OBSERVATIONS ON POPULAR ANTIQUITIES OF GREAT BRITAIN VOL. 1

OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POPULAR ANTIQUITIES
OF
GREAT BRITAIN:

CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATING

THE ORIGIN OF OUR VULGAR AND PROVINCIAL CUSTOMS, CEREMONIES, AND SUPERSTITIONS.

BY

JOHN BRAND, M.A.,
FELLOW AND SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON.

ARRANGED, REVISED, AND GREATLY ENLARGED, BY
SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S., SEC. S.A., &c.
PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

A NEW EDITION, WITH FURTHER ADDITIONS.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

THE great popularity of BRAND'S Work on the Customs and Provincial Antiquities of Great Britain having led to the demand for a new edition, it was thought advisable to attempt some more convenient arrangement of the matter. With this object, the most entertaining and popular portions have been inserted in the text, while the merely recondite and subordinate have been thrown into foot-notes. This plan will, it is hoped, render the work more acceptable to the general reader. Various articles and passages also, that did not before appear to be inserted in their proper places, have been transposed: the long notes, for example, which in the former edition were subjoined to the Author's preface, are now placed under the heads to which they particularly relate. A copious Index, to be given in the last volume, will at once obviate any inconvenience that might arise to those who have been accustomed to the previous arrangement. In some few instances, where foreign books of an accessible description have been extensively quoted, it has been thought advisable to adopt an English translation in preference; especially with regard to Naogeorgus, the English version¹ of whose book is in reality the only one in which the reader of Brand is concerned. No information or amusement whatever, which is contained in any [p.iv] of the previous editions, has been omitted; but considerable additions have been made from every available source, and of these, some have never before appeared in print. Notwithstanding all the pains that have been taken, there will still remain many relics of the older superstitions entirely unnoticed by Brand and his editors. Those who possess opportunities of collecting such notices, should place them on record before they entirely disappear. Any additional information on these subjects, addressed to the Publisher, will be gladly acknowledged.

THE respected Author of the following work, as will be seen by the date of his Preface, had prepared it to meet the public eye so long ago as 1795. The subjects, however, which form the different sections were then miscellaneously arranged, and he had not kept even to the chronological order of the Feasts and Fasts observed by his predecessor Bourne.

The idea of a more perspicuous method was probably the first occasion of delay; till the kindness of friends, the perseverance of his own researches, and the vast accession of intelligence produced by the statistical inquiries in Scotland, so completely overloaded his manuscript, that it became necessary that the whole work should be remodelled. This task, even to a person of Mr. Brand's unwearied labour, was discouraging; and, though he projected a new disposition of his materials, he had made no progress in putting them in order at the time of his death.

In this state, at the sale of the second part of Mr. Brand's library, in 1808, the manuscript of his 'Observations on Popular Antiquities' was purchased for the sum of six hundred pounds. An examination, however, soon proved that great revision was wanting; and though one or two antiquaries of eminence engaged in the task of its publication, each, after a time, abandoned it.

In 1810 the present Editor undertook the work, and gave it to the public in 1813, in two volumes, quarto. The whole was entirely rewritten with his own hand, and in many parts augmented by additional researches. Mr. Brand's extracts [p.vi] from books and manuscripts, too, which were very faulty, were all, as far as possible, collated with their originals; and a copious index added to the whole.

Whatever of importance has occurred to the Editor in augmentation of the work since the publication of the last edition has been added to the present, and another copious index supplied.

The arrangement of the work, founded on a sketch drawn out by Mr. Brand, is the same in the present as in the last edition, beginning with the days of more particular note in the calendar, to which popular observations attach, taken in chronological order. These, now, fill the first volume. The two which follow contain, first, the Customs at Country Wakes, Sheep-shearings, and other rural practices, with such usages and ceremonies as are not assignable to any particular period of the year. The Customs and Ceremonies of Common Life are next introduced, followed by the numerous train of Popular Notions, Sports, and Errors.

Mr. Brand, the author of the present work, was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as is believed, about 1743, and was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford. He was, for a short time, usher at Newcastle School.

His earliest literary production was a Poem "written among the ruins of Godstow Nunnery," 4to, 1775. His next was the first edition of the present work, printed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1777. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, on May 29th of that year, and in 1784, upon the death of Dr. Morell, succeeded to the office of its resident secretary. In 1784 he was also presented to the London rectory of St. Mary-at-Hill, by the Duke of Northumberland, to whom he was likewise librarian. In 1789 he published the History of his native town, in two volumes, quarto. He died, in a fit of apoplexy, September 10, 1806. A small volume of his Letters to Mr. Ralph Beilby, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was published there in 1825. The History of Newcastle, and the Observations on Popular Antiquities, afford proofs of deep research, too evident to need a panegyric here.

TRADITION has in no instance so clearly evinced her faithfulness as in the transmittal of vulgar rites and popular opinions.

Of these, when we are desirous of tracing them backwards to their origin, many may be said to lose themselves in the mists of antiquity.² They have indeed travelled to us through a long succession of years, and the greater part of them, it is not improbable, will be of perpetual observation: for the generality of men look back with superstitious veneration on the ages of their forefathers, and authorities that are grey with time seldom fail of commanding those filial honours claimed even by the appearance of hoary age.

It must be confessed that many of these are mutilated, and, as in the remains of ancient statuary, the parts of some have been awkwardly transposed: they preserve, however, the principal traits that distinguished them in their origin.

Things that are composed of such flimsy materials as the fancies of a multitude do not seem calculated for a long duration; yet have these survived shocks by which even empires have been overthrown, and preserved at least some form and colour of identity, during a repetition of changes both in the religious opinions and civil polity of states.

But the strongest proof of their remote antiquity is, that they have outlived the general knowledge of the very causes that gave rise to them.³

The reader will find, in the subsequent pages, my most earnest endeavours to rescue many of those causes from oblivion.⁴ If, on the investigation, they shall appear to any to be so frivolous as not to have deserved the pains of the search, the humble labourer will at least have the satisfaction of avoiding censure by incurring contempt. How trivial soever such an inquiry may seem to some, yet all must be informed that it is attended with no inconsiderable share of literary toil
and difficulty. A passage is to be forced through a wilderness, intricate and entangled: few vestiges of former labours can be found to direct us in our way, and we must oftentimes [p.ix] trace a very tedious retrospective course, perhaps to return at last, weary and unsatisfied, from researches as fruitless as those of some ancient enthusiastic traveller, who, ranging the barren African sands, had in vain attempted to investigate the hidden sources of the Nile.

Rugged, however, and narrow as this walk of study may seem to many, yet must it be acknowledged that Fancy, who shares with Hope the pleasing office of brightening a passage through every route of human endeavours, opens from hence, too, prospects that are enriched with the choicest beauties of her magic creation.

The prime origin of the superstitious notions and ceremonies of the people is absolutely unattainable. We must despair of ever being able to reach the fountain-head of streams which have been running and increasing from the beginning of time.⁵ All that we can aspire to do is only to trace their [p.x] courses backward, as far as possible, on those charts that now remain of the distant countries whence they were first perceived to flow.

Few who are desirous of investigating the popular notions and vulgar ceremonies of our own nation can fail of deducing them, in their first direction, from the time when Popery was our established religion.⁶ We shall not wonder that these were able to survive the Reformation, when we consider that, though our own sensible and spirited forefathers were, upon conviction, easily induced to forego religious tenets which had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, yet were the bulk of the people by no means inclined to annihilate the seemingly innocent ceremonies of their former superstitious [p.xi] faith. These, consecrated to the fancies of the multitude by a usage from time immemorial, though erased by public authority from the written word, were committed as a venerable deposit to the keeping of oral tradition; and like the penates of another Troy, recently destroyed, were religiously brought off, after having been snatched out of the smoking ruins of Popery.

It is not improbable, indeed, but that, in the infancy of Protestantism, the continuance of many of them was connived at by the state.⁷ For men, who "are but children of a larger growth," are not to be weaned all at once; and the reformation both of manners and religion is always most surely established when effected by slow degrees, and, as it were, imperceptible gradations.

Thus, also, at the first promulgation of Christianity to the Gentile nations, though the new converts yielded through the force of truth to conviction, yet they could not be persuaded to relinquish many of their superstitions, which, rather than forego altogether, they chose to blend and incorporate with their new faith.

And hence it is that Christian, or rather Papal, Rome has borrowed her rites, notions, and ceremonies, in the most luxuriant abundance, from ancient and Heathen Rome,⁸ and that much the greater number of those flaunting externals which Infallibility has adopted by way of feathers to adorn the triple Cap, have been stolen out of the wings of the dying Eagle.

With regard to the rites, sports, &c. of the common people, I am aware that the morose and bigoted part of mankind,⁹ [p.xii] without distinguishing between the right use and the abuse of such entertainments, cavil at and malign them: yet must such be told that shows and sports have been countenanced in all ages, and that too by the best and wisest of states; and though it cannot be denied that they have sometimes been prostituted to the purposes of riot and debauchery, yet, were we to reprobate everything that has been thus abused, religion itself could not be retained: perhaps, indeed, we should be able to keep nothing.

The common people, confined by daily labour, seem to require their proper intervals of relaxation; perhaps it is of the highest political utility to encourage innocent sports and games among them. The revival of many of these would, I think, be highly pertinent at this particular juncture, when the general spread of luxury and dissipation threatens more than at any preceding period to extinguish the character of our boasted national bravery. For the observation of an honest old writer, Stow (who tells us, speaking of the May games, Midsummer Eve rejoicings, &c.,¹⁰ anciently used in the streets of London, which open pastimes¹¹ in my youth [p.xiii] being now supprest, worse practices within doors are to be feared, may with too singular propriety be adopted on the most transient survey of our present popular manners.¹²

Bourne, my predecessor in this walk, has not, from whatever cause, done justice to the subject he undertook to treat of. Let it not be imputed to me that I am so vain as to think that I have exhausted it, for the utmost of my pretensions is to the merit of having endeavoured, by making additions and alterations, to methodise and improve it. I think it justice to add, too, that he was deserving of no small share of praise for his imperfect attempt, for "much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it."

New and very bright lights have appeared since his time. The English antique has become a general and fashionable study: and the discoveries of a chartered Society of Antiquaries, patronised by the best of monarchs, and boasting among its members some of the greatest ornaments of the British empire, have rendered the recesses both of Papal and Heathen Antiquities much easier of access.

I shall presume to flatter myself that I have, in some measure, turned all these circumstances to advantage. I have gleaned passages that seemed to throw light upon the subject, as my numberless citations will evince, from an immense variety of volumes, both printed and manuscript; and those written too in several languages: in the doing of which, if I shall not be found to have deserved the praise of judgment, I must at least make pretensions to the merit of industry.

Elegance of composition will hardly be expected in a work of this nature,¹³ which seems to stand much less in need of [p.xiv] Attic wit than of Roman perseverance, or, if we glance at modern times, of Dutch assiduity.

I shall offer many discoveries which are peculiarly my own, for there are not a few customs yet retained in the North, where I spent the earliest part of my life, of which I am persuaded the learned in the Southern parts of our island have hardly once heard mention, which is perhaps the sole cause why they have never before been investigated.

I have, once for all, to premise that, in perusing the subsequent observations, the candid reader, who has never before considered this neglected subject, is particularly requested not to be rash in passing sentence; but to suspend his judgment, at least till he has carefully examined all the evidence; by which caution let it not be understood that my determinations are in any degree thought to be infallible, or that every decision to be found in the following pages is not amenable to higher authorities: in the mean time prejudice may be forewarned, and it will apologise for many seemingly trivial reasons assigned for the beginning and transmitting of this or that popular notion or ceremony, to reflect that what may appear foolish to the enlightened understandings of men in the eighteenth century, wore a very different aspect when viewed through the gloom that prevailed in the seventh or eighth.

I should trespass on the patience of my reader were I to enumerate all the books I have consulted on this occasion: to which, however, I shall take care, in their proper places, to refer: but I own myself under particular obligations to Durand's Ritual of Divine Offices,¹⁴ a work inimical to every idea of rational worship, but to the inquirer into the origin of our popular ceremonies, an invaluable magazine of the most interesting intelligence. I would style this performance the great Ceremonial Law of the Romanists, in comparison [p.xv] with which the Mosaic code is barren of rites and ceremonies. We stand amazed, on perusing it, at the enormous weight of a new yoke, which Holy Church, fabricating with her own hands, had imposed on her ancient devotees.¹⁵

Yet the forgers of these shackles had artfully enough contrived to make them sit easy, by twisting flowers around them: dark as this picture, drawn by the pencil of gloomy Superstition, appeared upon the whole, yet was its deep shade in many places contrasted with pleasing lights.

The calendar was crowded with Red-letter days, nominally, indeed, consecrated to saints, but which, by the encouragement of idleness and dissipation of manners, gave every kind of countenance to sinners.

A profusion of childish rites, pageants, and ceremonies, diverted the attention of the people from the consideration of their real state, and kept them in humour, if it did not sometimes make them in love, with their slavish modes of worship.

To the credit of our sensible and manly forefathers, they were among the first who felt the weight of this new and unnecessary yoke, and had spirit enough to throw it off.

I have fortunately in my possession one of those ancient Roman calendars, of singular curiosity, which contains under the immoveable Feasts and Fasts (I regret much its silence on the moveable ones), a variety of brief observations, contributing not a little to the elucidation of many of our popular customs, and proving them to have been sent over from Rome, with Bulls, Indulgences, and other baubles, bartered, as it should seem, for our Peter-pence, by those who trafficked in spiritual merchandise from the continent.

These I shall carefully translate (though in some places it is extremely difficult to render the very barbarous Latin in which they are written, the barbarity, brevity, and obscurity of which I fear the critic will think I have transfused into my own English), and lay before my reader, who will at once see and acknowledge their utility.

A learned performance by a physician in the time of King James I, and dedicated to that monarch, is also luckily in my library: it is written in Latin, and entitled 'The Popedom, or [p.xvi] the Origin and Increase of Depravity in Religion,'¹⁶ containing a very masterly parallel between the rites, notions, &c., of Heathen, and those of Papal Rome.

The copious extracts from this work with which I shall adorn and enlighten the following pages will form their truest commendation, and supersede my poor encomiums.

When I call Gray to remembrance, the Poet of Humanity, who, had he left no other works behind him, would have transmitted his name to immortality by 'Reflections,' written among the little tombstones of the vulgar in a country churchyard, I am urged by no false shame to apologise for the seeming unimportance of my subject.

The antiquities of the common people cannot be studied without acquiring some useful knowledge of mankind; and it may be truly said, in this instance, that by the chemical process of philosophy, even wisdom may be extracted from the follies and superstitions of our forefathers.¹⁷

The People, of whom society is chiefly composed, and for whose good all superiority of rank, indispensably necessary, as it is in every government,¹⁸ is only a grant, made originally [p.xviii] by mutual concession, is a respectable subject to every one who is the friend of man.

Pride, which, independent of the idea arising from the necessity of civil polity, has portioned out the human genus into such a variety of different and subordinate species, must be compelled to own that the lowest of these derives itself from an origin common to it with the highest of the kind.

The well-known beautiful sentiment of Terence,

may be adopted, therefore, in this place, to persuade us that nothing can be foreign to our inquiry, much less beneath our notice, that concerns the smallest of the vulgar;¹⁹ of those little ones who occupy the lowest place, though by no means of the least importance, in the political arrangement of human beings.

New Year's Eve ...... 1
New Year's Day ...... 10
Twelfth Day ...... 21
St. Agnes's Day or Eve ...... 34
St. Vincent's Day ...... 38
St. Paul's Day ...... 39
Candlemas Day ...... 43
St. Blaze's Day ...... 51
Valentine's Day ...... 53
Collop or Shrove Monday ...... 62
Shrovetide, or Shrove Tuesday ...... 63
Throwing at Cocks ...... 72
Pancake Customs ...... 82
Ash Wednesday ...... 94
St. David's Day ...... 102
St. Patrick's Day ...... 108
Mid-Lent Sunday ...... 110
Palm Sunday ...... 118
All Fools' Day ...... 131
Shere Thursday, also Maunday Thursday ...... 142
Good Friday ...... 150
Easter Eve ...... 157
Easter Day ...... 161
Easter Eggs ...... 168
Easter Holidays ...... 176
Lifting on Easter Holidays ...... 181
Hoke Day ...... 184
St. George's Day ...... 192
St. Mark's Day or Eve ...... ib.
Rogation Week and Ascension Day or Holy Thursday ...... 197
May-day Customs ...... 212
Maypoles ...... .234
MORRIS-DANCERS ...... 247
Maid Marian ...... 253
Robin Hood ...... 258
Friar Tuck ...... 262
The Fool ...... 263
Scarlet, Stokesley, and Little John ...... 266
Tom the Piper ...... ib.
The Hobby-horse ...... 267
Low Sunday ...... 271
St. Urban's Day ...... 272
Royal Oak Day ...... 273
Whitsun Ale ...... 276
The Boy's Bailiff ...... 284
Trinity, or Trinity Sunday, Even ...... ib.
Coventry Show Fair ...... 286
Eve of Thursday after Trinity Sunday ...... 293
St. Barnabas' Day ...... ib.
Corpus Christi Day, and Plays ...... 294
St. Vitus's Day ...... 297
Midsummer Eve ...... 298
St. Peter's Day ...... 337

Processus and Martinian ...... 338
Translation of St. Thomas ...... 339
St. Ulric ...... ib.
Translation of Martin ...... ib.
St. Swithin's Day ...... 340
St. Kenelm's Day ...... 342
St. Margaret's Day ...... 345
St. Bridget ...... ib.
St. James's Day ...... 346
Mace Monday ...... 347
Gule of August, commonly called Lammas Day ...... ib.
St. Sixtus ...... 349
Assumption of the Virgin Mary ...... ib.
St. Roch's Day ...... 350
St. Bartholomew's Day ...... 351
Holyrood Day ...... ib.
Michaelmas ...... 353
All the Holy Angels ...... 356
Michaelmas Goose ...... 367
St. Michael's Cake or Bannock ...... 372
St. Faith, Virgin and Martyr ...... 373
St. Ethelburgh's Day ...... 374
St. Luke's Day ...... ib.
St. Simon and St. Judo's Day ...... 375
Allhallow Even ...... 377
The Fifth of November ...... 397
Martinmas ...... 399
Queen Elizabeth's Accession ...... 404
St. Clement's Day ...... 408
St. Catharine's Day ...... 410
Stir-up Sunday ...... 414
St. Andrew's Day ...... ib.
St. Nicholas's Day ...... 415
On the Montem at Eton ...... 432
Barring Out ...... 441
Going a Gooding at St. Thomas's Day ...... 455
Hagmena ...... 457
Mumming ...... 461
Of the Yule Clog, or Block, burnt on Christmas Eve ...... 467
Going a Hodening ...... 474
Of the word Yule, formerly used to signify Christmas ...... ib.
Christmas Carol ...... 480
Hobby-horse at Christmas ...... 492
Christmas-box ...... 493
Lord of Misrule ...... 497
Fool Plough and Sword Dance ...... 505
Decking Churches, Houses, &c., with Evergreens at Christmas ...... 519
Yule Doughs, Mince Pies, and Plum Porridge ...... 526
St. Stephen's Day ...... 532
St. John the Evangelist ...... 534
Childermas, or Holy Innocents' Day ...... 535
The Quaaltagh ...... 538

Enter Wassel, like a neat sempster and songster, her page bearing a brown bowl, drest with ribbons and rosemary, before her.—BEN JONSON.

THERE was an ancient custom, which is yet retained in many places, on New Year's Eve : young women went about with a Wassail Bowl of spiced ale, with some sort of verses that were sung by them as they went from door to door. "Wassail is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Wses hael, Be in health. It were unnecessary to add, that they accepted little presents on the occasion, from the houses at which they stopped to pay this annual congratulation." The Wassail Bowl," says Warton, "is Shakspeare's Gossip's Bowl, in the Midsummer Night's Dream. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples. It was also called Lamb's Wool." (Warton's ed. of Milton's Poems, Lond. 1785, 8vo, p. 51, note. See also the Beggar's Bush, act iv. sc. 4, and the following in Polwhele's Old English Gent., p. 117,

It appears from Thomas de la Moore's Life of Edward II. that Was-haile and Drinc-heil were the usual ancient phrases of quaffing among the English, and synonymous with the " Come, here's to you," and " I'll pledge you," of the present day.²⁰ [These pledge-words were frequently varied in olden time. In the tale of King Edward and the Shepherd, MS. Cantab. Ff. v. 48, one says, Passilodion, and the other, Berafrynde; a strange kind of humour, the amusement of which is difficult to be comprehended, though "I warrant it proved an excuse for the glass." In this tale the king says,

But the best explanation of Wassail is that given by Robert de Brunne, in the following passage:

This explanation is stated to have been given on Vortigern's first interview with Rowena, or Ronix, the daughter of Hengist, the latter kneeling before him, and presenting a cup of wine, made use of the term. Vortigern, not comprehending the words of Rowena, demanded their meaning from one of the Britons. A fragment, preserved by Hearne, carries the origin of the term to a much earlier period.

The learned Selden, in his Table Talk (article Pope), gives a good description of it: "The pope," says he, "in sending relicks to princes, does as wenches do to their Wassels at New Year's tide they present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff, but the meaning is, you must give them money, ten times more than it is worth." The following is a note of the same learned writer on the Polyolbion, song 9: "I see," says he, "a custome in some parts among us: I mean the yearly Was-haile in the country on the vigil of the new yeare, which I conjecture was a usuall ceremony among the Saxons before Hengist, as a note of health-wishing (and so perhaps you might make it Wish-heil), which was exprest among other nations in that form of drinking to the health of their mistresses and friends. 'Bene vos, bene vos, bene te, bene me, bene nostram etiam Stephanium,' in Plautus, and infinite other testimonies of that nature, in him, Martial, Ovid, Horace, and such more, agreeing nearly with the fashion now used : we calling it a health, as they did also, in direct terms; which, with an idol called Heil, antiently worshipped at Cerne in Dorsetshire, by the English Saxons, in name expresses both the ceremony of drinking and the new yeare's acclamation, whereto, in some parts of this kingdom, is joyned also solemnity of drinking out of a cup, ritually composed, deckt, and filled with country liquor."

In Herrick's Hesperides, p. 146, we read,

In the Antiquarian Repertory (i. 218, ed. 1775) is a woodcut of a large oak beam, the antient support of a chimney-piece, on which is carved a large bowl, with this inscription on one side, [Wass-heil. and on the other Drinc-heile. The bowl rests on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, perhaps, to part of the materials of which the liquor was composed.] The ingenious remarker on this representation observes, that it is the figure of the old Wassel Bowl, so much the delight of our [p.4] hardy ancestors, who, on the vigil of the New Year, never failed to assemble round the glowing hearth with their cheerful neighbours, and then in the spicy Wassel Bowl (which testified the goodness of their hearts) drowned every former animosity an example worthy modern imitation. Wassel was the word, Wassel every guest returned as he took the circling goblet from his friend, whilst song and civil mirth brought in the infant year.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (liv. May, 1784, p. 347) tells us, that "The drinking the Wassail Bowl or Cup was, in all probability, owing to keeping Christmas in the same manner they had before the feast of Yule. There was nothing the Northern nations so much delighted in as carousing ale, especially at this season, when fighting was over. It was likewise the custom, at all their feasts, for the master of the house to fill a large bowl or pitcher, and drink out of it first himself, and then give it to him that sat next, and so it went round. One custom more should be remembered; and this is, that it was usual some years ago, in Christmas time, for the poorer people to go from door to door with a Wassail Cup, adorned with ribbons, and a golden apple at the top, singing and begging money for it; the original of which was, that they also might procure lamb's wool to fill it, and regale themselves as well as the rich."²¹

[The following doggrel lines were communicated by a clergyman in Worcestershire, but the occasion and use of them appear to be unknown, and it is not unlikely some corruption has crept into them:

In Ritson's Antient Songs, 1790, p. 304, is given "A Carrol for a Wassell Bowl, to be sung upon Twelfth Day, at night, to the tune of 'Gallants come away,' from a collection of New Christmas Carols; being fit also to be sung at Easter, Whitsuntide, and other Festival Days in the year." No date, 12mo, b. l., in the curious study of that celebrated antiquary, Anthony à Wood, in the Ashmolean Museum.

Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook, in Leicestershire, 1791, p. 131, observes: "Old John Payne and his wife, natives of this parish, are well known from having perambulated the hundred of Guthlaxton many years, during the season of Christmas, with a fine gewgaw which they call a Wassail, and which they exhibit from house to house, with the accompaniment of a duet. I apprehend that the practice of wassailing will die with this aged pair. We are by no means so tenacious of old usages and diversions in this country, as they are in many other parts of the world."

In the Collection of Ordinances for the Royal Household, 4to, 1790, p. 121, we have some account of the ceremony of Wasselling, as it was practised at Court, on Twelfth Night, in the reign of Henry VII. From these we learn, that the [p.7] ancient custom of pledging each other out of the same cup had now given place to the more elegant practice of each person having his cup, and that, "When the steward came in at the doore with the Wassel, he was to crie three tymes, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel; and then the chappell (the chaplain) was to answere with a songe." Under "Twelfth Day," an account will be found of the wassailing ceremonies peculiar to that season. At these times the fare, in other respects, was better than usual, and, in particular, a finer kind of bread was provided, which was, on that account, called Wassel-bread. Lowth, in his Life of William of Wykeham, derives this name from the Westellum or Vessel in which he supposes the bread to have been made. See Milner, ut supra, p. 421. [The earliest instance in which mention is made of Wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry III., whence it appears to have been fine white bread, well baked. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 918.] The subsequent Wassailers' song, on New Year's Eve, as still sung in Gloucestershire, was communicated by Samuel Lysons, Esq. [and has since been given in Dixon's Ancient Poems, 8vo. 1846, p. 199.] The Wassailers bring with them a great bowl, dressed up with garlands and ribbons.

Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, i. 570, speaking of the parish of Muncaster, under the head of "Ancient Custom," informs us: "On the eve of the New Year the children go from house to house, singing a ditty which craves the bounty 'they were wont to have in old King Edward's days.' There is no tradition whence this custom rose; the donation is twopence, or a pye at every house. We have to lament that so negligent are the people of the morals of youth, that great part of this annual salutation is obscene, and offensive to chaste ears. It certainly has been derived from the vile orgies of heathens."

SINGEN-EEN, Dr. Jamieson tells us, is the appellation given in the county of Fife to the last night of the year. The designation seems to have originated from the Carols sung on this evening. He adds, "Some of the vulgar believe that the bees may be heard to sing in their hives on Christmas Eve."

Dr. Johnson tells us, in his Journey to the Western Islands, that a gentleman informed him of an odd game. At New Year's Eve, in the hall or castle of the Laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be supposed a very numerous company, one man dresses himself in a cow's hide, upon which other men beat with sticks. He runs with all this noise round the house, which all the company quits in a counterfeited fright; the door is then shut. At New Year's Eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the Hebrides. They are sure soon to recover from their terror enough to solicit for readmission: which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are knowing and provident take care to be furnished. The learned traveller tells us that they who played at this odd game gave no account of the origin of it, and that he described it as it might perhaps be used in other places, where the reason of it is not yet forgotten. It is probably a vestige of the Festival of Fools. The "vestiuntur pellibus Pecudum" of Du Cange, and "a man's dressing himself in a cow's hide," both, too, on the 1st of January, are such circumstances as leave no [p.9] room for doubt, but that, allowing for the mutilations of time, they are one and the same custom.

[It was formerly the custom in Orkney for large bands of the common class of people to assemble on this eve, and pay a round of visits, singing a song, which commenced as follows:

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1794, xii. 458, the minister of Kirkmichael, in the county of Banff, under the head of Superstitions, &c., says: "On the first night of January, they observe, with anxious attention, the disposition of the atmosphere. As it is calm or boisterous; as the wind blows from the south or the north from the east or the west, they prognosticate the nature of the weather till the conclusion of the year. The first night of the new year, when the wind blows from the west, they call dar-na-coille, the night of the fecundation of the trees; and from this circumstance has been derived the name of that night in the Gaelic language. Their faith in the above signs is couched in verses, thus translated: "The wind of the south will be productive of heat and fertility; the wind of the west, of milk and fish ; the wind from the north, of cold and storm ; the wind from the east, of fruit on the trees."

In the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, printed by Richard Pynson, in 1493, among the superstitions then in use at the beginning of the year, the following is mentioned: "Alle that take hede to dysmal dayes, or use nyce observaunces in the newe moone, or in the new yere, as setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Alholde or Gobelyn" [APPLE-HOWLING. A custom in some counties, on New Year's Eve, of wassailing the orchards, alluded to by Herrick, and not forgotten in Sussex, Devon, and elsewhere. A troop of boys visit the different orchards, and, encircling the apple- trees, they repeat the following words:

They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on the cow's-horn. During this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks.

The following indications from the wind, on New Year's Eve, are said to be still observed and believed in the highlands of Scotland:

As the vulgar, says Bourne, are always very careful to end the old year well, so they are no less solicitous of making a good beginning of the new one. The old one is ended with a hearty compotation. The new one is opened with the custom of sending presents, which are termed New Year's Gifts, to friends and acquaintance. He resolves both customs into superstitions, as being observed that the succeeding year ought to be prosperous and successful. I find the New Year's Gift thus described in a poem cited in Poole's English Parnassus, in v. January:

From the subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Satires, 1598, it should seem that the usual New Year's Gift of tenantry in the country to their landlords was a capon.

An orange, stuck with cloves, appears to have been a New Year's Gift. So, Ben Jonson, in his Christmas Masque: "He has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it." A gilt nutmeg is mentioned in the same piece, and on the same occasion. The use, however, of the orange, stuck with cloves, may be ascertained from the Seconde Booke of Notable Things, by Thomas Lupton, "Wyne wyll be pleasant in taste and savour, if an orenge or a lymon (stickt round about with cloaves) be hanged within the vessel that it touch not the wyae: and so the wyne wyll be preserved from foystiness and evyll savor." Reed's edition of Shakspeare, Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. The quarto edition of that play, 1598, reads, "A gift nutmeg."

In a volume of Miscellanies, in the British Museum library, without title, printed in Queen Anne's time, p. 65, among "Merry Observations upon every month and every remarkable day throughout the whole year," under January it is said, "On the first day of this month will be given many [p.12] more gifts than will be kindly received or gratefully rewarded. Children, to their inexpressible joy, will be drest in their best bibs and aprons, and may be seen handed along streets, some bearing Kentish pippins, others oranges stuck with cloves, in order to crave a blessing of their godfathers and godmothers."

In Stephens's Characters, 8vo, Lond. 1631, p. 283, " Like an inscription with a fat goose against New Year's Tide."

Bishop Stillingfleet observes, that among the Saxons of the northern nations the Feast of the New Year was observed with more than ordinary jollity: thence, as Olaus Wormius and Scheffer observe, they reckon their age by so many Iolas:²⁴ and Snorro Sturleson describes this New Year's Feast, just as Buchanan sets out the British Saturnalia, by feasting and sending presents or New Year's gifts to one another.²⁵

In Westmoreland and Cumberland, "early on the morning of the 1st of January, the Fæx Populi assemble together, carrying stangs and baskets. Any inhabitant, stranger, or whoever joins not this ruffian tribe in sacrificing to their favourite saint-day, if unfortunate enough to be met by any of the band, is immediately mounted across the stang (if a woman, she is basketed), and carried shoulder height to the nearest public-house, where the payment of sixpence immediately liberates the prisoner. None, though ever so industriously inclined, are permitted to follow their respective avocations on that day." Gent. Mag. 1791, p. 1169.²⁶

The poet Naogeorgus is cited by Hospinian, as telling us, that it was usual in his time, for friends to present each other with a New Year's Gift; for the husband to give one to his wife; parents to their children; and masters to their ser- [p.13] vants, &c.; a custom derived to the Christian world from the times of Gentilism. The superstition condemned in this by the ancient fathers, lay in the idea of these gifts being considered as omens of success for the ensuing year. In this sense also, and in this sense alone, could they have censured the benevolent compliment of wishing each other a happy New Year. The latter has been adopted by the modern Jews, who, on the first day of the month Tisri, have a splendid entertainment, and wish each other a happy New Year. Hospinian also informs us that at Rome, on New Year's Day, no one would suffer a neighbour to take fire out of his house, or anything composed of iron; neither could he be prevailed upon to lend any article on that day.

The following is Barnabe Googe's translation of what relates to New Year's Day in Naogeorgus, better known by the name of "The Popish Kingdom," 1570.

Pennant tells us that the Highlanders, on New Year's Day, burn juniper before their cattle; and on the first Monday in every quarter sprinkle them with urine. Christie, in his "Inquiry into the ancient Greek Game, supposed to have been invented by Palamedes," 1801, p. 136, says, "The new year of the Persians was opened with agricultural ceremonies (as is also the case with the Chinese at the present day)."

The Festival of Fools at Paris, held on this day, continued for two hundred and forty years, when every kind of absurdity and indecency was committed.²⁷

1

14

"At this instant," says Brand, "a little before twelve o'clock, on New Year's Eve, 1794, the bells in London are ringing in the New Year, as they call it." The custom is still continued.

In Scotland, upon the last day of the old year, the children go about from door to door asking for bread and cheese, which they call Nog-Money, in these words:

" Get up, gude wife, and binno sweir (i. e. be not lazy)
And deal your cakes and cheese while you are here ;
For the time will come when ye'll be dead,
And neither need your cheese nor bread."

It appears, from several passages in Nichols's Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, that it was anciently a custom at court, at this season, both for the sovereigns to receive and give New Year's Gifts. In the preface, p. 28, we read, " The only remains of this custom at court now is, that the two chaplains in waiting, on New Year's Day, have each a crown piece laid under their plates at dinner." [According to Nichols, the greatest part if not all of the peers and peeresses of the realm, all the bishops, the chief officers of state, and several of the Queen's household servants, even down to her apothecaries, master cooks, Serjeant of the pastry, &c., gave New Year's Gifts to Her Majesty, consisting, in general, either of a sum of money, or jewels, trinkets, wearing apparel, &c.

In the Banquet of Jests, 1634, is a story of Archee, the king's jester, who, having fooled many, was at length fooled himself. Coming to a nobleman's upon New Year's Day, to bid him good morrow, Archee received twenty pieces of gold, but, covetously desiring more, he shook them in his hand, and said they were too light. The donor answered, "I prithee, Archee, let me see them again, for there is one amongst them I would be loth to part with." Archee, expecting the sum to be [p.15] increased, returned the pieces to his lordship, who put them into his pocket with the remark, "I once gave money into a fool's hands who had not the wit to keep it."²⁸]

Dr. Moresin tells us that in Scotland it was in his time the custom to send New Year's Gifts on New Year's Eve, but that on New Year's Day they wished each other a happy day, and asked a New Year's Gift. I believe it is still usual in Northumberland for persons to ask for a New Year's Gift on that day.

[On New Year's Day they have a superstition in Lincoln and its neighbourhood, that it is unlucky to take anything out of the house before they have brought something in: hence you will see, on the morning of that day, the individual members of a family taking a small piece of coal, or any inconsiderable thing in fact, into the house, for the purpose of preventing the misfortunes which would otherwise attach to them; and the rustics have a rhyme in which this belief is expressed:

It appears from a curious MS. in the British Museum, of the date of 1560, that the boys of Eton school used, on the day of the Circumcision, at that time, to play for little New Year's Gifts before and after supper; and that the boys had a custom that day, for good luck's sake, of making verses, and sending them to the provost, masters, &c., as also of presenting them to each other.²⁹

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, speaking of "a Timist," says, that "his New Yeare's Gifts are ready at Alhalomas, and the sute he meant to meditate before them."³⁰

The title-page of a most rare tract in my library, entitled "Motives grounded upon the word of God, and upon honour, profit, and pleasure, for the present founding an University in the Metropolis, London; with Answers to such Objections as might be made by any (in their incogitancy) against the same," 1647, runs thus: "Humbly presented (instead of heathenish and superstitious New Yeare's Gifts) to the Eight Honourable the Lord Mayor, the right worshipfull the Aldermen, his brethren, and to those faithful and prudent citizens which were lately chosen by the said city to be of the Common Counsell thereof for this yeare insueng, viz. 1647; by a true Lover of his Nation, and especially of the said city."

In another rare tract, of an earlier date, entitled "Vox Graculi," 4to, 1623, p. 49, is the following, under "January:"

"The first day of January being raw, colde, and comfortlesse to such as have lost their money at dice at one of the Temples over night, strange apparitions are like to be scene: Marchpanes marching betwixt Leaden-hall and the little Conduit in Cheape, in such aboundance that an hundred good [p.17] fellows may sooner starve than catch a corner or a comfit to sweeten their mouthes.

"It is also to be feared that through frailty, if a slip be made on the messenger's default that carries them, for non-delivery at the place appointed ; that unlesse the said messenger be not the more inward with his mistris, his master will give him ribrost for his New Yeare's Gift the next morning.

"This day shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for, and apples, egges, and oranges, shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a pome-water, bestucke with a few rotten cloves, shall be more worth than the honesty of an hypocrite; and halfe a dozen of egges of more estimation than the vowes of a strumpet. Poets this day shall get mightily by their pamphlets; for an hundred of elaborate lines shall be lesse esteemed in London, than an hundred of Walfleet oysters at Cambridge."

In the Monthly Miscellany for December, 1692, there is an Essay on New Year's Gifts, which states, that the Romans were "great observers of the custom of New Year's Gifts, even when their year consisted only of ten months, of thirty-six days each, and began in March; also, when January and February were added by Numa to the ten others, the calends or first of January were the time on which they made presents; and even Romulus and Tatius made an order that every year vervine should be offered to them with other gifts, as tokens of good fortune for the New Year. Tacitus makes mention of an order of Tiberius, forbidding the giving or demanding of New Year's Gifts, unless it were on the calends of January; at which time as well the senators as the knights and other great men brought gifts to the emperor, and, in his absence, to the Capitol. The ancient Druids, with great ceremonies, used to scrape off from the outside of oaks the misleden, which they consecrated to their great Tutates, and then distributed it to the people through the Gauls, on account of the great virtues which they attributed to it; from whence New Year's Gifts are still called in some parts of France, Guy-Van-neuf. Our English nobility, every New Year's tide, still send to the King a purse with gold in it. Reason may be joined to custom to justify the practice; for, as passages are drawn from the first things which are met on the beginning of a day, week, or year, none can be more pleasing than of those things that are given [p.18] us. We rejoice with our friends after having escaped the dangers that attend every year, and congratulate each other for the future by presents and wishes for the happy continuance of that course which the ancients called Strenarum Commercium. And as, formerly, men used to renew their hospitalities by presents, called Xenia, a name proper enough for our New Year's Gifts, they may be said to serve to renew friendship, which is one of the greatest gifts imparted by Heaven to men: and they who have always assigned some day to those things which they thought good, have also judged it proper to solemnize the Festival of Gifts, and, to show how much they esteemed it, in token of happiness, made it begin the year. The value of the thing given, or, if it is a thing of small worth, its novelty, or the excellency of the work, and the place where it is given, makes it the more acceptable, but above all, the time of giving it, which makes some presents pass for a mark of civility on the beginning of the year, that would appear unsuitable in another season."

Prynne, in his Histrio-Mastix, p. 755, has the following most severe invective against the Rites of New Years Day.

"If we now parallel our grand disorderly Christmasses with these Roman Saturnals and heathen festivals, or our New Yeare's Day (a chiefe part of Christmas) with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in mummeries, stageplayes, dancing, and such like enterludes, wherein fidlers and others acted lascivious effeminate parts, and went about their towns and cities in women's apparel; whence the whole Catholicke Church (as Alchuvinus with others write) appointed a solemn publike faste upon this our New Yeare's Day (which fast it seems is now forgotten), to bewaile those heathenish enterludes, sports, and lewd idolatrous practices which had been used on it: prohibiting all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from observing the calends, or first of January (which wee now call New Yeare's Day), as holy, and from sending abroad New Yeare's Gifts upon it (a custome now too frequent), it being a meere relique of paganisme and idolatry, derived from the heathen Romans' feast of two-faced Janus, and a practise so execrable unto Christians, that not onely the whole Catholicke Church, but even the four famous Councels of," &c. (here he makes a great parade of authorities) "have positively prohibited the solemnization of New Yeare's Day, and the sending [p.19] abroad of New Yeare's Gifts, under an anathema and excommunication."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vii. 488, Parishes of Cross, Burness, &c. county of Orkney, New Year's Gifts occur, under the title of "Christmas Presents," and as given to servant-maids by their masters. In the same work, p. 489, we read, "There is a large stone, about nine or ten feet high, and four broad, placed upright in a plain, in the Isle of North Ronaldshay; but no tradition is preserved concerning it, whether erected in memory of any signal event, or for the purpose of administering justice, or for religious worship. The writer of this (the parish priest) has seen fifty of the inhabitants assembled there, on the first day of the year, and dancing with moonlight, with no other music than their own singing." And again, in the same publication, 1795, xv. 201, the minister of Tillicoultry, in the county of Clackmannan, under the head of Diseases, says, "It is worth mentioning that one William Hunter, a collier, was cured in the year 1758 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm or yest. The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of Handsel Monday, as it is called, (i.e. the first Monday of the New Year, O.S.), some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale as it passed round the company, and, in the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was, that he had the use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint." And again, in vol. v. p. 66, the minister of Moulin, in Perthshire, informs us, that "beside the stated fees, the master (of the parochial school there) receives some small gratuity, generally two-pence or three-pence, from each scholar, on Handsel Monday or Shrove-Tuesday."

Upon the Circumcision, or New Year's Day, the early Christians ran about masked, in imitation of the superstitions of the Gentiles. Against this practice Saint Maximus and Peter Chrysologus declaimed; whence in some of the very ancient missals we find written in the Mass for this day, [p.20] "Missa ad prohibendum ab Idolis." See Maeri Hiero-Lexicon, p. 156.

[It is a saying still heard in the North of England,

According to the Shepherd's Kalender, 1709, p. 16, "if New Year's Day in the morning open with duskey red clouds, it denotes strifes and debates among great ones, and many robberies to happen that year."

Opening the Bible on this day is a superstitious practice still in common use in some parts of the country, and much credit is attached to it. It is usually set about with some little solemnity on the morning before breakfast, as the ceremony must be performed fasting. The Bible is laid on the table unopened, and the parties who wish to consult it are then to open it in succession. They are not at liberty to choose any particular part of the book, but must open it at random. Wherever this may happen to be, the inquirer is to place his finger on any chapter contained in the two open pages, but without any previous perusal or examination. The chapter is then read aloud, and commented upon by the people assembled. It is believed that the good or ill fortune, the happiness or misery of the consulting party, during the ensuing year, will be in some way or other described and foreshown by the contents of the chapter.

Never allow any to take a light out of your house on New Year's Day; a death in the household, before the expiration of the year, is sure to occur if it be allowed.

If a female is your first visitant, and be permitted to enter your house on the morning of New Year's Day, it portendeth ill-luck for the whole year.

Never throw any ashes, or dirty water, or any article, however worthless, out of your house on this day. It betokens ill-luck; but you may bring in as many honestly gotten goods as you can procure.]

THIS day, which is well known to be called the Twelfth from its being the twelfth in number from the Nativity, is called also the Feast of the Epiphany, from a Greek word signifying manifestation, our Lord having been on that day made manifest to the Gentiles. This, as Bourne observes, is one of the greatest of the twelve, and of more jovial observation for the visiting of friends, and Christmas gambols. "With some," according to this author, "Christmas ends with the twelve days, but with the generality of the vulgar, not till Candlemas." Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, p. 286, speaking of "Orders for Government Gray's Inne," cites an order of 4 Car. I. (Nov. 17), that "all playing at dice, cards or otherwise, in the hall, buttry, or butler's chamber, should be thenceforth barred and forbidden at all times of the year, the twenty days in Christmas only excepted." The following extract from Collier's Ecclesiastical History, i. 163, seems to account in a satisfactory manner for the name of Twelfth Day. "In the days of King Alfred a law was made with relation to holidays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were made Festivals."

From the subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Satires, 1598, p. 67, the whole twelve days appear to have been dedicated to feasting and jollity:

The customs of this day vary in different countries, yet agree in the same end, that is to do honour to the Eastern Magi, who are supposed to have been of royal dignity. In France, while that country had a court and king, one of the courtiers was chosen king, and the other nobles attended on this day at an entertainment. "Of these Magi, or Sages (vulgarly called the three Kings of Colen), the first, named, Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, offered gold; the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered frankincense; the [p.22] third, Balthasar, a black or Moor, with a large spreading beard, offered myrrh, according to this distich

The dedication of The Bee-hive of the Romish Church concludes thus: "Datum in our Musseo the 5th of January, being the even of the three Kings of Collen, at which time all good Catholiks make merry and crie 'The King drinkes.' In anno 1569. Isaac Rabbolence, of Loven." Selden, in his Table Talk, p. 20, says, "Our chusing Kings and Queens on Twelfth Night has reference to the three Kings."

[According to Blount, the inhabitants of Staffordshire made a fire on the eve of Twelfth Day, "in memory of the blazing-star that conducted the three Magi to the manger at Bethlem." See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 184.]

At the end of the year 1792, the Council-general of the Commons at Paris passed an arrêt, in consequence of which "La Fete de Rois" (Twelfth Day) was thenceforth to be called "La Fête de Sans-Culottes." It was called an anti-civic feast, which made every priest that kept it a Royalist.

There is a very curious account in Le Roux, Dictionnaire Cornique, tome ii. p. 431, of the French ceremony of the "Roi de la Feve," which explains Jordaens' fine picture of "Le Roi boit." See an account of this custom in Busalde de Verville, Palais des Curieux, edit. 1612, p. 90, and also Pasquier, Recherches de la France, p. 375. Among the Cries of Paris, a poem composed by Guillaume de Villeneuve in the thirteenth century, printed at the end of Barbasan's Ordene de Chevalerie, Beans for Twelfth Day are mentioned, "Gastel a feve orrois crier."

To the account given by Le Roux of the French way of choosing King and Queen, may be added that in Normandy they place a child under the table, which is covered in such a manner with the cloth that he cannot see what is doing; and when the cake is divided, one of the company taking up the first piece, cries out, "Fabe Domini pour qui?" The child answers, "Pour le bon Dieu:" and in this manner the pieces are allotted to the company. If the bean be found in piece for the "bon Dieu," the king is chosen by drawing [p.23] long or short straws. Whoever gets the bean chooses the King or Queen, according as it happens to be a man or woman. Sir Thomas Urquhart, of Cromarty, in his curious work, entitled The Discovery of a most exquisite jewel, found in the kennel of Worcester streets, the day after the fight, 1651, says, p. 237, "Verily, I think they make use of Kings as the French on the Epiphany-day use their Roy de la fehve, or King of the Bean; whom after they have honoured with drinking of his health, and shouting aloud, 'Le Roy boit, Le Roy boit,' they make pay for all the reckoning; not leaving him sometimes one peny, rather than the exorbitancie of their debosh should not be satisfied to the full." In a curious book, entitled A World of Wonders, fol. Lond. 1607, we read, p. 189, of a Curate, "who having taken his preparations over evening, when all men cry (as the manner is) the King drinketh, chanting his Masse the next morning, fell asleep in his memento: and when he awoke, added with a loud voice, the King drinketh."

In Germany they observed nearly the same rites in cities and academies, where the students and citizens chose one of their own number for king, providing a most magnificent banquet on the occasion.

The choosing of a person king or queen by a bean found in a piece of a divided cake, was formerly a common Christmas gambol in both the English universities.³² Thomas Randolph, in a curious letter to Dudley, Lord Leicester, dated Edin. 15 Jan. 1563, mentions Lady Flemyng being "Queene of the Bene" on Twelfth Day. Pinkerton's Ancient Scot. Poems, ii. 431.

When the King of Spain told the Count Olivarez, that John, Duke of Braganza, had obtained the kingdom of Portugal, he slighted it, saying that he was but Rey de Havas, a bean-cake King (a King made by children on Twelfth Night). Seward's Anecdotes, iii. 317.

The bean appears to have made part of the ceremony on [p.24] choosing king and queen in England; thus, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, the character of Baby-Cake is attended by "an usher bearing a great cake with a bean and a pease."

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 34, tells us, in a note, "On Twelfth Day they divide the cake, alias choose King and Queen, and the King treats the rest of the company."

Anstis, in his Collections relative to the Court of Chivalry, among the Addit. MSS. in the British Museum, i. 93, says, "The practisers of the Parliaments or Courts of Justice in France chose a governor among them, whom they styled Roy de Basoche, which calls to remembrance the custom observed in our Inns of Court, of electing a king on Christmas Day, who assumed the name of some fancied kingdom, and had officers with splendid titles to attend on him. Answerable hereto some of our colleges in Oxford did, from the time of their first foundation, annually choose a Lord at Christmas, styled in their registers Rex Fabarum, and Rex regni Fabarum, which was continued down to the Reformation of Religion, and probably had that appellation because he might be appointed by lot, wherein beans were used, as the Roy de la Febue on the feast of the Three Kings, or Twelfth Day, was the person who had that part of the cake wherein the bean was placed."

In the ancient calendar of the Romish church I find an observation on the fifth day of January, the eve or vigil of the Epiphany, "Kings created or elected by beans." The sixth is called "The Festival of Kings," with this additional remark, "that this ceremony of electing kings was continued with feasting for many days." There was a custom similar to this on the festive days of Saturn among the Romans, Grecians, &c. Persons of the same rank drew lots for kingdoms, and, like kings, exercised their temporary authority. (Alex, ab Alexandro, b. ii. ch. 22.)

The learned Moresin observes, that our ceremony of choosing a king on the Epiphany, or feast of the Three Kings, is practised about the same time of the year; and that he is called the Bean King, from the lot. This custom is practised nowhere that I know of at present in the north of England, though still very prevalent in the south. I find the following description of it in the Universal Magazine, 1774.

After tea a cake is produced, and two bowls, containing the fortunate chances for the different sexes. The host fills up the tickets, and the whole company, except the king and queen, are to be ministers of state, maids of honour, or ladies of the bedchamber. Often, the host and hostess, more by design perhaps than accident, become king and queen. According to Twelfth-day law, each party is to support his character till midnight.³³

In Ireland "On Twelve-Eve in Christmas, they use to set up as high as they can a sieve of oats, and in it a dozen of candles set round, and in the centre one larger, all lighted. This in memory of our Saviour and his Apostles, lights of the world." Sir Henry Piers's Description of the County of Westmeath, 1682, in Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, vol. i. No. 1, p. 124.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxiv. Dec. 1764, p. 599, thinks the practice of choosing king and queen on Twelfth Night owes it origin to the custom among the [p.26] Romans, which they took from the Grecians, of casting dice who should be the Rex Convivii: or, as Horace calls him, the Arbiter Bibendi. Whoever threw the lucky cast, which they termed Venus or Basilicus, gave laws for the night. In the same manner the lucky clown, who out of the several divisions of a plum-cake draws the king, thereby becomes sovereign of the company; and the poor clodpole, to whose lot the knave falls, is as unfortunate as the Roman, whose hard fate it was to throw the damnosum Caniculum.

It appears that the twelfth cake was made formerly full of plums, and with a bean and a pea: whoever got the former, was to be king ; whoever found the latter, was to be queen. Thus in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 376:

So also in Nichols's Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, "Speeches to the Queen at Sudley," ii. 8,

In the Popish Kingdome, Barnabe Googe's Translation, or rather Adaptation of Naogeorgus, f. 45, we have the following lines on "Twelfe Day:"

In Gloucestershire there is a custom on Twelfth Day of having twelve small fires made, and one large one, in many parishes in that county, in honour of the day. In the Southams of Devonshire, on the eve of the Epiphany, the farmer, attended by his workmen, with a large pitcher of cider, goes [p.29] to the orchard, and there encircling one of the best bearing trees, they drink the following toast three several times:

This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are inexorable to all intreaties to open them till some one has guessed at what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the lucky clodpole receives the tit-bit as his recompense. Some are so superstitious as to believe, that if they neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples that year. See Gent. Mag. 1791, p. 403.

On the eve of Twelfth Day, as a Cornish man informed me on the edge of St. Stephen's Down, October 28, 1790, it is the custom for the Devonshire people to go after supper into the orchard, with a large milk-pan full of cider, having roasted apples pressed into it. Out of this each person in company takes what is called a clayen cup, i.e. an earthenware cup full of liquor, and standing under each of the more fruitful apple-trees, passing by those that are not good bearers, he addresses it in the following words:

And then drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest, with the fragments of the roasted apples, at the tree. At each cup the company set up a shout.

So we read in the Glossary to the Exmoor dialect:

[The following lines were obtained from this district, and probably form another version of the song above given,

This seems to have been done in some places upon Christmas Eve; for in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 311, I find the following among the Christmas Eve ceremonies:

The same is done in Herefordshire, under the name of Wassailing, as follows: At the approach of the evening on the vigil of the Twelfth Day, the farmers, with their friends and servants, meet together, and about six o'clock walk out to a field where wheat is growing. In the highest part of the ground, twelve small fires, and one large one, are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the master of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which circulates freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the large fire, when a general shout and hallooing takes place, which you hear answered from all the adjacent villages and fields. Sometimes fifty or sixty of these fires may be all seen at once. This being finished, the company return home, where the good housewife and her maids are preparing a good supper. A large cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper, the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the wain-house, where the following particulars are observed: The master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally of strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen. He then pledges him in a curious toast: the company follow his example, with all the other oxen, and addressing each by his name. This being finished, the large cake is produced, and, with much ceremony, put on the horn of the first ox, through the hole above-mentioned. The ox is then tickled, to make him toss his head: if he throw the cake behind, then it is the mistress's perquisite; if before (in what is termed the boosy), the bailiff himself claims the prize. The company then return to the house, the doors of which they find locked, nor will they be [p.31] opened till some joyous songs are sung. On their gaining admittance, a scene of mirth and jollity ensues, which lasts the greatest part of the night. Gent. Mag. Feb. 1791.

Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, giving an account of this custom, says, "that after they have drank a chearful glass to their master's health, success to the future harvest, &c., then returning home, they feast on cakes made of carraways, &c., soaked in cyder, which they claim as a reward for their past labours in sowing the grain. This," he observes, "seems to resemble a custom of the ancient Danes, who, in their addresses to their rural deities, emptied on every invocation a cup in honour of them."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1784, p. 98, Mr. Beckwith tells us that "near Leeds, in Yorkshire, when he was a boy, it was customary for many families, on the Twelfth Eve of Christmas, to invite their relations, friends, and neighbours to their houses, to play at cards, and to partake of a supper, of which minced pies were an indispensable ingredient: and after supper was brought in, the Wassail Cup or Wassail Bowl, of which every one partook, by taking with a spoon, out of the ale, a roasted apple, and eating it, and then drinking the healths of the company out of the bowl, wishing them a merry Christmas and a happy new year. (The festival of Christmas used in this part of the country to hold for twenty days, and some persons extended it to Candlemas.) The ingredients put into the bowl, viz., ale, sugar, nutmeg, and roasted apples, were usually called Lambs' Wool, and the night on which it used to be drunk (generally on the Twelfth Eve) was commonly called Wassail Eve" This custom is now disused.

A Nottinghamshire correspondent (ibid.) says, "that when he was a schoolboy, the practice on Christmas Eve was to roast apples on a string till they dropt into a large bowl of spiced ale, which is the whole composition of Lambs' Wool." It is probable that from the softness of this popular beverage it has gotten the above name. See Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream,

In Vox Graculi, 4to. 1623, p. 52, speaking of the sixth of January, the writer tells us, "This day, about the houres of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 ; yea, in some places till midnight well nigh, will be such a massacre of spice-bread, that, ere the next day at noone, a two-penny browne loafe will set twenty poore folkes teeth on edge. Which hungry humour will hold so violent, that a number of good fellowes will not refuse to give a statute marchant of all the lands and goods they enjoy, for halfe-a-crowne's worth of two-penny pasties. On this night much masking in the Strand, Cheapside, Holburne, or Fleet-street."

Waldron, in his Description of the Isle of Man (Works, p. 155), says, "There is not a barn unoccupied the whole twelve days, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge. On Twelfth Day the fiddler lays his head in some one of the wenches' laps, and a third person asks who such a maid or such a maid shall marry, naming the girls then present one after another ; to which he answers according to his own whim, or agreeable to the intimacies he has taken notice of during this time of merriment. But whatever he says is as absolutely depended on as an oracle; and if he happen to couple two people who have an aversion to each other, tears and vexation succeed the mirth. This they call cutting off the fiddler's head; for after this he is dead for the whole year."

In a curious collection, entitled Wit a sporting in a pleasant Grove of New Fancies, by H. B. 8vo. Lond. 1657, p. 80, I find the following description of the pleasantries of what is there called

[In the parish of Pauntley, a village on the borders of the county of Gloucester, next Worcestershire, and in the neighbourhood, a custom prevails, which is intended to prevent the smut in wheat. On the eve of Twelfth-day, all the servants of every farmer assemble together in one of the fields that has been sown with wheat. At the end of twelve lands, they make twelve fires in a row with straw, around one of which, made larger than the rest, they drink a cheerful glass of cider
to their master's health, and success to the future harvest; then, returning home, they feast on cakes soaked in cider, which they claim as a reward for their past labours in sowing the grain.]

It may rather seem to belong to religious than popular customs to mention, on the authority of the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1731, p. 25, that at the Chapel-Royal at St. James's, on Twelfth Day that year, "the king and the prince made the offerings at the altar of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, according to custom. At night their majesties, &c., played at hazard for the benefit of the groom-porter."

Feb. 18, 1839, Edward Hawkins, Esq., of the British Museum, showed to the editor (Sir Henry Ellis) a silver token or substitute for money, marked to the amount of ten pounds, which appears to have passed among the players for the groom-porter's benefit at Basset. It is within the size of a half-crown, one inch and a half in diameter. In the centre of the obverse within an inner circle is L X: Legend round, AT . THE . GROOM . PORTERS . BASSETT. Mint-mark, a fleur-de-lis. On the reverse, a wreath issuing from the sides of, and surmounting, a gold coronet : the coronet being of gold let in. Legend, NOTHING . VENTURE . NOTHING . WINNS. Mint-mark, again, a fleur-de-lis. Brand Hollis had one of these pieces. They are of very rare occurrence.

The groom-porter was formerly a distinct officer in the lord-steward's department of the royal household. His [p.34] business was to see the king's lodgings furnished with tables, chairs, stools, and firing ; as also to provide cards, dice, &c., and to decide disputes arising at cards, dice, bowling, &c. From allusions in some of Ben Jonson's and of Chapman's plays, it appears that he was allowed to keep an open gambling table at Christmas ; and it is mentioned as still existing in one of Lady Mary Montague's eclogues:

This abuse was removed in the reign of George III.; but Bray, in his Account of the Lord of Misrule, in Archaeologia, xviii. 317, says, George I. and II. played hazard in public on certain days, attended by the groom-porter. The appellation, however, is still kept up : the names of three groom-porters occurring among the inferior servants in the present enumeration of her Majesty's household.

ST. AGNES was a Roman virgin and martyr, who suffered in the tenth persecution under the Emperor Dioclesian, A.D. 306. She was condemned to be debauched in the public stews before her execution, but her virginity was miraculously preserved by lightning and thunder from heaven. About eight days after her execution, her parents, going to lament and pray at her tomb, saw a vision of angels, among whom was their daughter, and a lamb standing by her as white as snow, on which account it is that in every graphic representation of her there is a lamb pictured by her side.

On the eve of her day many kinds of divination were practised by virgins to discover their future husbands. [Dreams were the most ordinary media for making the desired discovery, and many allusions to the belief may be traced even in late works. The following notice of it occurs in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1734:

And in the same periodical for the previous year, 1 733, we hfcve a similar account:

This is called fasting St. Agnes's Fast. The following lines of Ben Jonson allude to this:

Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, p. 136, directs that, "Upon St. Agnes's Night, you take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a paternoster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him or her you shall marry."³⁵

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (ed. 1660, p. 538), speaks of Maids fasting on St. Agnes's Eve, to know who shall be their first husband. In Cupid's Whirligig, 1616, iii. 1, Pag says, "I could find in my heart to pray nine times [p.36] to the moone, and fast three St. Agnes's Eves, so that I might bee sure to have him to my husband."³⁶

The following is the account of this festival, as preserved in the Translation of Naogeorgus, f. 46:

A passage not unsimilar occurs in The Present State of the Manners, &c. of France and Italy—in Poetical Epistles to Robert Jephson, Esq., 8vo. Lond. 1794, from Rome, February, 14, 1793, p. 58.

[The present rural address to the saint, as still heard in Durham, is as follows:

A curious old chap-book, called Mother Bunch's Closet newly Broke Open, has several notices of the St. Agnes divination: "On that day thou must be sure that no man salute thee, nor kiss thee; I mean neither man, woman, nor child, must kiss thy lips on that day; and then, at night, before thou goest into thy bed, thou must be sure to put on a clean shift, and the best thou hast, then the better thou mayst speed. And when thou liest down, lay thy right hand under thy head, saying these words, Now the god of Love send me my desire; make sure to sleep as soon as thou canst, and thou shalt be sure to dream of him who shall be thy husband, and see him stand before thee, and thou wilt take great notice of him and his complexion, and, if he offers to salute thee, do not deny him." And again, in the same tract, "There is, in January, a day called Saint Agnes' Day. It is always the one and twentieth of that month. This Saint Agnes had a great favour for young men and maids, and will bring unto their bedside, at night, their sweethearts, if they follow this rule as I shall declare unto thee. Upon this day thou must be sure to keep a true fast, for thou must not eat or drink all that day, nor at night; neither let any man, woman, or child kiss thee that day; and thou must be sure, at night, when thou goest to bed, to put on a clean shift, and the best thou hast the better thou mayst speed; and thou must have clean deaths on thy head, for St. Agnes does love to see clean cloaths when she comes; and when thou liest down on thy back as streight as thou canst, and both thy hands are laid underneath thy head, then say,

And then be sure to fall asleep as soon as thou canst, and [p.38] before thou awakest out of thy first sleep thou shalt see him come and stand before thee, and thou shalt perceive by his habit what tradesman he is; but be sure thou declarest not thy dream to anybody in ten days, and by that time thou mayst come to see thy dream come to pass."

Mr. Hone has preserved a curious charm for the ague, which is said to be only efficacious on St. Agnes' s Eve. It is to be said up the chimney by the eldest female in the family:

MR. DOUCE' s manuscript notes say, "Vincenti festo si Sol radiet memor esto;" thus Englished by Abraham Fleming:

[Dr. Foster is at a loss to account for the origin of the command; but he thinks it may have been derived from a notion that the sun would not shine unominously on the day on which the saint was burnt.]

I DO not find that any one has even hazarded a conjecture why prognostications of the weather, &c., for the whole year, are to be drawn from the appearance of this day.³⁷

Lloyd, in his Diall of Daies, observes on St. Paul's, that "of this day the husbandmen prognosticate the whole year: if it be a fair day, it will be a pleasant year; if it be windy, there will be wars; if it be cloudy, it doth foreshow the plague that year." In the ancient calendar quoted below,³⁸ I find an observation on the thirteenth of December, "That on this day prognostications of the months were drawn for the whole year." "Prognostica mensium per totum annum."

In the Shepherd's Almanack for 1676, among the observations on the month of January we find the following: "Some say that, if on the 12th of January the sun shines, it foreshows much wind. Others predict by St. Paul's Day; saying, if the sun shine, it betokens a good year; if it rain or snow, indifferent; if misty, it predicts great dearth; if it thunder, great winds and death of people that year."³⁹

Hospinian, also, tells us that it is a critical day with the vulgar, indicating, if it be clear, abundance of fruits ; if windy, foretelling wars; if cloudy, the pestilence; if rainy or snowy, it prognosticates dearness and scarcity: according to the old Latin verses, thus translated in Bourne's Antiquities of the Common People:

The Latin is given differently in Hearne's edition of Robert of Avesbury's History of Edward III., p. 266:

Thus translated (ibid.) under the title of "The Saying of Erra Pater to the Husbandman:"

"If the day of St. Paule be cleere,
Then shall betide an happie yeere:
If it doe chaunce to snow or raine.
Then shall bee deare all kinde of graine.
But if the winde then bee alofte,
Warres shall vex this realme full oft:
And if the cloudes make dark the skie,
Both neate and fowle this yeare shall die."⁴¹

Willsford, in his Nature's Secrets, p. 145, tells us, "Some observe the 25th day of January, celebrated for the conversion of St. Paul; if fair and clear, plenty; if cloudy or misty, much cattle will die: if rain or snow fall that day, it presages a dearth ; and if windy, wars; as old wives do dream."

He farther informs us, that "Others observe the twelve days of Christmas, to foreshow the weather in all the twelve succeeding moneths respectively." A pleasant writer in the World, No. 10 (I believe the late Lord Orford), speaking on the alteration of the style, observes, "Who that hears the following verses, but must grieve for the shepherd and husbandman, who may have all their prognostics confounded, and be at a loss to know beforehand the fate of their markets? Antient sages sung

Bishop Hall, in his Characters of Virtues and Vices, speaking of the superstitious man, observes that "Saint Paules Day and Saint Swithines, with the Twelve, are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanacke." The prognostications on St. Paul's Day are thus elegantly modernized by Gay, in his Trivia:

[The following notices are taken from the Book of Knowledge, 1703: "If, on New Year's Day, the clouds in the morning be red, it shall be an angry year, with much war and great tempests. If the sun shine on the 22nd of January, there shall be much wind. If it shine on St. Paul's Day, it shall be a fruitful year; and if it rain and snow, it shall be between both. If it be very misty, it betokeneth great dearth. If it thunder that day, it betokeneth great winds, and great death, especially amongst rich men, that year."]

Schenkius, in his treatise on Images, chap, xiii., says, it is a custom in many parts of Germany to drag the images of St. Paul and St. Urban to the river, if, on the day of their feast, it happens to be foul weather. Bourne observes, upon St. Paul's Day, "How it came to have this particular knack of foretelling the good or ill fortune of the following year, is no easy matter to find out. The monks, who were undoubtedly the first who made this wonderful observation, have taken care it should be handed down to posterity, but why or for what reason this observation was to stand good they have taken care to conceal. St. Paul did indeed labour more abundantly than all the apostles ; but never, that I heard, in the science of astrology. And why his day should therefore be a standing almanack to the world rather than the day of any other saint will be pretty hard to find out."⁴²

THIS is called in the north of England the Wives' Feast Day. The name of Candlemas is evidently derived from the lights which were then distributed and carried about in procession.⁴³

In the first volume of Proclamations, &c., folio, remaining in the Archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London, is preserved, p. 138, an original one, printed in black letter, and dated 26th February, 30 Hen. VIII, "concernyng rites and ceremonies to be used in due fourme in the Churche of Englande," in which we read as follows: "On Candelmas Daye it shall be declared that the bearynge of candels is done in the memorie of Christe, the spirituall lyghte, when Simeon dyd prophecye, as it is redde in the churche that daye." The same had been declared by a decree of Convocation. See Fuller's Church History, p. 222.

In Herbert's Country Parson, 12mo. Lond. 1675, third impression, p. 157, he tells us, "Another old custom (he had been speaking of processions) there is, of saying, when light is brought in, God sends us the light of Heaven; and the parson likes this very well. Light is a great blessing, and as great as food, for which we give thanks: and those that think this superstitious, neither know superstition nor themselves." This appears to be at this time totally forgotten. In the ancient calendar of the Romish Church, before cited, [p.44] I find the subsequent observations on the 2d of February, usually called Candlemas Day:

Pope Sergius, says Bacon, in his Reliques of Rome, fol. 164, "commanded that all the people should go on procession upon Candlemass Day, and carry candels about with them brenning in their hands in the year of our Lord 684." How this candle-bearing on Candlemas Day came first up, the author of our English Festival declareth in this manner: "Somtyme," saith he, "when the Romaines by great myght and royal power conquered all the world, they were so proude, that they forgat God, and made them divers gods after their own lust. And so among all they had a god that they called Mars, that had been tofore a notable knight in battayle; and so they prayed to hym for help, and for that they would speed the better of this knight, the people prayed and did great worship to his mother, that was called Februa, after which woman much people have opinion that the moneth February is called. Wherefore the second daie of thys moneth is Candlemass Day. The Romaines this night went about the city of Rome with torches and candles brenning in worship of this woman Februa, for hope to have the more helpe and succoure of her sonne Mars. Then there was a Pope that was called Sergius, and when he saw Christian people drawn to this false maumetry⁴⁴ and untrue belief, he thought to undo this foule use and custom, and turn it unto God's worship and our Lady's, and gave commandment that all Christian people should come to church and offer up a candle brennyng, in the worship that they did to this woman Februa, and do worship to our Lady and to her sonne our Lord Jesus Christ. So that now this feast is solemnly hallowed thorowe all Christendome. And every Christian man and woman of covenable age is bound to come to church and offer up their candles, as though they were bodily with our Lady, hopyng for this reverence and worship, that they do to our Ladye, to have a great rewarde in heaven," &c.

The Festyvall adds, "A candell is made of weke and wexe; so was Crystes soule hyd within the manhode: also the fyre betokeneth the Godhede: also it betokeneth our Laydes moderhede and maydenhede, lyght with the fyre of love!" In Dunstan's Concord of Monastic Rules it is directed that, on the Purification of the Virgin Mary, the monks shall go in surplices to the church for candles, which shall be consecrated, sprinkled with holy water, and censed by the Abbot. Let every monk take a candle from the Sacrist, and light it. Let a procession be made, Thirds and Mass be celebrated, and the candles, after the offering, be offered to the priest." See Fosbroke's British Monachism, i. 28. A note adds: "Candlemas Day. The candles at the Purification were an exchange for the lustration of the Pagans, and candles were used from the parable of the wise virgins." (Alcuinus de Divinis Officiis; p. 231.)

It was anciently a custom for women in England to bear lights when they were churched, as appears from the following royal bon mot. William the Conqueror, by reason of sickness, kept his chamber a long time, whereat the French King, scoffing, said, "The King of England lyeth long in child-bed;" which when it was reported unto King William, he answered, "When I am churched, there shall be a thousand lights in France;" (alluding to the lights that women used to bear when they were churched:) and that he performed within a few daies after, wasting the French territories with fire and sword.⁴⁵

In a most rare book entitled The Burnynge of Paules Church in London, 1561, and the 4 day of June, by Lyghtnynge, &c. 8vo. Lond. 1563, we read, "In Flaunders everye Saturdaye betwixt Christmas and Candlemas they eate flesh for joy, and have pardon for it, because our Layde laye so long in child-bedde say they. We here may not eat so: the Pope is not so good to us; yet surely it were a good reason that we should eat fleshe with them all that while that our Lady lay in child-bed, as that we shuld bear our candel at her churchinge at Candlemas with theym as they doe. It is seldome sene that men offer candels at women's churchinges, eavinge at our Ladies: but reason it is that she have some [p.46] preferement, if the Pope would be so good maister to us as to let us eat fleshe with theym."

In Lysons' Environs of London, i. 310, among his curious extracts from the churchwardens' accounts at Lambeth, I find the following: "1519. Paid for Smoke Money at Seynt Mary's Eve, 0. 2. 6." This occurs again in 1521. "Paid by my Lord of Winchester's scribe for Smoke Money, 0. 2. 6."

The following is Barnabe Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus, in the Popish Kingdome, f. 47:

We read in Wodde's Dialogue, cited more particularly under Palm Sunday, "Wherefore serveth holye candels? (Nicholas). To light up in thunder, and to blesse men when they lye a dying "⁴⁶ Thomas Legh, in a letter to Lord Cromwell, of the time of Henry VIII. (MS. Cotton. Nero.. iii. f. 115), finishes, "Valete Hamburgise in fasto Purificationis Beatee Marise quo Candelas accensas non videbam, satis tamen clara dies."

In some of the ancient illuminated Calendars a woman holding a taper in each hand is represented in the month of February. In the Doctrine of the Masse Booke, &c. from Wyttonburge by Nicholas Dorcaster, 1554, 8vo. we find

The Prayer. "O Lord Jesu Christ, I-blesse thou this creature of a waxen taper at our humble supplication, and by the vertue of the holy crosse, pour thou into it an heavenly [p.47] benediction; that as thou hast graunted it unto man's use for the expelling of darkness, it may receave such a strength and blessing, thorow the token of the holy crosse, that in what places soever it be lighted or set, the Devil may avoid out of those habitations, and tremble for feare, and fly away discouraged, and presume no more to unquiet them that serve thee, who with God," &c. Then follow other prayers, in which occur these passages: "We humbly beseech thee, that thou wilt vouchsafe + to blesse and sanctify these candela prepared unto the uses of men, and health of bodies and soules, as wel on the land as in the waters." "Vouchsafe + to blesse and + sanctifye, and with the candle of heavenly benediction, to lighten these tapers; which we thy servants taking in the honour of thy name (when they are lighted) desire to beare," &c. "Here let the candles be sprinkled with holy water." Concluding with this rubrick: "When the halowyng of the candels is done, let the candels be lighted and distributed."

In Bishop Bonner's Injunctions, A.D. 1555, printed that year by John Cawood, 4to. we read, "that bearyng of candels on Candelmasse Daie is doone in the memorie of our Saviour Jesu Christe, the spirituall lyght, of whom Sainct Symeon dyd prophecie, as it is redde in the church that day." The ceremony, however, had been previously forbidden in the metropolis: for in Stowe's Chronicle, edited by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 595, we find, "On the second of February, 1547-8, being the Feast of the Purification of our Lady, commonly Candlemasse Day, the bearing of candles in the church was left off throughout the whole citie of London."

At the end of a curious sermon, entitled "the Vanitie and Downefall of the superstitious Popish Ceremonies, preached in the Cathedral Church of Durham, by one Peter Smart, a Prebend there, July 27, 1628, Edinb. 1628, I find, in "a briefe but true historicall narration of some notorious acts and speeches of Mr. John Cosens," (Bishop of Durham,) the following: "Fourthly, on Candlemass Day last past, Mr. Cosens, in renuing that Popish ceremonie of burning candles, to the honour of our Ladye, busied himself from two of the clocke in the afternoone till foure, in climbing long ladders to stick up wax candles in the said cathedral church: the number of all the candles burnt that evening was two hun- [p.48] dred and twenty, besides sixteen torches: sixty of those burning tapers and torches standing upon and near the high altar (as he calls it,) where no man came nigh."

In Nichols's Churchwardens' Accompts, 1797, p. 270, in those of St. Martin Outwich, London, under the year 1510, is the following article: "Paid to Randolf Merchaunt, wexchandiler, for the Pascall, the Tapers affore the Rode, the Cross Candelles, and Judas Candelles, ix a iiij d ." In the churchwardens' accounts of the parish of Alhallows Staining, mention of these frequently occurs. "Item: paid to William Bruce, peyntur, the xiij. day of Aprill, for peyntyng the Judasis of the Paschall, and of the Rode-loft, xx d. Item: paid the xx. day of Aprile to Thomas Arlome, joynour, for stuff and workmanship, planyng, and settyng up the said Judasis of the Paschall and the Rode-loft, and for the borde that the Crucifix, Marie, and John standen in, iij 8 vj d." And adverting to their dealings with William Symmys, wax chaundeller, the churchwardens observe, "Also he receyved of us Churchwardens of the beame lighte in cleyr wax xlviij 11, beside the Judaces. Also receyvid of hym in tenable candylls for the Judas and the Crosse Candyll on Ester evyn and the paschall." Tenable is a misnomer for teneber or tenebrae.⁴⁷ So in a subsequent entry, "for our sepulchre light, our paschall and Judas candells called teneber candylls."

"There is a canon," says Bourne, in the Council of Trullus, "against those who baked a cake in honour of the Virgin's lying-in, in which it is decreed that no such ceremony should be observed, because she suffered no pollution, and therefore needed no purification." The purple-flowered Lady's Thistle, the leaves of which are beautifully diversified with numerous white spots, like drops of milk, is vulgarly thought to have been originally marked by the falling of some drops of the Virgin Mary's milk on it, whence, no doubt, its name Lady's, i,e. Our Lady's Thistle. An ingenious little invention of the dark ages, and which, no doubt, has been of service to the cause of superstition.⁴⁸

At Ripon, in Yorkshire, the Sunday before Candlemas Day the collegiate church, a fine ancient building, is one continued blaze of light all the afternoon by an immense number of candles. See Gent. Mag. 1790, p. 719.

The following is from Herrick's Hesperides, p. 337:

So also Marrow-bones, for the knees. I'll bring him down upon his Marrow-bones, i.e. I'll make him bend his knees as he does to the Virgin Mary.

"There is a general tradition" says Sir Thomas Browne, "in most parts of Europe, that inferreth the coldness of succeeding winter from the shining of the sun on Candlemas Day, according to the proverbiall distich:

Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands, 1716, p. 119, mentions an ancient custom observed on the second of February: "The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in woman's apparel, put it in [p.51] a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid's Bed; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, Briid is come, Briid is welcome. This they do just before going to bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Briid's club there; which if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen."

Ray, in his Collection of Proverbs, has preserved two relating to this day. "On Candlemas Day, throw candle and candle-stick away:" and "Sow or set beans on Candlemas Waddle." Somerset. In Somersetshire waddle means wane of the moon. [Another proverb⁵⁰ on this day may also be mentioned,

And it is a custom with old country people in Scotland to prognosticate this weather of the coming season by tine adage,

MINSHEW, in his Dictionary, under the word Hocke-tide, speaks of "St. Blaze his day, about Candlemas, when country women goe about and make good cheere, and if they [p.52] find any of their neighbour women a spinning that day, they burne and make a blaze of fire of the distaffe, and thereof called S. Blaze his day." Dr. Percy, in his notes to the Northumberland Household Book, p. 333, tells us, "The Anniversary of St. Blazius is the 3d of February, when it is still the custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blayse night: a custom anciently taken up, perhaps, for no better reason than the jingling resemblance of his name to the word Blaze."⁵¹

Reginald Scott, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, ed. 1665, p. 137, gives us a charm used in the Romish Church upon St. Blaze's Day, that will fetch a thorn out of any place of one's body, a bone out of the throat, &c., to wit, "Call upon God, and remember St. Blaze." [An ancient receipt "for a stoppage in the throat" was the following, "Hold the diseased party by the throat, and pronounce these words, Blaze, the martyr and servant of Jesus Christ, commands thee to pass up and down."]

The following is the account of Blaze in the Popish Kingdome, f. 47:

In The Costumes of Yorkshire, 4to., 1814, Pl. 37, is a representation of the wool-combers' jubilee on this day. The writer, in illustration of it, says, "Blaize or Blasius, the principal personage in this festivity and procession, was bishop of Sebasta in Armenia, and the patron saint of that country. Several marvellous stones are related of him by Mede, in his 'Apostacy of the Latter Times,' but he need only be noticed here as the reputed inventor of the art of combing wool. On [p.53] this account the wool-combers have a jubilee on his festival, the 3d of February. The next principal character is Jason; but the story of the Golden Fleece is so well known that no introduction can be necessary to the hero of that beautiful allegory. The enterprising genius of Britain never ceases to realize the fable by rewarding many a British Jason with a golden fleece. The following is the order of this singular procession, denominated from its principal character Bishop Blaize: The masters on horseback, with each a white sliver; the masters' sons on horseback; their colours; the apprentices on horseback, in their uniforms; music; the king and queen; the royal family; their guards and attendants; Jason; the golden fleece; attendants; bishop and chaplain; their attendants; shepherd and shepherdess; shepherd's swains, attendants, &c.; foremen and wool-sorters on horseback; combers' colours; wool-combers, two and two, with ornamented caps, wool-wigs, and various coloured slivers." See a further account in Hone's Every Day Book, i. 210.

IT is a ceremony, says Bourne, never omitted among the vulgar, to draw lots, which they term Valentines, on the eve before Valentine Day. The names of a select number of one sex are, by an equal number of the other, put into some vessel; and after that every one draws a name, which, for the present, is called their Valentine, and is looked upon as a good omen of their being man and wife afterwards. He adds, there is a rural tradition, that on this day every bird chooses its mate, and concludes that perhaps the youthful part of the world hath first practised this custom, so common at this season. This idea is thus expressed by Chaucer:

Shakespeare, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, alludes to the old saying, that birds begin to couple on St. Valentine's Day:

I once thought this custom might have been the remains of an ancient superstition in the Church of Rome on this day, of choosing patrons for the ensuing year; and that, because ghosts were thought to walk on the night of this day, or about this time, and that gallantry had taken it up when superstition at the Reformation had been compelled to let it fall.⁵² Since that time I have found unquestionable authority to show that the custom of choosing Valentines was a sport practised in the houses of the gentry of England as early as the year 1476. See a letter dated February 1446, in Fenn's Paston Letters, ii. 211. Of this custom John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, makes mention, as follows, in a poem written by him in praise of Queen Catherine, consort to Henry V. MS. Harl, 2251.

In the catalogue of the Poeticall Devises, &c., done by the same poet, in print and MS., preserved at the end of Speght's edition of Chaucer's Works, fol. Lond. 1602, f. 376, occurs one with the title of Chusing Loves on S. Valentine's Day. "Lydgate," says Warton, "was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general. If a Disguising was intended by the Company of Goldsmiths, a Mask before his Majesty at Eltham, a May game for the Sheriffs and Aldermen of London, a Mumming before the Lord Mayor, a Procession of Pageants from the Creation for the Festival of [p.55] Corpus Christi, or a Carol for the Coronation, Lydgate was consulted, and gave the poetry." The above catalogue mentions also, by Lydgate, "a Disguising before the Mayor of London, by the Mercers; a Disguising before the King in the Castle of Hartford; a Mumming before the King, at Eltham; a Mumming before the King, at Windsore; and a ballad given to Henry VI. and his mother on New Yeare's Day, at Hartford." Warton has also given a curious French Valentine, composed by Gower. See a curious, but by no means satisfactory, note upon this subject, by Monsieur Duchat, in the quarto edition of Rabelais, i. 393. There is an account of the manner in which St. Valentine's Day was anciently observed in France, in Goujet, Bibliotheque Fransoise, ix. 266, together with some poems composed by Charles Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis XII., when prisoner in England, in honour of that festival.

The following is one of the most elegant jeux d'esprits on this occasion that I have met with.

In Dudley Lord North's Forest of Varieties, 1645, p. 61, in a letter to his brother, he says, "A lady of wit and qualitie, whom you well know, would never put herself to the chance of a Valentine, saying that shee would never couple herself e but by choyce. The custome and charge of Valentines is not ill left, with many other such costly and idle customes, which by a tacit generall consent wee lay downe as obsolete." In Carolina, or Loyal Poems, by Thomas Shipman, p. 135, is a copy of verses, entitled, "The Rescue, 1672. To Mrs. D.C., whose name being left after drawing Valentines, and cast into the fire, was snatcht out."

I have searched the legend of St. Valentine, but think there is no occurrence in his life that could have given rise to this ceremony. Wheatley, in his Illustration of the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 57, tells us that St. Valentine "was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valentines upon his Festival (which is still practised) took its rise from thence." I know not how my readers will be satisfied with this learned writer's explication. He has given us no premises, in my opinion, from which we can draw any such conclusion. Were not all the saints supposed to be famous for their love and charity? Surely he does not mean that we should understand the word love here as implying gallantry!

In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 3, we read,

In the same work, vol. ii. No. 2, 1709: "Question: In chusing Valentines (according to custom), is not the party chusing (be it man or woman) to make a present to the party chosen? Answer: We think it more proper to say, drawing of Valentines, since the most customary way is for each to take his or her lot and chance cannot be termed choice. According to this method the obligations are equal, and therefore it was formerly the custom mutually to present, but now it is customary only for the gentlemen."

The learned Moresin tells us that at this festival the men used to make the women presents, as, upon another occasion, the women used to do to the men: but that presents were made reciprocally on this day in Scotland.

Gay has left us a poetical description of some rural ceremonies used on the morning of this day:

Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, tells us, that in February young persons draw Valentines, and from thence collect their future fortune in the nuptial state; and Goldsmith, in his Vicar of Wakefield, describing the manners of some rustics, tells us they sent true-love knots on Valentine morning.⁵⁴

Lewis Owen, in his work entitled the Unmasking of all Popish Monks, Friers, and Jesuits, 1628, p. 97, speaking of its being "now among the Papists as it was heretofore among the heathen people," says that the former "have as many saints, which they honour as gods, and every one have their several charge assigned unto them by God, for the succour of men, women, and children, yea, over countries, commonwealths, cities, provinces, and churches; nay, to help oves, et boves, et ccetera pecora campi:" and instances, among many others, "S. Valentine for Lovers."

We find the following curious species of divination in the Connoisseur, as practised on Valentine's Day or Eve. "Last Friday was Valentine's Day, and the night before I got five bay-leaves, and pinned four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But, to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed, eat it shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water, and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it? Mr. Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world."

Grose explains Valentine to mean the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on St. Valentine's Day, the 14th of February. [Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, p. 907, says the name drawn by lots was the Valentine of the writer, and quotes the following from the MS. Harl. 1735:

On Valentine's Day, 1667, Pepys says, "This morning came up to my wife's bedside, I being up dressing myself, little Will Mercer to her Valentine, and brought her name written upon blue paper, in gold letters done by himself, very pretty; and we were both well pleased with it. But I am also this year my wife's Valentine, and it will cost me £5, but that [p.59] I must have laid out if we had not been Valentines." He afterwards adds, "I find that Mrs. Pierce' s little girl is my Valentine, she having drawn me; which I was not sorry for, it easing me of something more that I must have given to others; But here I do first observe the fashion of drawing of mottos as well as names; so that Pierce, who drew my wife, did also draw a motto, and this girl drew another for me. What mine was I forgot; but my wife's was, 'most courteous and most fair; which, as it may be used, or an anagram upon each name, might be very pretty. One wonder I observed to-day, that there was no music in the morning to call up our new married people, which is very mean methinks."]

From the following lines in Bishop Hall's Satires, iv. 1, it would seem that Valentine has been particularly famous for chastity:

From Deuce's manuscript notes I learn that Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says, "To abolish the heathen, lewd, superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of February, several zealous pastors substituted the names of Saints in billets given on that day." See his Account of St. Valentine. And in vol. i., Jan. 29, he says, that "St. Frances de Sales severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving boys in writing the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner." But quaere this custom among the Romans above referred to.

Herrick, in his Hesperides, p. 61, speaking of a bride,

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 330, says, "On the Eve of the 14th of February, St. Valentine's Day, a time when all living nature inclines to couple, the young folks in England and Scotland too, by a very [p.60] ancient custom, celebrate a little festival that tends to the same end. An equal number of maids and batchelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men the maids'; so that each of the young men lights upon a girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the girls upon a young man which she calls her's. By this means each has two Valentines: but the man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in love. This ceremony is practised differently in different counties, and according to the freedom or severity of Madam Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which is the first young man or woman that chance throws in your way in the street or elsewhere on that day.

[In Norfolk it is the custom for children to "catch" each other for Valentines; and if there are elderly .persons in the family who are likely to be liberal, great care is taken to catch them. The mode of catching is by saying "Good morrow, Valentine;" and if they can repeat this before they are spoken to, they are rewarded with a small present. It must be done, however, before sun-rise; otherwise, instead of a reward, they are told they are sun-burnt, and are sent back with disgrace. Does this illustrate the phrase sun-burned in Much Ado About Nothing?]

[In Oxfordshire the children go about collecting pence, singing

In Poor Robin's Almanack, for 1676, that facetious observer of our old customs tells us opposite to St. Valentine's Day, in February,

This is still one of the best observed of our popular festivals, and the extraordinary length to which the custom of Valentine letter-writing is carried may be gathered from the following enumeration of the letters which passed through the London post-office on St. Valentine's Day, 1847, vastly exceeding the usual average, and principally owing to this practice. "Monday being the celebration of St. Valentine's day, an extraordinary number of letters passed through the post-office. Not less than 150,000 letters of all descriptions, besides 20,000 newspapers, were delivered at nine in the morning by the general post letter-carriers, while in the London district office the numbers stood thus: At the ten o'clock delivery 25,000, and during the successive 'turns' of the duty, 175,000 were stamped, assorted, and delivered, forming a total of 200,000 district letters during the day. Independently of these numbers, not less than 12,000 letters and 5,000
newspapers were received by the midday mails and delivered throughout the metropolis, and at night not fewer than 120,000 newspapers were despatched, and 60,000 letters; the grand total, therefore, of letters and newspapers passing through the post-office stands as follows: Letters 422,000 ; newspapers, 145,000."

In an old English ballad, the lasses are directed to pray [p.62] cross-legged to St. Valentine for good luck. In some parts of England the poorer classes of children array themselves fantastically, and visit the houses of the wealthy, singing,

IN the North of England, the Monday preceding Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday, is called Collop Monday. Eggs and collops compose a usual dish at dinner on this day, as pancakes do on the following, from which customs they have plainly derived their names. It should seem that on Collop Monday they took their leave of flesh in the papal times, which was anciently prepared to last during the winter by salting, drying, and being hung up. Slices of this kind of meat are to this day termed collops in the north, whereas they are called steaks when cut off from fresh or unsalted flesh; a kind of food which I am inclined to think our ancestors seldom tasted in the depth of winter. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine asserts that most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday.

My late learned friend, the Rev. Mr. Bowles, informed me that in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, in Wiltshire, the boys go about before Shrove-tide, singing these rhymes:

At Eton school it was the custom, on Shrove Monday, for the scholars to write verses either in praise or dispraise of Father Bacchus, poets being considered as immediately under his protection. He was therefore sung on this occasion in all kinds of metres, and the verses of the boys of the [p.63] seventh and sixth, and some of the fifth forms, were affixed to the inner doors of the College. Verses are still written and put up on this day, but I believe the young poets are no longer confined to the subject of writing eulogiums on the god of wine. It retains, however, the name of Bacchus.

In the Ordinary of the Butchers' Company at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dated 1621, I find the following very curious clause: "Item, that noe one Brother of the said Fellowship shall hereafter buy or seeke any Licence of any person whatsoever to kill Flesh within the Towne of Newcastle in the Lent season, without the general consent of the Fellowship, upon payne for every such defaute to the use aforesaide, £5." They are enjoined, it is observable, in this charter, to hold their head meeting-day on Ash-Wednesday. They have since altered it to the preceding Wednesday.

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, 1615, speaking of a Franklin, says, that among the ceremonies which he annually observes, and that without considering them as reliques of Popery, are Shrovings. [The passage is sufficiently curious to deserve a quotation: "He allowes of honest pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead anything brused, or the worse for it, though the country lasses daunce in the churchyard after evensong. Rocke Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakefull ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky or seed cake, these he yearely keepes, yet holdes them no reliques of Popery."]

SHROVE-TIDE, OR SHROVE TUESDAY;
CALLED ALSO
PASTERN'S, FASTEN, OR FASTING EVEN, AND PANCAKE TUESDAY.

SHROVE-TIDE plainly signifies the time of confessing sins, as the Saxon word shrive, or shift, means confession. This season has been anciently set apart by the church of Rome for a time of shriving or confessing sins. This seemingly no bad preparative for the austerities that were to follow in [p.64] Lent, was, for whatever reason, laid aside at the Reformation, In the Oxford Almanacks, the Saturday preceding this day is called the Egg-Feast. Perhaps the same as our Cofiop Monday. See, under Paste Eggs, Hyde's Account of the Festum Ovorum. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the City of London, A.D. 1493, is the following article: "For a mat for the Shreving Pewe, iij. d."

The luxury and intemperance that usually prevailed at this season were vestiges of the Romish carnival, which the learned Moresin derives from the times of Gentilism, introducing Joannes Boemus Aubanus as describing it thus: "Men eat and drink and abandon themselves to every kind of sportive foolery, as if resolved to have their fill of pleasure before they were to die, and as it were to forego every sort of delight."⁵⁵ Thus also Selden: "What the church debars us one day, she gives us leave to take out another first there is a Carnival, and then a Lent."

"Shrove-tide," says Warton, "was formerly a season of [p.65] extraordinary sport and feasting.⁵⁶ In the Romish Church there was anciently a Feast immediately preceding Lent, which lasted many days, called CARNISCAPIUM. (See Carpentier et Supp. Lat. Gloss. Du Cange, i. 381.) In some cities of France an officer was annually chosen, called Le Prince d'Amoreux, who presided over the sports of the youth for six days before Ash- Wednesday. Ibid. v. AMORATUS, p. 195; v. CARDINALIS, p. 818; v. SPINETUM, iii. 848. Some traces of these festivities still remain in our universities. In the Percy Household Book, 1512, it appears "that the Clergy and Officers of Lord Percy's Chapel performed a play before his Lordship, upon Shrowftewesday at night." p. 345. See also Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, xii. 403, and notes in Shakespeare on part of the old song, "And welcome merry Shrove-tide."

In a curious tract, entitled, "Vox Graculi," quarto, 1623, p. 55, is the following quaint description of Shrove-Tuesday: "Here must enter that wadling, stradling, bursten-gutted Carnifex of all Christendome, vulgarly enstiled Shrove-Tuesday, but more pertinently, sole Monarch of the Mouth, high Steward to the Stomach, chiefe Ganimede to the Guts, prime Peere of the Pullets, first Favourite to the Frying pans, greatest Bashaw to the Batter-bowles, Protector of the Pan-cakes, first Founder of the Fritters, Baron of Bacon-flitch, Earle of Egge-baskets, &c. This corpulent Commander of those chollericke things called Cookes, will shew himselfe to be but of ignoble education; for by his manners you may find him better fed than taught wherever he comes."

The following extract from Barnaby Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus will show the extent of these festivities:

Among the records of the city of Norwich, mention is made of one John Gladman, "who was ever, and at thys our [p.68] is a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony cite or burgh thorowe alle this reame, on Tuesday in the last ende of Crestemesse [1440,] viz^t. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse disgisy things, corouned as Kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere ; aforn hym went yche moneth dysguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton clad in white and red heryngs skinns, and his hors trappyd with oystershells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe and an holy tyme, and so rode in divers stretis of the cite with other people with hym disguysed, makyng myrth, disportes, and plays, &c." Bloomfield's Norfolk, ed. 1 745, ii. 111.

A very singular custom is thus mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1779, "Being on a visit on Tuesday last in a little obscure village in this county (Kent), I found an odd kind of sport going forward: the girls, from eighteen to five or six years old, were assembled in a crowd, and burning an uncouth effigy, which they called an Holly-Boy, and which it seems they had stolen from the boys, who, in another part of the village, were assembled together, and burning what they called an Ivy-Girl, which they had stolen from the girls: all this ceremony was accompanied with loud huzzas, noise, and acclamations. What it all means I cannot tell, although I inquired of several of the oldest people in the place, who could only answer that it had always been a sport at this season of the year." Dated East Kent, Feb. 16th. The Tuesday before Shrove Tuesday in 1779 fell on February the 9th.

[In some places, if flowers are to be procured so early in the season, the younger children carry a small garland, for the sake of collecting a few pence, singing,

"Flowers, flowers, high-do!
Sheeny, greeny, rino!
Sheeny greeny, sheeny greeny,
Rum turn fra!"]

"The peasantry of France," says the Morning Chronicle, March 10th, 1791, "distinguish Ash Wednesday in a very singular manner. They carry an effigy of a similar description to our Guy Faux round the adjacent villages, and collect [p.69] money for his funeral, as this day, according to their creed, is the death of good living. After sundry absurd mummeries, the corpse is deposited in the earth." This is somewhat similar to the custom of the Holly Boy.

Armstrong, in his History of Minorca, p. 202, says, "During the Carnival, the ladies amuse themselves in throwing oranges at their lovers; and he who has received one of these on his eye, or has a tooth beat out by it, is convinced from that moment that he is a high favourite with the fair one who has done him so much honour. Sometimes a good handfull of flour is thrown full in one's eyes, which gives the utmost satisfaction, and is a favour that is quickly followed by others of a less trifling nature. We well know that the holydays of the ancient Romans were, like these carnivals, a mixture of devotion and debauchery. This time of festivity is sacred to pleasure, and it is sinful to exercise their calling until Lent arrives, with the two curses of these people, Abstinence and Labour, in its train."

Among the sports of Shrove Tuesday, cock-fighting and throwing at cocks appear almost everywhere to have prevailed. Fitzstephen, as cited by Stowe, informs us that anciently on Shrove Tuesday the school-boys used to bring cocks of the game, now called game-cocks, to their master, and to delight themselves in cock-fighting all the forenoon. One rejoices to find no mention of throwing at cocks on the occasion, a horrid species of cowardly cruelty, compared with which, cock-fighting, savage as it may appear, is to be reckoned among "the tender mercies" of barbarity.

The learned Moresin informs us that the Papists derived this custom of exhibiting cock-fights on one day every year from the Athenians, and from an institution of Themistocles. "Galli Gallinacei," says he, "producuntur per diem singulis annis in pugnam a Papisequis, ex veteri Atheniensium forma ducto more et Themistoclis instituto." Gael. Rhod. lib. jx. variar. lect. cap. xlvi. idem Pergami fiebat.; Alex, ab Alex, lib. v. cap. 8. Moresini Papatus, p. 66. An account of the origin of this custom amongst the Athenians may be seen in Æliani Variae Historiae, lib. ii. cap. xxviii.

This custom was retained in many schools in Scotland within the last century. Perhaps it is still in use. The [p.70] schoolmasters were said to preside at the battle, and claimed the run-away-cocks, called Fugees, as their perquisites.⁵⁸

According to Fitzstephen: "After dinner, all the youths go into the fields to play at the ball. The scholars of every school have their ball or bastion in their hands. The ancient and wealthy men of the city come forth on horseback to see the sport of the young men, and to take part of the pleasure, in beholding their agility." Strype's edit, of Stowe, i. 247. See also Dr. Pegge's edit, of Fitzstepheu's London, 4to. 1772, pp. 45, 74. It should seem that Foot-Ball is here meant. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1795, xv. 521, the minister of Kirkmichael, in Perthshire, speaking of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, says, "Foot-ball is a common amusement with the school-boys, who also preserve the custom of cock-fighting on Shrove Tuesday."

Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, ii. 322, speaking of the parish of Bromfield, and a custom there, that having now fallen into disuse, will soon be totally forgotten, tells us, "Till within the last twenty or thirty years, it had been a custom, time out of mind, for the scholars of the free school of Bromfield about the beginning of Lent, or, in the more expressive phraseology of the country, at Fasting's Even, to bar out the master; i.e. to depose and exclude him from his school, and keep him out for three days. During the period of this expulsion, the doors of the citadel, the [p.71] school, were strongly barricadoed within: and the boys, who defended it like a besieged city, were armed in general with bore-tree or elder pop-guns. The master meanwhile made various efforts, both by force and stratagem, to regain his lost authority. If he succeeded, heavy tasks were imposed, and the business of the school was resumed and submitted to; but it more commonly happened that he was repulsed and defeated. After three days' siege, terms of capitulation were proposed by the master, and accepted by the boys. These terms were summed up in an old formula of Latin Leonine verses, stipulating what hours and times should for the year ensuing be allotted to study, and what to relaxation and play. Securities were provided by each side for the due performance of these stipulations, and the paper was then solemnly signed both by master and scholars.

"One of the articles always stipulated for and granted, was the privilege of immediately celebrating certain games of long standing ; viz. a foot-ball match and a cock-fight. Captains, as they were called, were then chosen to manage and preside over these games: one from that part of the parish which lay to the westward of the school; the other from the east. Cocks and foot-ball players were sought for with great diligence. The party whose cocks won the most battles was victorious in the cock-pit; and the prize, a small silver bell, suspended to the button of the victor's hat, and worn for three successive Sundays. After the cock-fight was ended, the foot-ball was thrown down in the churchyard ; and the point then to be contested was, which party could carry it to the house of his respective captain, to Dundraw, perhaps, or West-Newton, a distance of two or three miles, every inch of which ground was keenly disputed. All the honour accruing to the conqueror at foot-ball, was that of possessing the ball. Details of these matches were the general topics of conversation among the villagers, and were dwelt on with hardly less satisfaction than their ancestors enjoyed in relating their feats in the border wars. It never was the fortune of the writer of this account to bear the bell (a pleasure which it is not at all improbable had its origin in the bell having been the frequent, if not the usual reward of victory in such rural contests). Our Bromfield sports were some- [p.72] times celebrated in indigenous songs : one verse only of one of them we happen to remember:

"One cannot but feel a more than ordinary curiosity to be able to trace the origin of this improvement on the Romish Saturnalia; and which also appears pretty evidently to be the basis of the institution of the Terræ filius in Oxford, now likewise become obsolete; but we are lost in a wilderness of conjectures: and as we have nothing that is satisfactory to ourselves to offer, we will not uselessly bewilder our readers."

Part of the income of the head master and usher of the Grammar School at Lancaster arises from a gratuity called a Cock-penny, paid at Shrove-tide by the scholars, who are sons of freemen. Of this money the head master has seven-twelfths, the usher five-twelfths. It is also paid at the schools at Hawkshead and Clithero, in Lancashire; and was paid at Burnley till lately, and at Whiteham and Millom, in Cumberland, near Bootle.

[There is a schoolboy's rhyme, used in a game not uncommon in some parts of Yorkshire, which may possibly have some reference to this practice,

The unknown but humane writer of a pamphlet entitled Clemency to Brutes, 1761, after some forcible exhortations against the use of this cruel diversion, in which there is a shocking abuse of time, ("an abuse so much the more shocking as it is shewn in tormenting that very creature which seems by nature intended for our remembrancer to improve it: the creature whose voice, like a trumpet, summoneth man forth to his labour in the morning, and admonisheth him of the flight of his most precious hours throughout the day,") has the following observation: "Whence it had its [p.73] rise among us I could never yet learn to my satisfaction; but the common account of it is, that the crowing of a cock prevented our Saxon ancestors from massacreing their conquerors, another part of our ancestors, the Danes, on the morning of a Shrove Tuesday, whilst asleep in their beds." In an old jest-book entitled Ingenii Fructus, or the Cambridge Jests, &c., by W. B., Lond. printed for D. Pratt, corner of Church-lane, Strand, no date, 12mo, is given what is called the original of "the throwing at cocks on Shrove-Tuesday," in which the rise of this custom is traced up to an unlucky discovery of an adulterous amour by the crowing of a cock. This account, I scarce need observe, is too ridiculous to merit a serious confutation.

In the pamphlet just cited, Clemency to Brutes, is the following passage: "As Christians, consider how very ill the pastime we are dissuading from agrees with the season, and of how much more suitable an use the victims of that pastime might be made to us. On the day following its tumultuous and bloody anniversary, our church enters upon a long course of humiliation and fasting: and surely an eve of riot and carnage is a most unfit preparative for such a course. Surely it would be infinitely more becoming us to make the same use of the cock at this season which St. Peter once made of it. Having denied his master, when it crew he wept." The author adds, though by mistake, "no other nation under heaven, I believe, practises it but our own."

In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 4, is the following query: "How old, and from whence is the custom of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday? A. There are several different opinions concerning the original of this custom, but we are most inclined to give credit to one Cranenstein, an old German author, who, speaking of the customs observed by the Christian nations, gives us the following account of the original institution of the ceremony: When the Danes were masters of England, and lorded it over the nations of the island, the inhabitants of a certain great city, grown weary of their slavery, had formed a secret conspiracy to murder their masters in one bloody night, and twelve men had undertaken to enter the town by a stratagem, and seizing the arms, surprise the guard which kept it; and at which time their fellows, upon a signal given, were to [p.74] come out of their houses and murder all opposers: but when they were putting it in execution, the unusual crowing and fluttering of the cocks, about the place they attempted to enter at, discovered their design ; upon which the Danes became so enraged that they doubled their cruelty, and used them with more severity than ever. Soon after they were forced from the Danish yoak, and to revenge themselves on the cocks, for the misfortune they involved them in, instituted this custom of knocking them on the head on Shrove Tuesday, the day on which it happened. This sport, tho' at first only practised in one city, in process of time became a natural advertisement, and has continued ever since the Danes first lost this island."

In the Gentleman's Journal, or the Monthly Miscellany, for January 1692-3, is given an English epigram, "On a cock at Rochester," by Sir Charles Sedley, wherein occur the following lines, which imply, as it should seem, as if the cock suffered this unusual barbarity by way of punishment for St. Peter's crime in denying his lord and master:

"May'st thou be punish'd for St. Peter's crime,
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liii. July, 1783, p. 578, says, "The barbarous practice of throwing at a cock tied to a stake at Shrovetide, I think I have read has an allusion to the indignities offered by the Jews to the Saviour of the world before his crucifixion." In the preface to Hearne's edition of Thomas Otterbourne, p. 66, he tells us that this custom of throwing at cocks must be traced to the time of King Henry the Fifth, and our victories then gained over the French, whose name in Latin is synonymous with that of a cock; and that our brave countrymen hinted by it that they could as easily, at any time, overthrow the Gallic armies as they could knock down the cocks on Shrove Tuesday. To those who are satisfied with Hearne's explanation of the custom we must object that, from the very best authorities, it appears also to have been practised in France, and that, too, long before the reign of our Henry the Fifth.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. vii. Jan. 1737, p. 7, says, (I think very erroneously,) that the "inhabitants of London, by way of reproach for imitating the French in [p.75] their modes and fashions, were named Cockneys, (turning upon the thought of a cock signifying a Frenchman,) i.e. apes and mimics of France."

With regard to the word Cockney, my learned friend Mr. Douce is of opinion, that perhaps after all that has been said with respect to the origin and meaning of this word, it is nothing more than a term of fondness or affection used towards male children, (in London more particularly,) in the same manner as Pigsnie is used to a woman. The latter word is very ancient in our tongue, and occurs in Chaucer:

The Romans used Oculus in the like sense, and perhaps Pigsnie, in the vulgar language, only means Ocellus, the eyes of that creature being remarkably small. Congreve, in his Old Batchelor, makes Fondle-wife call his mate "Cockey." Burd and Bird are also used in the same sense. Shadwell not only uses the word Pigsney in this sense, but also Birdsney. See his Plays, i. 357, iii. 385. The learned Hickes, in his Gram. Anglo. -Sax. Ling. Vett. Septentr. Thes. i. 231, gives the following derivation of Cockney: "Nunc Coquin, Coquine, quse olim apud Gallos otio, guise et ventri deditos ignavum, ignavam, desidiosum, deidiosam, segnem significabant. Hinc urbanos, utpote a rusticis laboribus, ad vitam sedentariam et quasi desidiosam avocatos pagani nostri olim Cokaignes, quod nunc scribitur Cockneys, vocabant. Et poeta hie noster in monachos et moniales, ut segne genus hoininum, qui desidise dediti, ventri indulgebant et coquinse amatores erant, malevolentissime invehitur; monasteria et monasticam vitam in Descriptione Terrse Cokainese parabolice perstringens." See also Tyrwhitt's observations on this word in his Chaucer, ed. 1775, iv. 253, C. Tales, 4206; Reed's Old Plays, v. 83, xi. 306, 307; Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, ii. 151.

The sense of the word Cockney seems afterwards to have degenerated into an effeminate person. Buttes, in his Dyets Dry Dinner, Lond. 1599, c. 2, says, "A Cochni is inverted, being as much as incoct, unripe;" but little stress can be laid upon our author's etymology. In the Workes of John [p.76] Heiwood, newly imprinted, 1598, is the following curious passage:

Carpentier, under the year 1355, mentions a petition of the scholars to the masters of the school of Ramera, to give them a cock, which they asserted the said master owed them upon Shrove Tuesday, to throw sticks at, according to the usual custom, for their sport and entertainment.⁶⁰

Among the games represented in the margin of the "Roman d'Alexandre," preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is a drawing of two boys carrying a third on a stick thrust between his legs, who holds a cock in his hands. They are followed by another boy, with a flag or standard emblazoned with a cudgel. Mr. Strutt has engraved the group in his Sports and Pastimes, pl. 35. He supposes, p. 293, that it represents a boyish triumph: the hero of the party having either won the cock, or his bird escaped unhurt from the dangers to which he had been exposed.⁶¹

This sport, now almost entirely forgotten among us, we wish consigned to eternal oblivion ; an amusement fit only for the bloodiest savages, and not for humanised men, much [p.77] less for Christians. That ingenious artist, Hogarth, has satirised this barbarity in the first of the prints called the Four States of Cruelty. Trusler's description is as follows:

The custom of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday is still (1791) retained at Heston, in Middlesex, in a field near the church. Constables have been often directed to attend on the occasion, in order to put a stop to so barbarous a custom, but hitherto they have attended in vain. I gathered the following particulars from a person who regretted that in his younger years he had often been a partaker of the sport. The owner of the cock trains his bird for some time before Shrove Tuesday, and throws a stick at him himself, in order to prepare him for the fatal day, by accustoming him to watch the threatened danger, and by springing aside, avoid the fatal blow. He holds the poor victim on the spot marked out by a cord fixed to his leg, at the distance of nine or ten yards, so as to be out of the way of the stick himself. Another spot is marked at the distance of twenty-two yards, for the person who throws to stand upon. He has three shys, or throws, for twopence, and wins the cock if he can knock him down and run up and catch him before the bird recovers his legs. The inhuman pastime does not end with the cock's life, for when killed it is put into a hat, and won a second time by the person who can strike it out. Broom-sticks are generally used to shy with. The cock, if well trained, eludes the blows of his cruel persecutors for a long time, and thereby clears to his master a considerable sum of money. But I fear lest, by describing the mode of throwing at cocks, I should deserve the censure of Boerhaave on another occasion: "to teach the arts of cruelty is equivalent to committing them."⁶²

In Men-Miracles, with other Poems, by M. Lluellin, Stu- [p.78] dent of Christ-Church, Oxon, 1679, p. 48, is the following song on cock-throwing, in which the author seems ironically to satirise this cruel sport:

"Battering with massive weapons a cock tied to a stake, is an annual diversion," says an essayist in the Gentleman's Magazine, Jan. 1737, p. 6, "that for time immemorial has prevailed in this island." A cock has the misfortune to be called in Latin by the same word which signifies a Frenchman. "In our wars with France, in former ages, our ingenious forefathers," says be, "invented this emblematical way of expressing their derision of, and resentment towards that nation; and poor Monsieur at the stake was pelted by men and boys in a very rough and hostile manner." He instances the same thought at Blenheim House, where, over the portals, is finely carved in stone the figure of a monstrous lion tearing to pieces a harmless cock, which may be justly called a pun in architecture. "Considering the many ill consequences," the essayist goes on to observe, "that attend this sport, I wonder it has so long subsisted among us. How many warm disputes and bloody quarrels has it occasioned among the surrounding mob! Numbers of arms, legs, and skulls have been broken by the massive weapons designed as destruction to the sufferer in the string. It is dangerous in some places to pass the streets on Shrove Tuesday; 'tis risking life and limbs to appear abroad that day. It was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the minds of the people against that nation. 'Tis a low, mean expression of our rage, even in time of war." One part of this extract is singularly corroborated by a passage in the Newcastle [p.79] Courant, for March 15th, 1783. "Leeds, March 11th, 1783: Tuesday se'nnight, being Shrove-tide, as a person was amusing himself, along with several others, with the barbarous custom of throwing at a cock, at Howden Clough, near Birstall, the stick pitched upon the head of Jonathan Speight, a youth about thirteen years of age, and killed him on the spot. The man was committed to York Castle on Friday."

Another writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, Jan. 1751, p. 8, says, "Some, yet more brutal, gratify their cruelty on that emblem of innocence the dove, in the same manner, to the reproach of our country and the scandal of our species." That hens were thrown at as well as cocks appear from many unquestionable evidences. In the same work, April, 1749, is "A strange and wonderful relation of a Hen that spake at a certain ancient borough in Staffordshire, on the 7th of February, being Shrove Tuesday, with her dying speech." Dean Tucker wrote "An earnest and affectionate Address to the Common People of England, concerning their usual Recreations on Shrove Tuesday," London, 12mo. no date, consisting of ten pages only.

In King Henry the Seventh's time it should seem this diversion was practised even within the precincts of the court. In a royal household account, communicated by Craven Ord, I find the following article: "March 2, 7 Hen. VII. Item to Master Bray for rewards to them that brought cokkes at Shrovetide, at Westm^r. xx 8." In the manuscript Life of Thomas Lord Berkeley, the fourth of that name, by Mr. Smith, still remaining at Berkeley Castle, speaking of his recreations and delights, he tells the reader, "Hee also would to the threshing of the cocke, pucke with hens blindfolde and the like," ii. 459. This lord was born A.D. 1352, and died in 1417.

[A curious notice of cock-fighting is contained in a letter from Sir Henry Saville, dated 1546, printed in the Plumpton Correspondence, p. 251. He invites his relation to "se all our good coxs fight, if it plese you, and se the maner of our cocking. Ther will be Lanckeshire of one parte, and Derbeshire of another parte, and Hallomshire of the third parte. I perceive your cocking varieth from ours, for ye lay but the battell; and if our battell be but £10. to £5. thear wil be "10. to one laye or the battell be ended."]

In the hamlet of Pinner, at Harrow-on-the-Hill, the cruel custom of throwing at cocks was formerly made a matter of public celebrity, as appears by an ancient account of receipts and expenditures. The money collected at this sport was applied in aid of the poor-rates.

This custom appears to have continued as late as the year 1680. (Lysons's Environs of London, ii. 588.)

By the following extract from Baron's Cyprian Academy, 1648, p. 53, it should seem to appear that hens also were formerly the objects of this barbarous persecution. A clown is speaking: "By the maskins I would give the best cow in my yard to find out this raskall; and I would thrash him as I did the henne last Shrove Tuesday" The subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Virgidemarium, 1598, iv. 5, seems to imply that a hen was a usual present at Shrovetide, as also a pair of gloves at Easter:

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, we find the ploughman's feasting days or holidays, thus enumerated: 1. Plough Monday; 2. Shrove Tuesday, when, after confession, he is suffered to thresh the fat hen; 3. Sheep-shearing, with wafers and cakes; 4. Wake Day, or the vigil of the church Saint of the village, with custards; 5. Harvest-home, with a fat goose; 6. Seedcake, a festival kept at the end of wheat-sowing, when he is to be feasted with seed-cakes, pasties, and furmenty pot.

These lines in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 80, are thus explained in a note. "The hen is hung at a fellow's back, who has also some horse-bells about him; the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chase this fellow and his hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and [p.81] nis hen; other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favouredly: but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweethearts with a peeping hole, while the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this, the hen is boiled with bacon, and store of pancakes and fritters are made. She that is noted for lying a-bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dog's share at last, for no one will own it their due." This latter part of the note is to illustrate the following lines:

Heath, in his account of the Scilly Islands, p. 120, has the following passage: "On a Shrove Tuesday each year, after the throwing at cocks is over, the boys in this island have a custom of throwing stones in the evening against the doors of the dwellers' houses; a privilege they claim from time immemorial, and put in practice without control, for finishing the day's sport. I could never learn from whence this custom took its rise, but am informed that the same custom is now used in several provinces of Spain, as well as in some parts of Cornwall. The terms demanded by the boys are pancakes, or money, to capitulate."

Mr. Jones informed me that, in Wales, such hens as did not lay eggs before Shrove Tuesday were, when he was a boy, destined to be threshed on that day by a man with a flail, as being no longer good for anything. If the man hit the hen, and consequently killed her, he got her for his pains.

"A learned foreigner (qu. if not Erasmus?) says, the English eat a certain cake on Shrove Tuesday, upon which they immediately run mad, and kill their poor cocks. 'Quoddam placentae genus, quo comesto, prolinus insaniunt, et gallos trucidant;' as if nothing less than some strong infatuation could account for continuing so barbarous a custom among Christians and cockneys." Note to 'Veille a la Campagne, or the Simnel, a Tale,' 1745, p. 16.

[SHYING AT COCKS. Probably in imitation of the barbarous custom of "shying," or throwing at the living animal. The "cock" was a representation of a bird or a beast, a [p.82] man or horse, or some device, with a stand projecting on all sides, but principally behind the figure. These were made of lead cast in moulds. They were shyed at with dumps from a small distance agreed upon by the parties, generally regulated by the size or weight of the dump, and the value of the cock. If the thrower overset or knocked down the cock, he won it; if he failed, he lost his dump. Shy for Shy. This was played at by two boys, each having a cock placed at a certain distance, generally about four or five feet asunder, the players standing behind their cocks, and throwing alternately; a bit of stone or wood was generally used to throw with, and the cock was won by him who knocked it down. These games had their particular times or seasons; and when any game was out, as it was termed, it was lawful to steal the thing played with ; this was called smugging, and it was expressed by the boys in a doggrel,

In the north of England Shrove Tuesday is called vulgarly Fasten's E'en; the succeeding day being Ash-Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten Fast.⁶³

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the great bell of St. Nicholas's church is tolled at twelve o'clock at noon on this day; shops are immediately shut up, offices closed, and all kinds of business ceases: a little carnival ensuing for the remaining part of the day. [At Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, the old curfew bell, which was anciently rung in that town for the extinction and relighting of "all fire and candle light," still exists, and has from time immemorial been regularly rung on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, at four o'clock, after which hour the inhabitants are at liberty to make and eat pancakes, until the [p.83] bell rings at eight o'clock at night. This custom is observed so closely, that after that hour not a pancake remains in the town.]

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790, p. 256 says that at Westminster School, upon Shrove Tuesday, the under clerk of the college enters the school, and preceded by the beadle and other officers, throws a large pancake over the bar which divides the upper from the under school. A gentleman, who was formerly one of the masters of that school, confirmed the anecdote to me, with this alteration, that the cook of the seminary brought it into the school, and threw it
over the curtain which separated the forms of the upper from those of the under scholars. I have heard of a similar custom at Eton school.

[At Baldock, in Hertfordshire, Shrove Tuesday is long anticipated by the children, who designate it as Dough-nut day; it being usual to make a good store of small cakes fried in hog's lard, placed over the fire in a brass skillet, called doughnuts, wherewith the youngsters are plentifully regaled. In Dorsetshire boys go round, begging for pancakes, singing,

The manuscript in the British Museum before cited, Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, mentions a custom of that school on Shrove Tuesday, of the boys being allowed to play from eight o'clock for the whole day; and of the cook's coming in and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school-door. "Die Martis Carnis-privii luditur ad horam octavam in totum diem: venit coquus, affigit laganum cornici juxta illud pullis corvorum invocantibus eum, ad ostium scholse." The crows generally have hatched their young at this season.⁶⁴

Shakespeare, in the following passage, alludes to the well-known custom of having pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, in the following string of comparisons put into the mouth of the clown in All's Well that Ends Well. "As fit as Tib's rush for Tib's forefinger, as a Pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day, &c." In Gayton's Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot, 1654, p. 99, speaking of Sancho Panza's having converted a cassock into a wallet, our pleasant annotator observes, "It was serviceable, after this greasie use, for nothing but to preach at a Carnivale or Shrove Tuesday, and to tosse Pancakes in after the exercise ; or else (if it could have been conveighed thither) nothing more proper for the man that preaches the Cook's Sermon at Oxford, when that plump society rides upon their governours horses to fetch in the Enemie, the Flie." That there was such a custom at Oxford, let Peshall, in his history of that city, be a voucher, who, speaking of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, p. 280, says, "To this Hospital cooks from Oxford flocked, bringing in on Whitsun-week the Fly." Aubrey saw this ceremony performed in 1642. He adds: "On Michaelmas-day they rode thither again, to convey the Fly away." (Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme. MS. Lansd. 226.) In the Life of Anthony à Wood, p. 46, are some curious particulars relating to indignities shown at that time (1647) to freshmen at Oxford on Shrove Tuesday. A brass pot full of cawdle was made by the cook at the freshmen's charge, and set before the fire in the College-hall." Afterwards every freshman, according to seniority, was to pluck off his gowne and band, and if possible to make himself look like a scoundrell. This done, they were conducted each after the other to the high table, and there made to stand on a forme placed thereon, from whence they were to speak their speech with an audible voice to the company: which, if well done, the person that spoke it was to have a cup of caudle, and no salted drinke; if indifferently, some caudle and some salted drinke; but if dull, nothing was given to him but salted drink, or salt put in [p.85] College-beere, with Tucks⁶⁶ to boot. Afterwards, when they were to be admitted into the fraternity, the senior cook was to administer to them an oath over an old shoe, part of which runs thus: ' Item, tu jurabis, quod Penniless Bench non visitabis,' &c., after which, spoken with gravity, the freshman kist the shoe, put on his gowne and band, and took his place among the seniors." The Editor observes, p. 50: "The custom described above was not, it is probable, peculiar to Merton College. Perhaps it was once general, as striking traces of it may be found in many societies in Oxford, and in some a very near resemblance of it has been kept up till within these few years."

"The great bell which used to be rung on Shrove Tuesday, to call the people together for the purpose of confessing their sins, was called Pancake Bell, a name which it still retains in some places where this custom is still kept up." Gent. Mag. 1790, p. 495. Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook, in Leicestershire, 1791, p. 128, says: "On Shrove Tuesday a bell rings at noon, which is meant as a signal for the people to begin frying their pancakes."

In a curious Tract, entitled A Vindication of the Letter out of the North, concerning Bishop Lake's Declaration of his dying in the belief of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience, 1690, p. 4, I find the subsequent passage: "They have for a long time at York had a custom (which now challenges the privilege of a prescription) that all the apprentices, journeymen, and other servants of the town, had the liberty to go into the Cathedral, and ring the Pancake-bell (as we call it in the country) on Shrove Tuesday; and that being a time that a great many came out of the country to see the city (if not their friends) and church; to oblige the ordinary people, the Minster used to be left open that day, to let them go up to see the Lanthorn and Bells, which were sure to be pretty well exercised, and was thought a more innocent divertisement than being at the alehouse. But Dr. Lake, when he came first to reside there, was very much scandalized at this custom, and was resolved he would break it at first dash, although all [p.86] his brethren of the clergy did dissuade him from it. He was resolved to make the experiment, for which he had like to have paid very dear, for Fie assure you it was very near costing him his life. However, he did make such a combustion and mutiny, that, I dare say, York never remembered nor saw the like, as many yet living can testify." Dr. Lake's zeal and courage on this occasion are more minutely detailed in 'A Defence of the Profession which the Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Chichester made upon his death-bed, concerning Passive Obedience, and the New Oaths: together with an account of some passages of his Lordship's life,' 1690, p. 4.

The Pancake-bell, at this period, was probably common everywhere. In Poor Robin, for 1684, we read, in February,

Taylor, the Water Poet, in his Jacke-a-Lent, Workes, 1630, i. 115, gives the following most curious account of Shrove Tuesday:

I know not well what he means by the following: "Then Tim Tatters (a most valiant villaine), with an ensigne made of a piece of a baker's mawkin,⁶⁶ fixt upon a broome-staffe, he [p.87] displaies his dreadfull colours, and calling the ragged regiment together, makes an illiterate oration, stuft with most plentifull want of discretion."

Selden, in p. 20 of his Table-talk, under Christmas, has this passage relating to the season: "So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, jack-of-lents, &c., they are all in imitation of church works, emblems of martyrdom."

Sir Frederick Morton Eden, in the State of the Poor, 1797, i. 498, tells us: "Crowdie, a dish very common in Scotland, and accounted a very great luxury by labourers, is a never-failing dinner in Scotland with all ranks of people on Shrove Tuesday (as Pancakes are in England), and was probably first introduced on that day (in the Papal times) to strengthen them against the Lenten Fast: it being accounted the most substantial dish known in that country. On this day there is always put into the bason or porringer, out of which the unmarried folks are to eat, a ring, the finder of which, by fair means, is supposed to be ominous of the finder's being first married." Crowdie is made by pouring boiling water over oatmeal and stirring it a little. It is eaten with milk or butter.

In Fosbrooke's British Monachism, ii. 127, we read: "At Barking Nunnery, the annual store of provision consisted of malt, wheat, russeaulx, herrings for Advent, red ones for Lent; almonds, salt-fish, salt salmones, figs, raisins, ryce, all for Lent; mustard; twopence for cripsis (some crisp thing) and crumcakes [cruman isfriare, Skin.] at Shrove-tide."

Dr. Goldsmith, in his Vicar of Wakefield, describingthe manners of some rustics, tells us, that among other old customs which they retained, "they eat Pancakes on Shrovetide." Poor Robin, in his Almanack for 1677, in his Observations on February, says there will be "a full sea of Pancakes and Fritters about the 26th and 27th days," (Shrove Tuesday fell on the 27th), with these lines,

[In Oxfordshire, the children go from door to door, singing the following doggrel rhyme,

and then begging for half-pence.

[At Islip, in the same county, this version is used,

A kind of Pancake Feast, preceding Lent, was used in the Greek Church, from whence we may probably have borrowed it with Pasche Eggs and other such like ceremonies. "The Russes," as Hakluyt tell us, "begin their Lent always eight weeks before Easter; the first week they eat eggs, milk, cheese, and butter, and make great cheer with Pancakes and such other things." The custom of frying Pancakes (in turning of which in the pan there is usually a good deal of pleasantry in the kitchen) is still retained in many families of the better sort throughout the kingdom, but seems, if the present fashionable contempt of old customs continues, not likely to last another century.

The apprentices, whose particular holiday this day is now esteemed, and who are on several accounts so much interested in the observation thereof, ought, with that watchful jealousy of their ancient rights and liberties, (typified so happily on this occasion by pudding and play,) as becomes young Englishmen, to guard against every infringement of its ceremonies, so as to transmit them entire and unadulterated to posterity. In Dekker's Seven Deadly Sinnes of London, 4to. 1606, p. 35, is this passage: "They presently (like Prentices upon Shrove Tuesday) take the lawe into their owne handes, and do what they list." And it appears from contemporary writers that this day was a holiday from time immemorial, for apprentices and working people. (See Dodsley's Old Plays, vi. 387, vii. 22, and xii. 403.)

Two or three customs of less general notoriety, on Shrove Tuesday, remain to be mentioned. It is remarked with much probability in a note upon the old play of the Honest Whore, by Dekker, that it was formerly a custom for the peace-officers to make search after women of ill fame on Shrove Tuesday, and to confine them during the season of Lent. So, Sensuality says in Microcosmus, Act 5,

In Strype's edition of Stow's Survey of London, 1720, i. 258, we read that in the year 1555, "An ill woman who kept the Greyhound in Westminster was carted about the city, and the Abbot's servant (bearing her good will) took her out of the cart, as it seems, before she had finisht her punishment, who was presently whipt at the same cart's tail for his pains." In 1556, "were carted two men and three women. One of these men was a bawd, for bringing women to strangers. One of the women kept the Bell in Gracechurch-street, another was the good wife of the Bull beside London-stone; both bawds and whores." 1559. "The wife of Henry Glyn, goldsmith, was carted about London, for being bawd to her own daughter." Several curious particulars concerning the old manner of carting people of this description may be gathered from the second part of the Honest Whore, 1630.

"Enter the two Masters after them the Constable, after them a Beadle beating a bason, &c." Mistris Horsleach says:

"You doe me wrong I am knowne for a motherly honest woman, and no bawd." To an inquiry, "Why before does the bason ring?" It is thus answered:

And again, "Enter Constable and Billmen.
"How now?
I'st Shrove Tuesday, that these ghosts walke?"

In Nabbe's comedy entitled Tottenham Court, 1638, p. 6, the following occurs: "If I doe, I have lesse mercy then Prentices at Shrovetide."

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, speaking of "a Maquerela, in plaine English, a bawde," says, "Nothing daunts her so much as the approach of Shrove Tuesday." Again, speaking of "a roaring boy," he observes that "he is a supervisor of brothels, and in them is a more unlawful reformer of vice than prentises on Shrove Tuesday." In the Inner Temple Masque, 1619, we read,

The punishment of people of evil fame at this season seems to have been one of the chief sports of the apprentices. In a Satyre against Separatists, 1675, we read,

The use of the game of Foot-ball on this day has been already noticed from Fitzstephen's London, and it appears from Sir John Bramston's Autobiography, p. 110, that it was usual to play Foot-ball in the streets of London in the seventeenth century. In the Penny Magazine of April 6th, 1839, p. 131, is a long account of the Derby Foot-ball play, [and till within the last few years, the game was sufficiently common in the neighbourhood of London, so much to the annoyance of the inhabitants that it was in some places [p.91] suppressed by order of the magistrates . Billet or tip-cat is also a favorite game for this day, and in some parts of the North of England, it is customary for the girls to occupy some part of the festival by the game of battledore and shuttlecock, singing,

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1795, xvi. 19, Parish of Inverness, County of Mid-Lothian, we read: "On Shrove Tuesday there is a standing match at Foot-ball between the married and unmarried women, in which the former are always victorious." In the same work, 1796, xviii. 88, parish of Scone, county of Perth, we read: "Every year on Shrove Tuesday the batchelors and married men drew themselves up at the Cross of Scone, on opposite sides. A ball was then thrown up, and they played from two o'clock till sunset. The game was this. He who at any time got the ball into his hands, run with it till overtaken by one of the opposite party, and then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he run on: if not, he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party ; but no person was allowed to kick it. The object of the married men was to hang it, i.e. to put it three times into a small hole in the moor, the dool or limit on the one hand: that of the batchelors was to drown it, i.e. to dip it three times into a deep place in the river, the limit on the other. The party who could effect either of these objects won the game. But, if neither party won, the ball was cut into equal parts at sun-set. In the course of the play, one might always see some scene of violence between the parties: but as the proverb of this part of the country expresses it, 'All was fair at the Ball of Scone.' This custom is supposed to have had its origin in the days of Chivalry. An Italian, it is said, came into this part of the country, challenging all the parishes, under a certain penalty in case of declining his challenge. .All the parishes declined the skallenjce except Scone, which beat the foreigner, and in [p.92] commemoration of this gallant action the game was instituted. Whilst the custom continued, every man in the parish, the gentry not excepted, was obliged to turn out and support the side to which he belonged ; and the person who neglected to do his part on that occasion was fined: but the custom, being attended with certain inconveniencies, was abolished a few years ago."

With regard to the custom of playing at Foot-ball on Shrove Tuesday, I was informed, that at Alnwick Castle, in Northumberland, the waits belonging to the town come playing to the Castle every year on Shrove Tuesday, at two o'clock p.m., when a Foot-ball was thrown over the Castle walls to the populace. I saw this done Feb. 5th, 1788. In King's Vale Royal of England, p. 197, there is an account that, at the city of Chester in the year 1533, "the offering of ball and foot-balls were put down, and the silver bell offered to the maior on Shrove Tuesday."

[In Ludlow, the custom of rope-pulling has been observed on Shrove Tuesday from time immemorial. The following account of it in 1846, is taken from a contemporary newspaper: "The annual and time-out-of-mind custom of rope-pulling was duly observed last week. A little before four o'clock, the Mayor, accompanied by a numerous party of gentlemen, proceeded towards the Market-hall, out of one of the centre windows of which was suspended the focus of attraction, viz. the ornamented rope. Many thousand people of all degrees were here assembled, the majority of them prepared for the tug of war; and precisely as the chimes told four, the Mayor and assistants gradually lowered the grand object of contention, amidst the deafening cheers of the multitude. The struggle then commenced in earnest, which, after the greatest exertion, ended in favour of the Corve-street Ward. As is always the case, the defeated party went round collecting subscriptions to purchase the leviathan rope from the successful possessors; which being accomplished, another fierce and manly struggle through the town ensued, and this time victory declared in favour of the Broad-street Ward. The approaching shades of night only put an end to the sports, and we are happy to add that not any accident occurred to mar the pleasures of the day."]

In Pennant's account of the city of Chester he tells us of [p.93] a place without the walls, called the Rood Eye, where the lusty youth in former days exercised themselves in manly sports of the age; in archery, running, leaping, and wrestling; in mock fights and gallant romantic triumphs. A standard was the prize of emulation in the sports celebrated on the Rood Eye, which was won in 1578 by Sheriff Montford on Shrove Tuesday.

In the Shepherd's Almanack for 1676, under February, we find the following remarks: "Some say thunder on Shrove Tuesday foretelleth wind, store of fruit, and plenty. Others affirm, that so much as the sun shineth that day, the like will shine every day in Lent."

From Lavaterus on Walking Spirits, p. 51, it should seem that, anciently, in Helvetia, fires were lighted up at Shrove-tide. "And as the young men in Helvetia, who with their fire-brand, which they light at the bone-fires at Shrof-tide," &c. Douce's manuscript notes say: "Among the Finns no fire or candle may be kindled on the Eve of Shrove Tuesday."

I shall close this account of the customs of Shrove Tuesday with a curious poem from Pasquil's Palinodia, 1634. It contains a minute description of all that appears to have been generally practised in England. The beating down the barber's basins on that day, I have not found elsewhere:

[The author of the Book of Knowledge, 1703, says, "On Shrove Tuesday, whosoever doth plant or sow, it shall remain always green: how much the sun did shine that day, so much shall it shine every day in Lent; and always the next new moon that falleth after Candlemas Day, the next Tuesday after that shall always be Shrove Tuesday." A MS. Miscellany in my possession, dated 1691, says that if the wind blows on the night of Shrove Tuesday, "it betokeneth a death amongst them are learned, and much fish shall die in the following summer."]

THIS, which is the first day of Lent, is called Ash Wednesday, as we read in the Festa Anglo-Romana, p. 19, from the ancient ceremony of blessing Ashes on that day, and therewith the priest signeth the people on the forehead, in the form of a cross, affording them withal this wholesome admonition: "Memento, homo, quod pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris;" (Remember, man, thou art dust, and shalt return to dust). The ashes used this day in the Church of Rome are made of the palms consecrated the Sunday twelve months before.⁷⁰ In a convocation held in the time of Henry the Eighth, mentioned in Fuller's Church History, p. 222, "giving of ashes on Ash Wednesday, to put in remembrance every Christian man the beginning of Lent and Penance, that he is but ashes [p.91] and earth, and thereto shall return," is reserved, with some other rites and ceremonies which survived the shock that, at that remarkable era, almost overthrew the whole pile of Catholic superstitions.⁷¹

Durandus, in his Rationale,⁷² tell us, Lent was counted to begin on that which is now the first Sunday in Lent, and to end on Easter Eve; which time, saith he, containing forty-two days, if you take out of them the six Sundays on which it was counted not lawful at any time of the year to fast, then there will remain only thirty-six days: and, therefore, that the number of days which Christ fasted might be perfected, Pope Gregory added to Lent four days of the week before going, viz. that which we now call Ash Wednesday, and the three days following it. So that we see the first observation of Lent began from a superstitious, unwarrantable, and indeed profane conceit of imitating our Saviour's miraculous abstinence.⁷³

There is a curious clause in one of the Romish Casuists concerning the keeping of Lent, viz. "that beggars which are ready to affamish⁷⁴ for want, may in Lent time eat what they can get." See Bishop Hall's Triumphs of Rome, p. 123.

In the Festyvall, 1511, f. 15, it is said: "Ye shall begyn your faste upon Ashe Wednesdaye. That daye must ye come to holy chirche, and take ashes of the Preestes hondes, and thynke on the wordes well that he sayeth over your hedes, Memento, homo, quid cinis es y et in cinerem reverteris, have mynde, thou man, of ashes thou art comen, and to ashes thou shalte tourne agayne." This work, speaking of Quatuor Temporum, or Ymbre [p.96] Days, now called Ember Days, f. 41, says, they were so called "because that our elder fathers wolde on these days ete no brede but cakes made under ashes." In a proclamation, dated 26th Feb. 1539, in the library of the Society of Antiquaries of London, concerning Rites and Ceremonies to be retained in the Church of England, we read, "On Ashe Wenisday it shall be declared that these ashes be gyven, to put every Christen man in remembrance of penaunce at the begynnynge of Lent, and that he is but erthe and ashes."⁷⁵

In the Doctrine of the Masse Booke, from Wyttonburge, by Nicholas Dorcastor, 1554, we find translated the form of "the halowing of the ashes." The Masse Book saith, that upon Ash Wednesdaye, when the Prieste hath absolved the people, then must there be made a blessynge of the ashes by the Priest, being turned towards the East. In the first prayer is this passage: "Vouchsafe to + blesse and + sanctifie these ashes, which because of humilitie and of holy religion, for the clensyng out of our trespaces, thou hast appointed us to cary upon our heades, after the manner of the Ninivites." And after directions to sprinkle the ashes with holy water, and another prayer, this rubrick is added, "Then let them distribute the ashes upon the heades of the clarckes and of the lay people, the worthier persons makyng a sygne of the crosse with the ashes, saying thus : Memento, homo, quod cinis, &c. Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes shalt thou retourne." In Bonner's Injunctions, 1555, we read, "that the hallowed ashes gyven by the Priest to the people upon Ashe Wednisdaye, is to put the people in remembrance of penance at the begynnynge of Lent, and that their bodies ar but earth, dust, and ashes." Dudley Lord North, in his Forest of Varieties, J645, p. 165, in allusion to this custom, styles one of his essays, "My Ashewednesday Ashes."

From a passage cited by Hospinian, from Naogeorgus, it appears that anciently, after the solemn service and sprinkling with ashes on Ash Wednesday, the people used [p.97] to repeat the fooleries of the Carnival. Then follows the Fool-Plough, for which the reader is referred to the sports of Christmas. The whole passage from Naogeorgus is thus translated by Barnaby Googe:

According to Aubanus, trans, p. 279, there is a strange custom used in many places of Germany upon Ash Wednesday, "for then the young youth get all the maides together, which have practised dauncing all the year before, and carrying them in a carte or tumbrell (which they draw themselves instead of horses), and a minstrell standing a-top of it playing all the way, they draw them into some lake or river, and there wash them favouredly."

The ancient discipline of sackcloth and ashes, on Ash Wednesday, is at present supplied in our church by reading publicly on this day the curses denounced against impenitent sinners, when the people are directed to repeat an Amen at the end of each malediction. Enlightened as we think ourselves at this day, there are many who consider the general avowal of the justice of God's wrath against impenitent sinners as cursing their neighbours: consequently, like good Christians, they keep away from church on the occasion. In the Churchwarden's account of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, for 1492, is the following article: "For dyssplying roddys, ij d;" and again, in 1501, "For paintynge the Crosse Staffe for Lent, iiij^d." It appears from the Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, already quoted, that at that time it was the custom of the scholars of that seminary to choose themselves confessors out of the masters or chaplains, to whom they were to confess [p.99] their sins. Herrick, in his Noble Numbers, has some lines on keeping Lent by fasting:

[Aubrey, in MS. Lansd. 231, gives the following very curious information: "It is the custom for the boys and girls in country schools, in several parts of Oxfordshire, at their breaking up in the week before Easter, to goe in a gang from house to house, with little clacks of wood, and when they come to any door, there they fall a-beating their clacks, and singing this song:

They expect from every house some eggs, or a piece of bacon, which they carry baskets to receive, and feast upon at the week's end. At first coming to the door, they all strike up very loud, "Herrings, herrings," &c., often repeated. As soon as they receive any largess, they begin the chorus,

But if they lose their expectation, and must goe away empty, then with a full cry,

And, in further indignation, they commonly cut the latch of the door, or stop the key-hole with dirt, or leave some more nasty token of displeasure."]⁷⁷

At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets, whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the earth.

[Miss Plumptre has given us an account of a ceremony in Marseilles, on Ash Wednesday, called interring the carnival. A whimsical figure is dressed up to represent the carnival, which is carried, in the afternoon, in procession to Arrens, a small village on the sea-shore, about a mile out of the town, where it is pulled to pieces. This ceremony is usually attended by crowds of the inhabitants of Marseilles, of all ranks and classes.]

A Jack-of-Lent was a puppet formerly thrown at, in our own country, in Lent, like Shrove Cocks. So, in the Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600, "a mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent." Again, in the Four Prentices of London, 1615, " Now you old Jack of Lent six weeks and upwards," and in Green's Tu quoque, "for if a boy, that is throwing at his Jack o' Lent, chance to hit him on the shins." So, in the old Comedy of Lady Alimony, 1659:

[Elderton, in a ballad, called Lenton Stuff, in a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, thus concludes his account of Lent:

[The term, as now used in the provinces, is applied to a scarecrow of old clothes, sometimes stuffed, and Fielding employs the term in that sense in his Joseph Andrews. It was also a term of contempt (See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 481). Taylor, the Water-poet, wrote a very curious tract, called "Jack a Lent, his beginning and entertainment, with the mad prankes of his gentleman-usher, Shrove Tuesday, that [p.102] goes before him, and his footman Hunger attending," It commences as follows:

It is a proverb in Norfolk that wherever the wind lies on Ash Wednesday, it continues during the whole of Lent.]

ACCORDING to Pitts, St. David, Archbishop of Menevy, now from him called St. David's, in Pembrokeshire, flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, and died at the age of a hundred and forty years.⁷⁹ [His day is still annually celebrated in London by the Society of Ancient Britons, and has long been assigned to the Welsh. In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII., 1492, is the following entry under March 1st, " Walshemen, on St. David Day, £2."]

We read in the Festa Anglo-Romana, 1678, p. 29, that 4 the Britons on this day constantly wear a Leek, in memory of a famous and notable victory obtained by them over the Saxons; they, during the battle, having Leeks in their hats, [p.103] for their military colours and distinction of themselves, by the persuasion of the said prelate, St. David." Another account adds, that they were fighting under their king Cadwallo, near a field that was replenished with that vegetable. So, Walpole, in his British Traveller, tells us: "in the days of King Arthur, St. David won a great victory over the Saxons, having ordered every one of his soldiers to place a Leek in his cap, for the sake of distinction : in memory whereof the Welsh to this day wear a Leek on the first of March."

The following verses occur among Holmes' MS. collections in the British Museum, Harl. 1977, f. 9,

The court at one time practised the custom of wearing leeks on this day; the Flying Post, 1699, informs us, "Yesterday, being St. David's Day, the King, according to custom, wore a leek in honour of the ancient Britons, the same being presented to him by the Serjeant-porter, whose place it is, and for which he claims the cloaths which his Majesty wore that day. The courtiers, in imitation of his Majesty, wore leeks likewise." Archseologia, xxxii. 399. Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231, says, "the vulgar in the West of England doe call the moneth of March lide: a proverbial rhythm,

The following proverbial sayings relative to this day are still current in the North of England,

In the Diverting Post, No. 19, from Feb. 24 to March 3, 1705, we have these lines:

To a Querist in the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 10, asking, why do the Ancient Britons (viz. Welshmen) wear Leeks in their hats on the first of March? the following answer is given: "The ceremony is observed on the first of March, in commemoration of a signal victory obtained by the Britons, under the command of a famous general, known vulgarly by the name of St. David. The Britons wore a Leek in their hats to distinguish their friends from their enemies, in the heat of the battle." So Holt, in his Cambria, 1759, p. 63,

Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 334, says, speaking of the Welsh, "On the day of St. David, their Patron, they formerly gain'd a victory over the English, and in the battle every man distinguish' d himself by wearing a Leek in his hat; and, ever since, they never fail to wear a Leek on that day. The King himself is so complaisant as to bear them company." In the Royal Apophthegms of King James, 1658, I read the following in the first page: "The Welchmen, in commemoration of the Great Fight by the Black Prince of Wales, do wear Leeks as their chosen ensign:" and the Episcopal Almanack for 1677 states that [p.105] St. David, who was of royal extraction, and uncle to king Arthur, "died aged a hundred and forty-six years, on the first of March, still celebrated by the Welsh, perchance to perpetuate the memory of his abstinence, whose contented mind made many a favourite meal on such roots of the earth." The commemoration of the British victory, however, appears to afford the best solution of wearing the Leek.⁸⁰

[It would appear from some lines in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1757, that in England a Welshman was formerly burnt in effigy on this anniversary,

To this custom Pepys seems to allude in his Diary for 1667, "In Mark Lane I do observe (it being St. David's Day) the picture of a man dressed like a Welshman, hanging by the neck, upon one of the poles that stand out at the top of one of the merchant's houses in full proportion, and very handsomely done, which is one of the oddest sights I have seen a good while." Possibly arising from this was the practice till lately in vogue amongst pastrycooks of hanging or skewering taffies or Welshmen of gingerbread for sale on St. David's Day.]

Coles, in his Adam in Eden, says, concerning Leeks, "The Gentlemen in Wales have them in great regard, both for their feeding, and to wear in their hats upon St. David's Day."

In an old satirical Ballad, entitled "The Bishop's last [p.106] Good-night," a single sheet, dated 1642, the 14th stanza runs thus:

In Caxton's Description of Wales, at the end of the St. Alban's Chronicle, 1500, speaking of the "Manners and Rytes of the Walshemen," we read,

In Shakespeare's play of Henry the Fifth, Act. v. Sc. 1, Gower asks Fluellen, "But why wear you your Leek to-day? Saint Davy's Day is past." From Fluellen's reply we gather, that he wore his Leek in consequence of an affront he had received but the day before from Pistol, whom he afterwards compels to eat Leek, skin and all, in revenge for the insult; quaintly observing to him, "When you take occasion to see Leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at them, that is all." Gower too upbraids Pistol for mocking "at an ancient tradition begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of pre-deceased valour."

[This seems to show that Shakespeare was acquainted with the tradition above quoted from the Festa Anglo-Romana. It is, however, sufficiently singular that Grimm quotes a passage from an ancient Edda in which a chieftain is represented as carrying an onion either as a returning conqueror, or because it was a custom to wear it at a name giving. See a paper by Mr. Thorns in the Archaeologia, xxxii. 398. The onion was held sacred by the ancient Egyptians, a superstition ridiculed by Juvenal,

In the Flowers of the Lives of the most renowned Saints, we read of St. David, that "he died 1st March, about A.D. 550, which day, not only in Wales, but all England over, is most famous in memorie of him. But in these our unhappy daies, the greatest part of this solemnitie consisteth in wearing of a greene Leeke, and it is a sufficient theme for a zealous Welshman to ground a quarrell against him that doth not honour his capp with the like ornament that day."⁸¹ Ursula is introduced in the old play of the Vow-breaker, or the Fayre Maid of Clifton, 1636, as telling Anne "Thou marry German! His head's like a Welchman's crest on St. Davie's Day! He looks like a hoary frost in December! Now Venus blesse me, I'de rather ly by a statue!"

Owen, in his Cambrian Biography, 1803, p. 86, says: "In consequence of the romances of the middle ages which created the Seven Champions of Christendom, St. David has been dignified with the title of the Patron Saint of Wales: but this rank, however, is hardly known among the people of the Principality, being a title diffused among them from England in modern times. The writer of this account never heard of such a Patron Saint, nor of the Leek as his symbol, until he became acquainted therewith in London" He adds, "The wearing of the Leek on Saint David's Day probably originated from the custom of Cymhortha, or the neighbourly aid practised among farmers, which is of various kinds. In some districts of South Wales, all the neighbours of a small farmer without means appoint a day when they all attend to plough his lands and the like; and at such a time it is a custom for each individual to bring his portion of Leeks, to be used in making pottage for the whole company; and they bring nothing else but the Leeks in particular for the occasion." The reader is left to reconcile this passage with what has been already said upon the day.

[An amusing account of the origin of the leek custom is given in Howell's Cambrian Superstitions. The Welsh in olden days were so infested by ourang-outangs, that they could obtain no peace by night nor day, and not being themselves able to extirpate them, they invited the English, who came, but through some mistake, killed several of the Welsh themselves, so that in order to distinguish them from the monkeys, they desired them at last to stick leeks in their hats!

The leek is thus mentioned in the Antidote against Melancholy, 1661, speaking of Welsh food,

"The first of this month some do keep,
For honest Taff to wear his leek:
Who patron was, they say, of Wales,
And since that time, cuts plutter a nails,
Along the street this day doth strut
With hur green leek stuck in hur hat;
And if hur meet a shentletnan,
Salutes in Welsh, and if hur can
Discourse in Welsh, then hur shall be
Amongst the greenhorn'd Taffys free."]

THE Shamrock is said to be worn by the Irish upon the anniversary of this Saint, for the following reason. When the Saint preached the Gospel to the Pagan Irish, he illustrated the doctrine of the Trinity by showing them a trefoil, or three-leaved grass with one stalk, which operating to their conviction, the Shamrock, which is a bundle of this grass, [p.109] was ever afterwards worn upon this Saint's anniversary, to commemorate the event,⁸²

The British Druids and bards had an extraordinary veneration for the number three. "The misletoe," says Vallancey, in his Grammar of the Irish Language, "was sacred to the Druids, because not only its berries, but its leaves also, grow in clusters of three united to one stock. The Christian Irish hold the Seamroy sacred in like manner, because of three leaves united to one stalk." Spenser, in his view of the State of Ireland, 1596, ed. 1633, p. 72, speaking of "these late warres of Mounster," before, "a most rich and plentifull countrey, full of corne and cattle," says the inhabitants were reduced to such distress that, "if they found a plot of watercresses or Shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time."

Mr. Jones, in his Historical Account of the Welsh Bards, 1794, p. 13, tells us, in a note, that "St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, is said to be the son of Calphurnius and Concha. He was born in the Vale of Rhos, in Pembrokeshire, about the year 373." Mr. Jones, however, gives another pedigree of this Saint, and makes him of Caernarvonshire. [In fact, the various biographies of this holy personage are most conflicting, some asserting that he was born in Scotland.] He adds: "His original Welsh name was Maenwyn, and his ecclesiastical name of Patricius was given him by Pope Celestine, when he consecrated him a Bishop, and sent him missioner into Ireland, to convert the Irish, in 433. When St. Patrick landed near Wicklow, the inhabitants were ready [p.110] to stone him for attempting an innovation in the religion of their ancestors. He requested to be heard, and explained unto them that God is an omnipotent, sacred spirit, who created heaven and earth, and that the Trinity is contained in the Unity; but they were reluctant to give credit to his words. St. Patrick, therefore, plucked a trefoil from the ground, and expostulated with the Hibernians: 'Is it not as possible for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as for these three three leaves, to grow upon a single stalk?' Then the Irish were immediately convinced of their error, and were solemnly baptized by St. Patrick."

In Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, when describing a Footman, he says, "'Tis impossible to draw his picture to the life, cause a man must take it as he's running; onely this: horses are usually let bloud on St. Steven's Day: on S. Patricltes hee takes rest, and is drencht for all the yeare after, ed. 1615, sig. K3."⁸³

IN the former days of superstition, while that of the Roman Catholics was the established religion, it was the custom for people to visit their Mother-Church on Mid-Lent Sunday, and to make their offering at the high altar. Cowel, in his Law Dictionary, observes that the now remaining [p.111] practice of Mothering, or going to visit parents upon Mid-Lent Sunday, is owing to that good old custom. Nay, it seems to be called Mothering from the respect so paid to the Mother-Church, when the Epistle for the day was, with some allusion, Galat. iv. 21, "Jerusalem Mater omnium" which Epistle for Mid-Lent Sunday we still retain, though we have forgotten the occasion of it.

The fourth Sunday in Lent, says Wheatly on the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 221, is generally called Mid-Lent, "though Bishop Sparrow, and some others, term it Dominica Refectionis, the Sunday of Refreshment; the reason of which, I suppose, is the Gospel for the day, which treats of our Saviour's miraculously feeding five thousand; or else, perhaps, from the first lesson in the morning, which gives us the story of Joseph's entertaining his brethren." He is of opinion, that "the appointment of these Scriptures upon this day might probably give the first rise to a custom still retained in many parts of England, and well known by the name of Mid-lenting or Mothering."⁸⁴

The following is found in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 278:

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1784, p. 98, Mr. Nichols tells us, "that whilst he was an apprentice, the custom was to visit his mother (who was a native of Nottinghamshire) on Midlent Sunday (thence called Mothering Sunday) for a regale of excellent furmety."⁸⁵ [A mothering cake is thus alluded to in Collins's Miscellanies, 1762, p. 114,

The mothering cakes are very highly ornamented, artists being employed to paint them. It is also usual for children to make presents to their mother on this day, and hence the name of the festival is vulgarly derived.]

A correspondent in the same journal for 1783, p. 578, says: "Some things customary probably refer simply to the idea of feasting or mortification, according to the season and occasion. Of these, perhaps, are Lamb's Wool on Christmas Eve; Furmety on Mothering Sunday; Braggot (which is a mixture of ale, sugar, and spices) at the Festival of Easter; and Cross-buns, Saffron-cakes, or Symnels, in Passion week; though these being, formerly at least, unleavened, may have a retrospect to the unleavened bread of the Jews, in the same manner as Lamb at Easter to the Paschal Lamb." Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook, 1791, p. 128, says: "Nor must I omit to observe that by many of the parishioners due respect is paid to Mothering Sunday." In a curious Roll of the Expenses of the Household of 18 Edw. I. remaining in the Tower of London, and communicated to the Society of Antiquaries in 1805, is the following item on Mid-Lent Sunday. "Pro pisis j.d.," i.e. for pease one penny. Were these pease substitutes for furmenty, or carlings, which are eaten at present in the North of England on the following Sunday, commonly called by the vulgar Carling Sunday?

Another writer in the Gent. Mag. 1784, p. 343, tells us,

"I happened to reside last year near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire; and there, for the first time, heard of Mothering Sunday. My enquiries into the origin and meaning of it were fruitless; but the practice thereabouts was, for all servants and apprentices, on Mid-Lent Sunday, to visit their parents, and make them a present of money, a trinket, or some nice eatable ; and they are all anxious not to fail in this custom."⁸⁶

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and many other places in the North of England, grey peas, after having been steeped a night in water, are fried with butter, given away, and eaten at a kind of entertainment on the Sunday preceding Palm Sunday, which was formerly called Care or Carle Sunday, as may be yet seen in some of our old almanacks. They are called Carlings, probably, as we call the presents at Fairs, Fairlings.

In Randal Holme's Academy of Armory and Blazon, 1688, iii. 3, p. 130, I find the following: "Carle Sunday is the second Sunday before Easter, or the fifth Sunday from Shrove Tuesday."

In the Glossary to the Lancashire Dialect, 1775, Carlings are explained: "Peas boiled on Care Sunday, i.e. the Sunday before Palm Sunday." So in the popular old Scottish song, "Fy! let us all to the Briddel:"

[Hone quotes an account of a robbery in 1825, in which an allusion is made to this custom: "It appeared that Hindmarch had been at Newcastle on Carling Sunday, a day so called because it is the custom of the lower orders in the North of England to eat immense quantities of small peas, called carlings, fried in butter, pepper, and salt, on the second Sunday before Easter, and that on his way home about half-past ten his watch was snatched from him."]

This day is also called Passion Sunday in some old almanacks. In the Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 779, an advertisement for the regulation of Newark Fair is copied, which mentions that "Careinff Fair will be held on Friday before Careing Sunday:" and Nichols remarks on this passage, that he had heard the following old Nottinghamshire couplet:

Another writer in the Gent. Mag. for 1789, p. 491, tells us that, "in several villages in the vicinity of Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, the fifth Sunday in Lent has been, time immemorial, commemorated by the name of Whirlin Sunday, when Cakes are made by almost every family, and are called, from the day, Whirlin Cakes."⁸⁹ In Yorkshire, the rustics go to the public-house of the village on this day, and spend each their Carling groat, i.e. that sum in drink, for the Carlings are provided for them gratis; and a popular notion prevails there that those who do not do this will be unsuccessful in their pursuits for the following year.

Rites, peculiar, it should seem, to Good Friday, were used on this day, which the Church of Rome called, therefore, Passion Sunday. Durand assigns many superstitious reasons to confirm this, but they are too ridiculous to be transcribed. Lloyd tells us, in his Dial of Days, that on the 12th of March, at Rome, they celebrated the Mysteries of Christ and his Passion with great ceremony and much devotion.

In the old Roman Calendar so often cited, I find it observed on this day, that "a dole is made of soft Beans."⁸⁹ I can hardly entertain a doubt but that our custom is derived from hence. It was usual amongst the Romanists to give away beans in the doles at funerals: it was also a rite in the funeral ceremonies of heathen Rome.⁹⁰ Why we have substituted [p.115] peas I know not, unless it was because they are a pulse somewhat fitter to be eaten at this season of the year. They are given away in a kind of dole at this day. Our Popish ancestors celebrated (as it were by anticipation) the funeral of our Lord on this Care Sunday, with many superstitious usages, of which this only, it should seem, has travelled down to us. Durand tells us, that on Passion Sunday, "the church began her public grief, remembering the mystery of the Cross, the vinegar, the gall, the reed, the spear," &c. There is a great deal of learning in Erasmus's Adages concerning the religious use of beans, which were thought to belong to the dead. An observation which he gives us of Pliny, concerning Pythagoras's interdiction of this pulse, is highly remarkable. It is, "that Beans contain the souls of the dead." For which cause also they were used in the Parentalia. Plutarch also, he tells us, held that pulse was of the highest efficacy for invoking the manes. Ridiculous and absurd as these superstitions may appear, it is yet certain that our Carlings thence deduce their origin.

These beans, it should seem from the following passage in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, were hallowed. He is enumerating Popish superstitions: "Their Breviaries, Bulles, hallowed Beans, Exorcisms, Pictures, curious Crosses, Fables, and Babies," Democritus to the Reader, ed. 1632, p. 29. Bale, in his Yet a Course at the Romysh Foxe, attributes to Pope Euticianus "the blessynge of benes upon the aultar."⁹¹

In Fosbrooke's British Monachism, ii. 127, is the following:

"At Barking Nunnery the annual store of provision consisted, inter alia, of Green Peas for Lent; Green Peas against Mid-summer;" and in the Order and Government of a Nobleman's House, in the Archaeologia, xiii. 373, "if one will have pease soone in the year following, such pease are to be sowenne [p.116] in the waine of the moone at St. Andre's tide before Christmas."

In Smith's MS. Lives of the Lords of Berkeley, in the possession of the Earl of Berkeley, p. 49, we read that on the anniversary of the Founder of St. Augustine's, Bristol, i.e. Sir Robert Fitzharding, on the 5th of February, "at that monastery there shall be one hundred poore men refreshed, in a dole made unto to them in this forme: every man of them hath a ehanon's loafe of bread, called a myche,⁹² and three hearings therewith. There shall be doaled also amongst them two bushells of pesys. And in the anniversary daye of Dame Eve" (Lady Eve, wife of the above Sir Robert), "our Foundresse, a dole shalbe made in this forme: that daye shalbe doled to fifty poore men fifty loafes called miches, and to each three hearings, and, amongst them all, one bushell of pease." Lord Robert Fitzharding died Feb. 5th, 1170, and Dame Eve died in 1173.

The vulgar, in the North of England, give the following names to the Sundays of Lent, the first of which is anonymous:

The three first are certainly corruptions of some part of the ancient Latin Service, or Psalms, used on each.

The word Care is preserved in the subsequent account of an obsolete custom at marriages in this kingdom. "According to the use of the Church of Sarum," says Blount, in his Glossographia, 1681, p. 108, "when there was a marriage before Mass, the parties kneel'd together, and had a fine linen cloth (called the Care Cloth) laid over their heads during the time of Mass, till they received the benediction, and then were dismissed." Palsgrave calls this the carde clothe, and seems to say that it was in his time (1530) out of use. (Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 232.)

I suspect the following passage to be to our purpose. Skelton, in his Colin Clout, has these words, in his usual style:

In a book, intituled A World of Wonders, 1607, translated by R. C. from the French copy, speaking of a Popish book, intituled Quadragesimale Spirituale, printed at Paris, 1565, the writer extracts certain periods. Thus, chap. 2: "After the sallad (eaten in Lent at the first service) we eat fried beanes, by which we understand Confession. When we would have beanes well sooden, we lay them in steepe, for otherwise they will never seeth kindly. Therefore, if we purpose to
amend our faults, it is not sufficient barely to confess them at all adventure, but we must let our confession lie in steepe in the water of Meditation." And a little after: "We do not use to seeth ten or twelve beans together, but as many as we meane to eate; no more must we steepe, that is, meditate, upon ten or twelve sinnes onely, neither for ten or twelve dayes, but upon all the sinnes that ever we committed, even from our birth, if it were possible to remember them." Chap. 3: "Strained pease (Madames) are not to be forgotten. You know how to handle them so well, that they will be delicate and pleasant to the tast. By these strained pease onr allegorizing flute pipeth nothing else but true contrition of heart. River-water, which continually moveth, runneth, and floweth, is very good for the seething of pease. We must (I say) have contrition for our sins, and take the runninyloater, that is, the teares of the hearty which must runne and come even into the eyes."

Googe, in his Popish Kingdome, has the following summary for Care Sunday, f. 49:

[On this day at Seville there is an usage evidently the remains of an old custom. Children of all ranks, poor and gentle, appear in the streets, fantastically dressed with caps of gilt and coloured paper. During the whole day they make an incessant din with drums and rattles, and cry, "Saw down the old woman." At midnight parties of the commonalty parade the streats, knock at every door, repeat the same cries, and conclude by sawing in two the figure of an old woman representing: Lent. This division is emblematical of Mid- Lent.]

THIS is evidently called Palm Sunday because, as the Ritualists say, on that day the boughs of Palm-trees used to be carried in procession, in imitation of those which the Jews strewed in the way of Christ when he went up to Jerusalem. The Palm-tree was common in Judea, and planted, no doubt, everywhere by the waysides. Sprigs of Boxwood are still used as a substitute for Palms in Roman Catholic countries. The Consecration Prayer seems to leave a latitude for the species of Palm used instead of the real Palm.⁹³

The author of the Festyvall, 1511, f. 28, speaking of the Jews strewing Palm-branches before Christ, says: "And thus we take palme and floures in the processyon as they dyde, and go in processyon knelynge to the Crosse in the worshyp and mynde of hym that was done on the Crosse, worshyppynge and welcomynge hym with songe into the Chyrche, as the people dyde our Lord into the cyte of Jherusalem. It is called Palme Sondaye for bycause the Palme betokeneth vyctory, wherefore all Crysten people sholde here Palme in processyon, in tokennynge that he hath foughten with the fende our enemy e, and hath the vyctory of hym." In the Horda Angel-Cynnan, iii. 174, Strutt cites an old manuscript, printed also in Caxton's Directions for Keeping Feasts, which says, "Wherfor holi Chirche this daye makith soleinpne processyon, in mynde of the processyon that Cryst made this dey: but for encheson⁹⁴ that wee have noone olyve
that bearith greene leves, therefore we taken palme, and geven instede of olyve, and beare it about in processione. So is thys daye called Palme Sonday."⁹⁵ A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, Dec. 1779, p. 579, observes on the above, "It is evident that something called a Palm was carried in procession on Palm Sunday. What is meant by our having no olive that beareth green leaves I do not know. Now it is my idea that these palms, so familiarly mentioned, were no [p.120] other than the branches of yew-trees." Googe, in the Popish Kingdome, f. 42, says:

Coles, also, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of Willow, tells us, "The blossoms come forth before any leaves appear, and are in their most flourishing estate usually before Easter, divers gathering them to deck up their houses on Palm Sunday, and therefore the said flowers are called Palme." Newton, in his Herball for the Bible, 1587, p. 206, after mentioning that the Box-tree and the Palm were often confounded together, adds: "This error grew (as I thinke) at the first for that the common people in some countries used to decke their church with the boughes and branches thereof on the Sunday next before Easter, commonly called Palme Sunday; for at that time of the yeare all other trees, for the most part, are not blowen or blomed."

In Nichols's Extracts from Churchwardens' Accompts, 1797, among those of St. Martin Outwich, London, we have these articles: 1510-11, "First, paid for Palme, Box-floures, and Cakes, iiij d.; 1525: Paid for Palme on Palme Sunday, ij d. ib. Paid for Kaks, Flowers and Yow, ij d." The following similar entries occur in the churchwardens' accounts of the parish of Alhallows, Staining: "Item, for paulme-Jiowers, cakes, trashes, and for thred on Palme Sonday, viij d: Item for box andpalme on Palme Sondaye: Item for gennepore for the church e, ij d."

Stow, in his Survay of London, 1603, p. 98, under "Sports and Pastimes," tells us, that "in the weeke before Easter had ye great shewes made for the fetching in of a twisted tree or with,⁹⁶ as they termed it, out of the woodes into the kinge's house, and the like into every man's house of honor or worship." This must also have been a substitute for the palm. An instance of the high antiquity of this practice in England [p.121] is afforded by the Domesday Survey, under Shropshire, i. 252, where a tenant is stated to have rendered in payment a bundle of box twigs on Palm Sunday, "Terra dimid. car unus reddit mdefascem buxi in die Palmarum"

The Church of Rome has given the following account of her ceremonies on this day, as described in the Rhemists' Translation of the New Testament: "The blessed sacrament reverently carried, as it were Christ upon the Ass, with strawing of bushes and flowers, bearing of palms, setting out boughs, spreading and hanging up the richest clothes, &c., all done in a very goodly ceremony to the honour of Christ, and the memory of his triumph upon this day."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1 795, xv. 45, parish of Lanark, county of Lanark, we read of "a gala kept by the boys of the grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. They then parade the streets with a Palm, or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind, Salix caprea, in blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree. This day is called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a Popish relic of very ancient standing."

I know not how it has come to pass, but to wear the willow an other occasions has long implied a man's being forsaken by his mistress. Thus the following, from a Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, 1657:

[Shakespeare alludes to the custom in Much Ado about Nothing, act ii. sc. 1, "Even to the next willow about your own business, Count: what fashion will you wear the garland of?" This tree, says Douce, might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the Psalm, "We hanged our harps [p.122] upon the willows in the midst thereof;" or else from a coincidence between the weeping willow and falling tears. Another reason has been assigned. The Agnus Castus was supposed to promote chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says Swan, in his Speculum Mundi, 1635, it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland."]

The Columbine, too, by the following passage from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, had the same import, ii. 81:

In Lilly's Sappho and Phao, ii. 4, is the folio wing passage: "Enjoy thy care in covert; weare willow in thy nut, and bayes in thy heart." A willow, also, in Fuller's Worthies (Cambr. p. 144), is described as "a sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love, make their mourning garlands, and we know what exiles hung up their harps upon such dolefull supporters. The twiggs hereof are physick to drive out the folly of children. This tree delighteth in moist places, and is triumphant in the Isle of Ely, where the roots strengthen their banks, and lop affords fuel! for their fire. It groweth incre- [p.123] dibly fast, it being a by-word in this county, that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse before that by other trees will pay for his saddle. Let me adde, that if green ashe may burne before a queen, withered willows may be allowed to burne before a lady." To an inquiry in the British Apollo, vol. ii. No. 98, 1710, "why are those who have lost their love said to wear the willow garlands?" it is answered, " because willow was in ancient days, especially among herdsmen and rusticks, a badge of mourning, as may be collected from the several expressions of Virgil, in his Eclogues, where the nymphs and herdsmen are frequently introduced sitting under a willow mourning their loves. You may observe the same in many Greek authors, I mean poets, who take liberty to feign any sort of story. For the ancients frequently selected, and, as it were, appropriated several trees as indexes or testimonials of the various passions of mankind, from whom we continue at this day to use ewe and rosemary at funerals, in imitation of antiquity; these two being representatives of a dead person, and willow of love dead or forsaken. You may observe that the Jews, upon their being led into captivity, Psalm 137, are said to hang their harps upon willows, i.e. trees appropriated to men in affliction and sorrow, who had lost their beloved Sion."

In Marston's play of What you Will, ed. 1663, sig. 0, where a lover is introduced serenading his mistress, we read "he sings, and is answered; from above a willow garland is flung downe, and the song ceaseth." "Is this my favour? am I crown'd with scorne?"

[The earliest willow song is contained in a MS. collection of poems by John Heywood, about 1530.

In the Comical Pilgrim's Travels thro' England, 1723, p. 23, is the following: "Huntingdonshire is a very proper county for unsuccessful lovers to live in; for, upon the loss of their sweethearts, they will here find an abundance of willow-trees, so that they may either wear the willow green or [p.124] hang themselves, which they please: but the latter is reckoned the best remedy for slighted love." Coles, in his Art of Simpling, an Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants, p. 65, says, "the willow garland is a thing talked of, but I had rather talk of it then weare it."

"Wylowe-tree hit is sayd that the sede therof is of this vertue, that, if a man drynke of hit, he shall gete no sones, but only bareyne doughters." Bartholomeus de Prooriet. Rerum, fol. Lond. T. Berth, fol. 286.

[The practice does not appear to be obsolete. Macaulay, in his History of Claybrook, 1791, says, "the only custom now remaining at weddings, that tends to recall a classical image to the mind, is that of sending to a disappointed lover a garland made of willow, variously ornamented, accompanied sometimes with a pair of gloves, a white handkerchief, and a smelling-bottle."] According to Owen's Welsh Dictionary, in v. Cole, "There is an old custom of presenting a forsaken lover with a stick or twig of hazel; probably in allusion to the double meaning of the word. Of the same sense is the following proverb, supposed to be the answer of a widow, on being asked why she wept : f painful is the smoke of the hazel.'"

[At Kempton, in Hertfordshire, it has long been a custom for the inhabitants to eat figs on this day, there termed figSunday, when it is also usual for them to keep wassel, and make merry with their friends. A grocer in that village assured Hone that more figs were sold there the few days previous than in all the rest of the year.]

Naorgeorgus's description of the ceremonies on Palm Sunday is thus translated by Barnabe Googe:

In the Doctrine of the Masse Booke, concerning the making of Holye-water, Salt, Breade, Candels, Ashes, Fyre, Insence, Pascal, Pascal-lambe, Egges, and Herbes, the Marying-rynge, the Pilgrhnes Wallet, Staffe, and Crosse, truly translated into Englishe, Anno Domini 1554, the 2 of May, from Wyttonburge, by Nicholas Dorcaster, we have: "The Hallowing of Palmes. When the Gospel is ended, let ther follow the halowyng of flouers and braunches by the priest, being araied with, a redde cope, upon the thyrde step of the altare, turning [p.126] him toward the south: the palmes, wyth the flouers, being fyrst laied aside upon the altere for the clarkes, and for the other upon the steppe of the altere on the south side." Prayers: "I conjure the, thou creature of flouers andbraunches, in the name of God the Father Almighty, and in the name of Jesu Christ hys sonne our Lord, and in the vertue of the Holy Ghost. Therfore be thou rooted out and displaced from this creature of flouers and braunches, al thou strength of the Adversary, al thou host of the Divell, and al thou power of the enemy, even every assault of Divels, that thou overtake not the foote-steps of them that haste unto the grace of God. Thorow him that shal come to judge the quicke and the deade and the world by fyre. Amen." "Almightye eternal God, who at the pouring out of the floude diddest declare to thy servaunt Noe by the mouthe of a dove, bearing an olive braunch, that peace was restored agayne upon earth, we humblye beseche the that thy truthe may + sanctifie this creature of flouers and branches, and slips of palmes, or bowes of trees, which we offer before the presence of thy glory ; that the devoute people bearing them in their handes, may meryte to optayne the grace of thy benediction. Thorowe Christe," &c. There follow other prayers, in which occur these passages: After the flowers and branches are sprinkled with holy-water Blesse + and sanctifie + these braunches of palmes, and other trees and flouers concluding with this rubrick: So whan these thynges are fynyshed, let the palmes immediately be distributed."⁹⁸

It is still customary with our boys, both in the south and north of England, to go out and gather slips with the willow-flowers or buds at this time. These seem to have been selected as substitutes for the real palm, because they are generally the only things, at this season, which can be easily procured, in which the power of vegetation can be discovered. It is even yet a common practice in the neighbourhood of London. The young people go a palming; and the sallow is sold in London streets for the whole week preceding Palm Sunday, the purchaser commonly not knowing the tree which produces it, but imagining it to be the real palm, and wondering that they never saw the tree growing! It appears, however, from a passage quoted in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 600, that the sallow was anciently so called. In the North, it is called, "going a palmsoning of palmsning."

In a Short Description of Antichrist, &c., is the following:

"They also, upon Palmes Sonday, lifte up a cloth, and say, hayle our Kynge! to a rood made of a wooden blocke." At f. 8, is noted the Popish "hallowinge of Palme Stickes."⁹⁹

[The following lines occur in some curious verses on Palm Sunday in a MS. of the fourteenth century in the British Museum, MS. Sloane 2478.

The ceremony of bearing palms on Palm Sunday was retained in England after some others were dropped, and was one of those which Henry V11L, in 1536, declared were not to be contemned and cast away. In a Proclamation in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, dated 26th February 1539, "concernyng rites and ceremonies to be used in due fourme in the Churche of Englande," wherein occurs the following clause: "On Palme Sonday it shall be declared that bearing of Palmes renueth the memorie of the receivinge of [p.129] Christe in lyke maner into Jerusalem before his deathe." In Fuller's Church History, also, p. 222, we read that "bearing of palms on Palm Sunday is in memory of the receiving of Christ into Hierusalem a little before his death, and that we may have the same desire to receive him into our hearts." Palms were used to be borne here with us till 2 Edw. VI.; and the Rhenish translators of the New Testament mention also the bearing of Palms on this day in their country when it was Catholic.¹⁰⁰

A similar interpretation of this ceremony to that given in King Henry the Eighth's Proclamation, occurs in Bishop Bonner's Injunctions, 4to. 1555. "To cary their palmes discreatlye," is among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale, in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles, 1554, as is, "to conjure palmes." In Howes' s edition of Stow's Chronicle, it is stated, under the year 1548, that "this yeere the ceremony of bearing of palmes on Palme Sonday was left off, and not used as before." That the remembrance of this custom, however, was not lost is evident. In "Articles to be enquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke, by the churche wardens and sworne men, A.D. 163 +," I find the following, alluding, it should seem, both to this day and Holy Thursday: "Whether there be any superstitious use of Crosses with Towels, Palmes, Metwands, or other memories of idolaters." Douce says, "I have somewhere met with a proverbial saying, that he that hath not a Palm in his hand on Palm Sunday must have his hand cut off."

In Yet a Course at the Romysh Foxe, a Dysclosynge or Openynge of the Manne of Synne, contayned in the late Declaration of the Pope's olde Faythe made by Edmonde Boner, Byshopp of London, &c. by Johan Harryson (J. Bale) printed at Zurik, A.D. 1542, 8vo., the author enumerates some "auncyent rytes and lawdable ceremonyes of holy churche," then it should seem laid aside, in the following censure of the Bishop: "Than ought my Lorde also to suffre the same selfe ponnyshment for not rostyng egges in the Palme ashes fyre," &c. In Dives and Pauper, cap. iv. we read: "On Palme Sondaye at procession the priest drawith up the veyle before the rode, and falleth down to the ground with all [p.130] the people, and saith thrice, Ave Rex Noster, Hayle be thou our King. He speketh not to the image that the carpenter hath made, and the peinter painted, but if the priest be a fole, for that stock or stone was never King; but he speakethe to hyna that died on the crosse, for us all, to him that is Kynge of all thynge."¹⁰¹

"Upon Palm Sunday," says Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, "at our Lady Want's Well, at Little Golan, idle-laeaded seekers resorted, with a palm crosse in one hand and an offering in the other. The offering fell to the priest's share; the cross they threw into the well, which, if it swainme, the party should outlive that yeare; if it sunk, a short ensuing death was boded, and perhaps not altogether untruly, while a foolish conceyt of this halsenyng (i.e. omen) might the sooner help it onwards."

The Russians (of the Greek Church) have a very solemn procession on Palm Sunday.

[There is a very singular ceremony at Caistor Church, Lincolnshire, on Palm Sunday, which must not be passed over unnoticed. A deputy from Broughton brings a very large [p.131] ox-whip, called there a gad- whip. Gad is an old Lincolnshire measure of ten feet ; the stock of the gad-whip is, perhaps, of the same length. The whip itself is constructed as follows. A large piece of ash, or any other wood, tapered towards the top, forms the stock; it is wrapt with white leather half way down, and some small pieces of mountain ash are inclosed. The thong is very large, and made of strong white leather. The man comes to the north porch about the commencement of the first lesson, and cracks his whip in front of the porch door three times ; he then, with much ceremony, wraps the thong round the stock of the whip, puts some rods of moun- tain ash lengthwise upon it, and binds the whole together with whipcord. He next ties to the top of the whip-stock a purse containing two shillings (formerly this sum was in twenty-four silver pennies); then taking the whole upon his shoulder, he marches into the church, where he stands in front of the reading-desk till the commencement of the second lesson: he then goes up nearer, waves the purse over the head of the clergyman, kneels down on a cushion, and continues in that position, with the purse suspended over the clergyman's head till the lesson is ended. After the service is concluded, he carries the whip, &c. to the manor-house of Undon, a hamlet adjoining, where he leaves it. There is a new whip made every year ; it is made at Broughton and left at Undon. Certain lands in the parish of Broughton are held by the tenure of this annual custom.]

A CUSTOM prevails everywhere among us on the 1st of April, when everybody strives to make as many fools as he [p.132] can. The wit chiefly consists in sending persons on what are called sleeveless errands,¹⁰² for the History of Eve's Mother, for Pigeon's Milk, with similar ridiculous absurdities. ["A neighbour of mine," says the Spectator, "who is a haber-dasher by trade, and a very shallow conceited fellow, makes his boasts that for these ten years successively he has not made less than a hundred fools. My landlady had a falling out with him about a fortnight ago for sending every one of her children upon some sleeveless errand, as she terms it. Her eldest son went to buy a halfpenny worth of incle at a shoemaker's; the eldest daughter was despatched half a mile to see a monster; and, in short, the whole family of innocent children made April fools."] He takes no notice of the rise of this singular kind of anniversary, and I find in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1760 a metrical description of the modern fooleries on the 1st of April, with the open avowal of being ignorant of their origin:

[The Bairnsla Foaks Annual for 1844 says, "Ah think ah need ant tell you at this iz April-fooil-day, cos, if yor like me, yol naw all abaght it, for ah wonce sent a this day to a stashoner's shop for't seckand edishan a Cock Robin, an a haupath a crockadile quills; ah thowt fasure, at when ah axt for am, at chap it shop ad a splittin t'caanter top we laffiin."] A similar epoch seems to have been observed by the Romans, as appears from Plutarch, ed. 1599, ii. 285, "Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? Either, because they allowed this day (as Juba tells us) to those who could not ascertain their own tribes, or because they permitted those who had missed the celebration of the Fornacalia in their proper tribes along with the rest of the people, either from business, absence, or ignorance, to hold their festival apart on this day."

[The following verses on the tricks practised on this day occur in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1738,

In Ward's Wars of the Elements, 1708, p. 55, in his Epitaph on the French Prophet, who was to make his resurrection on the 25th May, he says:

Dr. Goldsmith, also, in his Vicar of Wakefield, describing the manners of some rustics, tells us, that, among other customs which they followed, they "showed their wit on the first of April."

A late ingenious writer in the World (No. 10), if I mistake not, the late Earl of Orford, has some pleasant thoughts on the effect the alteration of the style would have on the First of April. "The oldest tradition affirms that such an infatuation attends the first day of April as no foresight can escape, no vigilance can defeat. Deceit is successful on that day out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Grave citizens have been bit upon it: usurers have lent their money on bad security: experienced matrons have married very disappointed young fellows: mathematicians have missed the longitude: alchymists the philosopher's stone: and politicians preferment on that day. What confusion will not follow if the great body of the nation are disappointed of their peculiar holiday! This country was formerly disturbed with very fatal quarrels about the celebration of Easter; and no wise man will tell me that it is not as reasonable to fall out for the observance of April Fool Day. Can any benefits arising from a regulated calendar make amends for an occasion of new sects? How many warm men may resent an attempt to play them off on a false first of April, who would have submitted to the custom of being made fools on the old computation! If our clergy come to be divided about Folly's anniversary, we may well expect all the mischiefs attendant on religious wars." He then desires his friends to inform him what they observe on that holiday both according to the new and old reckoning. "How often and in what manner they make or are made fools: how they miscarry in attempts to surprise, or baffle any snares laid for them. I do not doubt but it will be found that the balance of folly lies greatly on the side of the old first of April; nay, I much question whether [p.135] infatuation will have any force on what I call the false April Fool Day:" and concludes with requesting an union of endeavours "in decrying and exploding a reformation which only tends to discountenance good old practices and venerable superstitions."

The French too have their All Fools' Day,¹⁰³ and call the person imposed upon an April Fish, Poisson d'Avril, whom we term an April Fool. Bellingen, in his Etymology of French Proverbs, 1656, gives the following explanation of this custom: the word Poisson, he contends, is corrupted through the ignorance of the people from Passion, and length of time has almost totally defaced the original intention, which was as follows: that as the Passion of our Saviour took place about this time of the year, and as the Jews sent Christ backwards and forwards to mock and torment him, i.e. from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, this ridiculous or rather impious custom took its rise from thence, by which we send about from one place to another such persons as we think proper objects of our ridicule.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1783, p. 578, conjectures that "the custom of imposing upon and ridiculing people on the first of April may have an allusion to the mockery of the Saviour of the world by the Jews. Something like this which we call making April Fools, is practised also abroad in Catholic countries on Innocents' Day, on which occasion people run through all the rooms, making a pretended search in and under the beds, in memory, I believe of the search made by Herod for the discovery and destruction of the child Jesus, and his having been imposed upon and deceived by [p.136] the wise men, who, contrary to his orders and expectation, 'returned to their own country another way.'"

There is nothing hardly, says the author of the Essay to Retrieve the Ancient Celtic, that will bear a clearer demonstration than that the primitive Christians, by way of conciliating the Pagans to a better worship, humoured their prejudices by yielding to a conformity of names and even of customs, where they did not essentially interfere with the fundamentals of the Gospel doctrine. This was done in order to quiet their possession, and to secure their tenure: an admirable expedient, and extremely fit in those barbarous times to prevent the people from returning to their old religion. Among these, in imitation of the Roman Saturnalia, was the Festum Fatuorum, when part of the jollity of the season was a burlesque election of a mock pope, mock cardinals, mock bishops, attended with a thousand ridiculous and indecent ceremonies, gambols, and antics, such as singing and dancing in the churches, in lewd attitudes, to ludicrous anthems, all allusively to the exploded pretensions of the Druids, whom these sports were calculated to expose to scorn and derision. This Feast of Fools, continues he, had its designed effect; and contributed, perhaps, more to the extermination of those heathens than all the collateral aids of fire and sword, neither of which were spared in the persecution of them. The continuance of customs (especially droll ones, which suit the gross taste of the multitude), after the original cause of them has ceased, is a great, but no uncommon absurdity.¹⁰⁴

In the British Apollo, 1708, vol. i. No. 1, is the following query: "Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools? Answer. It may not improperly be derived from a memorable transaction happening between the Romans and Sabines, mentioned by Dionysius, which was thus: the Romans, about the infancy of the city, wanting wives, and finding they could not obtain the neighbouring women by their peaceable addresses, resolved to make use of a stratagem; and, accordingly, Romulus institutes certain games to be performed in the beginning of April (according to the Roman Calendar), in honour of [p.137] Neptune. Upon notice thereof the bordering inhabitants, with their whole families, flocked to Rome to see this mighty celebration; where the Romans seized upon a great number of the Sabine virgins, and ravished them, which imposition we suppose may be the foundation of this foolish custom." This solution is ridiculed in No. 18 of the same work, as follows:

The following, by Dr. Pegge, is from the Gentleman's Magazine, April 1766, p. 186: "It is matter of some difficulty to account for the expression, 'an April Fool,' and the strange custom so universally prevalent throughout this kingdom, of people making fools of one another, on the first of April, by trying to impose upon each other, and sending one another upon that day, upon frivolous, ridiculous, and absurd errands. However, something I have to offer on the subject, and I shall here throw it out, if it were only to induce others to give us their sentiments. The custom, no doubt, had an original, and one of a very general nature; and, therefore, one may very reasonably hope that, though one person may not be so happy as to investigate the meaning and occasion of it, yet another possibly may. But I am the more ready to attempt a solution of this difficulty, because I find Mr. Bourne, in his Antiquitates Vulgares, has totally omitted it, though it fell so plainly within the compass of his design. I observe, first, that this custom and expression has no connection at all with the Festum Hypodiaconorum, Festum Stultorum, Festum Fatuorum, Festum Innocentium, &c., mentioned in Du Fresne; for these jocular festivals were kept at a very different time of the year. Secondly, that I have found no traces, either of the name or of the custom, in other countries, insomuch that it appears to me to be an indigenal custom of our own. I speak only as to myself in this; for others, perhaps, may have discovered it in [p.138] other parts, though I have not. Now, thirdly, to account for it; the name undoubtedly arose from the custom, and this I think arose from hence: our year formerly began, as to some purposes, and in some respects, on the 25th of March, which was supposed to be the Incarnation of our Lord and it is certain that the commencement of the new year, at whatever time that was supposed to be, was always esteemed a high festival, and that both amongst the ancient Romans and with us. Now great festivals were usually attended with an Octave, that is, they were wont to continue eight days, whereof the first and last were the principal; and you will find the first of April is the octave of the 25th of March, and the close or ending, consequently, of that feast, which was both the Festival of the Annunciation and of the New Year. From hence, as I take it, it became a day of extraordinary mirth and festivity, especially amongst the lower sorts, who are apt to pervert and make a bad use of institutions which at first might be very laudable in themselves."

The following is extracted from the Public Advertiser, April 13th, 1769:

The subsequent, too, had been cut out of some newspaper: "No Antiquary has even tried to explain the custom of making of April Fools. It cannot be connected with the 'Feast of the Ass,' for that would be on Twelfth Day; nor with the ceremony of the 'Lord of Misrule,' in England, nor of the 'Abbot of Unreason,' in Scotland, for these frolics were held at Christmas. The writer recollects that he has met with a conjecture somewhere, that April Day is celebrated as part of the festivity of New Year's Day. That day used to be kept on the 25th of March. All antiquaries know that an octave, or eight days usually completed the festivals of our forefathers.

If so, April Day, making the octave's close, may be supposed to be employed in Fool-making, all other sports having been exhausted in the foregoing seven days." Douce says, "I am convinced that the ancient ceremony of the Feast of Fools has no connexion whatever with the custom of making fools on the first of April. The making of April Fools, after all the conjectures which have been formed touching its origin, is certainly borrowed by us from the French, and may, I think, be deduced from this simple analogy. The French call them April Fish (Poissons d'Avril),¹⁰⁵ i.e. Simpletons, or, in other words, silly Mackerel, who suffer themselves to be caught in this month. But, as with us, April is not the season of that fish, we have very properly substituted the word Fools."¹⁰⁶

[Mr. Hampson relates a curious tale of a French lady, who, on April 1st, 1817, pocketed a watch in a friend's house, and when charged with the fact before the police, she said it was unpoisson d'Avril, an April joke. On denying that the watch was in her possession, a messenger was sent to her apartments, who found it on a chimney-piece, upon which the lady said she had made the messenger unpoisson d'Avril. She was convicted and imprisoned until April 1st, 1818, and then to be discharged, comme un poisson d'Avril.

The custom of making fools on the 1st of April prevails among the Swedes, it being alluded to in Toreen's Voyage to China, 1750-2; [and in Germany we have the making of an April fool described in the phrase "Einen zam April shicken." In Scotland the persons sent on errands were called corbie, messengers.]

In the north of England persons thus imposed upon are called "April Gouks." A gouk, or gowk, is properly a cuckoo, and is used here, metaphorically, in vulgar language, for a fool. The cuckoo is, indeed, everywhere a name of contempt.

Gauch, in the Teutonic, is rendered stultus, fool, whence also our northern word, a Goke, or a Gawky. In Scotland, upon April Day, they have a custom of Hunting the Gowk, as it is termed. This is done by sending silly people upon fools' errands, from place to place, by means of a letter, in which is written:

Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, vi. 71, speaking of "the first of April, or the ancient feast of the vernal equinox, equally observed in India and Britain," tells us: "The first of April was anciently observed in Britain as a high and general festival, in which an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the observance of this annual festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports, anciently celebrated in this
country on the first of April, to have long since ceased, and although the changes occasioned during a long lapse of years, by the shifting the equinoctial points, have in Asia itself been productive of important astronomical alterations, as to the exact era of the commencement of the year; yet, on both continents, some very remarkable traits of the jocundity which then reigned remain even in these distant times. Of those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry, the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of that month: but this, Colonel Pearce (Asiatic Researches, ii. 334) [p.141] proves to have been an immemorial custom among the Hindoos, at a celebrated festival holden about the same period in India, which is called the Huli Festival. 'During the Huli, when mirth and festivity reign among the Hindoos of every class, one subject of diversion is to send people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this English custom; but it is unquestionably very ancient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With us, it is chiefly confined to the lower class of people; but in India high and low join in it; and the late Suraja Doulah, am told, was very fond of making Huli Fools, though he was a Mussulman of the highest rank. They carry the joke here so far as to send letters making appointments, in the names of persons who it is known must be absent from their houses at the time fixed upon; and the laugh is always in proportion to the trouble given.' The least inquiry into the ancient customs of Persia, or the minutest acquaintance with the general astronomical mythology of Asia, would have told Colonel Pearce, that the boundless hilarity and jocund sports prevalent on the first day of April in England, and during the Huli Festival of India, have their origin in the ancient practice of celebrating with festival rites the period of the vernal equinox, or the day when the new year of Persia anciently began."

[Cardanus mentions having tried with success a precept, that prayers addressed to the Virgin Mary on this day, at eight o'clock a.m., were of wonderful efficacy, provided a Pater Noster and Ave Maria were added to them. The day was much esteemed amongst alchemists, as the nativity of Basilius Valentinus. In some parts of North America, the first of April is observed like St. Valentine's Day, with this difference, that the boys are allowed to chastise the girls, if they think fit, either with words or blows.]

SHERE THURSDAY is the Thursday before Easter, and is so called, says an old homily, "for that in old Fathers' days the people would that day shere theyr hedes and clypp theyr berdes, and pool theyr heedes, and so make them honest ayenst Easter day," It was also called Maunday Thursday, and is thus described by the translator of Naogeorgus in the Popish Kingdome, f. 51:

In Fosbrooke's British Monarchism, ii. 127, mention occurs at Barking Nunnery, of "russeaulx (a kind of allowance of corn) in Lent, and to bake with eels on Sheer Thursday:" also p. 128, "stubbe eels andshafte eels baked for Sheer Thursday." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1779, p. 349, says: "Maunday Thursday, called by Collier Shier Thursday, Cotgrave calls by a word of the same sound and import, Sheere [p.143] Thursday. Perhaps, for I can only go upon conjecture, as sheer means purus, mundus, it may allude to the washing of the disciples' feet (John xiii. 5, et seq.), and be tantamount to clean. If this does not please, the Saxon sciran signifies dividere, and the name may come from the distribution of alms upon that day; for which see Archaeol. Soc. Antiq., i. 7, seq. Spelman, Gloss, v. Mandatum; and Du Fresne, iv. 400. Please to observe too, that on that day they also washed the altars, so that the term in question may allude to that business. See Collier's Eccles. Hist. ii. 197."¹⁰⁹

Cowell describes Maunday Thursday as the day preceding Good Friday, when they commemorate and practise the commands of our Saviour, in washing the feet of the poor, &c., as our kings of England have long practised the good old custom of washing the feet of poor men in number equal to the years of their reign, and giving them shoes, stockings, and money. Some derive the word from mandatum, command; but others, and I think much more probably, from maund, a kind of great basket or hamper, containing eight bales or two fats.

[Dr. Bright has given us the following very singular account of a ceremony he witnessed on this day at Vienna: "On the Thursday of this week, which was the 24th of March, a singular religious ceremony was celebrated by the Court. It is known in German Catholic countries by the name of the Fusswaschung, or the "washing of the feet." The large saloon in which public court entertainments are given, was fitted up for the purpose; elevated benches and galleries were constructed round the room, for the reception of the court and strangers ; and in the area, upon two platforms, tables were spread, at one of which sat twelve men, and at the other [p.144] twelve women. They had been selected from the oldest and most deserving paupers, and were suitably clothed in black, with handkerchiefs and square collars of white muslin, and girdles round their waists. The emperor and empress, with the archdukes and archduchesses, Leopoldine and Clementine, and their suites, having all previously attended mass in the royal chapel, entered and approached the table to the sound of solemn music. The Hungarian guard followed in their most splendid uniform, with their leopard-skin jackets falling from their shoulders, and bearing trays of different meats, which the emperor, empress, archdukes, and attendants placed on the table, in three successive courses, before the poor men and women, who tasted a little, drank each a glass of wine, and answered a few questions put to them by their sovereigns. The tables were then removed, and the empress and her daughters, dressed in black, with pages bearing their trains, approached. Silver bowls were placed beneath the bare feet of the aged women. The grand chamberlain, in a humble posture, poured water upon the feet of each in succession from a golden urn, and the empress wiped them with a fine napkin she held in her hand. The emperor performed the same ceremony on the feet of the men, and the rite concluded amidst the sounds of sacred music."]

The British Apollo, 1709, ii, 7, says: "Maunday is a corruption of the Latin word mandatum, a command. The day is therefore so called, because as on that day our Saviour washed his disciples' feet, to teach them the great duty of being humble; and therefore he gives them in command to do as he had done, to imitate their Master in all proper instances of condescension and humility." Maunday Thursday, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1779, p. 354, "is the poor people's Thursday, from the Fr. maundier, to beg. The King's liberality to the poor on that Thursday in Lent [is at] a season when they are supposed to have lived very low. Maundiantis, at this day, in French, a beggar."

In Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614, p. 82, is the following: "A scrivener was writing a marchant's last will and testament; in which the marchant expressed many debts that were owing him, which he will'd his executors to take up, and dispose to such and such uses. A kinsman of this marchant's then standing by, and hoping for some good thing [p.145] to be bequeathed him, long'd to heare some good newes to that effect, and said unto the scrivener, Hagh, hagh, what saith my uncle now? doth he now make his Maundies? No (answered the scrivener), he is yet in his demaunds." Perhaps in this passage maundies is merely an error for maundes, commands.

In Quarles' Shepheard's Oracles, 1646, p. 66, is the following passage:

[The order of the Maundy, as practised by Queen Elizabeth in 1572, is here given from a MS. collection, as quoted by Hone: "First, the hall was prepared with a long table on each side, and formes set by them; on the edges of which tables, and under those formes, were lay'd carpets and cushions, for her majestic to kneel when she should wash them. There was also another table set across the upper end of the hall, somewhat above the footpace, for the chappelan to stand at. A little beneath the midst whereof, and beneath the said footpace, a stoole and cushion of estate was pitched for her majestic to kneel at during the service-time. This done, the holy water, basons, alms, and other things being brought into the hall, and the chappelan and poore folkes having taken the said places, the laundresse, armed with a faire towell, and taking a silver bason filled with warm water and sweet flowers, washed their feet all after one another and wiped the same with his towell, and soe making a crosse a little above the toes kissed them. After hym, within a little while, followed the subalmoner, doing likewise, and after him the almoner hymself also. Then, lastly, her majestic came into the hall, and after some singing and prayers made, and the gospel of Christ's washing of his disciples feet read, 39 ladyes and gentlewomen (for soe many were the poore folkes, according to the number of the yeares complete of her majesties age,) addressed themselves with aprons and towels to waite upon her majestie; and she, kneeling down upon the cushions and carpets under the feete of the poore women, first washed one foote of every one of them in soe many several basons of warm [p.146] water and swete flowers, brought to her severally by the said ladies and gentlewomen ; then wiped, crossed, and kissed them, as the almoner and others had done before. When her majestic had thus gone through the whole number of 39, (of which 20 sat on the one side of the hall, and 19 on the other,) she resorted to the first again, and gave to each one certain yardes of broad clothe to make a gowne, so passing to them all. Thirdly; she began at the first, and gave to each of them a pair of sieves. Fourthly; to each of them a wooden platter, wherein was half a side of salmon, as much ling, six red herrings and lofes of cheat bread. Fifthly; she began with the first again, and gave to each of them a white wooden dish with claret wine. Sixthly; she received of each waiting-lady and gentlewoman their towel and apron, and gave to each poore woman one of the same, and after this the ladies and gentlewomen waited noe longer, nor served as they had done throweout the courses before." The Queen then gave them money, and departed "by that time the sun was setting."]

The following is from the Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1731, p. 172: "Thursday, April 15, being Maunday Thursday, there was distributed at the Banquetting House, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men and forty-eight poor women (the king's age forty-eight) boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called dinner; after that, large wooden platters of fish and loaves, viz. undressed, one large old ling, and one large dried cod; twelve red herrings, and twelve white herrings, and four half quarter loaves. Each person had one platter of this provision; after which were distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags, with one penny, two penny, three penny, and four penny pieces of silver, and shillings; to each about four pounds in value. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual ceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's pattern of humility, &c. James the Second was the last king who performed this in person."¹¹⁰ In Langley's Polydore Vergil, f. 98, we read:

"The kynges and quenes of England on that day washe the feete of so many poore menne and women as they be yeres olde, and geve to every of them so many pence, with a gowne, and another ordinary almes of meate, and kysse their feete; and afterward geve their gownes of their backes to them that they se most nedy of al the nomber."

Nor was this custom entirely confined to royalty. In the Earl of Northumberland's Household Book, begun in 1512, f. 354, we have an enumeration of

Among the ancient annual Church Disbursements of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the City of London, I find the following entry: "Water on Maundy Thursday and Easter Eve, 1d."

[Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, says, that in 1530, at Peterborough Abbey, that prelate on Maundy Thursday "made his maundy there in our Lady's chapel, having fifty-nine poor men whose feet he washed and kissed; and after he had wiped them, he gave every of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings, and three white herrings; and one of these had two shillings." At the Maundy festival in 1818, in consequence of the advanced age of the King, the number of the poor was one hundred and sixty, it being customary to relieve as many men and a like number of women as he is years old. A new stair-case being then erected to Whitehall chapel, a temporary room was fitted up in Privy Gardens for the ceremony to take place, where two cod, two salmon, eighteen red herrings, eighteen pickled herrings, and four loaves, were given to each person in a wooden bowl, to which was afterwards added three pounds and a half of beef, and another loaf.]

Dr. Clarke, in his Travels in Russia, 1810, i. 55, says: "The second grand ceremony of this season takes place on Thursday before Easter, at noon, when the Archbishop of Moscow washes the feet of the Apostles. This we also witnessed. The priests appeared in their most gorgeous apparel. Twelve monks, designed to represent the twelve Apostles, were placed in a semicircle before the Archbishop. The ceremony is performed in the cathedral, which is crowded with spectators. The archbishop, performing all, and much more than is related of our Saviour in the thirteenth chapter of St. John, takes off his robes, girds up his loins with a towel, and proceeds to wash the feet of them all, until he comes to the representative of St. Peter, who rises, and the same interlocution takes place as between our Saviour and that Apostle."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, li. 500, states, that "it is a general practice of people of all ranks in the Roman Catholic countries to dress in their very best clothes on Maunday Thursday. The churches are unusually adorned, and everybody performs what is called the Stations; which is, to visit several churches, saying a short prayer in each, and giving alms to the numerous beggars who attend upon the occasion." Another writer in the same journal, for July 1783, p. 577, tells us that "the inhabitants of Paris, on [p.150] Thursday in Passion Week, go regularly to the Bois de Boulogne, and parade there all the evening with their equipages. There used to be the Penitential Psalms, or Tenebres, sung in a chapel in the wood on that day, by the most excellent voices, which drew together great numbers of the best company from Paris, who still continued to resort thither, though no longer for the purposes of religion and mortification (if one may judge from appearances), but of ostentation and pride. A similar cavalcade I have also seen, on a like occasion, at Naples, the religious origin of which will probably soon cease to be remembered."

[IN the north of England a herb-pudding, in which the leaves of the passion-dock are a principal ingredient, is an indispensable dish on this day. The custom, says Carr, is of ancient date; and it is not improbable that this plant, and the pudding chiefly composed of it, were intended to excite a grateful reminiscence of the Passion, with a suitable acknowledgment of the inestimable blessings of Redemption. This plant, in the parts of fructification, produces fancied representations of the cross, hammer, nails, &c.]

Hospinian tells us that the kings of England had a custom of hallowing rings, with much ceremony, on Good Friday, the wearers of which will not be afflicted with the falling sickness. He adds, that the custom took its rise from a ring which had been long preserved, with great veneration, in Westminster Abbey, and was supposed to have great efficacy against the cramp and falling sickness, when touched by those who were afflicted with either of those disorders. This ring is reported to have been brought to King Edward by some persons coming from Jerusalem, and which he himself had long before given privately to a poor person, who had asked alms of him for the love he bare to St. John the Evangelist.

Andrew Boorde, in his Breviary of Health, 1557, f. 166, speaking of the cramp, adopts the following superstition among [p.151] the remedies thereof: "The Kynge's Majestic hath a great helpe in this matter in halowyng crampe ringes, and so geven without money or petition." Lord Berners, the accomplished translator of Froissart, when ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., writing "to my Lorde CardinalPs grace, from Saragoza, the xxj. daie of June," 1518, says: "If your grace remember me with some crampe ryngs, ye shall doo a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with Goddes grace, who evermor preserve and encrease your moost reverent astate," Harl. MS. 295, f. 119.¹¹²

Hearne, in one of his manuscript diaries in the Bodleian, Iv. 190, mentions having seen certain prayers, to be used by Queen Mary at the consecration of the cramp-ring. Mr. Gage Rokewode, in his History of the Hundred of Thingoe, 1838, Introd. p. xxvi, says that in Suffolk "the superstitious use of cramp-rings, as a preservative against fits, is not entirely abandoned; instances occur where nine young men of a parish each subscribe a crooked sixpence, to be moulded into a ring for a young woman afflicted with this malady."

[In the confession of Margaret Johnson, in 1633, a reputed witch, she says: " Good Friday is one constant day for a generall meeting of witches, and that on Good Friday last they had a generall meetinge neere Pen die Water syde;" and Mr. Hampson quotes an old charm for curing the bewitched,

In the midland districts of Ireland, viz. the province of [p.152] Connaught, on Good Friday, it is a common practice with the lower orders of Irish Catholics to prevent their young from having any sustenance, even to those at the breast, from twelve on the previous night to twelve on Friday night, and the fathers and mothers will only take a small piece of dry bread and a draught of water during the day. It is a common sight to see along the roads, between the different market towns, numbers of women, with their hair dishevelled, barefooted, and in their worst garments ; all this is in imitation of Christ's passion.]

The old Popish ceremony of Creepinge to the Crosse on Good Friday, is given, from an ancient book of the Ceremonial of the Kings of England, in the Notes to the Northumberland Household Book. The usher was to lay a carpet for the Kinge to "creepe to the crosse upon." The Queen and her Ladies were also to creepe to the Crosse. In an original Proclamation, black letter, dated 26th February, 30 Henry VIII, in the first volume of a Collection of Proclamations in the Archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London, p. 138, we read: "On Good Friday it shall be declared howe creepyng of the Crosse signifyeth an humblynge of ourselfe to Christe before the Crosse, and the kyssynge of it a memorie of our redemption made upon the Crosse."

In a Short Description of Antichrist, the author notes the Popish custom of "Creepinge to the Crosse with egges and apples." "Dispelinge with a white rodde" immediately fellows; though I know not whether it was upon the same day. "To holde forth the Crosse for egges on Good Friday" occurs among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale, in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles, 1554, as is "to creape to the Crosse on Good Friday featly."

It is stated in a curious Sermon, preached at Blandford Forum, in Dorsetshire, January 17th, 1570, by William Kethe, minister, and dedicated to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, p. 18, that on Good Friday the Roman Catholics "offered unto Christe egges and bacon, to be in his favour till Easter Day was past;" from which we may at least gather with certainty that eggs and bacon composed a usual dish on f hat day. In Whimsies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, p. 196, we have this trait of "a zealous brother:" "he is an Antipos to all church-government: when she feasts, he fasts; when she fasts, [p.153] he feasts: Good Friday is his Shrove Tuesday: he commends this notable carnall caveat to his family eate flesh upon days prohibited, it is good against Popery."

[A provincial newspaper, of about the year 1810, contains the following paragraph: Good Friday was observed with the most profound adoration on board the Portuguese and Spanish men-of-war at Plymouth. A figure of the traitor Judas Iscariot was suspended from the bowsprit end of each ship, which hung till sunset, when it was cut down, ripped up, the representation of the heart cut in stripes, and the whole thrown into the water ; after which, the crews of the different ships sung in good style the evening song to the Virgin Mary. On board the Iphigenia, Spanish frigate, the effigy of Judas Iscariot hung at the yard-arm till Sunday evening, and when it was cut down, one of the seamen ventured to jump over after it, with a knife in his hand, to show his indignation of the traitor's crime, by ripping up the figure in the sea ; but the unfortunate man paid for his indiscreet zeal with his life; the tide drew him under the ship, and he was drowned.]

The following is Barnabe Googe's account of Good Friday, in his English version of Naogeorgus, f . 5 1:

[It was customary in Popish countries, on Good Friday, to erect a small building to represent the Holy Sepulchre. In this they put the host, and set a person to watch both that night and the next. On the following morning, very early, the host being taken out, Christ is risen. This ceremony was formerly used in England. In the Churchwardens' Accounts of Abingdon, co. Berks, 1557, is the entry, "to the sextin for watching the sepulture two nyghts, viij.d."]

Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, following Bryant's Analysis, derives the Good Friday Bun from the sacred cakes which were offered at the Arkite Temples, styled Boun, and presented every seventh day. Bryant has also the following passage on this subject: "The offerings which people in ancient times used to present to the Gods were generally purchased at the entrance of the Temple; especially every species of consecrated bread, which was denominated accordingly. One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the Gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun. The Greeks, who changed the Nu final into a Sigma, expressed it in the nominative flovs, but in the accusative more truly Boun, flow. Hesychius speaks of the Boun, and describes it a kind of cake with a representation of two horns. Julius Pollux mentions it after the same manner, a sort of cake with horns. Diogenes Laertius, speaking of the same offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed. " He offered one of the sacred Liba, called a Bouse, which was made of fine flour and honey." It is said of Cecrops that he first offered up this sort of sweet bread. Hence we may judge of the antiquity of the custom, from the times to which Cecrops is referred. The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering, when he is speaking of the Jewish women at Pathros, in Egypt, and of their base idolatry; in all which their husbands had encouraged them. The women, in their expostulation upon his rebuke, tell him: "Did we make her cakes to worship her?" Jerem. xliv. 18, 19 ; vii. 18. "Small loaves of bread," Hutchinson observes, "peculiar in their form, being long and sharp at both sides, are called Buns." These he derives as above, and concludes: "We only retain the name and form of the Boun ; the sacred uses are no more."

[In several counties a small loaf of bread is annually baked on the morning of Good Friday, and then put by till the same anniversary in the ensuing year. This bread is not intended to be eaten, but to be used as a medicine, and the mode of administering it is by grating a small portion of it into water, and forming a sort of panada. It is believed to be good for many disorders, but particularly for a diarrhoea, for which it is considered a sovereign remedy. Some years ago, a cottager [p.156] lamented that her poor neighbour must certainly die of this complaint, because she had already given her two doses of Good Friday bread without any benefit. No information could be obtained from the doctress respecting her nostrum, but that she had heard old folks say that it was a good thing, and that she always made it.]

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for July, 1783, p. 578, speaking of Cross Buns, Saffron Cakes, or Symnels, in Passion Week, observes that "these being, formerly at least, unleavened, may have a retrospect to the unleavened bread of the Jews, in the same manner as Lamb at Easter to the Paschal Lamb." These are constantly marked with the form of the cross. Indeed, the country people in the North of England make, with a knife, many little crossmarks on their cakes, before they put them into the oven. I have no doubt but that this too, trifling as the remark may appear, is a remnant of Popery. Thus also persons who cannot write, instead of signing their names, are directed to make their marks, which is generally done in the form of a cross. From the form of a cross at the beginning of a horn-book, the alphabet is called the Christ-Cross Row. The cross used in shop-books Butler seems to derive from the same origin:

[It is an old belief that the observance of the custom of eating buns on Good Friday protects the house from fire, and several other virtues are attributed to these buns. Some thirty or forty years ago, pastry-cooks and bakers vied with each other for excellence in making hot cross-buns; the demand has decreased, and so has the quality of the buns. But the great place of attraction for bun-eaters at that time was Chelsea; for there were the two "royal bun-houses." Before [p.157] and along the whole length of the long front of each stood a flat-roofed neat wooden portico or piazza of the width of the footpath, beneath which shelter "from summer's heat and winter's cold" crowds of persons assembled to scramble for a chance of purchasing "royal hot cross Chelsea buns," within a reasonable time; and several hundreds of square black tins, with dozens of hot buns on each tin, were disposed of in every hour from a little after six in the morning till after the same period in the evening of Good Friday. Those who knew what was good better than new-comers, gave the preference to the "old original royal bun-house," which had been a bun-house "ever since it was a house," and at which "the king himself once stopped," and who could say as much for the other? This was the conclusive tale at the door, and from within the doors, of the "old original bun-house." Alas! and alack ! there is that house now, and there is the house that was opened as its rival; but where are ye who contributed to their renown and custom among the apprentices and journeymen, and the little comfortable tradesmen of the metropolis, and their wives and children, where are ye? With thee hath the fame of Chelsea buns departed, and the "royal bun-houses" are little more distinguished than the humble graves wherein ye rest. Hone.

VARIOUS superstitions crept in by degrees among the rites of this eve; such as putting out all the fires in churches and kindling them anew from flint, blessing the Easter Wax, &c. They are described by Hospinian, in the poetical language of Naogeorgus, in his Popish Kingdom, thus translated by Googe:

On Easter Even it was customary in our own country to light the churches with what were called Paschal Tapers. In Coates's History of Reading, 1802, p. 131, under Churchwardens' Accounts, we find the subsequent entry, 1559: "Paid for raakynge of the Paschall and the Funte Taper, 5s. 8d." A note on this observes, "The Pascal taper was usually very large. In 1557 the Pascal taper for the Abbey Church of Westminster was 300 pounds weight."

The Cottonian MS. Galba E. iv. f. 28, gives the following assize for the different sorts of candles used anciently in the sacristy of Christ Church, Canterbury: "Cereus Paschalis continere debet ccc. libr. Cereus ad fontes x. libr. Cereus super hastam, j. libr. Cerei ad septem brachia, 1. lilbr., viz. yj. quibus vij. libr. et septimus in medio, viij. libr."

In the ancient annual Church Disbursements of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the City of London, I find the following article:

"For a quarter of coles for the hallowed fire on Easter Eve, 6d."¹¹⁶ Also, "To the clerk and sexton, for two men fo watching the Sepulchre from Good Friday to Easter Eve, and for their meate and drinke, 14d." I find also in the Churchwardens' Accounts, ibid. 5th Henry VI., the following entries: "For the Sepulchre, for divers naylis and wyres and glu, 9d. ob. Also payd to Thomas Joynor for makyng of the same Sepulchre, 4s. Also payd for bokeram for penons, and for the makynge, 22d. Also payd for betyng and steynynge of the penons, 6s. For a pece of timber to the newe Pascall, 2d. Also payd for a dysh of peuter for the Paskall, 5d. Also payd for pynnes of iron for the same Pascall, 4d."

We have already alluded to the custom of watching the Sepulchre at Easter. In Coates's Hist. of Reading, p. 130, under Churchwardens' Accounts, we read, sub anno 1558: "Paide to Roger Brock for watching of the Sepulchre, 5d. Paid more to the said Roger for syses and colles, 3d." With this note: "This was a ceremony used in churches in remembrance of the soldiers watching the Sepulchre of our Saviour. We find in the preceding accounts, the old Sepulchre and 'the toumbe of brycke' had been sold." The accounts alluded to are at p. 128, and run thus: "1551. Receyvid of Henry More for the Sepulcher, xiijs. iiijd. Receyvid of John Webbe for the toumbe of brycke, xijd." Under 1499, p. 214, we read, "Imprimis, payed for wakyng of the Sepulcre, viijd. It. payed for a li. of encens, xijd." and under Recypt, "It. rec. at Estur for the Pascall, xxxviis." Ibid. p. 216, under 1507 are the following: "It. paied to Sybel Derling for nayles for the Sepulcre, and for rosyn to the Resurrection play, ijd. ob. It. paied to John Cokks for wryting off the Fest of Jhesus, and for vj. hedd and herds to the church. It. paid a carter for carrying of pypys and hogshedds into the Forbury, ijd. It. paid to the laborers in the Forbury for setting up off the polls for the scaphoid, ixd. It. paied for bred, ale, and bere, that longyd to the pleye in the Forbury, ijs. jd. It. payed for the ij. Boks of the Fest of Jhesu and the Vysytacyon of our Lady, ijs. viijd. 1508. It payed to Water Barton for xxl. wex [p.160] for a pascall pic. le li. vd. Summa viijs. iiijd. It. payed for one li. of grene flowr to the foreseid pascall, iid. Ibid. p. 214, 1499, It. rec. of the gaderyng of the stage-play, xvijs. It. payed for the pascall bason, and the hanging of the same, xviijd. It. payed for making lenger Mr. Smyth's molde, with a Judas for the pascall, iid. It. payed for the pascall and the fonte taper to M. Smyth, iiijd." St. Giles's parish, 1519, "Paid for making a Judas for the pascall."¹¹⁷

Among the ancient annual Disbursements of the Church of St. Mary at-Hill, I find the following entry against Easter:

The same also occurs in the Churchwardens' Accounts, 1512. Also, among the Church Disbursements, in the Wax-Chandler's Accompt, "for making the pascal at Ester, 2s. 8d. For garnishing 8 torches on Corpus Christi day, 2s. 8d." Ibid. 1486, "At Ester, for the howslyn people for the pascal, 11s. 5d."¹¹⁸

[During the last century it was the custom in Dorsetshire on Easter Eve for boys to form a procession bearing rough torches, and a small black flag, chanting the following lines,

This custom was no doubt a relic of the Popish ceremonies formerly in vogue at this season.]

[THE day before Easter Day is in some parts called "Holy Saturday." On the evening of this day, in the middle districts of Ireland, great preparations are made for the finishing of Lent. Many a fat hen and dainty piece of bacon is put into the pot, by the cotter's wife, about eight or nine o'clock, and woe be to the person who should taste it before the cock crows. At twelve is heard the clapping of hands, and the joyous laugh, mixed with an Irish phrase which signifies "out with the Lent:" all is merriment for a few hours, when they retire, and rise about four o'clock to see the sun dance in honour of the Resurrection. This ignorant custom is not confined to the humble labourer and his family, but is scrupulously observed by many highly respectable and wealthy families, different members of whom I have heard assert positively that they had seen the sun dance on Easter morning.]

Sir Thomas Browne, the learned author of the Vulgar Errors, has left us the following quaint thoughts on the subject of sun-dancing: "We shall not, I hope," says he, "disparage the Resurrection of our Redeemer, if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter Day: and though we would [p.162] willingly assent unto any sympathetical exultation, yet we cannot conceive therein any more than a tropical expression. Whether any such motion there was in that day wherein Christ arised, Scripture hath not revealed, which hath been punctual in other records concerning solitary miracles; and the Areopagite that was amazed at the eclipse, took no notice of this; and, if metaphorical expressions go so far, we may be bold to affirm, not only that one sun danced, but two arose that day; that light appeared at his nativity, and darkness at his death, and yet a light at both; for even that darkness was a light unto the Gentiles, illuminated by that obscurity. That was the first time the sun set above the horizon. That, although there were darkness above the earth, yet there was light beneath it, nor dare we say that Hell was dark if he were in it."

In the Country-man's Counsellor, by E. P. Phil. 1633, p. 220, is the following note: "Likewise it is observed, that if the sunne shine on Easter Day, it shines on Whitsunday likewise." The following is an answer to a query in the Athenian Oracle, ii. 348: "Why does the sun at his rising play more on Easter day than Whitsunday? The matter of fact is an old, weak, superstitious error, and the sun neither plays nor works on Easter day more than any other. It's true, it may sometimes happen to shine brighter that morning than any other; but, if it does, 'tis purely accidental. In some parts of England, they call it the lambplaying, which they look for as soon as the sun rises in some clear spring or water, and is nothing but the pretty reflection it makes from the water, which they may find at any time, if the sun rises clear, and they themselves early, and unprejudiced with fancy." In a rare book, entitled Recreation for Ingenious Head Pieces, 1667, I find this popular notion alluded to in an old ballad:

[Sir Walter Scott introduces a similar image applied to the inflection of the moon in the water,

I have heard of, when a boy, and cannot positively say from remembrance, whether I have not seen tried, an ingenious method of making an artificial sun dance on Easter Sunday. A vessel full of water was set out in the open air, in which the reflected sun seemed to dance, from the tremulous motion of the water. This will remind the classical scholar of a beautiful simile in the Loves of Medea and Jason, in the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius, where it is aptly applied to the wavering reflections of a lovesick maiden.

In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 230, amongst his extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Books at Kingston-upon-Thames, are the following entries concerning some of the ancient doings on Easter Day:

By a subsequent entry these pageantries seem to have been continued during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1565, "Rec^d. of the players of the stage at Easter, 1l. 2s. 5d."

Barnabe Googe, in his adaptation of Naogeorgus, has thus preserved the ceremonies of the day in the Popish Kingdome, f. 52:

In the Doctrine of the Masse Book, from Wyttonburge, by Nicholas Dorcastor, 1554, in the form of "the halowing of the Pascal Lambe, egges and herbes, on Easter Daye," the following passage occurs: "God! who art the Maker of all flesh, who gavest commaundments unto Noe and his sons concerning cleane and uncleane beastes, who hast also permitted mankind to eate clean four-footed beastes even as egges and green herbs.'' The form concludes with the following rubrick: "Afterwards, let al be sprinkled with holye water and censed by the priest." Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, p. 276, speaking of Gray's Inn Commons, says: "In 23 Eliz. (7 Maii) there was an agreement at the cupboard by Mr. Attorney of the Duchy and all the Readers then present, that the dinner on Good Friday, which had been accustomed to be made at the cost and charges of the chief cook, should thenceforth be made at the costs of the house, with like provision as it had been before that time. And likewise, whereas, they had used to have eggs and green sauce on Easter Day, after service and communion, for those gentlemen who came to breakfast, that in like manner they should be provided at the charge of the house."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, July 1783, p. 578, conjectures that "the flowers, with which many churches are ornamented on Easter Day, are most probably intended as emblems of the Resurrection, having just risen again from the earth, in which, during the severity of winter, they seem to have been buried."

[Every person must have some part of his dress new on Easter Day, or he will have no good fortune that year. Another saying is that unless that condition be fulfilled, the birds are likely to spoil your clothes. This is alluded to in Poor Robin:

The Festival, 1511, f. 36, says, "This day is called, in many places, Godde's Sondaye: ye knowe well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fyre out of the hall, and the blacke wynter brondes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute." In Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners and Expences, 1797, in the Churchwardens' Accompts of St. Martin Outwich, London, under the year 1525 is the following item: "Paid for brome ageynst Ester, jd."

"There was an ancient custom at Twickenham," according to Lysons, "of dividing two great cakes in the church upon Easter Day among the young people; but it being looked upon as a superstitious relick, it was ordered by Parliament, 1645, that the parishioners should forbear that custom, and, instead thereof, buy loaves of bread for the poor of the parish with the money that should have bought the cakes. It appears that the sum of 1l. per annum is still charged upon [p.166] the vicarage for the purpose of buying penny loaves for poor children on the Thursday after Easter. Within the memory of man they were thrown from the church-steeple to be scrambled for; a custom which prevailed also some time ago at Paddington, and is not yet totally abolished."

Hasted, in his History of Kent, iii. 66, speaking of Biddenden, tells us that "twenty acres of land, called the Bread and Cheese Land, lying in five pieces, were given by persons unknown, the yearly rents to be distributed among the poor of this parish. This is yearly done on Easter Sunday, in the afternoon, in 600 cakes, each of which have the figures of two women impressed on them, and are given to all such as attend the church; and 270 loaves, weighing three pounds and a half a-piece, to which latter is added one pound and a half of cheese, are given to the parishioners only, at the same time. There is a vulgar tradition in these parts, that the figures on the cakes represent the donors of this gift, being two women, twins, who were joined together in their bodies, and lived together so till they were between twenty and thirty years of age. But this seems without foundation. The truth seems to be, that it was the gift of two maidens of the name of Preston; and that the print of the women on the cakes has taken place only within these fifty years, and were made to represent two poor widows, as the general objects of a charitable benefaction." An engraving of one of these cakes will be found in Hone's Every Day Book, ii. 443.

The following is copied from a collection of Carols in Douce' s collection,

"On Easter Sunday be the pudding seen,
To which the tansey lends her sober green."

On Easter Sunday, as I learnt from a clergyman of Yorkshire, the young men in the villages of that county have a custom of taking off the young girls' buckles. On Easter Monday young men's shoes and buckles are taken off by the young women. On the Wednesday they are redeemed by [p.167] little pecuniary forfeits, out of which an entertainment, called a Tansey Cake, is made, with dancing. An account of this custom at Ripon, in Yorkshire, occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1790, p. 719, where it is added, that, some years ago no traveller could pass the town without being stopped, and having his spurs taken away, unless redeemed by a little money, which is the only way to have your buckles returned."

The following is from Seward's Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, i. 35. "Charles (the Fifth) whilst he was in possession of his regal dignity, thought so slightly of it, that when, one day, in passing through a village in Spain, he met a peasant who was dressed with a tin crown upon his head, and a spit in his hand for a truncheon, as the Easter King (according to the custom of that great festival in Spain), who told the Emperor that he should take off his hat to him: 'My good friend,' replied the Prince, 'I wish you joy of your new office: you will find it a very troublesome one, I can assure you.'"

A superstitious practice appears to have prevailed upon the Continent, of abstaining from flesh on Easter Sunday, to escape a fever for the whole year. I know not whether it ever reached this island. It was condemned by the Provincial Council of Rheims, in 1 583, and by that of Toulouse in 1590. (Traite des Superstitions, 1679, i. 319, 320.)

The following is taken from the Antiquarian Repertory, 1780, iii. 44, from the MS. Collection of Aubrey, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, dated 1678: "The first dish that was brought up to the table on Easter Day was a red-herring riding away on horseback; i.e. a herring ordered by the cook something after the likeness of a man on horseback, set in a corn sallad. The custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter, which is still kept up in many parts of England, was founded on this, viz. to shew their abhorrence to Judaism at that solemn commemoration of our Lord's Resurrection."

[IN the North of England it is still the custom to send reciprocal presents of eggs¹²¹ at Easter to the children of families respectively betwixt whom any intimacy exists. The modes adopted to prepare the eggs for presentation are the following: there maybe others which have escaped my recollection. The eggs being immersed in hot water for a few moments, the end of a common tallow candle is made use of to inscribe the names of individuals, dates of particular events, &c.
The warmth of the egg renders this a very easy process. Thus inscribed, the egg is placed in a pan of hot water, saturated with cochineal, or other dye-woods; the part over which the tallow has been passed is impervious to the operation of the dye; and consequently when the egg is removed from the pan, there appears no discoloration of the egg where the inscription has been traced, but the egg presents a white inscription on a coloured ground. The colour of course depends upon the taste of the person who prepared the egg; but usually much variety of colour is made use of. Another method of ornamenting "pace eggs" is, however, much neater, although more laborious, than that with the tallow candle. The egg being dyed, it may be decorated in a very pretty manner, by means of a penknife, with which the dye may be scraped off, leaving the design white, on a coloured ground. An egg is frequently divided into compartments, which are filled up according to the taste and skill of the designer. Generally one compartment contains the name, and (being young and unsophisticated) also the [p.169] age of the party for whom the egg is intended. In another is perhaps a landscape; and sometimes a Cupid is found lurking in a third: so that these "pace eggs" become very useful auxiliaries to the missives of St. Valentine. Nothing is more common in some northern villages than to see a number of these eggs preserved very carefully in the corner-cupboard; each egg being the occupant of a deep long-stemmed ale-glass, through which the inscription could be read without removing it. Probably many of these eggs now remain in Cumberland, which would afford as good evidence of dates in a court of justice as a tombstone or a family Bible. It will be readily supposed that the majority of pace eggs are simply dyed or dotted with tallow to present a piebald or bird's-eye appearance. These are designed for the junior boys, who have not began to participate in the pleasures of "a bended bow and quiver full of arrows," a flaming torch, or a heart and a true lover's knot. These plainer specimens are seldom promoted to the dignity of the ale-glass or the corner-cupboard. Instead of being handed down to posterity, they are hurled to swift destruction. In the process of dying they are boiled pretty hard, so as to prevent inconvenience if crushed in the hand or the pocket. But the strength of the shell constitutes the chief glory of a pace egg, whose owner aspires only to the conquest of a rival youth. Holding his egg in his hand, he challenges a companion to give blow for blow. One of the eggs is sure to be broken, and its shattered remains are the spoil of the conqueror, who is instantly invested with the title of "a cock of one, two, three," &c., in proportion as it may have fractured his antagonists' eggs in the conflict. A successful egg in a contest with one which had previously gained honours adds to its number the reckoning of its vanquished foe. An egg which is "a cock" of ten or a dozen, is frequently challenged. A modern pugilist would call this a setto for the championship. Such on the borders of the Solway Frith were the youthful amusements of Easter Monday.]

Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, ii. 10, speaking of Pasche Eggs, says, "Eggs were held by the Egyptians as a sacred emblem of the renovation of mankind after the Deluge. The Jews adopted it to suit the circumstances of their history, as a type of their departure from the land of [p.170] Egypt; and it was used in the feast of the Passover as part of the furniture of the table, with the Paschal Lamb. The Christians have certainly used it on this day, as retaining the elements of future life, for an emblem of the Resurrection. It seems as if the egg was thus decorated for a religious trophy, after the days of mortification and abstinence were over, and festivity had taken place; and as an emblem of the resurrection of life, certified to us by the Resurrection from the regions of death and the grave." The ancient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The exclusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has laid a long while dormant, or seemingly extinct, is a process so truly marvellous, that, if it could be disbelieved, would be thought by some a thing as incredible to the full, as that the Author of Life should be able to reanimate the dead.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, July 1783, p. 578, supposes the egg at Easter "an emblem of the rising up out of the grave, in the same manner as the chick, entombed, as it were, in the egg, is in due time brought to life." Le Brun, in his Voyages, i. 191, tells us that the Persians, on the 20th of March, 1704, kept the Festival of the Solar New Year, which he says lasted several days, when they mutually presented each other, among other things, with coloured eggs.

Easter, says Gebelin, and the New Year, have been marked by similar distinctions. Among the Persians, the New Year is looked upon as the renewal of all things, and is noted for the triumph of the Sun of Nature, as Easter is with Christians for that of the Sun of Justice, the Saviour of the World, over death, by his Resurrection. The Feast of the New Year, he adds, was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox, that is, at a time when the Christians, removing their New Year to the Winter Solstice, kept only the Festival of Easter. Hence, with the latter, the Feast of Eggs has been attached to Easter, so that are no longer made presents of at the New Year.¹²²

The Jews, in celebrating their Passover, placed on the table two unleavened cakes, and two pieces of the Lamb; to this they added some small fishes, because of the Leviathan; a hard egg, because of the bird Ziz; some meal, because of the Behemoth; these three animals being, according to their Rabbinical Doctors, appointed for the feast of the elect in the other life. I saw at the window of a baker's shop in London, on Easter Eve 1805, a Passover cake, with four eggs, bound in with slips of paste, crossways, in it. I went into the shop and inquired of the baker what it meant ; he assured me it was a Passover cake for the Jews.¹²³

The learned Hyde, in his Oriental Sports, tells us of one with eggs among the Christians of Mesopotamia on Easter Day, and forty days afterwards, during which time their children buy themselves as many eggs as they can, and stain them with a red colour in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his Crucifixion. Some tinge them with green and yellow. Stained eggs are sold all the while in the market. The sport consists in striking their eggs one against another, and the egg that first breaks is won by the owner of the egg that struck it. Immediately another egg is pitted against the winning egg, and so they go on (as in that barbarous sport of a Welsh main at cockfighting), till the last remaining egg wins all the others, which their respective owners shall before have won. This sport, he observes, is not retained in the midland parts of England, but seems to be alluded to in the old proverb, "an egg at Easter," because the liberty to eat eggs begins again at that Festival, and thence must have arisen this festive egg-game; for neither the Papists, nor those of the Eastern Church, eat eggs during Lent, but at Easter begin again to eat thorn. And hence the egg-feast formerly at Oxford, when the [p.172] scholars took leave of that kind of food on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, on what is called "Cleansing Week."

In the Museum Tradescantianum, 1660, p. 1, we find, "Easter Egges of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem."

In the North of England, continues Hyde, in Cumberland and Westmoreland, boys beg, on Easter Eve, eggs to play with, and beggars ask for them to eat. These eggs are hardened by boiling, and tinged with the juice of herbs, broom-flowers, &c. The eggs being thus prepared, the boys go out and play with them in the fields, rolling them up and down, like bowls upon the ground, or throwing them up, like balls, into the air. Eggs, stained with various colours in boiling, and sometimes covered with leaf-gold, are at Easter presented to children, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and other places in the North, where these young gentry ask for their Paste Eggs, as for a fairing, at this season. Paste is plainly a corruption of Pasque, Easter.

In the neighbourhood of Newcastle they are tinged yellow with the blossoms of furze, called their Whin-bloom. A curious tract, 1644, lies before me, entitled, To Sion's Lovers, being a golden Egge, to avoide Infection, a title undoubtedly referring to this superstition. In a curious Roll of the Expenses of the Household of 18 Edw. I., communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, 1805, is the following item in the Accounts of Easter Sunday: "Four hundred and a half of eggs, eighteen pence:" highly interesting to the investigator of our ancient manners: not so much on account of the smallness of the sum which purchased them, as for the purpose for which so great a quantity was procured on this day in particular: i.e. in order to have them stained in boiling, or covered with leaf gold, and to be afterwards distributed to the Royal Household.

That the Church of Rome has considered eggs as emblematical of the Resurrection, may be gathered from the subsequent prayer, which the reader will find in an extract from the Ritual of Pope Paul the Fifth, for the use of England, Ireland, and Scotland. It contains various other forms of benediction. "Bless, Lord! we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to thee, on account of the Resurrection of our Lord."

The following, from Emilianne's Frauds of Romish Monks and Priests, is much to our purpose: "On Easter Eve and Easter Day, all the heads of families send great chargers, full of hard eggs, to the church, to get them blessed, which the priests perform by saying several appointed prayers, and making great signs of the cross over them, and sprinkling them with holy water. The priest, having finished the ceremony, demands how many dozen eggs there be in every bason? These blest eggs have the virtue of sanctifying the entrails of the body, and are to be the first fat or fleshy nourishment they take after the abstinence of Lent. The Italians do not only abstain from flesh during Lent, but also from eggs, cheese, butter, and all white meats. As soon as the eggs are blessed, every one carries his portion home, and causeth a large table to be set in the best room in the house, which they cover with their best linen, all bestrewed with flowers, and place round about it a dozen dishes of meat, and the great charger of eggs in the midst. 'Tis a very pleasant sight to see these tables set forth in the houses of great persons, when they expose on side-tables (round about the chamber) all the plate they have in the house, and whatever else they have that is rich and curious, in honour of their Easter eggs, which of themselves yield a very fair show, for the shells of them are all painted with divers colours, and gilt. Sometimes they are no less than twenty dozen in the same charger, neatly laid together in the form of a pyramid. The table continues, in the same posture, covered, all the Easter week, and all those who come to visit them in that time are invited to eat an Eastern egg with them, which they must not refuse."

In the Beehive of the Romishe Churche, 1579, f. 14, Easter eggs occur in the following list of Romish superstitions: "Fasting Dayes, Years of Grace, Differences and Diversities of Dayes, of Meates, of Clothing, of Candles, Holy Ashes, Holy Pace Eygs and Flanes, Palmes and Palme Bough es, Staves, Fooles Hoods, Shelles and Belles, Paxes, Licking of Rotten Bones," &c. The last article relates to pilgrims and relics. The author of Le Voyageur a Paris, ii. 112, supposes that the practice of painting and decorating eggs at Easter, amongst the Catholics, arose from the joy which was occa- [p.174] sioned by their returning to their favorite food after so long an absence from them during Lent.^l24

In the ancient Calendar of the Romish Church, to which I have so often referred, I find the following: "Ova annunciates, ut aiunt, reponuntur," i.e. eggs laid on the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary are laid by. This must have been for some such purpose as the following: "ad hanc superstitionem diariam referendi quoque sunt, qui ova, quse gallinae pariunt die Parasceues, toto asservant anno, quia credunt ea vim hascre ad extinguenda incendia si in ignem injiciantur." (Delrio Disquis. Magic, p. 205.) Lebrun, too, in his Superstitions Anciennes et Modernes, says that some people keep eggs aid on Good Friday all the year.

Dr. Chandler, in his Travels in Asia Minor, gives the following account of the manner of celebrating Easter among the modern Greeks: "The Greeks now celebrated Easter. A small bier, prettily decked with orange and citron buds, jasmine, flowers, and boughs, was placed in the church, with a Christ crucified, rudely painted on board, for the body. We saw it in the evening, and, before day-break, were suddenly awakened by the blaze and crackling of a large bonfire, with singing and shouting in honour of the Resurrection. They made us presents of coloured eggs and cakes of Easter bread."

Easter Day, says the Abbé d'Auteoroche, in his Journey to Siberia, is set apart for visiting in Russia. A Russian came into my room, offered me his hand, and gave me, at the same time, an egg. Another followed, who also embraced, and gave me an egg. I gave him in return the egg which I had just before received. The men go to each other's houses in the morning, and introduce themselves by saying, "Jesus Christ is risen." The answer is "Yes, he is risen." The people then embrace, give each other eggs, and drink a great deal of brandy. The subsequent extract from Hakluyt's Voyages is of an older date, and shows how little the custom has varied: "They (the Russians) have an order at Easter, which they alwaies observe, and that is this: every yeere, against Easter, to die or colour red, with Brazzel (Brazil wood), [p.175] a great number of egges, of which every man and woman giveth one unto the priest of the parish upon Easter Day, in the morning. And, moreover, the common people use to carrie in their hands one of these red egges, not only upon Easter Day, but also three or foure days after, and gentlemen and gentlewomen have egges gilded, which they carry in like maner. They use it, as they say, for a great love, and in token of the Resurrection, whereof they rejoice. For when two friends meete during the Easter Holydayes, they come and take one another by the hand; the one of them saith, 'The Lord, or Christ, is risen;' the other answereth, 'It is so of a trueth;' and then they kiss and exchange their egges, both men and women, continuing in kissing four dayes together." Our ancient voyage-writer means no more here, it should seem, than that the ceremony was kept up for four days. On the modern practice of this custom in Russia, see Dr. Clarke's Travels, i. 59.¹²⁵

In Germany, sometimes, instead of eggs at Easter, an emblematical print is occasionally presented. One of these is preserved in the Print-room of the British Museum. Three hens are represented as upholding a basket, in which are placed three eggs, ornamented with representations illustrative of the Resurrection. Over the centre egg the Agnus Dei, with a chalice representing Faith; the other eggs bearing the emblems of Charity and Hope. Beneath all, the following lines in German

A sort of drama appears to form part of the amusements of this day. I possess a tract of this kind, entitled the Peace Egg, with woodcuts, which concludes as follows,

Easter has ever been considered by the Church as a season of great festivity. Belithus, a ritualist of ancient times, tells us that it was customary in some churches for the Bishops and Archbishops themselves to play with the inferior clergy at handball, and this, as Durand asserts, even on Easter Day itself. Why they should play at hand-ball at this time rather than any other game, Bourne tells us he has not been able to discover; certain it is, however, that the present custom of playing at that game on Easter Holidays for a tansy-cake has been derived from thence. Erasmus, speaking of the proverb, Mea est pila, that is, "Pve got the ball," tells us that it signifies "Pve obtained the victory; I am master of my wishes." The Romanists certainly erected a standard on Easter Day, in token of our Lord's [p.177] victory; but it would perhaps be indulging fancy too far to suppose that the bishops and governors of churches, who used to play at hand-ball at this season, did it in a mystical way, and with reference to the triumphal joy of the season. Certain it is, however, that many of their customs and superstitions are founded on still more trivial circumstances, even according to their own explanations of them, than this imaginary analogy.¹²⁶

Fitzstephen, as cited by Stow, tells us of an Easter holiday amusement used in his time at London: "They fight battels on the water. A shield is hanged upon a pole (this is a species of the quintain) fixed in the midst of the stream. A boat is prepared without oars, to be carried by violence of the water, and in the forepart thereof standeth a young man ready to give charge upon the shield with his lance. If so be he break his lance against the shield and do not fall, he is thought to have performed a worthy deed. If so be that without breaking his launce, he runneth strongly against the shield, down he falleth into the water, for the boat is violently forced with the tide; but on each side of the shield ride two boats furnished with young men, which recover him that falleth as soon as they may. Upon the bridge, wharfs, and houses, by the river side, stand great numbers to see and laugh thereat." Henry, in his History of Britain, iii. 594, thus describes another kind of quintain: "A strong post was fixed in the ground, with a piece of wood which turned upon a spindle, on the top of it. At one end of this piece of wood a bag of sand was suspended, and at the other end a board was nailed. Against this board they tilted with spears, which made the piece of wood turn quickly on the spindle, and the bag of sand strike the riders on the back with great force, if they did not make their escape by the swiftness of their horses."

They have an ancient custom at Coleshill, in Warwickshire, that if the young men of the town can catch a hare, and bring it to the parson of the parish before ten o'clock on Easter Monday, the parson is bound to give them a calf s head and a hundred of eggs for their breakfast, and a groat in money.

(Beckwith's edit, of Blount's Jocular Tenures, p. 286.) A writer in the Gent. Mag. for July, 1783, p. 578, mentions a beverage called "Braggot (which is a mixture of ale, sugar, and spices) in use at the festival of Easter."¹²⁷

Tansy, says Selden, in his Table Talk, was taken from the bitter herbs in use among the Jews at this season. Our meats and sports, says he, "have much of them relation to church works. The coffin of our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch,¹²⁸ i.e. rack or manger, wherein Christ was laid. Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs, though at the same time 'twas always the fashion for a man to have a gammon of bacon, to show himself to be no Jew." In that curious book, entitled Adam in Eden, or Nature's Paradise, 1657, by William Coles, our author, speaking of the medicinal virtues of tansy, says: "Therefore it is that Tansays were so frequent not long since about Easter, being so called from this herb tansey: though I think the stomach of those that eat them late are so squeamish that [p.179] they put little or none of it into them, having altogether forgotten the reason of their originall, which was to purge away from the stomach and guts the phlegme engendered by eating of fish in the Lent season (when Lent was kept stricter then now it is), whereof worms are soon bred in them that are thereunto disposed, besides other humours, which the moist and cold constitution of Winter most usually infects the body of man with; and this I say is the reason why tanseys were and should be now more used in the Spring than at any other time of the year, though many understand it not, and some simple people take it for a matter of superstition so to do." Johnson, in his edition of Gerard's Herball, 1633, p. 651, speaking of tansy, says: "In the spring time are made with the leaves hereof newly sprung up, and with eggs, cakes, or tansies, which be pleasant in taste, and good for the stomacke; for, if any bad humours cleave thereunto, it doth perfectly concoct them and scowre them downewards." Tansy cakes are thus alluded to in Shipman's Poems, p. 17. He is describing the frost in 1 654:

It is related in Aubanus's Description of Ancient Rites in his country, that there were at this season foot-courses in the meadows, in which the victors carried off each a cake, given to be run for, as we say, by some better sort of person in the neighbourhood. Sometimes two cakes were proposed, one for the young men, another for the girls; and there was a great concourse of people on the occasion. This is a custom by no means unlike the playing at hand-ball for a tansy-cake, the winning of which depends chiefly upon swiftness of foot. It is a trial, too, of fleetness and speed, as well as the foot-race.

In Lewis's English Presbyterian Eloquence, p. 17, speaking of the tenets of the Puritans, he observes that "all games where there is any hazard of loss are strictly forbidden; not so much as a game of stool-ball for a tansay, or a cross and pyle for the odd penny at a reckoning upon pain of damna- [p.180] tion." The following is in a curious collection, entitled A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies, 1657, p. 74:

[There is a custom at this season, which yet prevails in Kent, with young people, to go out holiday-making in public houses to eat pudding-pies, and this is called going apudding-pieing. The pudding-pies are from the size of a teacup to that of a small tea-saucer. They are flat, like pastry-cooks, cheesecakes, made with a raised crust to hold a small quantity of custard, with currants lightly sprinkled on the surface. Pudding-pies and cherry-beer usually go together at these feasts. From the inns down the road towards Canterbury they are frequently brought out to the coach travellers, with an invitation to taste the pudding-pies.]

Durand tell us, that on Easter Tuesday wives used to beat their husbands, on the day following the husbands their wives. The custom which has been already mentioned in a preceding page, on Easter Sunday, is still retained at the city of Durham in the Easter holidays. On one day the men take off the women's shoes, or rather buckles, which are only to be redeemed by a present: on another day the women make reprisals, taking off the men's in like manner.

"In the Easter Holidays," says the account in the Antiquarian Repertory, from MS. Collections of Aubrey, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, 1678, was "the clerk's ale, for his private benefit and the solace of the neighbourhood." Denne, in his "Account of Stone Figures carved on the Porch of [p.181] Chalk Church," (Archaeol. xii. 12,) says: "the clerks' ale was the method taken by the clerks of parishes to collect more readily their dues." Denne is of opinion that Give-Ales were the legacies of individuals, and from that circumstance entirely gratuitous.

The rolling of young couples down Greenwich-hill, at Easter and Whitsuntide, appears by the following extract from E. Fletcher's Translations and Poems, 1656, p. 210, in a poem called "May Day," to be the vestiges of a May game:

[A Warwickshire correspondent in Hone's Every Day Book, i. 431, says, "When I was a child, as sure as Easter Monday came, I was taken to see the children clip the churches." This ceremony was performed amid crowds of people, and shouts of joy, by the children of the different charity schools, who at a certain hour flocked together for the purpose. The first comers placed themselves hand in hand with their backs against the church, and were joined by their companions, who
gradually increased in number, till at last the chain was of sufficient length completely to surround the sacred edifice.

As soon as the hand of the last of the train had grasped that of the first the party broke up, and walked in procession to the other church (for in those days Birmingham boasted but of two), where the ceremony was repeated.]

In 1805, Lysons communicated to the Society of Antiquaries the following extract from a record in the Tower, entitled "Liber Contrarotulatoris Hospicii," 18 Edw. I. "Dominae de camera Reginse, xv. die Maii, vij. domiriabus et domicillis reginae, quia ceperunt dominum regem in lecto suo, in crastino Paschse, et ipsum fecerunt finire versus eas pro pace regis, quam fecit de dono suo per manus Hugonis de Ceru, scutiferi dominee de Weston. xiiij. li." The taking Edward Longshanks in his bed by the above party of ladies of the bedchamber and maids of honour, on Easter Monday, was very probably for the pur- [p.182] pose of heaving or lifting the king, on the authority of a custom which then doubtless prevailed among all ranks throughout the kingdom, and which is yet not entirely laid aside in some of our distant provinces ; a custom by which, however strange it may appear, they intended no less than to represent our Saviour's Resurrection. At Warrington, Bolton, and Manchester, on Easter Monday, the women, forming parties of six or eight each, still continue to surround such of the opposite sex as they meet, and, either with or without their consent, lift them thrice above their heads into the air, with loud shouts at each elevation. On Easter Tuesday, the men, in parties as aforesaid, do the same to the women. By both parties it is converted into a pretence for fining or extorting a small sum, which they always insist on having paid them by the persons whom they have thus elevated.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1784, p. 96, a gentleman from Manchester says, that "Lifting was originally designed to represent our Saviour's Resurrection. The men lift the women on Easter Monday, and the women the men on Tuesday. One or more take hold of each leg, and one or more of each arm near the body, and lift the person up, in a horizontal position, three times. It is a rude, indecent, and dangerous diversion, practised chiefly by the lower class of people. Our magistrates constantly prohibit it by the bellman, but it subsists at the end of the town ; and the women have of late years converted it into a money job. I believe it is chiefly confined to these Northern counties."

The following extract is from the Public Advertiser for Friday, April 13th, 1787: "The custom of rolling down Greenwich-hill at Easter is a relique of old City manners, but peculiar to the metropolis. Old as the custom has been, the counties of Shropshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire boast one of equal antiquity, which they call Heaving, and perform with the following ceremonies, on the Monday and Tuesday in the Easter week. On the first day, a party of men go with a chair into every house to which they can get admission, force every female to be seated in their vehicle, and lift them up three times, with loud huzzas. For this they claim the reward of a chaste salute, which those who are too coy to submit to may get exempted from by a fine of [p.183] one shilling, and receive a written testimony, which secures them from a repetition of the ceremony for that day. On the Tuesday the women claim the same privilege, and pursue their business in the same manner, with this addition that they guard every avenue to the town, and stop every passenger, pedestrian, equestrian, or vehicular." That it is not entirely confined, however, to the Northern counties, may be gathered from the following letter, which Brand received from a correspondent of great respectability in 1799: "Having been a witness lately to the exercise of what appeared to me a very curious custom at Shrewsbury, I take the liberty of mentioning it to you, in the hope that amongst your researches you may be able to give some account of the ground or origin of it. I was sitting alone last Easter Tuesday at breakfast at the Talbot at Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm-chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favours of different colours. I asked them what they wanted? Their answer was, they came to heave me. It was the custom of the place on that morning, and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was impossible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and to a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each. I told them I supposed there was a fee due upon the occasion, and was answered in the affirmative; and, having satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom; but, on inquiry, I found that on Easter Monday, between nine and twelve, the men heave the women in the same manner as on the Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men. I will not offer any conjecture on the ground of the custom, because I have nothing like data to go upon; but if you should happen to have heard any thing satisfactory respecting it, I should be highly gratified by your mentioning it," &c.

[A Warwickshire correspondent says, Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday were known by the name of heaving day, because on the former day it was customary for the men to [p.184] heave and kiss the women, and on the latter for the women to retaliate upon the men. The women's heaving day was the most amusing. Many a time have I passed along the streets inhabited by the lower orders of people, and seen parties of jolly matrons assembled round tables on which stood a foaming tankard of ale. There they sat in all the pride of absolute sovereignty, and woe to the luckless man that dared to invade their prerogatives as sure as he was seen, he was pursued as sure as he was pursued, he was taken, and as sure as he was taken he was heaved and kissed, and compelled to pay six-pence for "leave and licence" to depart.]

Another writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, for July 1783, p. 578, having inquired whether the custom of Lifting is "a memorial of Christ being raised up from the grave," adds: "There is at least some appearance of it; as there seems to be a trace of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the heads of the Apostles in what passes at Whitsuntide Fair, in some parts of Lancashire, where one person holds a stick over the head of another, whilst a third, unperceived, strikes the stick, and thus gives a smart blow to the first." But this, probably, is only local. In a General History of Liverpool, reviewed in the Gent. Mag. for 1798, p. 320, it is said, "the only ancient annual commemoration now observed is that of lifting; the women by the men on Easter Monday, and the men by the women on Easter Tuesday." Pennant says, that "in North Wales, the custom of heaving, upon Monday and Tuesday in Easter week, is preserved; and on Monday the young men go about the town and country, from house to house, with a fiddle playing before them, to heave the women. On the Tuesday the women heave the men."

BY some this is thought to have been the remains of a heathen custom, which might have been introduced into this island by the Romans. Hoke Day, according to the most commonly received account, was an annual festival, said to [p.185] have been instituted in memory of the almost total destruction of the Danes in England by Ethelred, in 1002. Bryant has shown this to be destitute of any plausible support. The measure is proved to have been as unwise as it was inhuman, for Sweyn, the next year, made a second expedition into England, and laid waste its Western Provinces with fire and sword. The conquest of it soon followed, productive of such misery and oppression as this country had, perhaps, never before experienced. A holiday could therefore never have been instituted to commemorate an event which afforded matter rather for humiliation than of such mirth and festivity. The strongest testimony against this hypothesis is that of Henry of Huntingdon, who expressly says that the massacre of the Danes happened on the feast of St. Brice, which is well known to be on the 13th of November.¹³⁰ Dugdale and others say it was instituted on the death of Hardicanute, Verstegan, with no great probability, derives Hoc-tide from Heughtyde, which, says he, in the Netherlands means a festival season; yet he gives it as a mere conjecture. The substance of what Spelman says on this subject is as follows. Hoc Day, Hoke Day, Hoc Tuesday, a festival celebrated annually by the English, in remembrance of their having ignominiously driven out the Danes, in like manner as the Romans had their Fugalia, from having expelled their kings. He inclines to Lambarde's opinion, that it means "deriding Tuesday," as Hocken, in German, means to attack, to seize, to bind, as the women do the men on this day, whence it is called "Binding Tuesday." The origin he deduces from the slaughter of the Danes by Ethelred, which is first mentioned in the Laws of Edward the Confessor, c. 35. He says the day itself is uncertain, and varies, at the discretion of the common people, in different places ; and adds, that he is at a loss why the women are permitted at this time to have the upper hand.¹³¹

Our ancient authorities for the mention of Hoctide are I. Matthew of Westm. p. 307, "Die Lunse ante le Hokeday." 2. Monast. Anglic, old edit. i. 104, "A die quae dicitur Hoke-dai usque ad festum S. Michaelis." 3. An instrument in Kennet's Paroch. Antiq. dated 1363, which speaks of a period between Hoke Day and St. Martin's Day. 4. chartulary at Caen, cited by Du Cange, p. 1150, in which a period between "Hocedie usque ad Augustum" is mentioned. 5. An Inspeximus in Madox's Formulare, p. 225, dated 42 Ed. III., in which mention is made of "die Martis proximo post quindenam Paschae qui vocatur Hokeday." It seems pretty clear then that that Hoc Tuesday fell upon the Tuesday fortnight after Easter Day, and that it could not be in memory of the Danish massacre, if that happened on St. Brice's Day, and which, in 1002, would fall on a Friday. Matthew Paris appears to be the oldest authority for the word "Hokedaie," and he, as Plott well observes, makes it fall both on a Monday, "quindena Paschse," and on a Tuesday, "die Martis." And yet he does not call the Monday by the name of Hokedaie. Plott expressly mentions that in his time they had two Hocdays, viz. "The Monday for the women," which, says he, "is the more solemn; and the Tuesday for the men, which is very inconsiderable." Blount, in his edition of Cowell's Glossary, says, that Hoc Tuesday money was a duty given to the landlord, that his tenants and bondsmen might solemnize that day on which the English mastered the Danes, being the second Tuesday after Easter week.

[In MS. Bodl. 692, a curious miscellany of the fifteenth century, f. 163, is an order from the Bishop of Worcester, dated April 1450, to the Almoner of Worcester Cathedral and others, "ut subditi utriusque a ligationibus et ludis inhonestis in diebus communiter vocatis hok-days cessent sub pcena excommunicationis."]

Blount, in his Law Dictionary, v. Hokeday, says he has seen a lease, without date, reserving so much rent payable "ad duos anni terminos, scil. ad le Hokeday, et ad festum [p.187] S. Mich." He adds, that in the accounts of Magdalen College, in Oxford, there is yearly an allowance pro mulieribus hocantibus, of some manors of theirs in Hampshire, where the men hoc the women on Monday, and contra on Tuesday.

Higgins, in his Short View of English History, says, that at Hoctide the people go about beating brass instruments, and singing old rhymes in praise of their cruel ancestors, as is recorded in an old chronicle.

This festival was celebrated, according to ancient writers, on the Quindena Paschae, by which, Denne informs us, the second Sunday after Easter cannot be meant, but some day in the ensuing week: and Matthew Paris, and other writers, have expressly named Tuesday. There are strong evidences remaining to show that more days were kept than one. Denne supposes the change of the Hock, or Hoketyde, from June to the second week after Easter (changes of this nature he evinces were frequent), might be on the following account: "when the 8th of June fell on a Sunday, the keeping of it on that day would not have been allowed; and as, when Easter was late, the 8th of June was likely to be one of the Ember days in the Pentecost week (a fast to be strictly observed by people of all ranks), the prohibition would also have been extended to that season." The expression Hock, or Hoke-tyde, comprises both days. Tuesday was most certainly the principal day, the dies Martis ligatoria. Hoke Monday was for the men, and Hock Tuesday for the women. On both days the men and women, alternately, with great merriment intercepted the public roads with ropes, and pulled passengers to them, from whom they exacted money, to be laid out in pious uses. (See Jacob's Dict., in v.) So that Hoketyde season, if you will allow the pleonasm, began on the Monday immediately following the second Sunday after Easter, in the same manner as several feasts of the dedications of churches, and other holidays, commenced on the day or the vigil before, and was a sort of preparation for, or introduction to, the principal feast.

I find this, among other sports, exhibited at Kenilworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester, for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, 1575, "And that there might be nothing wanting that these parts could afford, hither came the Coventr6 men, and acted the ancient play, long since used in that city, called Hocke Tuesday, setting forth the destruction of the Danes in [p.188] King Ethelred's time, with which the Queen was so pleas'd, that she gave them a brace of bucks, and five marks in money, to bear the charges of a feast." (Dugdale's Warwickshire, 1 656, p. 166.)

Denne conjectures the name of this festivity to have been derived from "Hockzeit," the German word for a wedding, and which, according to Bailey's Dictionary, is particularly applied to a wedding-feast. "As it was then," says he, "at the celebration of the feast at the wedding of a Danish lord, Canute Prudan, with Lady Githa, the daughter of Osgod Clape, a Saxon nobleman, that Hardicanute died suddenly, our ancestors had certainly sufficient grounds for distinguishing the day of so happy an event by a word denoting the wedding feast, the wedding day, the wedding Tuesday. And, if the justness of this conjecture shall be allowed, may not that reason be discovered, which Spelman says he could not learn, why the women bore rule on this celebrity, for all will admit that at a wedding the bride is the queen of the day?"

In an indenture printed in Hearne's Appendix to the History and Antiquities of Glastonbury, p. 328, constituting John atte Hyde steward of the Priory of Poghley, among many other things granted him, are two oxen for the larder on Hoke-day, "Item ij. boves pro lardario apud Hoccoday." It is dated on the Feast of the Annunciation, in the 49th of Edward the Third.

Dr. Plott says, that one of the uses of the money collected at Hoketyde was, the reparation of the several parish churches where it was gathered. This is confirmed by extracts from the Lambeth Book.¹³² The observance of Hoketyde declined soon after the Reformation. Joyful commemorations of a release from the bondage of Popery obliterated the remembrance of the festive season instituted on account of a deliverance from the Danish yoke, if we dare pronounce it certain that it was instituted on that occasion.

In Peshall's History of the City of Oxford, under St. Mary's Parish, are the following curious extracts from old records [p.190] "1510: Recepts reed, atte Hoctyde: of the wyfes gaderynge, xvs. ijd. From 1522-23, Rec. for the wyfes gatheryng at Hoctyde de claro, xvis. xd. Parish of St. Peter in the East, 1662: About that time it was customary for a parish that wanted to raise money to do any repairs towards the church to keep a Hocktyde, the benefit of which was often very great: as, for instance, this parish of St. Peter in the East gained by the Hocktide and Whitsuntide, anno 1664, the sum of £14. 1663: Hocktide brought in this year £6. 1667: £4 10s. gained by Hoctide; the last time it is mentioned here." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, under the year 1496, is the following article: "Spent on the wyves that gadyred money on ffob Monday, 10d." In 1518, there is an order for several sums of money gathered on Hob Monday, &c. to go towards the organs, but crossed out with a pen afterwards. In 1497, "Gatherd by the women on Hob Monday, 13s. 4d. By the men on the Tuesday, 5s." In Nichols's Illustrations of Antient Manners and Expences, 1797, are other extracts from the same accounts. Under the year 1499, is the following article: "For two rybbs of bief, and for bred and ale, to the wyvys yn the parish that gathered on Hok Monday, 1s. 1d." Under 1510, "Received of the gaderynge of Hob Monday and Tewisday, £1 12s. 6d."

In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 229, among many other curious extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlain's Books at Kingston-upon-Thames, are the following concerning Hocktyde: "1 Hen. VIII. Rec^d for the garderyng at Hoc-tyde, 14s. 2 Hen. VIII. Paid for mete and drink at Hoc-tyde, 12d." The last time that the celebration of Hocktyde appears is in 1578: "Rec^d of the women upon Hoc Monday, 5s. 2d." Ibid. ii. 145, Parish of Chelsea; "Of the women that went a hocking, 13 April, 1607, 45s." In Coates's History of Reading, p. 214, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Laurence's parish, 1499, are the following entries: "It. rec. of Hock money gaderyd of women, xxs. It. rec. of Hok Money gaderyd of men, iiijs." Ibid. p. 226, we read the following observation, 1573: "The collections on Hock Monday, and on the festivals, having ceased, it was agreed that every woman seated by the churchwardens in any seat on the south side of the church, above the doors, or in the middle [p.191] range above the doors, should pay 4d. yearly, and any above the pulpit 6d. at equal portions." Ibid. 1559: "Hoctyde money, the men's gatheryng, iiijs. The women's, xijs." Ibid, St. Giles, Reading, 1526: "Paid for the wyves supper at Hoctyde, xxiiijd." Here a note observes: "The Patent of the 5th of Henry V. has a confirmation of lands to the Prior of St. Frideswide, and contains a recital of the Charter of Ethelred in 1004; in which it appears that, with the advice of his lords and great men, he issued a decree for the destruction of the Danes." According to Milner's History of Winchester, i. 172, "the massacre took place on November the 5th, St. Brice's Day, whose name is still preserved in the Calendar of our Common Prayer: but, by an order of Ethelred, the sports were transferred to the Monday in the third week after Easter." Under 1 535, "Hock-money gatheryd by the wyves, xiiis. ixd" It appears clearly, from these different extracts, that the women made their collection on the Monday: and it is likewise shown that the women always collected more than the men.

The custom of men and women heaving each other alternately on Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, must have been derived from this Hocking each other on Hok-days, after the keeping of the original days had been set aside.

There is, however, a curious pyssage in Wythers' Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1618, p. 232, which seems to imply that Hocktide was still generally observed:

IT appears from the old play of Ram Alley, that blue coats were formerly worn by people of fashion on St. George's Day, April 23d. [Compare also the following passage in Freeman's Epigrams, 1611:

In Coates's History of Reading, p. 221, under Churchwardens' Accounts, 1536, are the following entries: "Charges of Saynt George. First payd for iij. caffes-skynes, and ij. horse-skynnes, iiijs. vjd. Paid for makeying the loft that Saynt George standeth upon, vjd. Payd for ij. plonks for the same loft, viijd. Payd for iiij. pesses of clowt lether, ijs. ijd. Payd for makeyng the yron that the hors resteth upon, vjd. Payd for makeyng of Saynt George's cote, viijd. Payd to John Paynter for his labour, xlvs. Payd for roses, bells, gyrdle, sword, and dager, iijs. iiijd. Payd for settyng on the bells and roses, iijd. Payd for naylls necessarye thereto, xd. ob."

Among the Fins, whoever makes a riot on St. George's Day is in danger of suffering from storms and tempests. (Tooke's Russia, i. 47.)

[Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wilts, a MS. in the library of the Royal Society, has recorded the following proverb:

IT is customary in Yorkshire, for the common people to sit and watch in the church porch on St. Mark's Eve, April 25th, from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. The third year (for this must be done thrice) they are supposed to see the ghosts of all those who are to die the next year, pass [p.193] by into the church, [which they are said to do in their usual dress, and precisely in the order of time in which they are doomed to depart. Infants and young children, not yet able to walk, are said to roll in on the pavement. Those who are to die remain in the church, but those who are to recover return, after a longer or shorter time, in proportion to the continuance of their future sickness.] When any one sickens that is thought to have been seen in this manner, it is presently whispered about that he will not recover, for that such or such a one, who has watched St. Mark's Eve, says so. This superstition is in such force, that, if the patients themselves hear of it, they almost despair of recovery. Many are said to have actually died by their imaginary fears on the occasion; a truly lamentable, but by no means incredible, instance of human folly. [According to Willan, a person, supposed to have made this vigil, is a terror to his neighbours; for, on the least offence received, he is apt, by significant hints and grimaces, to insinuate the speedy death of some cherished friend or relation.

On the eve of St. Mark, the ashes are riddled or sifted on the hearth. Should any of the family be destined to die within the year, the shoe will be impressed on the ashes; and many a mischievous wight has made a superstitious family miserable by slily coming down stairs after the rest of the family have retired to rest, and impressing the ashes with a shoe of one of the party. Poor Robin, for 1770, says,

Pennant says, that in North Wales no farmer dare hold his team on St. Mark's Day, because, as they believe, one man's team was marked that did work that day with the loss of an ox. The Church of Rome observes St. Mark's day as a day of abstinence, in imitation of St. Mark's disciples, the first Christians of Alexandria, who, under this Saint's conduct, were eminent for their great prayer, abstinence, and sobriety. See Wheatly on the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 198. Strype, in his Annals of the Reformation, i. 191, under 1559, informs us: "The 25th April, St. Mark's Day (that year), was a pro- [p.194] cession in divers parishes of London, and the citizens went with their banners abroad in their respective parishes, singing in Latin the Kyrie Eleeson, after the old fashion."

In Pilkington's work, entitled the Burnynge of Paules Church in London, 1561, and the 4 day of June, by Lyghtnynge, 1563, we read: "Althoughe Ambrose saye that the churche knewe no fastinge day betwix Easter and Whitsonday, yet beside manye fastes in the Rogation weeke, our wise popes of late yeares have devysed a monstrous fast on St. Marke's Daye. All other fastinge daies are on the holy day even, only Sainte Marke must have his day fasted. Tell us a reason why, so that will not be laughen at. We knowe wel ynough your reason of Tho. Beket, and thinke you are ashamed of it: tell us where it was decreed by the Churche or Generall Couusell. Tell us also, if ye can, why the one side of the strete in Cheapeside fastes that daye, being in London diocesse, and the other side, beinge of Canterbury diocesse, fastes not? and soe in other townes moe. Could not Becket's holynes reache over the strete, or would he not? If he coulde not, he is not so mighty a Saint as ye make hym; if he would not, he was maliciouse, that woulde not doe soe muche for the citye wherein he was borne."

"In theyeare of our Lord 1589, I being as then but a boy, do remember that an ale wife, making no exception of dayes, would needes brue upon Saint Marke's days; but loe, the marvailous worke of God! whiles she was thus laboring, the top of the chimney tooke fire; and, before it could bee quenched, her house was quite burnt. Surely, a gentle warning to them that violate and prophane forbidden daies," Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608. "On St. Mark's Day, blessings upon the corn are implored," Hall's Triumphs, page 58.

The following custom at Alnwick, in Northumberland, on St. Mark's day, is thus described in Tom Thumb's Travels, p. 96: "I was at Alnwick on a court-day, when the whimsical ceremony was performed of making free two young men of the town. They jumped, with great solemnity, into a miry bog, which took one of them up to his arm-pits, and would have let me in far enough over head and ears, which made me glad I had no right to the freedom of Alnwick. It seems King John imposed this upon the townsmen in their charter, [p.195] as a punishment for not mending the road : his Majesty having fallen into this very hole, and stuck there in state till he was relieved." And in the Gent. Mag. 1756, "The manner of making freemen of Alnwick Common is not less singular than ridiculous. The persons that are to be made free, or, as the phrase is, that are to leap the well, assemble in the market-place very early in the morning, on the 25th of April, being
St. Mark's day. They are on horseback, with every man his sword by his side, dressed in white with white nightcaps, and attended by the four Chamberlains and the Castle Bailiffe, who are also mounted and armed in the same manner. From the market-place they proceed in great order, with musick playing before them, to a large dirty pool, called the Freemen's Welly on the confines of the Common. Here they draw up in a body, at some distance from the water, and then, all at once, rush into it, like a herd of swine, and scramble through the mud as fast as they can. As the water is generally breast high, and very foul, they come out in a condition not much better than the heroes of the DUNCIAD after diving in Fleet Ditch; but dry cloathes being ready for them on the other side, they put them on with all possible expedition, and, then, taking a dram, remount their horses, and ride full gallop round the whole confines of the district, of which, by this atchievement, they are become free. And, after having completed this circuit, they again enter the town sword in hand, and are generally met by women dressed up with ribbons, bells, and garlands of gum-flowers, who welcome them with dancing and singing, and are called timber-waits (perhaps a corruption of timbrel-waits, players on timbrels, waits being an old word for those who play on musical instruments in the streets.) The heroes then proceed in a body till they come to the house of one of their company, where they leave him, having first drank another dram; the remaining number proceed to the house of the second, with the same ceremony, and so of the rest, till the last is left to go home by himself. The houses of the new freemen are, on this day, distinguished by a great holly-bush, which is planted in the street before them, as a signal for their friends to assemble and make merry with them at their return. This strange ceremony is said to have been instituted by King John, in memory of his having once bogged his horse *in this pool, called Freemen's Well."

IT was a general custom formerly, says Bourne,¹³³ and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Holy Thursday, or the Feast of our Lord's Ascension, when the minister, accompanied by his churchwardens and parishioners, were wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish. To this Wither alludes in his Emblems, 1635, p. 161,

[These gang-days not only brought to the recollection or Englishmen the settlement of the Christian faith on the soil, but they also impressed on the memory correct notions concerning the origin and nature of proprietorship in land. These religious processions mark out the limits of certain portions of land, under which the whole kingdom is contained; and in all these the principle of God's fee is recognised by the law and the people. The primitiee, or eyrie-scot, or church-rate, is admitted as due throughout the bounds, and the tithes, also, as a charge on the parish; but, together with these admissions, there is formed in the mind a mental boundary, and a sacred restraint is placed upon the consciences of men, that co-mingles religious awe with the institution of landed right and landed inheritance, and family succession to it. Until these previous notions as to God's right and God's property [p.198] were formed, the inhabitants of this country held very vague and fluctuating opinions as to the parties to whom the soil belonged, or upon what terms or principles landed occupation rested. The walking of the parish bounds on the gang-days, in religious procession, very materially contributed to form and keep fresh in the minds of each passing generation the terms on which property was held, and some of the duties belonging to the holding. There is a short service ordered to be read occasionally, such as "Cursed is he that translateth the bounds and doles of his neighbour."]

Bourne cites Spelman (in v. Perambulatio), as deriving the custom of processioning from the times of the Heathens, and that it is an imitation of the Feast called Terminalia, which was dedicated to the God Terminus, whom they considered as the guardian of fields and landmarks, and the keeper up of friendship and peace among men. The primitive custom used by Christians on this occasion was, for the people to accompany the bishop or some of the clergy into the fields, where Litanies were made, and the mercy of God implored, that he would avert the evils of plague and pestilence, that he would send them good and seasonable weather, and give them in due season the fruits of the earth. In Lysons's Environs of London, i. 309, among his extracts from the Churchwardens' Accounts at Lambeth, I find the following relative to our present subject:

probably for the processions in which they chanted the Litany on Rogation Day."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1790, p. 719, tells us: "Some time in the spring, I think the day before Holy Thursday, all the clergy, attended by the singing men and boys of the choir, perambulate the town (Ripon) in their canonicals, singing hymns ; and the blue-coat charity boys follow singing, with green boughs in their hands." In London, these parochial processions are still kept up on Holy Thursday. Shaw, in his History of Staffordshire, ii. part 1, p. 165, speaking of Wolverhampton, says: "Among the local customs which have prevailed here may be noticed that which [p.199] was popularly called 'Processioning.' Many of the older inhabitants can well remember when the sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, assembled at Morning Prayers on Monday and Tuesday in Rogation Week, with the charity children bearing long poles clothed with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried
through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men, and boys dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and chanting, in a grave and appropriate melody, the Canticle, Benedicte, Omnja Opera, &c. This ceremony, innocent at least, and not illaudable in itself, was of high antiquity, having probably its origin in the Roman offerings of the Primitise, from which (after being rendered conformable to our purer worship) it was adopted by the first Christians, and handed down, through a succession of ages, to modern times. The idea was, no doubt, that of returning thanks to God, by whose goodness the face of nature was renovated, and fresh means provided for the sustenance and comfort of his creatures. It was discontinued about 1765. The boundaries of the township and parish of Wolverhampton are in many points marked out by what are called Gospel Trees, from the custom of having the Gospel read under or near them by the clergyman attending the parochial perambulations. Those near the town were visited for the same purpose by the processioners before mentioned, and are still preserved with the strictest care and attention." One of these Gospel trees was till lately standing at Stratford-on-Avon, and a representation of it may be seen in Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 159. The subsequent is from Herrick's Hesperides, p. 18:

It appears, from a sermon preached at Blandford Forum, 1.570, by William Kethe, minister, p. 20, that in Rogation Week the Catholics had their "Gospelles at superstitious Crosses, decked like idols."

Plott, in his History of Oxfordshire, p. 203, tells us that at Stanlake, in that county, the minister of the parish, in his procession in Rogation Week, reads the Gospel at a barrel's [p.200] head, in the cellar of the Chequer Inn, in that town, where some say there was formerly a hermitage, others that there was anciently a Cross, at which they read a Gospel in former times; over which the house, and particularly the cellar, being built, they are forced to continue the custom in manner as above.¹³⁴

At Oxford, at this time, the little crosses cut in the stones of buildings, to denote the division of the parishes, are whitened with chalk. Great numbers of boys, with peeled willow rods in their hands, accompany the minister in the procession.

In one of Skelton's Merie Tales, the poet says to a cobler, "Neybour, you be a tall man, and in the kynge's warres you must bere a standard: A standard, said the cobler, what a thing is that?" Skelton said, "It is a great banner, such a one as thou dooest use to beare in Rogacyon Wecke." Of the magnificence of processions in former times on Rogation Day, the following may serve as a specimen, from MS. Cott. Galba. E. iv. They are the banners belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury: "Vexilla pro Rogacionibus Vexillum Sancti Thomse de panno albo de serico brud: Item ij. vexill. de armis Regis Anglise. Item ij. vexill. de armis Comitis Gloveraise. Item ij. vexill. de armis Comitis Warennee. Item ij. vexill. de armis de Hastingg : Item ij. vexill. de rub. damicto cum leopardis aur:" In Bridges's History of Northamptonshire are recorded various instances of having processions on Cross Monday.

Pennant, in his Tour from Chester to London, p. 30, tells us that, "on Ascension Day the old inhabitants of Nantwich piously sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the blessing of the Brine. A very ancient pit, called the Old Brine, was also [p.201] held in great veneration, and till within these few years was annually, on that festival, bedecked with boughs, flowers, and garlands, and was encircled by a jovial band of young people, celebrating the day with song and dance."

[Aubrey, in MS. Lansd. 23 1, says: "This custome is yearly observed at Droftwich, in Worcestershire, where, on the day of St. Richard, they keepe holyday, and dresse the well with green boughs and flowers. One yeare in the Presbyterian time it was discontinued in the civil warres, and after that, the springe shranke up or dried up for some time; so afterwards they revived their annual custom, notwithstanding the power of the parliament and soldiers, and the salt water returned again, and still continues. This St. Richard was a person of great estate in these parts, and a briske young fellow that would ride over hedge and ditch, and at length became a very devout man, and after his decease was canonized for a saint."]

In the Episteles and Gospelles, London, imprinted by Richard Bankes, 4to, f. 32, is given "a Sermon in the Crosse Dayes, or Rogation Dayes." It begins thus: "Good people, this weke is called the Rogation Weke, bycause in this weke we be wonte to make solempne and generall supplications, or prayers, which be also called Lytanyes." The preacher complains: "Alacke, for pitie! these solemne and accustomable processions be nowe growen into a right foule and detestable abuse, so that the moost parte of men and women do come forth rather to set out and shew themselves, and to passe the time with vayne and unprofitable tales and mery fables, than to make generall supplications and prayers to God, for theyr lackes and necessities. I wyll not speake of the rage and furour of these uplandysh processions and gangynges about, which be spent in ryotyng and in belychere. Furthermore, the banners and badges of the Crosse be so unreverently handled and abused, that it is merveyle God destroye us not in one daye. In these Rogation Days, if it is to be asked of God, and prayed for, that God of his goodnes wyll defende and save the corne in the felde, and that he wyll vouchsave to pourge the ayer, for this cause be certaine Gospels red in the wyde felde amonges the corne and grasse, that by the vertue and operation of God's word, the power of the wicked spirites, which keepe in the air and infecte the same (whence come pestilences and the other kyndes of diseases and syknesses), [p.202] may be layde downe, and the aier made pure and cleane, to th' intent the corne may remaine unharmed, and not infected of the sayd hurteful spirites, but serve us for our use and bodely sustenance." The Litanies or Rogations then used gave the name of Rogation Week to this time. They occur as early as A. D. 550, when they were first observed by Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, on account of the frequent earthquakes that happened, and the incursions of wild beasts which laid in ruins and depopulated the city.

Blount tells us that Rogation Week (Saxon Gang dagas, i.e. days of perambulation) is always the next but one before Whitsunday; and so called, because on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, of that week, Rogations and Litanies were used; and fasting, or, at least, abstinence, then enjoined by the Church to all persons, not only for a devout preparative to the feast of Christ's glorious Ascension, and the descent of the Holy Ghost shortly after, but also to request and supplicate the blessing of God upon the fruits of the earth. And, in this respect, the solemnization of matrimony is forbidden from the first day of the said week till Trinity Sunday. The Dutch call it Crays-week, Cross-week, and it is so called in some parts of England, because of old (as still among the Roman Catholics), when the priests went in procession this week, the Cross was carried before them. In the Inns of Court, he adds, it is called Grass-week, because the commons of that week consist much of salads, hard eggs, and green sauce upon some of the days. The feast of the old Romans, called Robigalia and Ambarvalia (quod victima arva ambiret), did, in their heathenish way, somewhat resemble these institutions, and were kept in May, in honour of Robigus.

Gerard, in the third book of his Herbal, speaking of the birch-tree, p. 1295, says: "It serveth well to the decking up of houses and banquetting-roomes, for places of pleasure, and for beautifying the streetes in the Crosse or Gang Weeke, and such like." Rogation Week, in the northern parts of England, is still called Gang Week, from to gang, which, in the north, signifies to go. Gang-days are classed under certain "Idolatries maintained by the Church of England," in a work entitled the Cobler's Book.

In the Tryall of a Man's Owne Selfe, by Thomas Newton, 1602, p. 47, he inquires, under "Sinnes externall and out- [p.203] ward" against the first Commandment, whether the parish clergyman "have patiently winked at, and quietly suffered, any rytes wherein hath been apparent superstition as gadding and raunging about with procession." To gadde in procession is among the customs censured by John Bale, in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles, 1554. In Michael Wodde's Dialogue (already cited under Palm Sunday), 1554, we read: "What say ye to procession in Gang-daies, when Sir John saith a Gospel to our corne feldes? (Oliver.) As for your Latine Gospels read to the corne, I am sure the corne understandeth as much as you, and therefore hath as much profit by them as ye have, that is to sai, none at al." Kennett, in MS. Lansd. 1033, says: "GANG-FLOWER, Rogation Flower, a sort of flower in prime at Rogation Week, of which the maids made garlands and wore them in those solemn processions."

By the Canons of Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, made at Cloveshoo, in the year 747, it was ordered that Litanies, that is, Rogations, should be observed by the clergy and all the people, with great reverence, on the seventh of the Calends of May, according to the rites of the Church of Rome, which terms this the greater Litany, and also according to the custom of our forefathers, on the three days before the Ascension of our Lord, with fastings, &c. In the Injunctions also made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it is ordered "that the Curate, at certain and convenient places, shall admonish the people to give thanks to God, in the beholding of God's benefits, for the increase and abundance of his fruits, saying the 103rd Psalm, &c. At which time the minister shall inculcate these, or such sentences, 'Cursed be he which translateth the bounds and doles of his neighbours,' or such orders of prayers as shall be hereafter." What is related on this head in the Life of Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, is extremely interesting: "He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his perambulation; and most did so; in which perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people: still inclining them, and all his present parishioners, to meekness and mutual [p.204] kindnesses and love; because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of infirmities."By" Advertisements partly for due Order in the publique Administration of Common Prayers, &c. by vertue of the Queene's Majesties Letters commanding the same, the 25th day of January (7 an. Eliz.)" 4to., it was directed, "Item, that, in the Rogation Daies of Procession, they singe or saye in Englishe the two Psalmes beginnyng 'Benedic Anima mea,' &c. with the Letanye suffrages thereunto, with one homelye of thankesgevying to God, already devised and divided into foure partes, without addition of any superstitious ceremonyes heretofore used." I find the following in Articles of Enquiry within the Archdeaconry of Middlesex, A.D. 1662, 4to: " Doth your Minister or Curate in Rogation Days go in Perambulation about your Parish, saying and using the Psalms and Suffrages by law appointed, as viz. Psalms 103 and 104, the Letany and Suffrages, together with the Homily, set out for that end and purpose? Doth he admonish the people to give thanks to God, if they see any likely hopes of plenty, and to call upon him for his mercy, if there be any fear of scarcity; and do you, the Churchwardens, assist him in it?" In similar Articles for the Archdeaconry of Northumberland, 1662, the following occurs: "Doth your Parson or Vicar observe the three Rogation Dayes?" In others for the Diocese of Chichester, 1637, is the subsequent: "Doth your Minister, yeerely, in Rogation Weeke, for the knowing and distinguishing of the bounds of parishes, and for obtaining God's blessing upon the fruites of the ground, walke the Perambulation, and say, or sing, in English, the Gospells, Epistles, Letanie, and other devout Prayers; together with the 103rd and 104th Psalmes?"¹³⁵

In Nichols's Churchwardens' Accounts, 1797, St. Margaret's Westminster, under A.D. 1555, is the following article: "Item, paid for spiced bread on the Ascension-Even, and on the Ascension Day, 1s. 1556. Item, paid for bread, wine, ale, and beer, upon the Ascension-Even and Day, against my Lord Abbott and his Covent came in Procession, and for strewing herbs the samme day, 7s. 1d. 1559. Item, for bread, ale, and beer, on Tewisday in the Rogacion Weeke, for the parishioners that went in Procession, 1s. 1560. Item, for bread and drink for the parishioners that went the Circuit the Tuesday in the Rogation week, 3s. 4d. Item, for bread and drink the Wednesday in the Rogation Week, for Mr. Archdeacon and the Quire of the Minster, 3s. 4d. 1585. Item, paid for going the Perambulacion, for fish, butter, cream, milk, conger, bread and drink, and other necessaries, 4s. 5d. 1597. Item, for the charges of diet at Kensington for the Perambulation of the Parish, being a yeare of great scarcity and deerness, 61. 8s. 8d. 1605. Item, paid for bread, drink, cheese, fish, cream, and other necessaries, when the worshipfull and others of the parish went the Perambulation to Kensington, 15l."

"On Ascension Day," says Hawkins, in his History of Music, ii. 112, "it is the custom of the inhabitants of parishes, with their officers, to perambulate in order to perpetuate the memory of their boundaries, and to impress the remembrance thereof in the minds of young persons, especially boys; to invite boys, therefore, to attend to this business, some little gratuities were found necessary; accordingly it was the custom, at the commencement of the procession, to distribute to each a willow-wand, and at the end thereof a handful of points, which were looked on by them as honorary rewards long after they ceased to be useful, and were called Tags."

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the City of London, 1682, are the following entries:

The following extracts are from the Churchwardens' Bcoks of Chelsea (Lysons's London, ii. 126):

The second of these entries alludes to another expedient for impressing the recollection of particular boundaries on the minds of some of the young people. Bumping persons to make them remember the parish boundaries has been kept up even to this time. A trial on the occasion, where an angler was bumped by the parishioners of Walthamstow parish, is reported in the Observer newspaper of January 10th, 1830. He was found angling in the Lea, and it was supposed that bumping a stranger might probably produce an independent witness of parish boundary. He obtained 50l. damages.

[The custom of perambulation, as now practised in Dorsetshire, is well described by Mr. Barnes in Hone's Year Book, 1178-9, and he gives an amusing account of the modes taken to impress the situation of the boundaries on the memory. A man, perhaps, if asked whether such a stream were a boundary, would reply, "Ees, that 'tis, I'm sure o't, by the same token that I were tossed into't, and paddled about there lik a water-rot, till I wor hafe dead."]

It appears from an order of the Common Council of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 15th May, 1657, that the scholars of the public grammar-school there, and other schools in the town, were invited to attend the magistrates when they perambulated the boundaries of the town. On Ascension Day, the Magistrates, River Jury, &c. of the corporation of that town, according to an ancient custom, make their annual procession by water, in their barges, visiting the bounds of their jurisdiction on the river, to prevent encroachments. Cheerful libations are offered on the occasion to the genius of the "coaly Tyne."

[Aubrey, in MS. Lansd. 231, says, "In Cheshire, when they went in perambulation, they did blesse the springs, i.e. they did read a Gospell at them, and did believe the water was the better:" to this account is added in pencil: "On Rogation days Gospells were read in the corn-fields here in England untill the Civill Warrs:" and Kennet has added, "Mem. A [p.207] gospell read at the head of a barrel in procession within the parish of Stanlake, Co. Oxon."]¹³⁶

Heath, in his History of the Scilly Islands, 1750, p. 128, tells us: "At Exeter, in Devon, the boys have an annual custom of damming up the channel in the streets, at going the bounds of the several parishes in the city, and of splashing the water upon people passing by. Neighbours as well as strangers are forced to compound hostilities, by given the boys of each parish money to pass without ducking: each parish asserting its prerogative in this respect."

The following is from Hasted's History of Kent, i. 109: "There is an odd custom used in these parts, about Keston and Wickham, in Rogation Week, at which time a number of young men meet together for the purpose, and with a most hideous noise, run into the orchards, and, incircling each tree, pronounce these words:

For which incantation the confused rabble expect a gratuity in money, or drink, which is no less welcome; but if they are disappointed of both, they with great solemnity anathematize the owners and trees with altogether as insignificant a curse, It seems highly probable that this custom has arisen from the ancient one of perambulation among the Heathens, when they made prayers to the Gods for the use and blessing of the fruits coming up, with thanksgiving for those of the preceding year; and as the Heathens supplicated Eolus, God of the Winds, for his favorable blasts, so in this custom they still retained his name with a very small variation: this ceremony is called Youling, and the word is often used in their invocations."

Armstrong, in his History of Minorca, 1752, p. 5, thus alludes to processioning, "as the Children in London are accustomed to perambulate the limits of their Parish, which they call processioning: a custom probably derived to them from the Romans, who were so many ages in possession of the [p.208] Island of Great Britain."¹³⁷ The following customs can properly find a place nowhere but in this section: "Shaftesbury is pleasantly situated on a hill, but has no water, except what the inhabitants fetch at a quarter of a mile's distance from the man our of Gillingham, to the lord of which they pay a yearly ceremony of acknowledgment, on the Monday before Holy Thursday. They dress up a garland very richly, calling it the Prize Besom, and carry it to the Manor-house, attended by a calf's-head and a pair of gloves, which are presented to the lord. This done, the Prize Besom is returned again with the same pomp, and taken to pieces; just like a milk-maid's garland on May Day, being made up of all the plate that can be got together among the housekeepers." Travels of Tom Thumb, p. 16.

Brand's servant, Betty Jelkes, who lived several years at Evesham, in Worcestershire, informed him of an ancient custom at that place for the master-gardeners to give their workpeople a treat of baked peas, both white and grey (and pork), every year on Holy Thursday.

The following is the account given of Procession Weeke and Ascension Day, in Barnaby Googe's Translation of Naogeorgus, f. 63:

The following superstition relating to this day is found in Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, 1065, p. 152. "In some countries they run out of the doors in time of tempest, blessing themselves with a cheese, whereupon was a cross made with a rope's end upon Ascension Day. Item, to hang an egg laid on Ascension Day in the roof of the house, preserveth the same from all hurts." The same writer mentions the celebrated Venetian superstition on this day, which is of great antiquity. "Every year, ordinarily, upon Ascension Day, the Duke of Venice, accompanied with the States, goeth with great solemnity to the sea, and, after certain ceremonies ended, casteth thereinto a gold ring of great value and estimation, for a pacificatory oblation; wherewith their predecessors supposed that the wrath of the sea was assuaged." This custom is said to have taken its rise from a grant of Pope Alexander the Third, who, as a reward for the zeal of the inhabitants in his restoration to the Papal chair, gave them power over the Adriatick Ocean, as a man has power over his wife. In memory of which the chief magistrate annually throws a ring into it, with these words: "Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum perpetui dominii. We espouse thee, Sea, in testimony of our perpetual dominion over thee," Gent. Mag. Nov. 1764, p. 483. See also Gent. Mag. March 1735, p. 118. In another volume of the same miscellany, for March 1798, p. 184, we have an account of the ceremony rather more minute: "On [p.210] Ascension Day, the Doge, in a splendid barge, attended by a thousand barks and gondolas, proceeds to a particular place in the Adriatic. In order to compose the angry gulph, and procure a calm, the patriarch pours into her bosom a quantity of holy water. As soon as this charm has had its effect, the Doge, with great solemnity, through an aperture near his seat, drops into her lap a gold ring, repeating these words, 'Desponsamus te y Mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii:' We espouse thee, Sea, in token of real and perpetual dominion over thee."

[Brockett mentions the smock-race on Ascension Day, a race run by females for a smock. These races were frequent among the young country wenches in the North. The prize, a fine Holland chemise, was usually decorated with ribands. The sport is still continued at Newburn, near Newcastle. The following curious poem on this amusement is extracted from a small volume, entitled Poetical Miscellanies, consisting of Original Poems, and Translations, by the best hands, published by Mr. Steele, 8vo, 1714, p. 199:

"1622.	Received for cocks at Shrovetide	12^s. 0^d.
1628.	Received for cocks in Towne	19^s. 10^d.
	Out of Towne	0^s. 6^d."

	£	s	d
5 Hen. VIII. For thred for the Resurrection . . . . . . . . . . . .	0	0	1
For three yerds of Dornek¹²⁰ for a pleyer's coat, and the makyng . . . . .	0	1	3
12 Hen. VIII. Paid for a skin of parchment and gunpowder, for the play on Easter Day . . .	0	0	8
For brede and ale for them that made the stage, and other things belonging to the play . . .	0	1	2

	£	s	d
"1516. Paid for dyinge of buckram for the Letfy clothes ...... . ..	0	0	8
For paynting the Lett'ny clothes . . . . .	0	0	8
For lynynge of the Lett'ny clothes . . .	0	0	4

	£	s	d
1679. Spent at the Perambulation Dinner ...... . ..	3	10	0
Given to the 6oys that were whipt . . . .	0	4	0
Paid for poynts for the boys . . . .	0	2	0

"Three great garlands for the crosses, of roses and lavender .......	}	3s."
Three dozen other garlands for the quire .......

	£	s	d
For fruit on Perambulation Day...... . ..	1	0	0
For points for two yeres. . . . .	2	1	0