The _Status Scholæ Etonensis_, A.D. 1560 (MS. Addit. Brit. Mus. 4843), says:--“In hac vigilia moris erat (quamdiu stetit) pueris, ornare lectos variis rerum variarum picturis, et carmina de vita rebusque gestis Joannis Baptistæ et præcursoris componere: et pulchre exscripta affigere clinopodiis lectorum, eruditis legenda.” CHESHIRE. The annual setting of the watch on St. John’s Eve, in the city of Chester, was an affair of great moment. By an ordinance of the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen, of that corporation, dated in the year 1564, and preserved among the _Harleian_ MSS. in the British Museum, a pageant which is expressly said to be “according to ancient custom,” is ordained to consist of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one camel, one luce, one dragon, and six hobby-horses, with other figures. By another MS. in the same library, it is said that Henry Hardware, Esq., the mayor in 1599, caused the giants in the Midsummer show to be broken, “and not to goe the devil in his feathers;” and it appears that he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead; but in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, being mayor, set out the giants and Midsummer show as of old it was wont to be kept. In the time of the Commonwealth the show was discontinued, and the giants with the beasts were destroyed. At the Restoration of Charles II. the citizens of Chester replaced their pageant, and caused all things to be made new, because the old models were broken.--See _Every Day Book_, vol. i. p. 834. CORNWALL. In Cornwall the festival fires, called bonfires, are kindled on the eve of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter’s Day; and Midsummer is thence in the Cornish tongue called “Goluan,” which signifies both light and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their perambulations round their fires, and go from village to village, carrying their torches before them; and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition, for “faces præferre,” to carry lighted torches, was reckoned a kind of Gentilism and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils: they were in the eye of the law “accensores facularum,” and thought to sacrifice to the devil, and to deserve capital punishment.--Borlase, _Antiquities of Cornwall_, 1754, p. 130. On Whiteborough (a large tumulus with a fosse round it), on St. Stephen’s Down, near Launceston, there was formerly a great bonfire on Midsummer Eve: a large summer pole was fixed in the centre, round which the fuel was heaped. It had a large bush on the top of it.[70] Round this were parties of wrestlers contending for small prizes.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 318. [70] The boundary of each tin-mine in Cornwall is marked by a long pole with a bush at the top of it. These on St. John’s Day are crowned with flowers.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._, 1849, vol. i. p. 318. CUMBERLAND.