Bygone Days in Devon and Cornwall. By Mrs. Henry P.
Whitcombe. (Bentley.)—This is a very curious collection of " superstitions, customs, and legends," belonging to the two great western counties. Every part of England could doubtless furnish no small supply of such materials, but Devonshire and Cornwall, with the remoteness and seclusion which have only now begun to yield to modern changes, are peculiarly rich in them. And Cornwall has besides its peculiar race, a distinction which -the observant reader will not find it difficult to discover in the peculiar .character of its local superstitions and beliefs. Devonshire peculiarities 'have, for the most part, a more practical character; in Cornwall, the Celtic fancy seems to crop up. The famous wells, for instance, are Cornish,—St.Keyne's, with its gift of matrimonial supremacy ; St. Cuth- bert's, which cures the rickets; and that of Chapel-Enny, where children are dipped the first three Wednesdays in May, and then dragged round the well three times on the grass against the sun. Of curious things relating to the two counties in the volume there is no end. Not the least strange among them is the account of the "Knillian games," a sort of Olympic festival which seems to be held quinquennially at St. Ives, in accordance with the will of a certain Mr. Kalil, formerly col- lector of customs in that town. Mr. Knill built a mausoleum for himself, on ground which overlooks the English and Bristol Channels, and directed, among other things, that a choir of ten girls should dance in the ground adjoining the mausoleum, and sing the old hundredth psalm, receiving ten shillings apiece for their trouble ; while the fiddler who should play to the girls while singing and dancing at the mauso- leum, and also play before them on their return home, was to have a pound ; and the same SLUR was to go to each of two widows, who were to act, so to speak, as chaperones. The volume is full of curiousand interesting reading.
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