It is worthy of observation, at all events, that the dancing mania did not recommence at the altars of the saint, that from him alone assistance was implored, and that through his miraculous interposition a cure was expected, which was beyond the reach of human skill. The personal history of St. Vitus is by no means unimportant in this matter. He was a Sicilian youth, who, together with Modestus and Crescentia, suffered martyrdom at the time of the persecution of the Christians under Diocletian, in A.D. 303. The legends respecting him are obscure, and he would certainly have been passed over without notice among the innumerable apocryphal martyrs of the earliest centuries, had not the transfer of his body to St. Denys, and thence in the year 836 to Corvey, raised him to a higher rank. From this time forth it may be supposed that many miracles were performed at his new sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming the Roman Catholic faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus was soon ranked among the fourteen saintly helpers (Nothelfer or Apotheker). His altars were multiplied, and the people had recourse to them in all kinds of distresses; they revered him as a powerful intercessor. As the worship of these saints was, however, at that time stripped of all historical connexions, which were purposely obliterated by the priesthood, a legend was invented at the beginning of the fifteenth century, or perhaps even so early as the fourteenth, that St. Vitus had, just before he bent his neck to the sword, prayed to God that he might protect from the dancing mania all those who should solemnize the day of his commemoration and fast upon its eve, and that thereupon a voice from heaven was heard, saying, “Vitus, thy prayer is accepted.” Thus St. Vitus became the patron saint of those affected with the dancing plague, as St. Martin of Tours was at one time the succourer of persons in small-pox; St. Anthony, of those suffering under the ‘hellish fire;’ and as St. Margaret was the Juno Lucina of pregnant women. A.D. 1426, the Baltic was frozen over, and on the 28th of September a severe earthquake was felt in England. Dantzic was visited by pestilence and famine; and the year following, England suffered from epidemic pestilence, and a severe earthquake, which occurred on the 14th of July. A.D. 1429, epidemic pestilence prevailed at Barcelona, as is proved by the donation of £8 and 16 sueldos, which were paid to a chaplain for his labour in removing for burial the dead bodies found in the churches and elsewhere. A.D. 1434, there was a severe frost in England, which lasted from the 24th of November to the 10th of February in the following year.