Another pretty custom is that of "well-dressing," which yet survives at the village of Tissington above Ashbourne, and of recent years has been revived in other Derbyshire villages, like the modern modified May-day festivities. It dates from the time of the Emperor Nero, when the philosopher Lucius Seneca told the people that they should show their gratitude to the natural springs by erecting altars and offering sacrifices. The floral tributes of to-day, which are placed around the wells and springs on Holy Thursday, are of various devices, made mostly of wild flowers bearing biblical texts; and the village maidens take these in formal procession and present them after a little consecration service in the church. One would like to see this pretty custom revived in other counties. At Hathersage, beautifully situated among the hills some eight miles above Bakewell, Oak Apple Day is kept in memory by suspending a wreath of flowers on one of the pinnacles of the church tower. The interior, with its faded green baize-lined box-pews duly labelled with brass plates bearing the owners' names, has a charming old-world appearance. In the church is a fine altar-tomb and brasses to the Eyres of North Lees, an ancient house among the hills of the Hoodbrook valley. The ancient ceremony of rush-bearing at Glossop, formerly connected with the church, has, we understand, degenerated into a "public-house show"; which is a pity. In Huntingdonshire, however, there was until some years back a somewhat similar custom of strewing green rushes, from the banks of the river Ouse, on the floor of the old church of Fenstanton, near St. Ives; but in Old Weston, in the same county, newly mown grass is still strewn upon the floor of the parish church upon the village feast Sunday: the festival of St. Swithin. The original ceremony of "rush-bearing," a survival of the ancient custom of strewing the floors of dwellings with marsh rushes, was a pretty sight. A procession of village maidens, dressed in white, carried the bundles of rushes into the church (accompanied, of course, by the inevitable band), and hung garlands of flowers upon the chancel rails. The festival at Glossop, and in places in the adjoining county of Cheshire, however, was more like the last survival of May-day: the monopoly of sweeps,--a cart-load of rushes was drawn round the village by gaily bedecked horses with a motley band of morris-dancers accompanying it, who, having made a collection, resorted to the public-house before taking their bundles to the church. Had they reversed the order of things it is possible the custom in some places would have been suffered to continue. Until a comparatively recent date the floor of Norwich Cathedral was strewn with rushes on Mayor's day; and there is still preserved among the civic treasures a wonderful green wickerwork dragon hobby-horse, or rather hobby-dragon, with wings, and movable jaws studded with nails for teeth,