But Fuller shows that it refers to Easter Day, not Good Friday, falling on the 25th March, when he remarks:—"I behold this proverbial prophecy, or this prophetical menace, to be not above six score years old, and of Popish extraction since the Reformation. It whispereth more than it dares speak out, and points at more than it dares whisper; and fain would intimate to credulous persons as if the Blessed Virgin, offended with the English for abolishing her adoration, watcheth an opportunity of revenge on this nation. And when her day (being the five-and-twentieth of March, and first of the Gregorian year) chanceth to fall on the day of Christ's resurrection, then being, as it were, fortified by her Son's assistance, some signal judgment is intended to our state, and churchmen especially."
He then gives a list of the years on which the coincidences had happened since the Conquest, to which, if our correspondent is curious on the subject, we must refer him. Can he, or any other of our readers, furnish any proof of the existence of this proverb before the Reformation, or the existence of a similar proverb on the Continent?]
Hobnail-counting in the Court of Exchequer.—I shall feel obliged by your informing me from what circumstance originates the yearly custom of the lord mayor of London counting six horse-shoes and sixty-one hobnails at the swearing in of the sheriff?
A Constant Reader.
Chertsey.
[The best explanation of this custom will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1804, where we read: "The ceremony on this occasion in the Court of Exchequer, which vulgar error supposed to be an unmeaning farce, is solemn and impressive, nor have the new sheriffs the least connexion either with chopping of sticks, or counting of hobnails. The tenants of a manor in Shropshire are directed to come forth and do their suit and service; on which the senior alderman below
the chair steps forward and chops a single stick, in token of its having been customary for the tenants of that manor to supply their lord with fuel. The owners of a forge in the parish of St. Clement (which formerly belonged to the city, and stood in the high road from the Temple to Westminster, but now no longer exists) are then called forth to do their suit and service; when an officer of the court, in the presence of the senior alderman, produces six horse-shoes and sixty-one hobnails, which he counts over in form before the cursitor baron, who on this particular occasion is the immediate representative of the sovereign.">[
A Race for Canterbury.—I have just met with a little volume of sixteen pages entitled A Race for Canterbury or Lambeth, Ho! It is dated 1747, and was evidently written on the death of Archbishop Potter; and describes four aspirants to the see of Canterbury as four rowers on the Thames:
"No sooner Death had seized the seer,
Just in the middle of his prayer,