with the procession, and had very solemn service there and one of the monks did make a sermon to all the people of the parish that came thither." Nor was the day without its superstitions. Brand was informed by a clergyman of Yorkshire, that it was a custom of the people of that county to "sit and watch in the church porch on St. Mark's Eve from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. The third year-for this must

* Wheatley, Rational Illustration, p. 201, fol. Lond. 1720. + Ibid. p. 202.

Ancient Rites, &c. of the Church of Durham, published by J. D. of Kidwelly, p. 156, 12mo. London, 1672.

be done thrice-they are supposed to see the ghosts of all those, who are to die the next year, pass by into the church."* Hone gives a long account of a similar custom prevailing in Northamptonshire, but his unsupported authority is hardly a sufficient voucher for such details.† Brand also states, that it was at one time a custom to bless the corn upon this day.

* Pop. Antiq., vol. i. p. 115.

Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 523.

THE BURNING CLIFF AT HOLWORTH.

HOLWORTH CLIFF is situated on Ringstead Bay, six miles east of Weymouth, and constitutes a bulwark between the farm of that name and the sea. It should be understood, however, that the Burning Cliff is not an original formation, but an union of fragments detached by natural causes from the two principal elevations of the parent rock. These are composed of distinct substances; and it is to their combination, acting chemically, that the present phenomenon has by many be en attriuted.

It is now upwards of thirty years since the combustible materials began to separate from the main cliff, and most probably from the same causes that have formed the whole line of the undercliff at the back of the Isle of Wight, a phenomenon which is there known under the name of a landslip. In this case nearly three more years elapsed before the whole mass had finally settled below; and much the same time passed before the first symptoms of the phenomenon showed themselves in the form of a vapour hovering above the loose surface. Dense exhalations shortly afterwards succeeded; and finally in March, 1827, slight flames were seen issuing here and there from any chance cracks or crevices in the soil. The general curiosity soon becoming excited by these appearances, the ground was dug up and laid open, when it was found that most of the scattered streams of smoke they had observed must have arisen from rain filtering

through the chinks in the earth upon the hot substance below. An attempt was then made to bore as near as possible to the largest apertures, but the calcareous fragments threw such obstacles in the way of the labourers that it was speedily abandoned.

Towards the end of April, however, it was resolved to try a second experiment, when on the first day their efforts only elicited the appearance of a few sparks. On the second they were more successful, the workmen suddenly coming upon a vast body of fire that resembled a smelter's furnace; but when they had dragged out a quantity of this ignited matter, they were obliged to desist by the heat and effluvia it emitted, and left it exposed on the ground, where it continued to burn till the following morning.

From this time the appearances of smoke and fire continued to increase with little intermission, till about the fifth of September the ground opened in three places, eastward of the original fissure. These crevices were of some magnitude, and, the outer coating of mould being removed, vivid fire was seen amidst the interstices of the lime-stone. In a few days the earth cracked open in seven more places, from each of which a thick smoke poured forth, while the heat proceeding from the fissures was so intense as in a few minutes to ignite any inflammable matter that was applied to them. By the first of October the fire had so much extended its sphere of action that the surface of red hot stone in one of the apertures occupied a space full three feet square; and the entire limit of the smoking crevices, which at first was limited to about six feet, had now spread in length from east to west, till it reached very nearly a hundred feet.

It would seem that after this time no excavations of any magnitude were made, the inhabitants of Weymouth

being wiser than the old lady who destroyed the goose to learn the mystery of its laying golden eggs. It is likely enough that the cause of the fire was not very deeply seated, and had they dug much lower they would have destroyed their phenomenon altogether. The magnates of Weymouth adopted a much better course; they cut away an angular projection of the hill, that stood between the town and their new Vesuvius, so that at night-fall they could enjoy the sight in all its glory without the trouble of going to seek it. As if to reward their prudent forbearance, smoke was soon observed to issue from this point also, and in a short time afterwards, flames burst forth at intervals, and almost to the same extent as at the original fissure.

And here it may be necessary to enter into some explanation for the benefit of those who have never been at Weymouth. At first the Burning Cliff lay upon an elevation of about eighty-five feet from the beach, but it was chiefly on a sort of shelf half way up the southern side that the flames made their appearance. During the spring tides in the latter part of 1827 and in the commencement of the year following, when the water rose to an unusual height and was followed by neap-tides almost equal to them, immense masses slid down at intervals with a terrific uproar; the position of the apertures was thus gradually altered so as to present an arch-like form, the extremities having sunk full thirty feet below their former level. In this state for awhile the mass rested, till at length in the middle of February, the whole being saturated and softened by high tides and heavy rains, it sank down within ten feet of the level of the beach, and there lay like a heap of smoking ruins.

The two principal cliffs stand, one to the north, and the other to the north-east, of the mass that has thus been dissevered from the parent rock. Of these the