dry," it was enacted that ploughmen and all other
labourers should be hired to serve for the full year, or other usual
terms, and not by the day; and further,

"That such labourers do carry openly in their hands, in market
towns, their instruments of labour, and be there hired in a
public place, and not privately."

For carrying into effect these provisions, it would be necessary to have
certain days, and a fixed place set apart for the hiring of servants. In
the former particular, no days would be so convenient as feast days:
they were well known, and were days commonly computed from; they were,
besides, holidays, and days for which labourers were forbidden to
receive wages (_see_ 34 Edw. III. c. 10. and 4 Henry IV. c. 14.); so
that, although absent from labour, they would lose no part of the scanty
pittances allowed them by act of parliament or settled by justices. As
to the latter requirement, no place was so public, or would so naturally
suggest itself, or be so appropriate, as the market-place.

Thus arose in our own land the custom respecting which W.J. makes
inquiry, and also our statute fairs, or statutes; thus called on account
of their reference to the various "Statutes of Labourers." I was not
aware that any usage to hire on all festivals (for to such, I take it,
your correspondent refers) still existed in England. As to France, I am
unable to speak; but it is not improbable that a similar custom in that
country may be due to causes nearly similar.

Arun.

_George Herbert._--J.R. FOX (Vol. ii., p. 103.) will find in Major's
excellent edition of Walton's _Lives_ the information he requires. At p.
346. it is stated that Mrs. Herbert, the widow of George Herbert, was
afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Cook, of Highnam, in the county of
Gloucester, Knt., eight years, and lived his widow about fifteen; all
which time she took a pleasure in mentioning and commending the
excellences of Mr. George Herbert. She died in the year 1653, and lies
buried at Highnam; Mr. Herbert in his own church, under the altar, and
covered with a gravestone without any inscription.

And amongst the notes appended by Major to these _Lives_, is the
following additional notice of Herbert's burial-place. The parish
register of Bemerton states that

"Mr. George Herbert, Esq., parson of Inggleston and Bemerton,
was buried the 3rd day of March, 1632."

"Thus he lived and thus he died," says Walton, "like a saint, u