POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. DIVINATIONS IN ADVENT.-Two sorts of divination are practiced at this period by girls desirous of learning the temper of their future husbands. The first mode was by taking from four to eight onions and scratching on each of them the names they most fancied; these they set in the chimney-corner, and whichever was the first to sprout, that one bore the name of the future help-mate. The next method was by going out at night and drawing a single stick from a wood-stack, but without attempting to pick or choose; if it turned out straight and even, and without knots, then the husband would be gentle; if on the contrary it proved knotty and crooked, then the husband would be a churl.* * "Illis divinant etiam inquiruntque diebus Lunar Superstition.-In Wiltshire it is said to be unlucky to look at the new moon first through a window. As to the man in the moon himself, some have supposed that the idea has arisen from that passage in the book of Numbers, where a man is stoned to death for gathering sticks upon a Sunday.* But indeed by some strange caprice of superstition the moon has had more traditions and observances connected with her than the sun itself, and not improbably because the night, the time of her predominance, is better calculated to create and nourish such fancies than the cheerful day. To name only a few of them. Whoever prays for any thing when the moon is in conjunction with Jupiter and the Dragon's head, will be sure to obtain it.† But though this aphorism would seem to apply equally to either sex, yet of lovers it was more especially the women, who paid their vows to the moon, while men sought similar favours of the sun, a distinction for which no cause has been assigned, so far as I know, by the learned in such high mysteries. In other respects the moon was of doubtful augury, being evil or propitious according to the state in which she was at the time; thus, wood cut at the full of the moon is affected with blight and rottenness; § Quæ fierit si recta et nullis horrida nodes Improbulum ac pravum sperant obtingere sponsum." THOME NAOGEORGI REGNUM PAPISTICUM.-Lib. iv. p. 130. 12mo. 1559. * NUMBERS. Chap. xv. ver. 32—36. †“Qui, Luna, inquit Albumazar, Jovi, conjuncta cum Capite Draconico, supplicaverit, quicquid petierit procul dubio impetrabit.” CALIUS RHODIGINUS. Lectiones Antiquæ, p. 645. F. Scribit tamen Pindarus, ex amantibus soli quidem viros vota concipere, lunæ autem fæminas." Idem, p. 205. H. "Succisa ligna in plenilunio carie conficiuntur, tunc rubigo infestat." DE ADMIRANDIS FACULTATIBUS. Autore D. H. Montuo, neither is it good to voyage in the interval between the old and new moon or in an eclipse of that luminary.* Then too different objects are affected by it in different manners; many things for instance, that encrease with the encreasing moon, cease to grow and become sapless when she wanes; while on the other hand some roots, such as the onion, germinate with the waning moon, and dry up as she waxes.† Next as to the names and qualities of the moon. It is white because it rules the waters, whose nature it is to become white in concretion. It was called Melissa as the presiding deity of generation,§ and Diana herself was named threeformed from the triple aspects of the moon-the horned; the half-moon; and the full moon.|| Spayed Bitches.-I believe all over England a spaied bitch is accounted wholesome; that is to say, they have No. 71; Cent. Secunda, p. 40. 12mo. Lugduni. 1556. This is printed with the MEMORABILIA of Mizaldus, forming the latter part of the volume. *Silente aut deficiente luna non esse navigandum expertus est Synesius." Idem. No. 73. Cent. ii, p. 40. + "Omnia quæ crescente luna gliscunt deficiente contra desinunt exiccaque sunt. Quamquam in quibusdam est antipathia, nam cepe, teste Plutarcho, luna decedente revirescit ac congerminat. Inarescitque eadem adolescente." Idem. No. 68; Cent. vi. p. 39. He afterwards adds that the onion is the only one root that acts by lunar antipathies his text not being very consistent with itself. "Album porro colorem lunæ contribuunt quoniam aquis dominetur is planeta, quarum natura est uti concretione inalbescant. L. CELIUS RHODIGIN US. Lectiones Antiq. Lib. xxvi. cap. 9, p. 1207. D. §"Lunam quoque generationis præsidem, Melissam dixere." CELIUS RHODIGINUS, Lib. xxii. cap. 3, p. 1028. F. But the priests of Ceres were also called Melissas. "Quia vero triplicem faciat visitationem Luna-quum surgit in cornua et falcata dicitur-quumque dimidia est-et quum orbe circumacto-hine propagatum autumant poeticum commentum de triformi Diana." Id. Lib. xx; cap. vi; p. 927. D. a strong belief that it keeps away evil spirits from haunting of a house; e. g. among many other instances, at Cranborn in Dorsetshire about 1686 a house was haunted and two tenants successively went away for that reason; a third came and brought his spaied bitch, and was never troubled.* *AUBREY'S REMAINS OF GENTILISME, &c. MS.: Bibl.: Lansdown,— folio 130. + Herrick's Hesperides, p. 336. Id. Idem. § Idem. p. 234. THE MONTHS-FEBRUARY. VERSTEGAN tells us this month was called by our Saxon ancestors, sprout-kele, "by kele meaning the kele-wort, which we now call the colewurt, the greatest potwurt in time long past that our ancestors used, and the broth made therewith was thereof also called kele; for before we borrowed from the French the name of potage and the name of herbs, the one in our own language was called kele, and the other wurt; and as this kele-wurt, or potagehearbe, was the chief winter-wurt for the sustenance of the husbandman, so was it the first hearbe that in this moneth began to yield out wholesome young sprouts, and consequently gave thereunto the name of sproutkele."* It had also the name of Solmonath, which Bede explains by Pan-cake-month, because in the course of it cakes were offered up by the Pagan Saxons to the sun, and sol, or soul signified "food, or cakes." It is scarcely necessary to add that the Latin Februarius, the origin of our Fe Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 64, ed. 1674. 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