June 18. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



599 



' "who was a young girl, happened to be in an apartment 

 adjoining the room generally used as a lodge-room; but 

 whether the young lady was there by design or acci- 

 dent, we cannot confidently state. This room at the 

 time was undergoing some alteration : amongst other 

 things, the wall was considerably reduced in one part, 

 for the purpose of making a saloon. 



" The young lady having heard the voices of the 

 Freemasons, and prompted by the curiosity natural to 

 .all, to see this mystery so long and so secretly locked 

 up from public view, she had the courage to pick a 

 brick from the wall with her scissors, and witnessed 

 the ceremony through the first two steps. Curiosity 

 gratified, fear at once took possession of her mind ; and 

 tliose who understand this passage, well know what the 

 feelings of any person must be who could unlawfully 

 . behold that ceremony. Let them then judge what were 

 the feelings of a young girl, under such extraordinary 

 circumstances. 



" Here was no mode of escape except through the 

 very room where the concluding part of the second step 

 was still being solemnised ; and that being at the far 

 €nd, and the room a very large one, she had resolution 

 -suflScient to attempt her escape that way, and with light 

 but trembling step glided along unobserved, laid her 

 hand on the handle of the door, and gently opening it, 

 before her stood, to her dismay, a grim and surly tiler, 

 with his long swoid unsheathed. A shriek that pierced 

 through the apartment alarmed the members of the 

 lodge, who all rushing to the door, and finding that 

 Miss St. Leger had been in the room during the cere- 

 mony, in the first paroxysm of their rage, it is said, her 

 ■death was resolved upon ; but from the moving and 

 earnest supplication of her younger brother, her life was 

 ■spared, on condition of her going through the two steps 

 of the solemn ceremony she had unlawfully witnessed. 

 This she consented to do, and they conducted the beau- 

 tiful and terrified young lady through those trials 

 which are sometimes more than enough for masculine 

 resolution, little thinking they were taking into the 

 bosom of their craft a member that would afterwards 

 reflect a lustre on the annals of Masonry. 



" Miss St. Leger was directly descended from Sir 

 Robert De St. Leger, who accompanied William the 

 ■Conqueror to England, and was of that high repute 

 that he, with his own hand, supported that prince when 

 he first went out of his ship to land in Sussex. 



" Miss St. Leger was cousin to General Anthony 

 St. Leger, Governor of St. Lucia, who instituted the 

 interesting race and the celebrated Doncaster St. Leger 

 stakes. 



" Miss St. Leger married Richard Aid worth, Esq., 

 of Newmarket, a member of a highly honourable and 

 ancient family, long celebrated for their hospitality and 

 other virtues. Whenever a benefit was given at the 

 theatres in Dublin or Cork for the Masonic Orphan 

 Asylum, she walked at the head of the Freemasons, 

 with her apron and other insignia of Freemasonry, and 

 sat in the front row of the stage box. The house was 

 always crowded on those occasions. 



" The portrait of this estimable woman is in the 

 lodge-room of almost every lodge in Ireland." 



Hbnbt H. Beekn. 



St. Lucia. 



WEATHBK RULES. 



(Vol. vii., p. 522.) 



Your correspondent J. A., jun., invites further 

 contributions on the subject to which he refers. 

 Though by no means infallible, such prognostics 

 are not without a measure of truth, founded as 

 they are on habits of close observation : 



1, " Si sol splendescat Maria Purificante, 



Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante." 



Rendered thus : 



" When on the Purification sun hath shin'd. 

 The greater part of winter comes behind." 



2. " If the sun shines on Easter-day, it shines on Whit 

 Sunday likewise." 



To this I may add the French adage : 



" Quel est Vendredi tel Dimanche." 



From a MS. now in my possession, dating two 

 centuries back, I extract the following remarks on 

 " Times and Seasons," as not wholly unconnected 

 with the present subject : 



"Easter-day never falleth lower than the 22nd of 

 March, and never higher than the 25th of April." 



" Shrove Sunday has its range between the 1st of 

 February and the 7 th of March." 



" Whit Sunday between the 10th of May and the 

 13 th of June." 



"A rule of Shrovetide: — The Tuesday after the 

 second change of the moon after New Year's-day is al- 

 ways Shrove Tuesday." 



To these I may perhaps be permitted to add 

 certain cautions, derived from the same source : 



" The first Monday in April, the day on which Cain 

 was born, and Abel was slain. 



" The second Monday in August, on which day 

 Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. 



"The 31st of December, on which day Judas was 

 born, who betrayed Christ. 



" These are dangerous days to begin any business, 

 fall sick, or undertake any journey." 



We smile at the superstition which thus stamps 

 these several periods as days of ill omen, especially 

 when we reflect that farther inquiry would pro- . 

 bably place every other day of the week under a 

 like ban, and thus greatly impede the business of 

 life — Friday, for instance, which, since our Lord's 

 crucifixion on that day, we are strongly disinclined 

 to make the starting-point of any new enterprise. 



In many cases this superstition is based on 

 unpleasing associations connected with the days 

 proscribed. Who can wonder if, in times less en- 

 lightened than our own, undue importance were 

 attached to the strange coincidence which marked 

 the deaths of Henry VIIL and his posterity. They 

 all died on a Tuesday ; himself on Tuesday, Janu- 

 ary 28, 1547 ; Edward VL on Tuesday, July 6, 



