[126] St. Martin’s day, in the Norway clogs, is marked with a goose; for on that day they always feasted with a roasted goose: they say St. Martin, being elected to a bishoprick, hid himself, but was discovered by that animal. We have transferred the ceremony to Michaelmas. Sumner’s glossary, voce ᵹe-beoꞃꞅciꞃe, mentions the alæ of the northern people, meaning such a religious ceremony as we have been speaking of: and, if one consults Skinner’s Etymologicon for the derivation of our word ale, we may be apt to suspect it is most reasonable to refer it to this custom, from the incongruity of his.
[127] This work on the outside of the gates is called titulus by Hyginus: he orders it to be sixty foot distant from the gate. The word and thing, whether round or square, is analogous to our modern priest-cap, as called: perhaps it should be tutulus.
[128] Captain Madox sent me some Roman coins; a Maximian pretty large, LON ; with an instrument of brass.
[129] In Weekfield, much foundations of houses, coins, &c.
[130] Divitiacus, king of the Gauls, had a great command in Britain, in Belgium, and seems to have given his name to the Devizes, upon his frontier.
Wells remains of the Belgæ.
[131] A most noble busto in brass found at the Bath, anno 1727. Mr. Gale says it is not easy to know whether it be a man’s or a woman’s: I suppose it is the Genius of the city, buried there for luck sake. Such another found in the middle of Paris, very deep, with a mural crown on; and such a one had ours, the holes being visible where it was fastened.
[132] In the public papers, Jan. 1722–3, at Corton, Somersetshire, a small Roman urn full of coins, Valerian, Gallienus, Aurelian, in the hands of Mr. Tho. Nash, rector there.
[133] Some have had a notion that Joseph of Arimathea was buried at Montague hill, not at Glasenbury; but if Joseph ever was in Britain, it is most likely he was buried really at Glasenbury: and probably it is Simon the Zealot, or Canaanite, one of our Saviour’s apostles, that is buried at Montague; the two stories being confounded, and perhaps two made of one: for that Simon preached in Britain, wrought miracles here, was martyred and buried in Britain, we have the express testimony, and very ancient, of Nicephorus, Dorotheus, the Greek Monologies, wherein he is said to be crucified and buried there.
[134] A broad Roman sword found here, 1688. Here is a spring.