of protection against the damp earth, may have had something to
do with keeping the custom in existence, long after the origin
of the institution had been forgotten. The ceremony of
Rushbearing has now fallen into complete disuse, except in a few
secluded hamlets in Westmoreland, and in one or two other places
in the kingdom; nor can that disuse be much regretted, since
what was founded as a religious act, every where degenerated
into an occasion for unseemly revelry, in fact, into a sort of
rustic saturnalia. And yet, when we look at this remain of the
olden time, as observed at Ambleside, we are tempted to say with
the poet,--

"'Many precious rites
And customs of our rural ancestry
Are gone or stealing from us: _this_, I hope
Will last for ever.'"

* * * * * {198}

QUERIES.

WHO WROTE SHAKSPEARE'S HENRY VIII.?

I had no sooner read the title of an essay in the current number of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, "Who wrote Shakspeare's Henry VIII.?" than I
became aware that I had been anticipated in at least the publication of
a discovery I made three or four years ago, but for the making known of
which a favourable opportunity had not occurred. The fact is, that I was
anxious to arrive at a more satisfactory conclusion than has yet
presented itself to me, and a paper on the subject commenced more than