OBSERVATIONS
ON
POPULAR ANTIQUITIES
OF
GREAT BRITAIN

NOTES TO VOL. 1

1. By our old English poet Barnaby Googe.

2. The following very sensible observation occurs in the St. James's Chronicle from Oct. 3d to Oct. 5th, 1797: "Ideas have been entertained by fanciful men of discovering the languages of ancient nations by a resolution of the elements and powers of speech, as the only true ground of etymology; but the fact is, that there is no constant analogy in the organs of different people, any more than in their customs from resemblance of their climates. The Portuguese change I into r, ll into ch, ch into yt, but not always. The Chinese change b, d, r, s, x, z, into p, t, l, s, s. For Crux they say Culusu; for Baptizo, Papetizo; for Cardinalis, Kzaulsinalis; for Spiritus, Supelitisu; for Adam, Vatam. Here the words are so changed that it is impossible to say that they are the same. A more sure way of going to work is by a comparison of customs, as when we find the same customs in any two remote countries, Egypt and China for instance, which customs exist nowhere else, they probably originated in one of them."

3. 1 "The study of popular antiquities," says a writer with the signature of V. F., in the Monthly Magazine for April 1798, p. 273, "though the materials for it lie so widely diffused, and indeed seem to obtrude themselves upon every one's attention, in proportion to the extent of his intercourse with the common people, does not appear to have engaged so much of the notice of inquirers into human life and manners as might have been expected."

4. In the year 1777 I republished Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares, a little work on this subject, which then had become extremely scarce, and sold very high, making observations on each of his chapters, and throwing new discoveries into an appendix at the end. That volume, too, by those who have mistaken accident for merit, is now marked in catalogues at more than double its original price. In the following work I have been advised to dissolve amicably the literary partnership under the firm of Bourne and Brand, and to adopt a very different plan, presenting to the public a collection which, not only from the immense variety of fresh matter, but also, from the totally different arrangement of the subjects, I flatter myself I may, with equal truth and propriety, venture to denominate an entirely new one.
    In this I shall only cite my predecessor Bourne in common with the other writers on the same topics. I am indebted for much additional matter to the partiality and kindness of Francis Douce, Esq., who, having enriched an interleaved copy of my edition of 1777 with many very pertinent notes and illustrations, furnished from his own extensive reading on the subject, and from most rare books in his truly valuable library, generously permitted me to make whatever extracts from them I should think interesting to my present purpose. It were invidious also not to make my acknowledgments on this occasion to George Steevens, Esq., the learned and truly patient, or rather indefatigable, editor of Shakspeare, who had the goodness to lend me many scarce tracts, which no collection but his own, either public or private, that I know of, could have supplied me with.

5.  Misson, in his Travels in England, translated by Ozell, p. 66, has some sensible observations upon customs. "All reasonable people will imagine," he says, "that, as there is man and man, so there is custom and custom. It has been in all ages a practice to talk and write upon the manners and customs of different nations; but it has also in all ages been known that there was nothing so general as not to admit of some exception. By degrees, customs alter in the very same country, conformably to the quality and education of the inhabitants. By a nation we always understand the greater number; and this greater number is not made up of the persons of the highest birth or merit, no more than it is of the beggars and scoundrels that compose the lees and chaff of the country. It consists of the people that live in a certain state of mediocrity, and whose humour, taste, and manners, as to certain respects, differ from each other only as to more or less."
    White, in his Natural History of Selborne, p. 202, observes: "It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices: they are sucked in as it were with our mother's milk; and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven with our very constitutions, that the strongest sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion. Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened age."
    "Superstition," says Mr. Harris, in the Life of Charles I., p. 52, note, "is a debasement of reason and religion ; 'tis entertaining misapprehensions of Almighty God; 'tis the practice of things weak and ridiculous, in order to please Him, whereby it excites in the mind chimerical hopes, ill-grounded fears, and vain expectations: in short, it is weakness, attended with uneasiness and dread, and productive of confusion and horror. Every one knows the mischiefs superstition has produced in the world; gods of all sorts and kinds: sacrifices of beasts and men; rites, ceremonies, and postures; antic tricks and cruel torments; with every other thing which, from time to time, has been falsely called by the name of religion, have arose from hence. It took its rise early in the world, and soon spread itself over the face of the earth; and few, very few, were there who were wholly free from it. The doctrine of Christ, indeed, was calculated to destroy its dominion, and to restore religion to its original lustre: yet, notwithstanding this, superstition very soon found an entrance among Christians, and at length encreased to an enormous size. The reformation of religion and the revival of letters were somewhat unfriendly to it; but whether it be the craft of those who subsist by the credulity and ignorance of others, or whether it be a proneness in men to superstition, or their laziness and inattention to other than sensible objects I say, whether it be owing to one or all of these causes, superstition remained still alive, and shewed itself even among those who gloried that they had got rid of the Papal yoke."

6. A sensible writer in the Gent. Mag. for July 1763, vol. liii. p. 577, says; "I have often wished to know the first foundation of several popular customs, appropriated to particular seasons, and been led to think however widely they may have deviated from their original design and meaning, of which we have now wholly lost sight, they are derived from some religious tenets, observances, or ceremonies. I am convinced that this is the case in Catholic countries, where such like popular usages, as well as religious ceremonies, are more frequent than amongst us; though there can be little doubt but that the customs I refer to, and which we retain, took their rise whilst these kingdoms were wholly Catholic, immersed in ignorance and superstition." See a further quotation from this writer's remarks under the head of Shere Thursday, in the present volume, p. 149.

7. It is wittily observed by Fuller, Ch. Hist., p. 375, that, as careful mothers and nurses, on condition they can get their children to part with knives, are contented to let them play with rattles, so they permitted ignorant people still to retain some of their fond and foolish customs, that they might remove from them the most dangerous and destructive superstitions.

8. In proof of this assertion, see Dr. Middleton's curious letter from Rome.

9. In A Disputation betwixt the Devill and the Pope, &c., 4to. Lond. 1642, signat. A 3, to the Pope's inquiry, "What Factious Spirits doe in England dwell?" the Devil answers:
    "Few of your party: they are gone as wide,
    As most report, and mad on t'other side;
    There, all your bookes and beades are counted toyes,
    Altars and tapers are pull'd downe by boyes,
    Discord they say doth so possesse the land,
    'Tis thought they will not let the organs stand,
    The cleane-washt surples which our priests put on,
    There is the smock o' th' Whore of Babylon,
    And I have had report by those have seen them,
    They breake the windows 'cause the Saints are in them:
        *    *    *    *    *    *
    A taylor must not sit with legs on crosse,
    But straite he's set by th' heeles (it is a signe
    Of ceremony only, not divine). "
    See more of the Puritan detestation of the Cross-form in the present volume, 156.

10. I call to mind here the pleasing account Sterne has left us, in his Sentimental Journey, of the grace-dance after supper. I agree with that amiable writer in thinking that Religion may mix herself in the dance, and that innocent cheerfulness forms no inconsiderable part of devotion; such, indeed, cannot fail of being grateful to the Good Being, as it is a silent but eloquent mode of praising him.

11. "The youths of this city," he says, "have used on holidays, after evening prayer, at their master's door, to exercise their wasters and bucklers; and the maidens, one of them playing on a timbrel, in sight of their masters and dames, to dance for garlands hanged athwart the streets." Strype's edit, of Stow's Survey, book i. p. 251.

12. The Rev. Mr. Ledwich, in his Statistical Account of the Parish of Aghaboe in the Queen's County, Ireland, 8vo. Dubl. 1796, tells us, p. 95: "A delineation of the customs and manners of the people of this parish would seem to be a proper and interesting addition to this work. This I should have attempted, did their peculiarity demand notice. The national character of the original natives is, with us, entirely lost. Their diversions of foot-ball and hurling are seldom practised, or their ancient customs at marriages and interments." It must not, however, be dissembled that the learned writer is of opinion that the change is for the better.

13. In general it may be observed that readers, provided with keen appetites for this kind of entertainment, must content themselves with the homely manner of serving it up to them. Indeed, squeamishness in this particular would, in a variety of instances, suit but ill with the study of the English Antique. For it must he confessed, that a great deal o: wholesome meat of this sort has ever been brought on upon wooden platters, and very nice guests, it is to be feared, will think that our famous old cook, Thomas Hearne himself, was but a very slovenly and greasy kind of host.

14. This curious book is the fountain-head of all ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies. It was printed at Mentz so early as 1459. See Fabricii Bibliotheca medias et infamae Ætatis, edit. 8vo. 1734, vol. ii. p. 206, and Maittaire's Annales Typogr, vol. i. p. 271, pars prior.

15. It is but justice to own that the modern Roman Catholics disclaim the greater number of those superstitious notions and ceremonies, equally the misfortune and disgrace of our forefathers in the dark ages.

16.  "Papatus, seu depravata? Religionis Origo et Incrementum; summa fide diligentiaque e gentilitatis suae fontibus eruta: ut fere nihil sit in hoc genus cultu, quod non sit promptum, ex hisce, meis reddere suis authoribus: ut restitutae Evangelicae Religionis, quamprofitemur, simplicitas, fucis amotis, suam aliquando integritatem apud omnes testatam faciat per Thomam Moresinum Aberdonanum, Doctorem Medicum. Edinburgi excudebat Robertus Waldegrave, Typographus Regius, Anno M.D.XCIIII. Cum privilegio Regali." A small octavo: most extremely rare.

17.  In the Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix. 8vo. Edinb. 1793, p. 253, parish of Clunie, co. of Perth, the inhabitants, we are told, "are not, as formerly, the dupes of superstitious credulity. Many old useless rites and ceremonies are laid aside. Little attention is paid to bug-bear tales. Superstitions, charms, and incantations have lost their power. Cats, hares, magpies, and old women cease to assume any other appearance than what nature has given them: and ghosts, goblins, witches, and fairies have relinquished the land."

In the same volume, p. 328, parish of Tongland, co. of Kircudbright; from a statistical account of sixty or seventy years before, we learn that "the lower class in general were tainted strongly with superstitious sentiments and opinions, which had been transmitted down from one generation to another by tradition. They firmly believed in ghosts, hobgoblins, fairies, elves, witches, and wizards. These ghosts and spirits often appeared to them at night. They used many charms and incantations to preserve themselves, their cattle and houses, from the malevolence of witches, wizards, and evil spirits, and believed in the beneficial effects of these charms. They believed in lucky and unlucky days, and seasons in marrying or undertaking any important business. They frequently saw the devil, who made wicked attacks upon them when they were engaged in their religious exercises and acts of devotion. They believed in benevolent spirits, which they termed brownies, who went about in the night time and performed for them some part of their domestic labour, such as threshing and winnowing their corn, spinning and churning. They fixed branches of mountain ash, or narrow-leaved service tree, above the stakes of their cattle, to preserve them from the evil effects of elves and witches. All these superstitious opinions and observations, which they firmly believed, and powerfully influenced their actions, are of late years almost obliterated among the present generation."

Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 482, parish of Wigton, co. of Wigton, "The spirit of credulity, which arises out of ignorance, and which overran the country, is now greatly worn away; and the belief in witches, in fairies, and other ideal beings, though not entirely discarded, is gradually dying out."

18.                             "Degree being vizarded,
    Th' unwortbiest shows as fairly in the mask.
    The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
    Observe degree, priority, and place,
    Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
    Office, and custom, in all line of order:
    And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol,
    In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
    Amidst the ether; whose med'cinable eye
    Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
    And posts, like the commandment of a king,
    Sans check, to good and bad: But when the planets,
    In evil mixture, to disorder wander,
    What plagues, and what portents! what mutiny!
    "What raging of the sea shaking of earth!
    Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
    Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
    The unity and married calm of states
    Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shak'd,
    Which is the ladder to all high designs,
    The enterprise is sick! How could communities
    Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
    Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
    The primogenitive and due of birth,
    Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
    But by degree, stand in authentic place?
    Take but degree away, untune that string,
    And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
    In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
    Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
    And make a sop of all this solid globe."
                        Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. iii.

19. "These several particulars, if considered separately, may appear trifling ; but taken altogether, they form no inconsiderable part of what (with only some slight variation,) the religion of the vulgar will always be, in every age, and in every stage of society, and indeed, whatever be the religion which they profess, unless they are so grossly stupid, or so flagitiously immoral, as to be incapable of feeling the restraints of any system of religion, whether rational or superstitious." Sir John Sinclair's Statist. Account of Scotland, vol. v. p. 85.

20. Verstegan gives the subsequent etymology of Wassail: "As was is our verb of the preter-imperfect tense, or preter-perfect tense, signifying have been, so was, being the same verb in the imperative mood, and now pronounced wax, is as much as to say grow, or become; and Waeskeal, by corruption of pronunciation, afterwards came to be Wassail." Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, ed. 1653, p. 101. Wassel, however, is sometimes used for general riot, intemperance, or festivity. See Love's Labour Lost, v. 2. A wassel candle was a large candle lighted up at a feast. See 2 Henry IV. i. 2.

21. Milner, on an ancient cup (Archaeologia, xi. 420), informs us, that "The introduction of Christianity amongst our ancestors did not at all contribute to the abolition of the practice of wasselling. On the contrary, it began to assume a kind of religious aspect; and the Wassel Bowl itself, which, in the great monasteries, was placed on the Abbot's table, at the upper end of the Refectory or eating-hall, to be circulated amongst the community at his discretion, received the honorable appellation of 'Poculum Charitatis.' This, in our universities, is called the Grace-cup." The Poculum Charitatis is well translated by the toast-master of most of the public companies of the city of London by the words, "A loving cup." After dinner the master and wardens drink "to their visitors, in a loving cup, and bid them all heartily welcome." The cup then circulates round the table, the person who pledges standing up whilst his neighbour drinks to him.

22. The name of a cow.

23. Alluding to an annual insult offered on the 30th of January to the memory of the unfortunate Charles I.

24. Iola, to make merry. Goth.

25. There is a curious account of the manner in which the Romans passed their New Year's Day, in Lihanii Ekphrasin. Kaiendr. p. 178; ed. 1606.

26. "It seems it was a custom at Rome, upon New Year's Day, for all tradesmen to work a little in their business by way of omen for luck's sake, as we say, that they might have constant business all the year after." Massey's Notes to Ovid's Fasti, p. 14. He translates the passage in his author thus:

With business is the year auspiciously begun;
But every artist, soon as he has try'd
To work a little, lays his work aside.

27. For the following lines, which the common people repeat upon this occasion, on New Year's Day, in some parts of France, I am indebted to Mr. Olivier:

"Aguilaneuf de ceans
On le voit a sa fenetre,
Avec son petit bonnet blanc,
Il dit qu'il sera le Maitre,
Mettra le Pot au feu;
Donnez nous ma bonne Dame,
Donnez nous Aguilaneuf."

28. [In a curious manuscript, lettered on the back, "Publick Revenue, anno quinto regni Edwardi Sexti," I find, "Rewards given on New Year's Day, that is to say, to the King's officers and servants of ordinary, 155 l. 5 s., and to their servants that present the King's Ma^tie with New Year's Gifts." The custom, however, is in part of a date considerably older than the time of Edward the Sixth. Henry the Third, according to Matthew Paris, appears to have extorted New Year's Gifts from his subjects "Rex autem regalis magnificentiae terminos impudenter transgrediens, a civibus Londinensibus quos novit ditiores, die Circumcisionis Dominicae, a quolibet exegit singulatim primitiva, quae vulgares Nova Dona Novi Anni superstitiose solent appellare." Matt. Paris, an. 1249, p. 757, ed. Watts, fol. 1641.]

29.  "In die Circumcisionis luditur et ante et post coenam pro Strenulis. Pueri autem pro consuetudine ipso Calendarum Januariarum die, velut ominis boni gratia, carmina componunt, eaque vel Praeposito vel Praeceptori et Magistris vel inter se ultro citroque communiter mittunt." Status Scholae Etonensis, A.D. 1560. MS. Brit. Mus. Donat. 4843, fol. 423. The very ingenious Scottish writer, Buchanan, presented to the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots one of the above poetical kind of New Year's gifts. History is silent concerning the manner in which her Majesty received it:

Ad Mariam Scotice Reginam.
Do quod adest: opto quod abest tibi, dona darentur
Aurea, sors animo si foret aequameo.
Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulciscere donis:
Et quod abest opta tu mihi: da quod adest.

30.  "Gevying of New Yeare's Giftes had its original there likewyse (in old Rome), for Suetonius Tranquillus reporteth that the Knights of Rome gave yerely, on the calendes of January, a present to Augustus Caesar, although he were absent. Whiche custom remayneth in England, for the subjects sende to their superiours, and the noble personages geve to the Kynge some great gyftes, and he to gratifye their kyndnesse doeth liberally rewarde them with some thyng again." Langley's Polydore Virgil, fol. 102,

31. "Atque ab ipso natali Jesu Christi die ad octavam usque ab Epiphania lucem, jejunia nemo observato, nisi quidem judicio ac voluntate fecerit sua, aut id ei fuerit a sacerdote imperatum." Seld. Analecton Anglo-Britannicon, lib. ii. p. 108.

32.  Mr Douce's MS. notes say, "Mos inolevit et viget apud plurimas nationes, ut in profesto Epiphaniae, sen trium Regum, in quaque familia seu alia societate, sorte velalio fortuito modo eligant sibi Regem, et convivantes una ac genialiter viventes, bibente rege, acclamant, Rex bibit, bibit Rex, indicta multa qui non clamaverit. See the Sylva Sermonum jucundissimorum, 8vo. Bas. 1568, pp. 73, 246."

33. Johannes Boemus Aubanus "Mores, Leges, et Ritum omnium Gentium." 12mo. Genev. 1620, p. 266, gives the following circumstantial description of this ceremony:

"In Epiphania Domini singulae Familise ex melle, farina, addito zinzibere et pipere, libum conficiunt, et Regein sibi legunt hoc modo: Libum materfamilias facit, cui absque consideratione inter subigendum denarium unum immittit, postea amoto igne supra calidum focum illud torret, tostum in tot partes frangit, quot homines familia habet: demum distribuit, cuique partem unam tribuens. Adsignantur etiam Christo, beatseque Virgini, et tribus Magis suse partes, quae loco eleemosynae elargiuntur. In cujus autem portione denarius repertus fuerit, hie Rex ab omnibus salutatus, in sedem locatur, et ter in altum cum jubilo elevatur. Ipse in dextera cretam habet, qua toties Signum Crucis supra in Triclinii laqueariis delineat: quae Cruces quod obstare plurimis malis credantur, in multa observatione habentur."

Here we have the materials of the cake, which are flour, honey, ginger, and pepper. One is made for every family. The maker thrusts in, at random, a small coin as she is kneading it. "When it is baked, it is divided into as many parts as there are persons in the family. It is distributed, and each has his share. Portions of it also are assigned to Christ, the Virgin, and the three Magi, which are given away in alms. Whoever finds the piece of coin in his share is saluted by all as King, and being placed on a seat or throne, is thrice lifted aloft with joyful acclamations. He holds a piece of chalk in his right hand, and each time he is lifted up, makes a cross on the ceiling. These crosses are thought to prevent many evils, and are much revered.

34. This is also in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 374.

35. I find the subsequent curious passage concerning St. Agnes, in the Portiforium seu Breviarium Ecclesise Sarisburiensis, fol. Par. 1556. Pars. Hyemalis: "Cumque interrogasset praeses quis esset sponsus de cujus se Agnes potestate gloriabatur, exstitit quidam ex parasitis qui diceret hanc Christianam esse ab infantia, et magicis artibus ita occupatam, ut dicatur sponsum suum Christum esse. R. Jam corpus ejus corpori meo sociatum est, et sanguis ejus ornavit genas meas. Cujus mater Virgo est, cujus pater feminam nescit. Ipsi sum desponsata cui angeli serviunt, cujus pulchritudinem Sol et Luna mirantur, cujus mater Virgo."

36. ["There are two remarkable days this month, and both on the getting hand, which our customers like best. There is St. Agnes's Fast, for the maids to get sweethearts, which happens the twenty-first day; and Term begins on the twenty- third day, for the lawyers to get money, but it is with a difference, and the lawyers in this, as indeed in most other cases, have the advantage. The maids, if they do undergo the mortification of fasting, expect nothing but a dream for their labour; only if they dream of the man that afterwards they are married to, it makes amends. But the lawyer is not buoy'd up with dreams, for he is awake, and will have the money, ipso facto, before he speaks; and if the client lose both cause and money, it will make him awake too." Poor Robin, 1733.]

37. In an ancient calendar of the Church of Rome, which will frequently be quoted in the course of this work, it is called Dies Egyptiacus.

38. This curious calendar also contains the following very singular notice for the 24th of January, the vigil of St. Paul's Day, Viri cum uxoribus non curant.

39. Thomas Lodge, in his most rare work, entitled 'Wit's Miserie, and the World's Madnesse, discovering the Devils Incarnat of this Age,' 4to. Lond. 1596, glances in the following quaint manner at the superstitions of this and St. Peter's Day, p. 12, And by S. Peter and S. Paule the fool rideth him."

40. And in a MS. Register of Spalding, transcribed in Cole's MSS., vol. 44, Brit. Mus.

"Clara dies Pauli bona tempora denotat anni;
Si nix, vel pluvia, designat tempora chara;
Si fiant venti, designat praelia genti:
Si fiant nebulae, periant animalia quaeque."

41. Among Bagford's fragments of books preserved with the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 5937, are several pieces of an almanack in French, printed at Basle, in 1672. These lines occur in one upon St. Paul's Day:

"De Sainct Paul la claire journee
Nous denote une bonne annee;
S'il fait vent, nous aurons la guerre,
S'il neige ou pleut, cherte sur terre,
S'on voit fort epais les brouillars,
Mortalite de toutes pars.
S'il y a beaucoup d'eau en ce mois,
Cet an peu de vin croutre tu vois."

42.         ["Clara dies Pauli bonitatem denotat anni;
              Si fuerint venti, crudelia praelia genti;
              Quando sunt nebulae, pereunt animalia quaeque;
              Si nix aut pluvia sit, tune fiunt omnia chara.
              Fevrier de tous les mois,
              Le plus court et moins courtois.
              En Mars me lie, en Mars me taille,
              Je rends prou quand on m'y travaille." MS. Harl. 4043.]

43. Mr. Douce's MS. Notes say, "This feast is called by the Greeks [Gr.], which signifies a meeting, because Simeon and Anna the prophetess met in the temple at the presentation of our Saviour." L'Estrange's Alliances of Divine Offices, p. 147. See Luke ii. At the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi, at Aix, in Provence, there is a procession of Saints, among whom St. Simeon is represented with a mitre and cap, carrying in his left hand a basket of eggs. Hist, de la Fete Dieu, p. 100. "To beare their candels soberly, and to offer them to the saintes, not of God's makynge, but the carvers and paynters," is mentioned among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale in his 'Declaration of Bonner's Articles,' 1554, signat. D. 4 b; as is ibid., fol. 18 b. "to conjure candels."

44. Idolatry. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 545.

45. Camden's Remains, edit. 8vo. Lond. 1674, p. 318.

46. See on this subject Dupre's 'Conformity between Ancient and Modern Ceremonies,' p. 96, and Stopford's 'Pagano-Papismus,' p. 238.

47. Teneble Wednesday is mentioned by Palsgrave, 1530. See further in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 858.

48. Marry, a term of asseveration in common use, was originally, in Popish times, a mode of swearing by the Virgin Mary; q. d. by Mary,

49. To light. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 855.

50. [The following lines are copied from an early MS. in Cole's MSS. vol. 44, Brit. Mus.,

Imber si datur, Virgo dum purificatur,
Inde notatur quod hyemps abinde fugatur;
Si sol det radium, frigus erit nimium.]

51. I find the following in Du Cange's Glossary, in voce Festum S. Blasii. "Cur hac die Populus lumina pro domibus vel animalibus accendere soleret, atque adeo eleemosynos largiri docet Honorius Augustod. Lib. iii. cap. 25." Hospinian, in his book De Orig. Festor. Christian, fol. 43, speaking of St. Blasius' Day, says, "In sacris ejus candela offertur; Nugantur enim, viduam quandam porci mactati caput, pedes candelam et panem Blasio in carcerem attulisse." These candles were said to be good for the tooth-ache, and for diseased cattle.

52. I find in the old Romish calendar, already cited, the following observation on the 14th of February: "Manes nocte vagari creduntur."

53. In the French Almanack of 1672, which has been before quoted, we read, "Du 14 Fevrier, qui est le propre jour Sainct Valentin on souloit dire,

"Saignee du jour Sainct Valentin
Faict du Sang net soir et matin:
Et la saignee du jour devant
Garde de fievres eh tout Tan."

54. The following is from Buchanan:

"Festa Valentino rediit Lux
Quisque sihi Sociam jam legit ales A vena.
Inde sibi Dominam per sortes quaerere in Annum
Mansit ab antiquis mors repetitus avis:
Quisque legit Dominam, quam casto observet amore,
Quam nitidis sertis, obsequioque colat:
Mittere cui possit blandi Munuscula Veris."
            Poemata, Lugd. Bat. 1628, p. 372,

55. J. Boemus Aubanus gives us the following description of the manner of spending the three days before the Lent-Fast commenced, commonly called the Carnival, that is, "the bidding farewell to flesh." "Quo item raodo tres prsecedentes quadragesimale jejunium dies peragat, dicere opus non erit, si cognoscatur, qua populari, qua spontanea insania caetera Germania a qua et Franconia minime desciscit, tune vivat. Comedit enim et bibit, seque ludo jocoque omnimodo adeo dedit, quasi usus nunquam veniant, quasi eras moritura, hodie prius omnium rerum satietatem capere velit, Novi aliquid spectaculi quisque excogitat, quo mentes et oculos omnium delectet, admirationeque detineat. Atque, ne pudor obstet, qui se ludicro illi committunt facies larvis obducunt, sexum et aetatem mentientes, viri mulierum vestimenta, mulieres virorum induunt. Quidam Satyros, aut malos daemones potius repraesentare volentes, minio se aut atramento tingunt, habituque nefando deturpant, alii nudi discurrentes Lupercos agunt, a quibus ego annuum isturn delirandi morem ad nos defluxisse existimo." p. 267. And Bishop Hall, in his Triumph of Rome, thus describes the Jovial Carneval: "Every man cries Sciolta, letting himself loose to the maddest of merriments, marching wildly up and down in all forms of disguises; each man striving to outgo other in strange pranks of humourous debauchedness, in which even those of the holy order are wont to be allowed their share; for howsoever it was by some sullen authority forbidden to clerks and votaries of any kind to go masked and misguised in those seemingly abusive solemnities, yet more favourable construction hath offered to make them believe it was chiefly for their sakes, for the refreshment of their sadder and more restrained spirits, that this free and lawless festivity was taken up." p. 19.

56. See Dufresne's Glossary, v. Carnelevamen. Wheatley on the Com. Prayer, ed. 1848, p. 216.

57. "This furnishyng of our bellies with delicates, that we use on Fastingham Tuiesday, what tyme some eate tyl they be enforsed to forbeare all again, sprong of Bacchus Feastes, that were celebrated in Rome with great ioy and delicious fare." Langley's Polidore Vergile, fol. 103.

58. Carpentier calls "Gallorum pugna" ludi genus inter pueros scholares, non uno in loco usitati. Lit. remiss. An. 1383, in Reg. 134. Chartoph. Reg. ch. 37. "En ce Karesme entrant a une feste ou dance que 1'en faisoit lors d'enfans pour la jouste des coqs, ainsi qu'il est accoustume (en Dauphine)." Du Cange, in his Glossary, ii. 1679, says, that although this practice was confined to schoolboys in several provinces of France, it was nevertheless forbidden in the Council of Copria (supposed to be Cognac) in the year 1260. The decree recites "that although it was then become obsolete, as well in grammar schools as in other places, yet mischiefs had arisen, &c." "DUELLUM GALLORUM gallinaceorum etiamnum in aliquot provinciis usurpatum a scholaribus puerulis, vetatur in Concilio Copriniacensi An. 1260, cap. 7. quod scilicet superstitionem quamdam saperet, vel potius sortilegii aut purgationis vulgaris nescio quid redoleret; quia ex duello gallorum, quod in partibus istis, tarn in Scholis Grammatics, qaam in aliis fieri inolevit, nonnulla mala aliquoties sunt exorta," &c. Du Cange, in verbo. Vide Carpentier, v. Jasia.

59. [Brand has fallen somewhat into confusion here, the word Cockney having several distinct meanings. See a full account of them in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 261.]

60. In Carpentier's Glossary, under the words " Gallorum pugna," A.B. 1458, some differences are mentioned as subsisting between the mayor and aldermen of Abbeville, and the dean and chapter of the church of "St. Ulfra, which are made up on the following condition ; " C'est assavoir que lesdiz Doyen et Cappitle accordent que doresenavant ilz souffreront et consentiront, que cellui qui demourra roy d' 1'escolle la nuit des Quaresmiaulx, apporte ou fache apporter devers le Maieur de laditte Ville ou Camp S. George, le Cocq, qui demourra ledit jour ou autre jourvictorieux, ou autre cocq ; et que ledit roy presente au dit maieur pour d'icellut fairs le cholle en la maniere accoutumee. Quse ultima verba explicant Lit. remiss, an. 1355, in Reg. 84, ch. 278. " Petierunt a magistro Erardo Maquart magistro scholarum ejusdem villse de Rameru quatenus liberaret et traderet eis unum gallum, quern, sicut dicebant, idem magister scholarum debebat eis die ipsa (Carniprivii) ut jacerent baculos ad gallum ip- (fiim, more solito, pro eorum exhillaratione et ludo."

61. The date of the illumination is not 1433, as Mr. Strutt mentions, but 1343. See the MS. Bodl. 264.

62. The London Daily Advertiser, Wednesday, March, 7, 1759, says, "Yesterday, being Shrove Tuesday, the orders of the justices in the City and Liberty of Westminster were so well observed that few cocks were seen to be thrown at, so that it is hoped this barbarous custom will be left off."

63. ["St. Taffy is no sooner gone,
        But Pancake day is coming on:
        Now eat your fill, drink if you're dry,
        For Lent comes on immediately.
        Now days exceed the nights in length,
        And Titan's heat improves in strength."
                    Poor Robin's Almanack, 1731.]

64. "Most places in England have Eggs and Collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday, Pancakes on Tuesday, and Fritters on the Wednesday in the same week for dinner." Gent. Mag. Aug. 1790, p. 719. From 'The Westmoreland Dialect,' by A. Walker, 8vo., 1790, it appears that cock-fighting and casting Pancakes are still practised on Shrove Tuesday in that county. Thus, p. 31, " Whaar ther wor tae be Cock-feightin, for it war Pankeak Tuesday." And p. 35, "We met sum Lads and Lasses gangin to kest their Pankeaks." It appears from Middleton's Masque of the World tossed at Tennis, which was printed in 1620, that batter was used on Shrove Tuesday at that time, no doubt for the purpose of making pancakes.

65. Tuck, i.e. set the nail of their thumb to their chin, just under the lip, and by the help of their other fingers under the chin, they would give a mark which sometimes would produce blood.

66. [l "A cloth usually wetted and attached to a pole, to sweep clean a baker's oven. This word occurs in the dictionaries of Hollyband and Miege, and is still in use in the West of England." Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 545.]

67. In Dekker's Play of Match Me in London, Bilboa says: "I'll beate down the doore, and put him in mind of Shrove Tuesday, the fatall day for doores to be broke open." See the custom further explained in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 739.

68. The allusion of this passage, though published later, is evidently to the period of the great Rebellion.

69. [A common vernacular phrase. So the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet says, " Of all the days in the year, upon that day."]

70. Or rather, "The Ashes which they use this day, are made of the Palmes blessed the Palm-Sunday before." New Helpe to Discourse, 1684, p. 319.

71. [The consecrated ashes are thus mentioned in an early MS. cited by Ducange: "Cineres qui in capite jejunii fratrum olim penitentium hodiie fidelium omnium imponuntur." Ash Wednesday was the 'caput jejunii.']

72. Lent is so called from the time of the year wherein it is observed, in the Saxon language signifying Spring, being now used to signify the Spring-Fast, which always begins so that it may end at Easter, to remind us of our Saviour's sufferings, which ended at his resurrection. (Wheatley on the Common Prayer, ed. 1848, p. 218.) Ash Wednesday is, in some places, called Pulver Wednesday, that is Dies Pulveris. The word Lentron, for Lent, occurs more than once in the Regiam Majestatem, 1609. Lengten-tide for Spring, when the days lengthen, occurs in the Saxon Heptateuch, ed. 1698, Exod. xxxiv. 18.

73. Quoted in the Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, i. 186.

74. [To famish. The word occurs in Spenser.]

75.  Howe's edition of Stow's Annals, p. 595, states, sub anno 1547-8, "the Wednesday following, commonly called Ash Wednesday, the use of giving ashes in the church was also left throughout the whole citie of London;" and "mannerlye to take theyr ashes devoutly," is among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale, in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles, 1554, as is also "to conjure ashes."

76. For several curious customs or ceremonies observed abroad during the three first days of the Quinquagesima Week, see Hospinian de Origine Festorum Christianorum, fol. 45, and the translation of Naogeorgus, by Barnaby Googe, so frequently quoted in this work.

77. Thorns' Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 113.

78. Again in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub:

"On an Ash- Wednesday,
When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o' Lent,
For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee."

And in Beaumont and Fletcher's Tamer Tamed:

                                                "If I forfeit,
Make me a Jacko' Lent and break my shins
For untagg'd points and counters."

79. [The Britannia Sacra says he was a Bishop of Menevia, and died in 544; and, according to Hospinian, as quoted by Hampson, he was not commemorated before the twelfth century.]

80. [Dr. Owen Pughe, the British lexicographer, differing from his martial countrymen, supposes that the custom originated in the Cymmortha, still observed in Wales, in which the farmers reciprocate assistance in ploughing their land, when every one contributes his leek to the common repast. Hampson's Kalend. i. 170. See also p. 107.]

81. For a Life of St. David, Patron Saint of Wales, who, according to a Welsh pedigree, was son of Caredig, Lord of Cardiganshire, and his mother Non, daughter of Ynyr, of Caer Gawch, see Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. The battle gained over the Saxons, by King Cadwallo, at Hethfield or Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, A.D. 633, is mentioned in Britannia Sancta, ii. 163; in Lewis's Hist. of Britain, pp. 215, 217; in Jeffrey of Monmouth, Engl. Translat. Book xii. chaps. 8 and 9; and in Carte's History of England, i. 228.

82. I found the following passage in Wyther's Abuses Stript and Whipt, 1613, p. 71:

"And, for my cloathing, in a mantle goe,
And feed on Sham-roots, is the Irish doe."

Between May Day and Harvest, "butter, new cheese and curds, and shamrocks, are the food of the meaner sort all this season," Sir Henry Piers's Description of West Meath, in Vallancey's Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, No. 1, p. 121. " Seamroy, clover, trefoil, worn by Irishmen in their hats, by way of a cross, on St. Patrick's Day, in memory of that great saint," Irish-English Dictionary, in v.

83. Gainsford, in the Glory of England, or a true Description of many excellent Prerogatives and remarkable Blessings, whereby shee triuinpheth over all the Nations in the World, 1619, speaking of the Irish, p. 150, says, "They use incantations and spells, wearing girdles of women's haire, and locks of their lover's. They are curious about their horses tending to witchcraft." Spenser also, in the work already quoted, at p. 41, says: "The Irish, at this day, (A.D. 1596,) when they goe to battaile, say certaine prayers or charmes to their swords, making a crosse therewith upon the earth, and thrusting the points of their blades into the ground, thinking thereby to have the better successe in fight. Also they use commonly to sweare by their swords." At p. 43 he adds: "The manner of their women's riding on the wrong side of the horse, I meane with their faces towards the right side, as the Irish use, is (as they say) old Spanish, and some say African, for amongst them the women (they say) use so to ride."

84. In Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman, old French Language, Mid-Lent Sunday, Dominica Refectionis, is called Pasques Charnieulx.

85. Furmety is derived from frumentum, wheat. It is made of what is called, in a certain town in Yorkshire, "kneed wheat," or whole grains first boiled plump and soft, and then put into and boiled in milk, sweetened and spiced. In Ray's North Country Words, "to cree wheat or barley, is to boil it soft." See farther in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 383.

86. There was a singular rite in Franconia on the Sunday called Lcetare or Mid-Lent Sunday. This was called the Expulsion of Death. It is thus described by Aubanus, 1596: "In the middle of Lent, the youth make an image of straw in the form of Death, as it is usually depicted. This they suspend on a pole, and carry about with acclamations to the neighbouring villages. Some receive this pageant kindly, and, after refreshing those that bring it with milk, peas, and dried pears, the usual diet of the season, send it home again. Others, thinking it a presage of something bad, or ominous of speedy death, forcibly drive it away from their respective districts."

87. Sybows are onions; and rifarts radishes.

8 Marshall, in his Observations on the Saxon Gospels, elucidates the old name (Care) of this Sunday in Lent. He tells us that, "the Friday on which Christ was crucified is called, in German, both Gute Freytag and Carr Fryetag." That the word Karr signifies a satisfaction for a fine or penalty; and that Care, or Carr Sunday, was not unknown to the English in his time, at least to such as lived among old people in the country. Passion or Carling Sunday might often happen on this day. Easter always fell between the 21st of March and the 25th of April. I know not why these rites were confined in the Calendar to the 12th of March, as the moveable Feasts and Fasts are not noted there. Perhaps Passion Sunday might fall on the 12th of March the year the Calendar was written or printed in. However that may he, one cannot doubt of their having belonged to what Durand calls Passion Sunday.

88. [A passage here quoted by Brand from the Annalia Dubrensia respecting "countrie wakes and whirlings" has no connexion with this subject.]

89. "Quadragesimae Reformatio cum stationibus et toto mysterio passionis. Fabce, molles in sportulam dantur." The soft Beans are much to our purpose: why soft, but for the purpose of eating? Thus our Peas on this occasion are steeped in water.

90. "The repast designed for the dead, consisting commonly of Scans, Lettuces," &c. Rennet's Roman Antiq. ed. 1699, p. 362. In the Lemuria, which was observed the 9th of May, every other night for three times, to pacify the ghosts of the dead, the Romans threw beans on the fire of the Altar, to drive them out of their houses. See also Ovid's Fasti, and a well-known account in Pliny.

91. Chandler, in his Travels in Greece, tells us, that he was at a funeral entertainment amongst the modern Greeks, where, with other singular rites, "two followed carrying on their heads each a dish of parboiled wheat. These were deposited over the body." And the learned Gregory says, there is "a practice of the Greek Church, not yet out of use, to set boyled corne before the singers of those holy hymnes, which use to be said at their commemorations of the dead, or those which are asleep in Christ. And that which the rite would have, is, to signifye the resurrection of the body. Thou foole! that which thou sowest is not quickened except it dye," Opuscula, ed. 1650, p. 128.

92. A kind of bread. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 552.
2 In the Festa Anglo. Romana, 1678, we are told that the first Sunday in Lent is called Quadragesima or Invocavit; the second Reminiscere ; the third Oculi ; the fourth Leetare ; the fifth Judica ; and the sixth Dominica Magna. Oculi, from the entrance of the 14th verse of the 25th Psalm, "Oculi mei semper ad Dominum," &c. Reminiscere, from the entrance of the 5th verse of Psalm 25, " Reminiscere Miserationum," &c.; and so of the others. Thus our Tid may have been formed from the beginning of Psalms, Te rfeum Mi rfeus Miserere mei.

93. These boughs, or branches of Palm, underwent a regular blessing. "Dominica in ramis Palmarum. Finite Evangelic sequatur Benedict Florum et Frondium a sacerdote induto Cappa serica rubea super gradum tertium altaris australem converse: positis prius palmi scum floribus supra altare pro clericis, pro aliis vero super gradum altaris in parte australi." Among the Prayers, the subsequent occurs: "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui in Diluvii effusione Noe famulo tuo per os columbae gestantis ramum olives pacem terris redditam nunciasti, te supplices deprecamur ut hanc creaturam florum et frondium, spatulasque palmarum seu frondes arborum, quas ante conspectum glorias tuae offerimus veritas tua sanctificet +: ut devotus populus in manibus eas suscipiens, benedictionis tuae gratiam consequi raereatur, per Christum." Then is the following passage in the prayer before they are blessed with holy-water: "Benedic. + etiam et hos ramos palmarum ceterarumque arborum quos tui famuli suscipiunt," &c. with the Rubric, "His itaque peractis distribuantur Palmae." Sprigs of flowers, too, appear to have been consecrated on the occasion: "Et hos palmarum ceterarumque arborum ac florum ramos benedicere & sanctificare digneris," &c. See the Missale ad Usum Ecclesiae Saris-buriensis, 1555.

94. Occasion; cause. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 333.

95. A similar account occurs in MS. Cott. Claud. A. ii.

96. By an Act of Common Council, 1 and 2 Phil, and Mary, for retrenching expenses, it was ordered, "that from henceforth there shall be no wyth fetcht home at the Maior's or Sheriff's Houses. Neither shall they keep any lord of misrule in any of their houses." Strype's Stowe, Book i. p. 246.

97. "Upon Palme Sondaye they play the foles sadely, drawynge after them an asse in a rope, when they be not moche distante from the Woden Asse that they drawe." Pref. to A Dialoge, &c. the Pylgremage of pure Devotyon, newly translatvd into Englyshe, printed about 1551.

98. Dr. Fulke, on the part of the Protestants, has considered all this in a different light from the Rhemists. "Your Palm-Sunday Procession," says he, "was horrible idolatry, and abusing the Lord's institution, who ordained his supper to be eaten and drunken, not to be carried about in procession like a heathenish idol; but it is pretty sport that you make the priests that carry this idol to supply the room of the Ass on which Christ did ride. Thus you turn the holy mystery of Christ's riding to Jerusalem to a May-game and pageant-play." "I once knew a foolish, cock-brained priest," says Newton, in his 'Herball to the Bible,' p. 207, "which ministered to a certaine young man the Ashes of Boxe, being (forsooth) hallowed on Palme Sunday, according to the superstitious order and doctrine of the Romish Church, which ashes he mingled with their unholie holie water, using to the same a kinde of fantastical!, or rather fanaticall, doltish and ridiculous exorcisme; which woorthy, worshipfull medicine (as he persuaded the standers by) had vertue to drive away any ague, and to kill the worms. Well, it so fell out, that the ague, indeed, was driven away; but God knoweth, with the death of the poore yoong man. And no marvell. For the leaves of boxe be deleterious, poisonous, deadlie, and to the bodie of man very noisome, dangerous, and pestilent."

99. In another curious tract, entitled A Dialogue, or Familiar Talke, betwene two Neighbours. From Roane, by Michael Wodde, the 20 of February, 1554, 12mo., it appears that crosses of Palme were, in the Papal times, carried about in the purse. These crosses were made on Palme Sunday, in Passion time, of hallowed Palm. "The old Church kept a memorye the Sunday before Ester, how Christes glory was openly received and acknowledged among the Jewes, when they met him with Date-tree bowes, and other faire bowes, and confessed that he was the sonne of God. And the Gospel declaring the same was appointed to be read on that day. But nowe our blind leaders of the blind toke away the knowledge of this, with their Latine processioning, so that among x. thousande scarce one knew what this ment. They have their laudable dumme ceremonies, with Lenten Crosse and Uptide Crosse, and these two must justle, til Lent breake his necke. Then cakes must be cast out of the steple, that all the boyes in the parish must lie scrambling together by the eares, tyl al the parish falleth a laughyng. But, lorde, what ape's-play made they of it in great cathedral churches and abbies! One comes forth in his albe and his long stole (for so they call their girde that they put about theyr neckes;) thys must be leashe wise, as hunters \veares their homes. This solempne Syre played Christes part, a God's name! Then another companye of singers, chyldren, and al, song, in pricksong, the Jewe's part and the deacon read the middel text. The prest at the alter al this while, because it was tediouse to be unoccupyed, made crosses of Palme to set upon your doors, and to beare in your purses, to chace away the Divel. Hath not our spiritualitie well ordered this matter (trow ye) to turne the reading and preaching of Christes Passion into such wel favoured pastymes ? But tell me, Nicholas, hath not thy wyfe a crosse of Palme aboute her? (Nich.) Yes, in her purse. (Oliver.} And agoon felowshippe tel me, thinckest thou not sornetyme the Devil is in her toungue? Syghe not, man. (Nick.) I wold she heard you, you might fortune to finde him in her tong and fist both. (Oliver.) Then I se wel he cometh not in her purse, because the holi palme crosse is ther; but if thou couldest intreate her to beare a crosse in her mouth, then he would not come there neither."

100. Wheatly on the Common Prayer, Bonn's edition, p. 222.

101. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, 17 to 19 Edw. IV., I find the following entry: "Box and Palm on Palm Sunday, I2d." And among the annual church disbursements, "Palm, Box, Cakes, and Flowers, Palm Sunday Eve, 5d. 1486: Item for flowrs, obleyes, and for Box and Palme ayenst Palm Sondaye, 6d. 1493: For settyng up the frame over the porch on Palme Sonday Eve, 6d. 1531: Paid for the hire of the rayment for the Prophets, I2d., and of clothes of Aras, 1s. 4d., for Palm Sunday." (Nichols's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times.) In Coates's History of Reading, p. 216, Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Laurence parish, 1505: "It. payed to the Clerk for syngyng of the Passion on Palme Sunday, in Ale, 1d. 1509: It. payed for a quart of bastard, for the singers of the Passhyon on Palme Sonday, iiijrf. 1541: Payd to Loreman for playing the Prophet, on Palme Sondaye, iiijd." Among Dr. Griffith's Extracts from the old Books of St. Andrew Hubbard's parish, I found, "1524-5: To James Walker, for making clene the churchyard against Palm Sonday, 1d.: On Palm Sonday, for Palm, Cakes, and Flowrs, 6d. ob. 1526-7. The here of the Angel on Palme Sonday, Sd., Clothes at the Tower, on Palme Sonday, 6d. 1535-7. For Brede, Wyn, and Oyle, on Palm Sonday, 6d.: A Freest and Chylde thatplayde a Messenger, 5d. 1538-40. Rec. in the Church of the Players, 1s.: Pd. for syngyng bread, 2d.: For the Aungel, 4d." In Mr. Lysons's Environs of London, i. 231, among his curious extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts, at Kingston-upon-Thames, occurs the following: "1 Hen. VIII. For ale upon Palm Sonday on synygng of the Passion, 1s."

102. In John Heywood's Workes 1566, I find the following couplet.

"And one morning timely he tooke in hande
To make to my house a sleeveless errande"

The word is used by Bishop Hall in his Satires:

"Worse than the logogryphes of later times,
Or hundreth riddles shak'd to sleeveless rhymes."
                                                    B. iv. Sat. I.

In Whimzies: or a New Cast of Characters, 12mo. Lond. 1631, p. 83, speaking of "a Lauuderer," the author says: "She is a notable, witty, tatling titmouse, and can make twentie sleevelesse errands in hope of a goodturne." See further in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 755.

103. Calling this All Fools' Day seems to denote it to be a different day from the "Feast of Fools," which was held on the 1st of January, of which a very particular description may be found in Du Cange's learned Glossary, under the word Kalendae. And I am inclined to think the word "All" here is a corruption of our Northern word "auld" for old; because I find in the ancient Romish Calendar which I have so often cited mention made of a "Feast of old Fools." It must be granted that this Feast stands there on the first day of another month, November; but then it mentions at the same time that it is by a removal. "The Feast of old Fools is removed to this day." Such removals, indeed, in the very crowded Romish Calendar were often obliged to be made.

104. [Brand here introduces a conjecture that the term was a corruption of Old Fools' Day, for which, as Mr. Soane says, he does not offer even the shadow of a reason.]

105. [Poison (mischief) of April, would seem the more correct reading.]

106. "On the Sunday and Monday preceding Lent, as on the first of April in England, people are privileged here (Lisbon) to play the fool. It is thought very jocose to pour water on any person who passes, or throw powder on his face; but to do both is the perfection of wit." Southey's Letters from Spain and Portugal, p. 497. Of this kind was the practice alluded to by Dekker: "The booke-seller ever after, when you passe by, pinnes on your nackes the badge of fooles, to make you be laught to scorne, or of sillie carpers to make you be pitied."

107.  In the old play of the Parson's Wedding, the Captain says: "Death! you might have left word where you went, and not put me to hunt like Tom Fool." So, in Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbel, 1732, p. 163: "I had my labour for my pains; or according to a silly custom in fashion among the vulgar, was made an April Fool of, the person who had engaged me to take this pains never meeting me."

108. "On Maunday Thursday hath bene the maner from the beginnyng of the Church to have a general drinfcyng, as appeareth by S. Paule's writyng to the Corinthians, and Tertulliane to his wyfe." Langley's Polidore Vergill, f. 101.

109. In Moore's Answer to Tyndal, on the Souper of our Lord (pref.) is the following passage: "He treateth in his secunde parte the Maundye of Chryste wyth hys Apostles upon Shere Thursday." Among the receipts and disbursements of the Canons of the Priory of St. Mary in Huntingdon, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times in England, 1797, p. 294, we have: "Item, gyven to 12 pore men upon Shere Thursday, 2s." In an account of Barking Abbey, in Select Views of London and its Environs, 1804, we read in transcripts from the Cottonian Manuscripts and the Monasticon, "Deliveryd to the Convent coke, for rushefals for Palme Sundaye, xxj. pounder fygges. Item, delyveryd to the seyd coke on Sher Thursday viij pounde ryse. Item, delyveryd to the said coke for Shere Thursday xviij pounde almans."

110. Times, April 16th, 1838. "The Queen's Royal alms were distributed on Saturday by Mr. Hanby, at the Almonry Office, to the Maunday men and women placed on the supernumerary lists, owing to the difference of  the ages between the late King and her present Majesty: both men and women received 2 10s. and 19 silver pennies (being the age of the Queen). To the men, woollen and linen clothing, shoes and stockings were given; and to the women, in lieu of clothing, 1 15s. each. The Maunday men and women also received 1 10s., a commutation instead of the provisions heretofore distributed."

111. Wooden. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 887.

112.  "On s'imagine en Flandre, que les enfans, nez le Vendredy-Saint, ont le pouvoir de guérir naturellement des fièvres tierees, des fièvres quartes, et de plusieurs autres maux. Mais ce pouvoir m'est beaucoup suspect, parce que j'estime que c'est tomber dans la superstition de l'observance des; ours et des temps, que de croire que les enfans nez le Vendredy-Saint puissent guerir des maladies plut ost que ceux qui sont nez un autre jour," Traite des Superstitions, 1679, i. 436. M. Thiers, in the same work, p. 316, says that he has known people who preserve all the year such eggs as are laid on Good- Friday, which they think are good to extinguish fires in which they may be thrown. He adds, that some imagine that three loaves baked on the same day, and put into a heap of corn, will prevent its being devoured by rats, mice, weevils, or worms.

113. In the list of Church Plate, Vestments, &c., in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, 10 Henry VI. occurs, "also an olde vest, uient of red silke lyned with yelow for Good Friday."

114. Company. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 773.

115. The round of a milk-score is, if I mistake not, also marked with a cross for a shilling, though unnoted by Lluellin (Poems, 1679, p. 40), in the following passage:

"By what happe
The fat harlot of the tappe
Writes, at night and at noone,
For a tester half a moone,
And a great round Ofor a shilling."

116. In a Short Description of Antichrist, &c. already quoted at p. 152, the author censures, among other Popish customs, "the halowyng of fiere."

117. "To houl over the pascal'' is mentioned among the customs of the Roman Catholics censured by John Bale in his "Declaration of Bonner's Articles," 1554, f. 19.

118. A more particular account of the ceremony of the Holy Sepulchre, as used in this and other countries, will be found in the Vetusta Monumenta of the Society of Antiquaries, in the letter-press of vol. iii. pl. 31, 32.

119. Easter is so called from the Saxon Oster, to rise, being the day of Christ's Resurrection; or as others think, from one of the Saxon goddesses called Easter, whom they always worshipped at this season." Wheatly on the Common Prayer, p. 228. See also Gale's Court of .the Gentiles, b. ii. c. 2. Or, perhaps, from the Anglo-Saxon ypt, a storm, the time of Easter being subject to the continual recurrence of tempestuous weather. A Sermo brevis, in the Liber Festivalis, MS. Cotton Claud. A. ii. of the time of Henry the Sixth, upon Easter Sunday, begins "Gode men and wommen, os ye knowe alle welle, this day is called in some place Astur Day, and in some place Pasch Day, and in some place Goddus Sounday. Hit is callde Asturday as Kandulmasse Day of Kandulles, and Palme Sounnday of Palmes, ffor wolnoz in uche place hit is the maner this day for to done fyre oute of the houce at the Astur that hath bene all the wyntur brente wyt fuyre and blakud with smoke, hit schal this day bene arayed with grene rusches and swete floures strowde alle aboute, schewyng a heyghe ensaumpal to alle men and wommen that ryjte os thei machen clene the houce, alle withine bering owte the fyre and strawing thare flowres, ryte so je schulde clanson the houce of joure sowle."

120. A coarse sort of damask.

121. The learned Court de Gebelin, in his Religious History of the Calendar, iv. 251, informs us that this custom of giving eggs at Easter is to be traced up to the theology and philosophy of the Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, &c., among all of whom an egg was an emblem of the universe, the work of the supreme Divinity. Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, renders the Pasch, or Easter Egg, by Ovum Paschale, croceum, sen luteum. It is plain, from hence, that he was acquainted with the custom of dying or staining of eggs at this season. Ainsworth leaves out these two epithets, calling it singly Ovum Paschale. I presume he knew nothing of this ancient custom, and has therefore omitted the croreum and luteum, because it is probable he did not understand them.

122. Father Carmeli, in his History of Customs, tells us that, during Easter and the following days, hard eggs, painted of different colours, but principally red, are the ordinary food of the season. In Italy, Spain, and in Provence, says he, where almost every ancient superstition is retained, there are in the public places certain sports with eggs. This custom he derives from the Jews or the Pagans, for he observes it is common to both. The Jewish wives, at the Feast of the Passover, upon a table prepared for that purpose, place hard eggs, the symbols of a bird called Ziz, concerning which the Rabbins have many fabulous accounts.

123. "On y fit aussi des deffences de vendre des oeufs de couleur apres Pasques, parce que les enfans s'en joiioyent auparavant, qui estoit de raauvais exemple," Satyrre Menippee de la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne, 1595, f. 94. The English version of this work renders ceufs de couleur, speckled eggs.

124. According to Gebelin, Monde Primitif, 1787, iv. 251, coloured eggs were also employed at the commencement of the New Year.

125. "On Easter Day they greet one another with a kiss, both men and women, and give a red egg, saying these words, Christos vos Christe. In the Easter Week all his Majesty's servants and nobility kiss the patriarch's hand, and receive either gilded or red eggs, the highest sort three, the middle two, and the most inferior one." Present State of Russia, 1671, p. 18.

126. By the law concerning holidays, made in the time of King Alfred the Great, it was appointed that the week after Easter should be kept holy. Collier's Ecclesiast. Hist. i. 163. See also Lambarde's Archaionomia, 1644, p. 33.

127. It was an ancient custom for the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, accompanied with great numbers of the burgesses, to go every year, at the Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, to a place without the walls called the Forth, a little Mall, where everybody walks, as they do in St. James's Park, with the mace, sword, and cap of maintenance carried before them. The young people of the town still assemble there on these holidays, at Easter particularly, play at hand-ball, and dance, but are no longer countenanced in their innocent festivity by the presence of their governors, who, no doubt, in ancient times, as the bishops did with the inferior clergy, used to unbend the brow of authority, and partake with their happy and contented people the seemingly puerile pleasures of the festal season.

128. Among the MSS. in Benet College, Cambridge, is a translation of part of the New Testament, in the English spoken in the 14th century. The 7th verse of the 2d chapter of St. Luke is thus rendered: "And layde hym in a cratche, for to hym was no place in the dyversory." I will venture to subjoin another specimen, which strongly marks the mutability of language. Mark vi. 22: "When the doughtyr of Herodias was in comyn, and had tombylde and pleside to Harowde, and also to the sittande at meate, the kyng says to the wench." If the original Greek had not been preserved, one might have supposed from this English that, instead of excelling in the graceful accomplishment of dancing, the young lady had performed in some exhibition like the present entertainments at Sadler's Wells. See Lewis's Hist. of the Engl. Translation of the Bible, p. 16. Brand has here confused the archaical and modern uses of the word. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 894.

129. The method of making the cake called a tansy, is fully described in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 850. It was composed of eggs, sugar, sack, cream, spinach leaves, and butter.

130. See a good deal of information concerning Hoc-tide in Plott's History of Oxfordshire, 1677, p. 201.

131. Matthew Paris has the following passages concerning Hoc-tide. M Post-diem Martis quae vulgariter Hokedaie appellatur, factum est Parliamentum Londini," p. 963. "Die videlicit Lunae quae ipsum diem praecedit proximo quern Hokedaie vulgariter appellamus," p. 834. "In quindena Paschae quse vulgariter Hokedaie appellatur," p. 904. On these passages Watts, in his Glossary, observes, "adhuc in ea die solent mulieres jocose vias oppidorum funibus impedire, et transeuntes ad se attrahere, ut ab eis munusculum aliquod extorqueant, in oios usus aliquot erogandura;" and then refers to Spelraan.

132. "1566-1557. Item of Godman Rundell's wife, Godman Jackson's wife, and Godwife Tegg, for Hoxce money, by them received to the use of the Church, xijs. 1518-1519. Item of William Elyot and John Chainberlayne for Hoke money gydered in the pareys, iijs. ixrf. Item of the gaderyng of the Churchwardens wyffes on Hoke Monday e, viijs. iijd."

133. "It is the custom in many villages in the neighbourhood of Exeter to ' hail the Lamb,' upon Ascension morn. That the figure of a lamb actually appears in the East upon this morning is the popular persuasion; and so deeply is it looted, that it hath frequently resisted (even in intelligent minds) the force of the strongest argument." See Gent. Mag. for 1787, p. 718.

134. Auhanus tells us, that in Franconia, in his time, the following rites were used on this occasion, some of which are still retained at Oxford, and in London, and probably in many other places: "Tribus illis diebus, quibus, Apostolico Institute, majores Litanise passim per totum orbem peraguntur, in plurimis Franconise locis multae Cruces (sic enim dicunt parochianos coetus, quibus turn Sancta Crucis vexillurn praeferri solet) conveniunt. In sacrisque aedibus non simul et unam melodiam, sed singuise singulam per choros separatim canunt: et puellse et adolescentes mundiori quique habitu amicti frondentibus sertis caput coronati omnes et scipionibus salignis instructi. Stant sacrarum sedium sacerdotes diligenter singularum cantus attendentes: et quamcunque suavius cantare cognoscunt, illi ex veteri more aliquot vini conchas dari adjudicant."

135. In Herbert's Country Parson, 1652, p. 157, ch. 35, we are told: "The Country Parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good and harmlesse. Particularly, he loves Procession, and maintains it, because there are contained therein four manifest advantages. First, a blessing of God for the fruits of the field. 2. Justice in the preservation of bounds. 3. Charitie in loving, walking, and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if there be any. 4. Mercie, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution and largess, which at that time is or ought to De used. Wherefore he exacts of all to be present at the Perambulation, and those that withdraw and sever themselves from it he mislikes, and reproves as uncharitable and unneighbourly; and, if they will not reforme, presents them."

136. Thorns' Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 91.

137. In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1795, xv. 45, Parish of Lanark, in the county of Lanark, we read of "the riding of the Marches, which is done annually upon the day after Whitsunday Fair by the magistrates and burgesses, called here the Landsmark or Langemark Day, from the Saxon langemark."

138. Here is no pleonasm. It is simply, as the French have it, your May. In a Royal Household Account, communicated by Craven Ord, Esq., I find the following article: "July 7, 7 Hen. VII. Item, to the maydens of Lambeth for a May, Wsh." So among the Receipts and Disbursements of the Canons of the Priory of St. Mary, in Huntingdon, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Mariners and Expenses of Ancient Times in England, 1797, p. 294, we have: "Item, gyven to the Wyves of Herford to the tnakyng of there May, I2d."

139. In the Chapel-wardens' Accounts of Brentford, 1623, is the following article: "Received for the Maypole 1l 4s." Lysons's Envir. of Lond.

140.  Lodge, in his Wit's Miserie, 1596, p. 27, describing Usury, says: "His spectacles hang beating like the flag in the top of a May-pole" Borlase, speaking of the manners of the Cornish people, says, "From towns they make incursions, on May Eve, into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and upon holidays and festivals dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns and streamers."

141.  Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum, 1724, p. 29, says: There is a May-pole hill near Horn Castle, Lincolnshire, "where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times. The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May Day, making a procession to this hill with May gads (as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow-wand, the bark peel'd off, ty'd round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchinals. At night they have a bonefire, and other merriment, which is really a sacrifice or religious festival."

142.  [A copy of these lines may be seen in MS. Harl. 1221, where they are entitled, "A May-pooles speech to a traveller."]

143. ["He rides up and down the countrey, and every town he comes at with a May-pole, he wonders what the Aristotelean parson and the people mean, that they do not presently cut it down, and set up such a one as is at Gresham College, or St. James's Park; and to what purpose is it to preach to people, and go about to save them, without a telescope, and a glass for fleas. And for all this, perhaps this great undervaluer of the clergie, and admirer of his own ingenuity, can scarce tell the difference between aqua fortis and aqua vitae, or between a pipkin and a crucible." Eachard's Observations, 8vo. 1671, p. 167.]

144. "At Hesket (in Cumberland) yearly on St. Barnabas's Day, by the highway side, under a thorn-tree (according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air), is kept the court for the whole Forest of Englewood." Nicolson and Burn's Hist. of Westmor. and Cumb. ii. 344.

145. The word Livery was formerly used to signify anything delivered: see the Northumberland Household Book, p. 60. If it ever bore such an acceptation at that time, one might be induced to suppose, from the following entries, that it here meant a badge, or something of that kind:

Probably these were a sort of cockades, given to the company from whom the money was collected.

146. ["A kind of loose upper garment, sometimes furnished with a hood, and originally worn by men and soldiers, but in later times the term seems to have been applied exclusively to a sort of cloak worn by women."' Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 465.]

147. It appears that this, as well as other games, was made a parish concern.

148. Probably gilt leather, the pliability of which was particularly accommodated to the motion of the dancers.

149. A sort of coarse linen.

150. Probably a Moor's coat; the word Morian is sometimes used to express a Moor. Black buckram appears to have been much used for the dresses of the ancient mummers.

151. Disard is an old word for a fool.

152. In the Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Marlow, it appears that dresses for the Morris Dance "were lent out to the neighbouring parishes. They are accounted for so late as 1629." See Langley's Antiquities of Desborough, 4to. 1797, p. 142.

153.  In Coates's History of Reading, 1802, p. 220, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Lawrence parish is the following entry: "1531. It. for ffyve ells of canvas for a cote for Made Maryon, at iijd. ob. the ell., xvijd. ob."

154. In Coates's History of Reading, p. 214, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Lawrence Parish, 1499, is the following article: "It. rec. .of the gaderyng of Robyn-hod, xixs." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Helen's, Abingdon, 1566, we find eighteen pence charged for setting up Robin Hood's bower. See Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners and Expences, p. 143.

155. Ihre, in his Suio-Gothic Glossary, makes the following mention of the King or Lord of May upon the Continent: "Maigrefwe dicebatur, qui mense Maijo serto floreo redimitus solenni pompa per plateas et vicos circumducebatur. Commemorant Historici, Gustavum I. Suionum Regera ano 1526, sub nundinis Ericianis vel d. 18. Maii ejusmodi Comitem Majum creasse Johannem Magnum, Archiep. Upsaliensem. Et quuin mori esset, ut Comes hie imaginarius satellitium, quod eum stipaverat, convivio exciperet, fecit id Johannes non sine ingenti impensa, ut ipse in Historia Metropolitana conqueritur. Conf. Westenhielms Hist. Gust. I. ad annum, necnon Tegel in Historia hujus Reg. Part. 1. In Anglia quoque ejusmodi Reges et Reginae Majales floribus ornati a juventute olim creabantur, quo facto circa perticam eminentiorem, nostris Maistang dictam, choreas ducebant, et varies alios ludos exercebant." Tom. ii. p. 118, sub v.

156. [This passage is quoted by Kennett, in his Glossary, p. 15 in his explanation of the quintain.]

157. There is in Olaus Magnus, 1555, p. 524, a delineation of a Fool, or Jester, with several bells upon his habit, with a bauble in his hand; and he has on his head a hood with asses' ears, a feather, and the resemblance of the comb of a cock. It seems, from the Prologue to the play of King Henry the Eighth, that Shakespeare's Fools should be dressed "in a long motley coat guarded with yellow."

158. "In one instance he is biting the tail of a dog, and seems to place his fingers upon his body, as if he were stopping the holes of a flute, and probably moved them as the animal altered its cry. The other is riding on a stick with a bell, having a blown bladder attached to it."

159. "This figure," referred to by Strutt, "has a stick surmounted with a bladder, if I mistake not, which is in lieu of a bauble, which we frequently see representing a fool's head, with hood and bells, and a cock's comb upon the hood, very handsomely carved." William Summers, jester to Henry the Eighth, was habited "in a motley jerkin, with motley hosen." History of Jack of Newbury.

160. The order for Archy's discharge was as follows: "It is, this day, (March 11, 1637,) ordered by his Majesty, with the advice of the board, that Archibald Armstrong, the King's Fool, for certain scandalous words, of a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, his Grace, and proved to be uttered by him by two witnesses, shall have his coat pulled over his head, and be discharged the king's service, and banished the court; for which the Lord Chamberlain of the King's household is prayed and required to give order to be executed." And immediately the same was put in execution. Rushworth's Collections, part 2, vol. i. p. 471. The same authority, p. 470, says, "It  so happened that, on the 11th of the said March, that Archibald, the King's Fool, said to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, as he was going to the council-table, Whea's feule now? Doth not your Grace hear the news from Striveling about the Liturgy?' with other words of reflection. This was presently complained of to the council, which produced the ensuing order."

161. Douce says: "What Mr. Tollett has termed his silver shield seems a mistake for the lower part, or flap, of his stomacher." Illustr. ii. 463.

162. The foot-cloth, however, was used by the fool. In Braithwaite's Strappado for the Divell, we read:

"Erect our aged fortunes, make them shine,
Not like Foole in'sfoot-cloath, but like Time
Adorn'd with true experiments," &c.

163. [A great deal of the above is literally transcribed from Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare.]

164. [Agnus Dei is the name given to wax cakes bearing the impression of a lamb carrying the standard of the cross, solemnly blessed by the Pope on the Low Sunday following his consecration, and every seven years after, to be distributed to the people.]

165. Provisions. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 13.

166. [The mace is made of silk, finely plaited, with ribands on the top, and filled with spices and perfumes for such of the company to smell to as desire it.]

167. Douce previously observes that, "concerning the etymology of the word Ale much pains have been taken, for one cannot call it learning. The best opinion, however, seems to be that, from its use in composition, it means nothing more than a feast or merry-making, as in the words Leet-Ale, Lamb-Ale, Whitsun-Ale, Clerk-Ale, Bride-Ale, Church-Ale, Scot-Ale, Midsummer-Ale, &c. At all these feasts ale appears to have been the predominant liquor, and it is exceedingly probable that from this circumstance the metonymy arose. Dr. Hicks informs us, that the Anglo-Saxon Deol, the Dano-Saxon lol, and the Icelandic ol, respectively have the same meaning; and perhaps Christmas was called by our northern ancestors Yule, or the feast, by way of pre-eminence." He cites here Warton's History of Poetry, iii. 128, and Junius's Etymologicon Anglicum, voce Yeol. Douce is of opinion that Warton has confounded Church-Ales with Saints' Feasts.

168. So recently as 1710, no less than forty armed or "harnessed" men attended the mayor and aldermen at the fair.

169. This armour has been cleaned and restored, and is now arranged in front of the Minstrel Gallery at St. Mary's Hall.

170. We are indebted for it to a minute account of the procession published some years since by Mr. Merridew of Coventry.

171. Gerard, in his Historic of Plants, p. 965, says, "Woodrooffe hath many square stalkes full of joints, and at every knot or joint seaven or eight long narrow leaves, set round about like a starre or the rowell of a spurre; the flowers grow at the top of the stemmes, of a white colour, and of a very sweete smell, as is the rest of the herhe, which being made up into garlands, or bundles, and hanged up in houses in the heate of sommer, doth very well attemper the aire, coole, and make fresh the place, to the delight and comfort of such as are therein."

172. "Rotam quoque hoc die in quibusdam locis volvunt, ad significandum quod sol altissimum turic locum in coelo occupet, et descendere incipiat in zodiaco." Among the Harleian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, 2345, Art. 100, is an account of the rites of St. John Baptist's Eve, in which the wheel is also mentioned. The writer is speaking "de Tripudiis quae in Vigilia B. Johannis, fieri solent, quorum tria genera." "In Vigilia enim beati Johannis," the author adds, "colligunt pueri in quibusdan regionibus ossa et quaedam alia immunda, et in simul cremant, et exinde producitur fumus in acre. Cremant etiara Brandas (sen Fasces) et circuiunt arva cum Brandis. Tertiam, de Rota quam faciunt volvL Quod cum immunda cremant, hoc habent ex Gentilibus." The catalogue describes this curious manuscript thus, "Codex membranaceus in 4to. cujus nunc plura desiderantur folia: quo tamen continebantur diversa cujusdam monachi, uti videtur, Winchelcumbensis, opuscula."

173. These fires are supposed to have been called bonefires because they were generally made of bones. There is a passage in Stow, however, wherein he speaks of men finding wood or labour towards them, which seems to oppose the opinion. Dr. Hickes also gives a very different etymon. He defines a bonefire to be a festive or triumphant fire. In the Islandic language, he says, Baal signifies a burning. In the Anglo-Saxon, Bael-pyji, by a change of letters of the same organ is made Baen-py, whence our bone-fire. In the Tinmouth MS. cited in the History of Newcastle, "Boon-er," and "Boen-Harow," occur for ploughing and harrowing gratis, or by gift. There is a passage also, much to our purpose, in Aston's translation of Aubanus, p. 282, "Common fires (or, as we call them here in England, bone-fires)." I am therefore strongly inclined to think that bone-fire means a contribution-fire, that is, a fire to which every one in the neighbourhood contributes a certain portion of materials. The contributed ploughing days in Northumberland are called bone-dargs. "Bon-fire," says Lye (apud Junii Etymolog.), "not a fire made of bones, but a boon-fire, a fire made of materials obtained by begging. Boon, bone, bene, vet. Angl. petitio, preces." Fuller, in p. 25 of his Mixt Contemplations in Better Times, 1658, says he has met with "two etymologies of bone-fires. Some deduce it from fires made of bones, relating it to the burning of martyrs, first fashionable in England in the reign of King Henry the Fourth; but others derive the word (more truly in my mind) from boon, that is good, and fires."

174.  Levinus Lemnius, in his treatise de Occultis Naturae Miraculis, lib. iii, cap. 8, has the following: "Natalis dies Joannis Baptistae non solum Judaeis ac Christianis, sed Mauris etiam ac Barbaris, quique a nostra religione alieni ac Mahumeto addicti sunt, Celebris est et sacro-sanctus, tametsi nonnulli hujus noctem superstitioso quodam cultu congestis lignorum acervis, accensisque Ignibus, ut Corybantes ac Cybeles cultores, strepitu ac furiosis clamoribus transigant, quin et impuberes congestis collisisque ignitis carbonibus bombos ac crepitacula excutiunt." He cites Olaus Magnus as describing how the Goths kept this night. "Omnis enim generis sexusque homines turmatim in publicum concurrunt, extructisque luculentis ignibus atque accensis facibus, choreis, tripudiisque se exercent."

175. The Times newspaper of June 29, 1833, gives an account of a riot a Cork, in consequence of some soldiers refusing to subscribe money toward the fires which were to be lighted on St. John's Eve.

176.  In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the 17 and 19 Edward IV. Palmer and Clerk, Churchwardens, I find the following entry: "For birch at Midsummer, viiijd." As also, among the annual church disbursements, the subsequent: "Birch, Midsummer Eve, iiijd. Ibid., 1486: "Item, for birch bowes, agenst Midsummer." Coles, in his Adam in Eden, speaking of the birch-tree, say: "I remember once, as I rid through Little Brickhill, in Buckinghamshire, which is a town standing upon the London-road, between Dunstable and Stoney Stratford, every signe-post in the towne almost was bedecked with green birch." This had been done, no doubt, on account of Midsummer Eve. Coles quaintly observes, among the civil uses of the birch-tree, "the punishment of children, both at home and at school; for it hath an admirable influence on them when they are out of order, and therefore some call it Makepeace." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Martin Outwich (see Nichols's Illustrations, p. 273), we have: "1524. Payde for byrche and bromes at Midsom £1. ijd." "1525. Payde for byrch and bromes at Mydsom £1. iijd." In Dekker's Wonderful Yeare, 1603, we read, "Olive trees (which grow nowhere but in the Garden of Peace) stood (as common as beech does at Midsomer) at every man's doore."

177. Pennant's MS. informs us, that in Wales "they have the custom of sticking St. John's wort over the doors on the Eve of St. John Baptist." The following curious extract from Bishop Pocock's Repressour, c. 6, is given by Lewis, in his Life of that prelate, p. 70: "Whanne men of the cuntree uplond bringing into Londoun, on Mydsomer Eve, braunchis of trees from Bischopis-wode, and flouris fro the feld, and bitaken tho to citessins of Londoun, for to therwith araie her housis, that thei make there with her houses gay, into remembraunce of Seint Johan Baptist, and o this, that it was prophecied of him that many schulden joie in his burthe."

178. "Flammam transiliendi mos videtur etiam pnscis Graeciae temporibus usurpatus fuisse, deque eo versus Sophoclis in Antigone quosdam intelligendos putant: Cum enim Rex Creon Polynicis cadaver, humare prohibuisset, Antigone autem ipsius soror illud hurno contexisset, custodes, ut mortis poenam a Rege, constitutam vitarent, dicebant se paratos esse ferrum candens manibus contrectare et per pyram incedere. Hotom. Disput. de Feudis. cap. xliv. Hie mos Gallis, Germanis et post Christianismum remansit etiam pontificibus: et adulteria uxoruin ferro candenteh probant Germani. Æmil. lib. iv. &c. Et Vascones accensis ignibus in urbium vicis vidi per medios saltare ad Festum Joanni sacrum in aestate; et qui funus antiquitus prosequuti fuerant, ad proprios Lares reversi, aqua aspersi, ignem supergradiebantur, hoc se piaculo ex funere expiari arbitrati," &c. Papatus, p. 61.

179. See also in another passage: "Majores vero natu ad Festum D. Johannis sacrum accensis vespere in platea ignibus, flammam transiliunt stramineam Mares et Faeminse, pueri pupaeque, ac fieri vidi in Galliis inter Cadurcos ad oppiduluin Puy la Rocque." p. 72.

180. The following extracts from Moresin illustrate the above observations in the ancient Calendar, as well as Stow's account: "Apud nostros quoque proavos, inolevit longa annorum serie persuasio Artemisiam in Festis divo Joanni Baptistae sacris ante domos suspensam, item alios frutices et plantas, atque etiam candelas, facesque designatis quibusdam diebus celebrioribus aqua lustrali rigatas, &c. contra tempestates, fulmina, tonitrua, et adversus Diaboli potestatera, &c. quosdam incendere ipso die Johannis Baptistae fasciculum lustratarum herbarum contra tonitrua, fulmina," &c. Papatus, p. 28. "Toral, seu Toralium antiquo tempore dicebatur florum et herbarum suaveolentium manipulus, seu plures in restim colligati, qui suspendebantur ante Thalamorum et Cubilium fores: et in papatu ad S. loannis mutuato more suspendunt ad Ostia et Januas hujus modi serta et restes et sspius ad aras." Ibid. p. 171.

181. ["Gather fearne-seed on Midsomer Eve, and weare it about the continually. Also on Midsomer Day take the herb milfoile roote before sun-rising, and before you take it out of the ground say these words following, &c., and gather the fernseed on Midsomer Eve betweene 11 and 12 at noone and att night." MS. temp. Eliz.]

182. "Persuasum denique est vulgo, si circa diem S. Joannis pluat, officere id avellanis. Causa fortasse est ipsarum teneritudo, humoris impatiens." Hospin. de Orig. Festor. Christian, fol. 113.

183. Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, i. 177, speaking of the parish of Cumwhitton, says: "They hold the wake on the Eve of St. John, with lighting fires, dancing, &c. The old Bel-teing."

184. The boundary of each tin-mine in Cornwall is marked by a long pole, with a bush at the top of it. These on St. John's Day are crowned with flowers.

185. Completely; in every particular. See an account of the phrase in Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaisms, p. 103.

186. [Mr. Soane, in his New Curiosities of Literature, i. 210, quotes an old work for this curious custom.]

187. The sowing of hemp-seed, as will hereafter be shown, was also used on Allhallow Even.

188. Halliwell's Introduction to a Midsummer Night's Dream, p. 3.

189. "Faces ad Festum divi Petri noctu Scoti in montibus et altioribus locis discurrentes accendere soliti sunt, ut cum Ceres Proserpinam quaerens universum terrarum orbem perlustrasset." Papatus, p. 56.

190. Sir Henry Piers, in his description of Westmeath, makes the ceremonies used by the Irish on St. John Baptist's Eve common to that of St. Peter and St. Paul.

191. A pleasant writer in the World, No. 10 (the late Lord Orford), speaking on the alteration of the style, says: "Were our astronomers so ignorant as to think that the old proverbs would serve for their new-fangled calendar? Could they imagine that St. Swithin would accommodate her rainy planet to the convenience of their calculations?"

192. From a paper by Mr. J. Noake, of Worcester.

193. Buttes, in his Dyet's Dry Dinner, 1599, says: "It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all monthes that have not an R in their name to eat an oister, because it is then venerious."

194. [In another place, however, he says it was named Gule from the Latin Gula, a throat. See Soane's New Curiosities of Literature, ii. 123.]

195. On this passage, Pegge, by whom the extracts were communicated, remarks, "St. Royk, St. Roche (Aug. 16). Q. why commemorated in particular? There is Roche Abbey, in the West Riding of the county of York, which does not take its name from the Saint, but from its situation on a rock, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Tanner. The writing probably means making a new copy of the music appropriated to the day."

196. Other entries respecting the rood-loft occur, ibid. "Also payd for a rolle and 2 gojons of iron and a rope xiiijd. Also payd to 3 carpenters removing the stallis of the quer xxd. Also payd for 6 peny nail and 5 peny nail xjd. Also for crochats, and three iron pynnes and a staple xiijd. Also for 5 yardis and a halfe of grene bokeram iijd. ob. Also for lengthyng of 2 cheynes and 6 jerdes of gret wyer xiiijd. Also payd for eleven dozen pavyng tyles, iijs. iiijd."

197. Nunchion (s. a colloquial word), a piece of victuals eaten between meals. The word occurs in Cotgrave's Dictionary: "A rmncions or nuncheon (or afternoones repast), gouber, gouster, recine, ressie. To take an afternoone's nuncheon, reciner, ressiner."

198. The following extract from a very rare book entitled Curiosities, or the Cabinet of Nature, by R. B. Gent. (Ro. Basset), 1637, p. 228, informs us of a very singular office assigned by ancient superstition to the good genii of infants. The book is by way of question and answer. "Q. Wherefore is it that the childe cryes when the absent nurse's brests doe pricke and ake? An. That by dayly experience is found to be so, so that by that the nurse is hastened home to the infant to supply the defect; and the reason is that either at that very instant that the infant hath finished its concoction, the breasts are replenished, and, for want of drawing, the milke paines the breast, as it is seen likewise in milch cattell; or rather the good genius of the infant seemeth by that means to sollicite or trouble the nurse in the infant's behalfe: which reason seemeth the more firm and probable, because sometimes sooner, sometimes later, the child cryeth, neither is the state of the nurse and infant alwayes the same."

199. He had cured a boy that had got a fish-bone in his throat. (See the Golden Legend.) And was particularly invoked by the Papists in the Squinnancyor Quinsy. Fabric. Biblio. Antiq. p. 267. Gent. Mag. vol. xliii. p. 384.

200. "A cock is offered (at least was wont to be) to St. Christopher in Touraine for a certaine sore which useth to be in the end of mens fingers, the white-flaw." World of Wonders, p. 308. The cock was to be a white one.

201." Apollini et ^Esculapio ejus filio datur inorbo medicinam facere, apud nos Cosmae et Damiano: at pestis in partem cedit Rocho: oculorum lippitudo Clarae. Antonius suibus medendis sufficit: et Apollo noster deatium morbis. Morbo sontico olim Hercules, nunc Joannes et Valentinus praesunt. In arte obstetricandi Lucinam longe superat nostra Margareta, et quia hsec moritur virgo, ne non satis attenta ad curam sit, quam neque didicit, neque experientia cognovit, illi in officia jungitur fungendo expertus Marpurgus. Aliqui addunt loco Junonis, Reginam nostri coeli divam Mariam. Ruffinus et Romanus phrenesi praesunt, &c." Moresini Papatus, p. 16. See also the World of Wonders, fol. 1607, p. 308.

"Diana the huntress new worshippers wins,
Who call her St. Agnes, confessing their sins!
To the god Esculapius incurables pray,
Since the doctor is christianiz'd St. Bart'lome;
Tho' the goddess of Antipertussis we scoff,
As Madonna dell' Tossa she opiates a cough."

See the Present State of the Manners, &c., of France and Italy : in poetical epistles, addressed to R. Jephson, 1794, p. 64.

202. In the introduction to the old play called A Game at Chesse, 4to., is the following line:

"Roch, Maine, and Petronell, itch and ague curers."

203. St. Wilgford was also invoked by women to get rid of their husbands.

204.  St. Barbara, St. Andrew, and St. Clement, are also noticed as sea saints. Warner, in his Hist. of Hampshire, vol. i. p. 155, note, says "St. Christopher presided over the weather, and was the patron of field sports." He is citing an ancient description of a hunter, in verse:

"A Christofre on his breast of silver shene:
An horn he bare, the baudrie was of greene."

205. Melton, in Astrologaster, p. 19, says, "they hold that St. Hugh and St. Eustace guard hunters from perills and dangers, that the stagge or bucke may not hit them on the head with their homes."

206. Also of whoremongers: v. Hist. des Troubad. i. 11.

207. "Fabrorum Deus Vulcanus fuit ferrariorum, mine in papatu commutarunt Vulcanum cum Eulogio. Billing. Orig. cap. 34. Sed quia Bullingerus dedit nuper Equis Eulogium, melius est cum Scotis sentire, qui sub papatu olim hisce fabris dederunt Aloisiura, quern colerent, ut et reliquis qui malleo utuntur." Moresini Papatus, p. 56.

208. See Moresini Papatus, p. 155. "Sartoribus nemo deorum veterum raeest, quern legere contigit nisi sit Mercurious Fur, cum ipsi sintfuracissimi. Bulling, cap. 34, Orig. ex Papae decreto concedit illis, cum sint plerumque belli homunculi, dignum suis moribus deum Gutmannum nescio quern. Sed barbarum nomen cogit fateri civiliores esse Scotos, qui Annam matrem Virginis Mariae coluerunt, quae ac dicunt Tunicam Christi texuit, et ideo merito illis dea est."

209. Sauval, Antiq. de Paris, torn. ii. p. 621.

210. See Fuller's Worthies. Rutland, p. 347.

211. See Moresini Papatus, p. 127.

212. Fuller's Oh. Hist. p. 381. St. Honore a baker. World of Wonders, p. 310. It should appear from Dekker's Wonderfull Yeare, 1603, that St. Clement was also a patron saint of bakers. "He worships the baker's good lord and maister, charitable S. Clement," &c. Lewis Owen, in the Unmasking of all Popish Monkes, 1628, p. 98, says that "St. Clement is for bakers, brewers, and victuallers."

213. "Sic papa populis et urbibus consimiles fabricat cultus et genios custodes et defensores, ut Scotise Andream, Anglise Georgium, Galliae Dionysium, &c. Edinburgo Egidium, Aberdonise Nicolaum, &c." Moresini Papatus, p. 48. See also Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, 1621, p. 753. I find the subsequent patron-saints of cities: St. Eligia and St. Norbert of Antwerp; St. Hulderich or Ulric of Augsburgh; St. Martin of Boulogne; St. Mary and St. Donatian of Bruges; St. Mary and St. Gudula of Brussels; the three Kings of the East of Cologne, also St. Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins; St. George and St. John Baptist of Genoa; St. Bavo and St. Liburn of Ghent; St. Martial of Limosin; St. Vincent of Lisbon; St. Mary and St. Rusnold of Mechlin; St. Martin and St. Boniface of Mentz; St. Ambrose of Milan; St. Thomas Aquinas and St.

214.  "The Babilonians had Bell for their patron; the Egyptians Isis and Osiris; the Rhodians the Sunne; the Samians Juno; the Paphians Venus; the Delphians Apollo; the Ephesians Diana; all the Germans in general St. George. I omit the saints who have given their names to cities; as St. Quintin, St. Disian, St. Denis, St. Agnan, St. Paul, St. Omer." Stephens's World of Wonders, fol. 1607, p. 315.

215. "Membris in homine veteres pnefecere suos deos, siquidem capiti numen inesse quoddam fertur. Frontem sacram Genio nonnulli tradunt sicuti Junoni brachia, pectus Neptuno, cingulum Marti, renes Veneri, pedes Mercurio, digitos Minervse consecravit antiquitas. Romanae mulieres supercilia Lucinse consecrarunt, quia inde lux ad oculos fluit ; et Homerus carmine singulos membris honestavit deos: namque Junonem facit Candidas ulnas habere, Auroram roseos lacertos, Minervam oculos glaucos, Thetidem argenteos pedes, Heben verb talos pulcherrinios. Dextram fidei sacram Numa institut, etiam cumveniam sermonis a diis poscimus, proximo a minimo digito secus aurem locum Nemeseos tangere, et os obsignare solemus, &c. Alex, ab Alex. lib. ii. cap. 19. Jam ad hanc similitudinem caput, ita, non omnibus cognita Dea, obtinet. Oculos habet Otilia. Linguam instituit Catharina, in rhetoricis et dialecticis exercitatissima. Apollonia dentes curat. Collo praesidet Blasius spiritalis Deus. Dorsum una cum scapulis obtinet Laurentius. Erasmi venter est totus cum intestinis. Sunt qui Burgharto cuidam et crura et pedes consecraverint, in parcipitatum nonnunquam admittit Antonium, Quirinum, Joannem, et nescio quos alios divos. Apollinaris quidam Priapi vices subiit, pudendorum Deus effectus. Buling. cap. xxxiv. lib. de Orig. Cult. Deor. Erron." Moresini Papatus, pp. 93, 94.

216. See Molesworth's Account of Denmark, p. 10. From Frolich's Viatorium, p. 254, I find that St. Martin's Day is celebrated in Germany with geese, but it is not said in what manner. See Sylva Jucund. Serra. p. 18, and Martinmas infra. The practice of eating goose at Michaelmas does not appear to prevail in any part of France. Upon St. Martin's Day they eat turkeys at Paris. They likewise eat geese upon St. Martin's Day, Twelfth Day, and Shrove Tuesday, at Paris. See Mercer, Tableau de Paris, tom. i. p. 131. In the King's Art of Cookery, p. 63, we read,

"So stubble geese at Michaelmas are seen,
Upon the spit; next May produces green."

217. "Crossthwaite church, in the Vale of Keswick, in Cumberland, hath five chapels belonging to it. The minister's stipend is 5 per annum, and Goose-grass, or the right of commoning his geese; a Whittle-gait, or the valuable privilege of using his knife for a week at a time at any table in the parish; and, lastly, a hardened sark, or a shirt of coarse linen." Note by Mr. Park.

218. In the margin of a MS. in the Harleian Collection, No. 1772, fol. 115b, is written, in a hand of the ninth or tenth century, the following, which I give as I find it : " Cave multum ne in his tribus diebus, sanguinem minuas, aut pocionem sumas, aut de Anxere" (Ansere) " manducas ; nono Kalendis Aprilis die lunis ; intrante Augusto die lunis xx ; exeunte Decembris die lunis."

219.  In the Runic Calendar, St. Simon and St. Jude's Day was marked by a ship, on account of their having been fishermen. Wormii Festi Danici, lib. ii. c. 9. "A la Saint Simon et Saint Jude on envoi au temple les gens un peu simple, demander des nefles" (medlars), "afin de les attraper et faire noircir par des valets." Sauval, Antiq. de Paris, tom. ii. p. 617.

220.Something like this appears in an ancient illuminated missal in Douce's Collection, in which a person is represented balancing himself upon a pole laid across two stools. At the end of the pole is a lighted candle, from which he is endeavouring to light another in his hand, at the risk of tumbling into a tub of water placed under him. See Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 294, plate xxxvi.

221. It is thought to be a night, when devils, witches, and other mischief-making beings, are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands ; particularly those aerial people, the fairies, are said, on that night, to hold a grand anniversary.

222. The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Robert, the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of Carrick.

223. The first ceremony of Hallowe'en is pulling each a stock or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with; its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells the husband or wife. If any yird or earth stick to the root, that is tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brings into the house, are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question.

224. They go to the barn-yard, and pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wants the top-pickle, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will come to the marriage-bed anything but a maid.

225. When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too green or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber, &c., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind; this he calls a fause-house.

226. Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.

227. Whoever would, with success, try this spell, must strictly observe these directions: Steal out, all alone, to the kiln, and, darkling, throw into the pot a clue of blue yarn. Wind it in a new clue off the old one; and, towards the latter end, something will hold the thread. Demand, "Wha bauds?" that is, "Who holds?" An answer will be returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the Christian and surname of your future spouse.

228. Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it, and, some traditions say, you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.

229. Steal out unperceived, and sow a handful of hempseed, harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat now and then "Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, I saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my true-love, come after me and pou thee." Look over your left shoulder, and yon will see the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some traditions say, "Come after me, and show thee;" that is, "show thyself," in which case it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing, and say, "Come after me, and harrow thee."

230. This charm must likewise be performed unperceived and alone. You go to the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible ; for there is danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country dialect, we call a wecht, and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times, and the third time an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question, and the appearance or retinue marking the employment or station in life.

231.  Take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a bean-stack, and fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time you will catch in your arms the appearance of your future conjugal yokefellow.

232. You go out, one or more (for this is a social spell), to a south running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds' lands meet," and dip your left shirt-sleeve. Go to bed, in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry; lie awake, and some time near midnight an apparition, having the exact figure of the grand object in question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it.

233. Take three dishes; put clean water in one, foul water in another, leave the third empty. Blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth, where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand if, by chance, in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated three times; and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered.

234. Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the Halloween supper.

235. On the subject of love divinations there is a most curious passage in Theocritus, Idyllium 3d, where the shepherd says

[Greek]

"Intellexi nuper, cum quae rerem, an me amares,
Telephilum allisum non edidit sonum:
Sed frustra in tenero cubito exaruit."

Nam (ut Scholiastes ibi annotavit) amatores papaveris folium, bracbio, humero, manusve carpo impositum, percutiebant, et si sonum ederet redamari se credebant et de futuris nuptiis beneominabantur; sin minus odio se haberi inde colligebant. Interdum colons, ex percussione cutem tingentis, experimentum capiebant. Etenim si rubicundum duntaxat inde colorem cutis traheret, quern roseum appellabant, ab amatis redamari eos indicium faciebat; si verb cutem inflammari atque exulcerari contingeret, contemni se odioque esse existimabant." (Lydii Ritus Sponsaliorum, p. 20, in Faces Augustae sive Poeraata, &c., a Gaspare Barlseo, &c. 4to. Dordraci, 1643.)

236. The fires which were lighted up in Ireland on the four great festivals of the Druids have been already noticed under the GULE OF AUGUST. The Irish, General Vallancey tells us, have dropped the Fire of November, and substituted candles. The Welsh, he adds, still retain the Fire of November, but can give no reason for the illumination. Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, iii. 464, note.

237. Weever, Fun. Mon. p. 724, speaking of the monks of St. Edmundsbury, says, " They had certain wax candles, which ever and onely they used to light in wheat seeding; these they likewise carried about their wheat grounds, believing verily that hereby neither darnell, tares, nor any other noisome weedes would grow that yeare amongst the new corne."

238. ["Somas-cake, that is, soul-mas-cake, a sweet cake made on the 2d of November, All Souls' Day, and always in a triangular form. The custom of making a peculiar kind of cake on this day is recognised in a deposition of the year 1574, given in Watson's History of the House of Warrren, i. 217, wherein the party deposes that his mother knew a certain castle of the Earl of Warren's, having, when a child, according to the custom of that country, gathered soul-cakes there on All Souls' Day. The making of these cakes is now almost the sole relic of ancient customs which had their origin in the superstitious usages of the Catholic times." Hunter's Hallamshire Glossary.]

239. Mart, according to Skinner, is a fair. He thinks it a contraction of Market. These cattle are usually bought at a kind of cow fair, or mart, at this time. Had it not been the general name for a fair, one might have been tempted to suppose it a contraction of Martin, the name of the saint whose day is commemorated. This word occurs in 'the Lawes and Constitutions of Burghs made be King David the 1st at the New Castell upon the Water of Tyne,' in the Regiam Majestatem, 1609, "Chap. 70, of buchers and selling of flesh. 2. The fleshours shall serve the burgessis all the time of the slauchter of Nairts; that is, fra Michaelmes to Zule, in preparing of their flesh and in preparing of their flesh and in laying in of their lardner."

240. Groats, i.e., Oats hulled, but unground. Gloss. of Lancashire words. The etymology is from the Anglo-Saxon. The common people, in the North of England, have a saying that "blood without groats is nothing," meaning that "family without fortune is of no consequence." There is some philosophy in this vulgarism, the pun in which is absolutely unintelligible except to those who are acquainted with the composition of a black-pudding.

241. "Hujus modi porrb conviviis in ovium tonsura apud Hebreos antiquitm celebrari solitis videntur similia esse ilia quse apud nos, cum in urbe, turn in pagis, post pecorum quorundam, ut ovium, bourn, ac praesertim suum mactationem summa cum Isetitia agitari solent. Farciminum convivia' vulgo appellantur." p. 62.

242. [Greek] mense Novembri celebrabantur apud Athenienses. Plutarch, in 8. Sympos. 10, sicuti nostris temporibus in omni fere Europa undecima Novembris, quae D. Martino dicata est. Mercur. variar. lect. lib. i. cap. 15. Papatus, p. 127.

243. The learned Moresin tells us: "Anser Isidi sacer erat. Alex. ab. Alex. lib. Hi. cap. 12. In papatu autem ea cura est cuidatn Gallo omnis commendata. Buling, cap. 34, lib. de Orig. Erron. Cult. Deorum." p. 12. I find the following epigram in a Collection in quarto, entitled, in Mensium Opera et Donaria Decii Ausonii Magni, Nov.:"

"Carbaseo surgens post hunc indutus amictu
Mensis, ab antiquis sacra deamque colit.
A quo vix avidus sistro compescitur anser,
Devotusque satis ubera fert humeris."

Also in another collection, de iisdem: Heurici Ranzovii Eq. et Proreg. Holsat. Nov.:

"Ligna vehit, mactatque boves, et laetus ad ignem
Ebria Martini festa November agit.
Ad pastum in sylvam porcos compellit, et ipse
Pinffuibus interea vescitur anseribus."
        Miscellanea Menologica, 4to. Francof. 1590.

244.  In profesto autem Martini mos est apud Christianas ansere et musto liberaliter per singulas fere cedes fruendi. Unde et Martinianus anser ille appellatur: et mustum creditur mox sequenti die in vinum verti. De hoc ritu ita canit Thomas Naogeorgus, lib. iv. Papistici Regni:

"Altera Martinus dein Bacchanalia praebet,
Quern colit anseribus populus, multoque Lyeeo,
Tota nocte dieque. Aperit nam dolia quisque
Omnia, degustatque haustu spumosa frequenti
Musta, sacer quae post Martinus vina vocari
Efficit. Ergo canunt ilium, laudantque bibendo
Fortiter ansatis pateris, amplisque culullis.
Quin etiam ludi prosunt haec festa magistr
Circumeunt etenim sumpto grege quisque canoro,
Non ita Martini laudes festumque caneutes
Anserem ut assatum ridendo carmine jactant.
Cujus nonnumquam partem nummosve vicissim
Accipiunt, celebrantque hoc festum musice et ipsi."

"Moris etiam est plurimis in locis ut ad diem Martini census debitaque solvantur." Hospinian de Orig. Festor. Christianor. f, 146.

245. In Le Guide de Londres pour les Estrangers: recuilli et compose par F. Colsoni, 1693, p. 36, we read: "On avoit accoutume cy-devant de faire une figure du Pape, le jour de la naissance de la reine Elizabeth; on la promenoit en Triomphe par les rues, et puis sur le soir on dressoit un bucher ou on la jettoit dedans, avec des cris et acclamations de joye: mais cela a etc suspendu depuis une annee ou deux, sous le reigne de otre glorieux onarque, G. 3."

246. This reason is indeed assigned in the English festival, f. 55. "It is saved of his fader, hyght Epiphanius, and his moder Joanna, &c., and when he was born, &c. they made him Christin, and called hym Nycholas, that was a mannes name; but he kepeth the name of the child, for he chose to kepe vertues, meknes, and simplenes he fasted Wednesday and Friday; these dayes he would souke but ones of the day, and therwyth held him plesed. Thus he lyved all his lyf in vertues with his childes name, and therefore children doe him worship before all other saints, &c." Liber Festivalis in die S. Nicholai. A curious old MS. legendary metrical account of Saints, of the age of Henry VI., speaking of St. Nicholas, has the following couplet:

"Ye furst day that was y-bore, he gan to be good and clene,
For he ne wolde Wednesday ne Friday never more souke but ene."

So the Golden Legend: "He wolde not take the breast ne the pappe, but cues on the Wednesday and ones on the Fridaye."

247. 1 It is remarkable that this same story is told in a metrical Life of St. Nicholas, by Maitre Wace, a priest of Jersy, and chaplain to King Henry the Second, in MS. Douce 270:

"Treis clers aloent a escole,
Nen frai mie longe parole;
Lor ostes par nuit les oscioit
Les cors musca, la .... prenoit
Saint Nicolas par Deu le sout,
Sempris fut la si cum Deu plut,
Les clers al oste demanda,
Nes peut muscier, einz ltd mustra.
Seint Nicholas par sa priere
Les ames mist el cors ariere.
For ceo qe as clers fit tiel honor,
Font li clerc feste a icel jor."

This story, however, is not to be found in the Golden Legend.

248.  "Gregorius cognomento magnus, ex monacho Pontifex Romanus LXVI. efficitur. Habitus est patronus scholasticorum. Indeque factum est ut in hoc ipsius festo die, certis Cantilenis, ad scholam vocati sint olim et adhuc vocentur pueri pluribus in locis, subornato episcopo, sub S. Gregorii persona, cum adjunctis satellitibus sacri ordinis. Addi quoque solent dona quibus invitentur ad scholarum amorem pueri. Manavit hie mos ad Christianos ab Ethnicis. In Quinquatriis enim, quae Roinani solenniter celebrarunt 20 Martii, prseceptores et discipuli feriati sunt. Et discipuli quidem Minervalia sive Sidapa persolverunt praeceptoribus; praeceptores vero discipulis spicas distribuerunt, unde illud est Horatii: "Crustula blanda dant praeceptores pueris." Vide Hospin. de Orig. Festor. Christianorum, f. 50.

249.  Hospinian says, f. 153, the invocation of St. Nicholas hy sailors took its rise from the legendary accounts of Vincentius and Mantuanus: "Solet etiam Sanctus Nicolaus a periclitantibus in mari aut quavis alia aqua, invocari. Huic idolomaniae fabula originem dedit, quse extat apud Vincentium, libro xiv. capite 70, et Mantuanum, lib. xii. Fastorum, ubi sic canit:

"Cum turbine nautae
Deprensi Cilices magno clamore vocarent
Nicolai viventis opem, descendere quidam
Cnelituum visus sancti sub imagine patris:
Qui freta depulso fecit placidissima vento."

250. "Mos est plurimis in locis, ut in vigilia Sancti Nicolai parentes pueris ac puellis clam munuscula varii generis dent, illis opinantibus, S. Nicolaum cum suis famulis hinc inde per oppida ac vicos discurrere, per clausas fenestras ingredi, et dona ipsis distribuere.' Originem duxit hie mos ex fabella, quse S. Nicolao affingitur, quod dotem dederit tribus filiabus egeni cujusdam civis, ipsas ob egestatem prostituere volentis, hoc modo : conjecit crumenam pecunia refertam clam, notu, per fenestram in cubiculum patris earum, unde honeste eas elocare potuit." Hospinian de Orig. Festor. Christian, fol. 153.

251.  "In die vero Sancti Nicolai adolescentes, qui disciplinarum gratia scholas frequentant, inter se tres eligunt: unum, qui episcopum; duos, qui diaconos agant: is ipsa die in sacram aedem solenniter a scholastico coetu introductus, divinis officiis infulatus praesidet: quibus finitis, cum electis domesticatim cantando nummos colligit, eleemosynam esse negant, sed episcopi subsidium. Vigiliam diei pueri a parentibus jejunare eo modo invitantur, quod persuasum habeant, ea munuscula, quae noctis ipsis in calceos sub mensam ad hoc locatos imponuntur, se a largissimo praesule Nicolao percipere: unde tanto desiderio plerique jejunant, ut quia eorum sanitati timeatur, ad cibum compellendi sint," p. 272. The ceremony of fasting was probably adopted from the Saint's example already quoted from the Golden Legend.

252. Grinning; laughing.

253. "Pape Colas. Enfant qui dans les derniers siecles, paraissait, un moment, au dessus de sa condition. Le jour de Saint Nicolas on faisoit choix dans certaines Eglises d'un petit tondu a voix glassissante: on lui mettait une mitre sur la tete, on le revetait d'habits pontificaux: ainsi chargi de Reliques, il alait par tout dormant des benedictions et disant des Oremus pour avoir des biscuits et des petits gateaux." Eonddusac, i. 13. See also Sauval, Antiq. de Paris, ii. pp. 622, 623: Ducange, invoce; Dora Marlot. Histoire de la Metrop. de Rheiins, ii. 769 ; Brillon, Dictionn. des Arrets, artic. Noyon, ed. 1727; Voyages Liturgiques de France, 1718, p. 33: and among English authorities, Dugd. Mon. old edit. iii. 169, 170, 279; Dugd. Hist. St. Paul's, pp. 205, 206; Anstis's Ord. Gart. ii. 309; Drake's Eboracum, p. 481; Blomef. Hist. of Norf. ii. 516; Gough's Brit. Top. ii. 362. There was a boy bishop at Exeter Cathedral. See Bishop Lyttleton's Account of that building, pp. 10, 11.

254. Steevens found a curious passage on this subject, in Puttenham's Art of Poesie, 1589. "Methinks this fellow speaks like bishop Nicholas: for on St. Nicholas's night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches." Prynne, Histrio-Mastix, p. 601, cites the following interdict of the Council of Basle, 1431: "This sacred Synode, detesting that foule abuse frequent in certaine churches, in which, on certaine festivals of the yeare, certain persons with a miter, staffe, and pontificall robes, blesse men after the manner of bishops; others being clothed like kings and dukes, which is called the Feast of Fooles, of Innocents, or of Children in certaine countries: others practising vizarded and theatrical sports: others making traines and dances of men and women, move men to spectacles and cachinnations: hath appointed and commanded as well ordinaries, as deanes and rectors of Churches, under paine of suspension of all their ecclesiasticall revenues for three monthes space, that they suffer not these and such like playes and pastimes to be any more exercised in the church, which ought to be the house of prayer, nor yet in the churchyard, and that they neglect not to punish the offenders by ecclesiasticall censures, and other remedies of law."

255. In the Statutes of the collegiate church of St. Mary Ottery, founded by Bishop Grandison in 1337, there is this passage: "Item statuimus, quod nullus canonicus, vicarius, vel secundarius, pueros choristas in festo sanctorum Innocentium extra parochiam de Otery trahant, aut eis licentiam vagandi concedant." Cap. 50. MS. Regist. Priorat. S. Swithin. Winton. quat. 9.

256. In the Wardrobe Rolls of King Edward the Third, an. 12, we have this entry, which shows that our mock-bishop and his chapter sometimes exceeded their adopted clerical commission, and exercised the arts of secular entertainment: "Episcopo puerorum Ecclesiae de Andeworp cantanti coram domino Rege in camera sua in festo Sanctorum Innocentium, de dono ipsius Regis xiijs. virf."

257. In explanation of that part of the above which mentions women, it appears that divine service was not only performed by boys on the above occasion, but by little girls also, for there is an injunction given to the Benedictine Nunnery of Godstowe, in Oxfordshire, by Archbishop Peckham, in the year 1278, that on INNOCENTS' DAY the public prayers should not any more be said in the church of that monastery PER PARVULAS, i.e. little girls.

258. Warton in his History of English Poetry, has preserved the form of the acquittance given by a boy bishop to the receiver of his subsidy, then amounting to the considerable sum of 3l 15s. 1d. ob. "Dominus Johannes Gisson, Magister Choristarum ecclesise Eboracensis, liberavit Roberto de Holme, choristee, qui tune ultimo fuerat Episcopus puerorum, iij. libras, xvs. id. ob de perquisitis ipsius Episcopiper ipsum Johannem receptis: and the said Robert takes an oath that he will never molest the said John for the above sum.

259. "Hoc anno 1464, in Festo Saneti Nicolai, non erat Episcopus puerorum in Scola Grammatical! in civitate Cantuariae, ex defectu Magistrorum, viz. J. Sidney et. T. Hikson, &c." Lib. Johannis Stone, monachi Eccles. Cant. c. de Obitibus et aliis memorabilibus sui caenobii, M S. Corp. Chr. Cantab. 417.

260. It was formerly the custom on the foundation of Westminster School for the senior boys, on the day of the admission of a new junior election, to address the last of them at supper-time, accompanying the first three words of the formula with their appropriate actions: "Salsandus, calcandus, inspuendus; denique non credendus; abi junior." This custom has for many years been obsolete. To these indignities also at initiation (or rather to compromise to prevent them) I am desirous to refer the custom of exacting Garnish money at the first admission of debtors into prison, concerning which I find the following in the Gent. Mag. for May, 1752, vol. xxii. p. 239: "The sheriffs of London have ordered that no debtor, in going into any of the gaols of London and Middlesex, shall, for the future, pay any garnish, it having been found for many years a great oppression."

261. There are twenty plates illustrating the several strange ceremonies of the "Depositio." The last represents the giving of the Salt, which a person is holding on a plate in his left hand, and with his right hand about to put a pinch of it upon the tongue of each Beanus or Freshman. A glass, holding wine (I suppose), is standing near him. Underneath is the following couplet, which is much to our purpose; for even the use of wine also is not altogether unknown at present at our Montem procession at Eton:

"Sal Sophias gustate, hibatis vinaque lata,
Augeat immensus vos in utrisque Deus!"

262. My servant, B. Jelkes, who is from Warwickshire, informs me that there is a custom in that county for the poor, on St. Thomas's Day, to go with a bag to beg corn of the farmers, which they call going a corning. J. B.

263. "In trium quintarum feriarum noctibus, quae proximo Domini nostri natalem praecedunt, utriusque sexus pueri domesticatim eunt januas pulsantes, cantantesque; futurum Salvatoris exortum annunciant et salubrem annum: unde ab his qui in redibus sunt, pyra, poma, nuces, et nummos etiam percipiunt." p. 264.

264.  Selden, in his Notes on the Polyolbion, 9, song, tells us: "that on the Druidian custom (of going out to cut the mistletoe) some have grounded that unto this day used in France, where the younger Country fellows about New Yeare's-tide, in every village, give the wish of good fortune at the inhabitants dores, with this acclamation, 'Au guy Van neuf' i.e. to the mistletoe this New Year: which, as I remember, in Rabelais, is read all one word for the same purpose." He cites here "Jo. Goropius Gallic. 5, et aliis." I find the following in Menage's Dictionary, i. 12, "Aguilanleu, par corruption, pour An gui l'an neuf: ad Viscum, annus novus. Paul Merule, dans sa Cosmographie, part 2, liv. 3, chap. xi. 'Sunt qui illud Au Gui Van neuf, quod hactenus quot annis pridie Kalendas Januar. vulgo publice cantari in Gallia solet ab Druidis manasse autumnant: ex hoc forte Ovidii,

Ad Viscum Druidae, Druidae cantare solebant:

Solitos enim aiunt Druidas per suos adolescentes viscum suum cunctis mittere, eo quasi munere, bonum, faustum, felicem, et fortunatum omnibus annum precari.' Voyez Goropius Becanus in Gallicis, Vigenaire sur Cesar, Vinet sur Ausone, Gosselin au chapitre 14 de son istoire des anciens Gaulois, Andre Favyn dans son Theatre d'Honneur, p. 38, et sur tout Jan Picard dans sa Celtopedie. II est a remarquer, que les vers cy-dessus allegue par Merule sous le nom d'Ovide, n'est point d'Ovide. En Touraine on dit Aguilanneu. Les Espagnols disent Aguinaldo pour les presants qu'on fait a la Feste de Noel. En basse Normandie, les pauvres, le dernier pour de Tan, en demandant 1'aumosne, disent Hoguinanno." See also Cotgrave's Dictionary, in verbo " Au-guy-1'an neuf." The Celtic name for the oak was gue or guy.

265. I found the following in the handwriting of the learned Mr. Robert Harrison, of Durham:

"Scots Christmass Carroll by the Guisearts.

Hinc trole, a ditty. Trololey, Shakespeare. What led to this I do not at present recollect."

266. See another version of these lines at p. 14.

267. [The black ark was a ponderous piece of oaken furniture, near three feet in depth, and about six feet in length; the inside of which was usually divided into two parts. They are still occasionally to be met with in the dwellings of ancient housekeepers, and are now generally devoted to the purpose of holding bread-meal and flour. Their original use was that of holding linen, clothes, and valuables.]

268. Mummer signifies a masker; one disguised under a vizard: from the Danish Mumme, or Dutch Momrae. Lipsius tells us, in his 44th Epistle, book iii. that Momar, which is used by the Sicilians for a fool, signifies in French, and in our own language, a person with a mask on. See Junii Etymolog., and a curious note upon Mumming in Walker's Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, p. 152. The following occurs in Hospinian, de Orig. Festor. Christian: "Ab hoc denique Circumcisionis festo, usque ad quadragesimae jejunium personae induuntur et vestium mutationes fiunt, vicinique ad vicinos hac ratione commeant, turpi insaniendi bacchandique studio. Quam vestium mutationem nos Germani hodie nostra lingua Mummerey vocamus, a Latina voce mutare. lis etiam, qui ita larvati vicinos suos salutant occilla et oscilla secum deferunt, et ita pecuniam extorquent." fol. 32. "Cum quotannis cernerem circa tempus Natalitium vigilia imprimis festi sacratissimi, more recepto, homines quosdam Christianos partim facie larvali foedos, nigris lemuribus non absimiles ; partera juvenili forma, ceu lares compitales et viales, conspicuos; paiiim veneranda canitie graves, hunc sanctum Christum, illos sanctos Christi ministros, alios divos Apostolos, alios denique ad aeterna supplicia damnatos Diabolos, mendaci prae se ferente: indomita saepe lascivia, comitante nequissimorum puerorum, server um, ancillarum colluvie, ubivis viarum oberrantes; mox splendida pompa et veneratione novos tragoedos in aedes admissos: adductos in puerorum terrorem propius, a quibus tantum non exanimatis, osculis, precibus, cultuque plane religiosa excipiebantur." Drechsler de Larvis Natalitiis, p. 19.

269. "Ut olim in Saturnalibus frequentes luxuriosaeque coenationes inter amicos fiebant, munera ultro citroque missitabantur, vestium mutationes tiebant, ita hodie etiam apud hos Christianos eadem fieri videmus a Natalibus Dominicis usque ad festum Epiphaniae, quod in Januario celebratur: hoc enim tempore omni et crebro convivamur et Strenas, hoc est, ut nos vocamus, Novi Anni Donaria missitamus. Eodein tempore mutationes vestium, ut apud Romanos quondam usurpantur, vicinique ad vicinos invitati hac ratione commeant, quod nos Germani Mummerey vocamus." Antiquitat. Convivial, p. 126. The following occurs in Hospinian, de Origine Festorum Christianor. f. 32: "Eadem de re Constantinopolitani Concilii sexti Canon 62. sic habet: Calendas quae dicuntur et vota Brumalia quae vocantur, et qui in primo Martii mensis die fit, conventum ex fidelium civitate omnino tolli volumus; sed et publicas mulierum saltationes multam noxam exitiumque afferentes; qui etiam eas, quae nomine eorum, qui falso apud Graecos dii nominati sunt, vel nomine virorum ac mulierum fiunt saltationes ac mysteria more antiquo ac a vita Christiana alieno, amandamus et expellimus, statuentes, ut nullus vir deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro conveniente. Sed neque comicas, vel satyricas, vel tragicas presonas induat, neque execrandi Bacchi noraen," &c.

270. "In the year 138, eighty tunics of buckram, forty-two visors, and a great variety of other whimsical dresses, were provided for the disguisings at court at the feast of Christmass." Henry's History of Britain, iv. 602.

271. ["Yu-batch, Christmas-batch. Yu-block, Yule-block, Yule-clog, Christblock. Yu-gams, Christmas games; ab A.-S. Gehul; Dan. uledag, the day of the nativity of Christ. This, perhaps, from the Latin and Hebrew Jubilum. N. In the farm-houses the servants lay by a large knotty block, for their Christmas-fire, and, during the time it lasts, they are entitled, by custom, to ale at their meals." Ray and Grose]

272. "Croire qu'une buche," (says the author of the Traite des Superstitions,) "que l'on commence a mettre au feu la veille de Noel (ce qui fait qu'elle est appellee le Trefoir, ou le Tison de Noel, et que Ton continue d'y mettre quelque temps tous les jours jusqu'aux rois, peut garentir d'incendie ou de tonnerre, toute I'annde la maison ou elle est gardee sous un lit, ou en quelqu'autre endroit : qu'elle peut empecher que ceux qui y demeurent, n'ayent les mules aux talons en hyver; qu'elle peut guerir les bestiaux de quantite de maladies; qu'elle peut delivrer les vaches prestes a veler, en faisant tremper un morceau dans leur breuvage, enfin qu'elle peut preserver les bleds de la rouille en jettant de sa cendre dans les champs." Traite des Superstitions, par M. Jean Baptiste Thiers, 1679, i. 323. In the "Memoires de l'Academic Celtique," iii. 441, 1809, in a "Notice sur quelques usages et croyances de la ci-devant Lorraine, particulierement de la ville de Commercy," par M. Lerouze, the author says: "Le 24 December, vers six heures du soir, chaque famille met a son feu une enorme buche, appelee souche de Noel. On defend aux enfans de s'y asseoir, parceque, leur dit on, ils y attraperaient la gale. Notez u'il est d'usage, dans presque tout le pays, de mettre le bois au foyer dans toute sa longueur, qui est d'environ quatre pieds, et de 1'y faire bruler par un bout. Cette maniere de faire le feu presente sur 1'autre bout une espece de siege dont les petits enfans profitent pour s'asseoir et se chauffer. Au retour de la messe de minuit, chacun fait un petit repas appele recinon. On dit reciner, pour faire le recinon. Ce mot vient sans doute du Latin re-camare."

273. "All the Celtic nations," says Mallet, in his Northern Antiquities, ii. 68, " have been accustomed to the worship of the sun; either as distinguished from Thor, or considered as his symbol. It was a custom that everywhere prevailed in ancient times, to celebrate a feast at the winter solstice, by which men testified their joy at seeing this great luminary return again to this part of the heavens. This was the greatest solemnity in the year. They called it, in many places, Yole or Yuul, from the word Hiaul and ffoul, which even at this day, signifies the SUN in the languages of Bass-Britagne and Cornwall." This is giving a Celtic derivation of a Gothic word (two languages extremely different). The learned Dr. Hickes thus derives the term in question: I-ol, Cimbricum, Anglo-Saxonice scripturn [A-S.], et Dan. Sax. lul, o in u facile mutato, ope intensivi praefixi i et [A-S.], faciunt Ol, commessatio, compotatio, convivium, symposium. (Isl. 01 cerevisiam denotat et metonymice convivium.) Junii Etym. Aug. v. Yeol. Our ingenious author, however, is certainly right as to the origin and design of the Yule Feast; the Greenlanders at this day keep a Sun feast at the winter solstice, about Dec. 22, to rejoice at the return of the sun, and the expected renewal of the hunting season, &c.; which custom they may possibly have learnt of the Norwegian colony formerly settled in Greenland. See Crantz's History of Greenland, i. 176. A vast number of conjectures have been written on the origin of Yule, but so little to the purpose, that we do not transfer them to these pages.

274. "December Guili, eodem quo Januarius nomine vocatur. Guili a conversione solis in auctum Diei, nomen accipit." Beda de Rat. Temp, cap. xiii.

275. "In quibusdam quoque locis in Natali, praelati cum clericis ludunt, vel in domibus episcopalibus: ita ut etiam descendant ad cantus.' Durand. Rat. lib. vi. cap. 86, s. 9.

276. [We subjoin the original, as Donee's translation is not literal:

"Seignors, ore entendez a nus,
De loinz sumes venuz a wous,
Pur quere NOEL!
Car 1'em nus dit que en cest hostel
Soleit tenir sa feste anuel
Ahi, cest iur.
Deu doint a tuz icels joie d'amurs
Qui a DANZ NOEL ferunt honors!
Seignors, jo vus dis por veir,
Ke DANZ NOEL ne velt aveir
Si joie non;
E repleni sa maison,
De payn, de char, e de peison,

Por faire honor.
Deu doint a tuz ces joie d'amur.
Seignors, il est crie en 1'ost,
Que cil qui despent bien, e tost,
E largement;

E fet les granz honors sovent,
Deu li duble quanque il despent,
Por faire honor.
Deu doint a

Seniors, escriez les malveis,
Car vus riel les troverez jameis
De bone part:

Botun, batun, ferun, groinard,
Car tot dis a le quer cunard
Por faire henor.
Deu doint ....

NOEL heyt bien li vin Engleis,
E li Gascoin, e li Franceys
E 1'Angevin:

NOEL fait beivre son veisin,
Si quil se dort, le chief enclin,
Sovent le ior.

Deu doint a tuz eels. . . .
Seignors, jo vus di par NOEL,
E par li sires de cest hostel,

Car bevez ben:
E jo primes beverai le men,
E pois apres chescon le soen,

Par mon conseil;
Si jo vus di trestoz, Wesseyl!
Dehaiz eit qui ne dirra, Drincheyl!"]

277. Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, p. 155, speaking of the Christinas Day Ceremonies in the Inner Temple, says: "Service in the church ended, the gentlemen presently repair into the hall to breakfast, with brawn, mustard, and malmsey." At dinner, "at the first course, is served in a fair and large bore's head upon a silver platter, with minstralsye."

278. Lamb, in his entertaining notes on the old poem on the Battle of Flodden Field, tells us that the nurse's lullaby song, Balow (or "He balelow"), is literally French, "He has! la le loup!" "Hush! there's the wolf." An etymologist, with a tolerably inventive fancy, might easily persuade himself that the song usually sung in dandling children in Sandgate, in the suburbs of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the Wapping or Billingsgate of that place, "A you a hinny," is nearly of a similar signification with the ancient Eastern mode of saluting kings, viz. "Live for ever." A, aa, aaa, in Anglo-Saxon, signifies for ever. See Benson's Vocabulary. The good women of the district above named are not a little famous for their powers in a certain female mode of declamation, vulgarly called scolding. A common menace which they use to each other is, "I'll make a holy byson of you." In Anglo-Saxon, Bipene signifies example: so that this evidently alludes to the penitential act of standing in a white sheet before the congregation, which a certain set of delinquents are enjoined to perform, and is synonymous with that in the Gentle Shepherd:

"I'll gar ye stand
Wee a het face before the haly band."

279. This is still retained in barbers' shops. A thrift-box, as it is vulgarly called, is put up against the wall, and every customer puts in something.

280. See Valesiana, p. 72. See also Du Gauge's Glossary, in v. Natali. Drechler, in his treatise De Lands, p. 30, thinks he has discovered the origin of this custom: "Quin et donorum semina invenimus apud rerum ecclesiasticarum scriptores et Conciliorum Observatores. Nam Concil. Constantinopolitanum, vi. Can. 79, inter alia, haec habet : ' Quando aliqui post Diem Natalis Christi Dei nostri reperiuntur coquentes similam ut se hac mutuo donantes praetextu scil. honoris secundinarum impollutze Virginia Matris, statuimus ut deinceps nihil tale fiat a fidelibus.' Simila ergo inutuum fuit donura natalitium in recordationem (sic enim colligo ex dicto canone) nati Messiae, et honorem beatae Matris Virginis ; cui dono post-modum alia sine discrimine fuerunt addita, retento eodera fine ac respectu."

281. [In former editions of this work a passage from the Taming of the Shrew has been inserted here, as if it had reference to the Lord of Misrule; but, in reality, it is merely the exclamation of Christopher Sly when he at length bends to his position, and accepts the belief that he is really "a lord, and not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly."]

282. Hist. Eng. Poet. ii. 378. It appears from the Status Scholae Etonensis, 1560, that the Eton scholars used to act. plays in the Christmas holidays. "Decembri mene. Circiter Festum D. Andreae Ludi Magister eligere solet pro suo arbitrio scaenicas fabulas optimas et quarn accommodatissiinas, quas pueri feriis natalitiis subsequentibus non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante, publice aliquando peragant. Histrionum levis ars est: ad actionem tamen oratorum et gestum motumve corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglicis sermone contextas fabulas quas habeant acumen et leporem."

283. In a Royal Household Account, communicated by Craven Ord, Esq., of the Exchequer, I find the following article: "From 16 to 18 Nov., 8 Hen. VII. Item, to Walter Alwyn for the revells at Christenmes, xiijl. vjs. viijd.

284. In the Northumberland Household Book, p. 344, we read: "Item, my Lord useth and accustomyth to gyf yerely when his Lordship is home, "we hath an Abbot of Miserewll in Christynmas in his Lordschippis hous on New-yers-day in rewarde xis." See also the Notes to the same work, p. 441.

285.  Dugdale, in the Account of the grand Christmasses held in Lincolne's Inn, in his Orig. Juridic. p. 347, mentions the choosing "a king on Christmas Day."

286. A clown. Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 534.

287. Dr. Jamieson says the prohibition does not appear to have been the effect of the Protestant doctrine: for as yet the Reformation was strenuously opposed by the court. He thinks it was most probably owing to the disorder carried on, both in town and country, under the pretence of innocent recreation. Etym. Dict. v. Abbot of Vnressoun.

288. See Du Tilliot, Memoire de la Fete des Fous, p. 22. Warton, in his History of English Poetry, says, "In the French towns there was l'Abbe de Liesse, who in many towns was elected from the burgesses by the magistrates, and was the director of all their public shows. Among his numerous mock officers were a herald and a maitre d'hotel. In the city of Auxerre he was especially concerned to superintend the play which was annually acted on Quinquagesima Sunday. Carpentier, Suppl. Gloss. Lat. Du Cange, i. 7, 923.

289. In Nichols's Illust. of Antient Manners and Expences, p. 169, Churchwardens' Accounts of Heybridge, near Maiden, Essex, under A. D. 1522, is the following receipt: " Item, receyved of the gadryng of the white plowe, 0l. Is. 3d." To which this note is affixed: "Q. Does this mean Plough Monday, on which the country people come and dance and make a gathering, as on May Day?"

290. "In Die Cinerum mirum est quod in plerisque locis agitur. Virgines quotquot per annum choream frequentaverunt, a juvenibus congregantur, et aratro, pro equis advectae, cum tibicine, qui super illud modulans sedet, in fluvium aut lacum trahuntur. Id quare fiat non plane video, nisi cogitem eas per hoc expiare velle, quod festis diebus contra ecclesiae praeceptum, a levitate sua non abstinuerunt," p. 278. In Du Cange's Glossary, there is a reference to some old laws, which mention the drawing a plough about. This may be seen in Lindenbrogii Codex Legum Antiquarum, and the passage cited from Du Cange in i. 434, of that rare and curious work, but it appears to have nothing to do with the subject in question.

291. "De Chorea Gladiatoria vel Armifera Saltatione. Habent praeterea Septentrionales Gothi et Sueci pro exercenda juventute ludum, quod inter nudos enses et infestos gladios seu frameas, sese exerceant saltu ; idque quodarn gymnastico ritu et disciplina, aetate successiva, a peritis et praesultore, sub cantu addiscunt: et ostendunt hunc ludum praecipue tempore Carnisprivii Maschararum Italico verbo dicto. Ante etenim tempus ejusdem Carnisprivii, octo diebus continua saltatione sese adolescentes numerose exercent, elevatis, silicet gladiis, sed vagina reclusis, ad triplicem gyrum. Deinde evaginatis, itidemque, elevatis ensibus, postmodum manuatim extensis, modestius gyrando alterius cuspidem capulumque receptantes, sese mutato ordine in modum figurae hexagoni subjiciunt: quam rosam dicunt: et ilico earn gladios retrahendo elevandoque resolvunt ut super unius cujusque caput quadrata rosa resultet: et tandem vehementissima gladiorum lateral! collisione, celerrime retrogada saltatione determinant ludum: quern tibiis, vel cantilenis, aut utrisque simul, primum per graviorem, demum vehementiorem saltum, et ultimo impetuosissimum, moderantur." Olai Magni Hist. Septentr. Gent. Breviar. 1645, p. 408.

292. Concerning the Feast of Fools see Du Cange's Glossary, v. Kalendae, and Du Tilliot, "Memoire pour servir a 1'Histoire de la Fete des Foux," 1751.

293.  "Ludiprofani apud ethnicos et Paganos: solebant quippe ij. kalendis Januariibelluarum, pecudum, et vetularum assumptis formis hue et illuc discursare, et petulantius sese gerere: quod a Christianis non modo proscriptum, set et ab iis postmodum inductum constat, ut ea die ad calcandam Gentilium consueludinem privatse fierent Litaniae et jejunaretur, ut observare est ex Concilio Toletano iv. can. 10. S. Isidoro, lib. 1. de Offic. Eccles. cap. 40, &c." Du Cange, v. Cervula. "Vide quae in hanc rem disserit D. Le Boeuf, torn. i. Collect ver. Script, p. 294, et seq." Carpentier, Supplem. ad Du Cange. Delrio in Disquisit. Magic. L. III. P. ii. Quaest. 4, sect. 5, p. 477, has the subsequent passage: "Verba sunt Concil. Antisiodorensis. Non licet calendis Januariis facolo (Vitulo sen Buculo) aut Cervolo facere, vel strenas diabolicas observare; sed in ipsa die sic omnia beneficia tribuantur, sicut et reliquis diebus." See also Hospinian de Origine Festorum Christianorum, fol. 32 b., where the practice is mentioned nearly in the same words. Ihre, in his Glossarium Suio-Gothicum, fol. Upsalla, 1769, v. Jul, says: "Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli, et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo, idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant, vel in cervulum se transformare: ut olim in sacris ludi profana consuetudine, usitati erant: eg. pil ludus in festo Paschatos. v. Du Fresne, Lex. Lat. in v. Pelota, ut nil dicam de Festo Stultorum, de quadragesimali scena, &c. Aliam Arietis Julii originem tradit Wormius in Fastis, p. 21, quem, qui fabulas amat, adire poterit."

294. Faustinus Episcopus Serm. in Kl. Jan. has these words: Quis enim sapiens credere poterit inveniri aliquos sanae mentis qui cervulum facientes, in ferarura se velint habitus commutari? Alii vestiuntur pellibus pecudum, alii assumunt capita bestiarum, gaudentes et exultantes, si taliter se in ferinas species transformaverint, ut homines non esse videantur." V. Du Cange, v. Cervula. Barrington, in his Observations on the Statutes, p, 306, speaking of the people, says, "They were also, by the customs prevailing in particular districts, subject to services not only of the most servile, but the most ludicrous nature: 'Utpote DIE NATIVITATIS DOMINI coram eo saltare, buccas cum sonitu inflare, et ventris crepitum edere.'" Struvii Jurispr. Feud. p. 541. Sir Richard Cox, in his History of Ireland, likewise mentions some very ridiculous customs, which continued in the year 1565.

295. Non liceat iniquas observantias agere kalendarum et ociis vacare Gentilibus, neque lauro, neque viriditate arborum cingere domos. Omni enim haec observatio Paganismi est. Brace. Can. 73. Instell. Prynne, in his Histrio-Mastix, p. 581, cites nearly the same words from the 73d Canon of the Consilium Antisiodorense, in France, anno Domini 614. In the same work, p. 21, he cites the councils as forbidding the early Christians "to decke up their houses with lawrell, yvie, and greene boughes (as we use to doe in the Christmas season)." Adding from Ovid, Fast. lib. iii.:

"Hedera est gratissima Baccho."

Compare, also, Tertull. de Idol., cap. 15.

296. This illustrates the Spectator's observation, where he tells us that our forefathers looked into Nature with other eyes than we do now, and always ascribed common natural effects to supernatural causes. It should seem that this joy of the people at Christmas was death to their infernal enemy. Envying their festal pleasures, and owing them a grudge, he took this opportunity of spoiling their sport.

297. Dow, is vulgarly used in the North for a little cake, though it properly signifies a mass of flour tempered with water, salt, and yeast, and kneaded fit for baking. It is derived, as Junius tells us, from the Dutch Deeg, which comes from the Theotiscan thihen, to grow bigger, or rise, as the bakers term it. "JULBROD dicitur panis, qui sub hoc tempore vario aromatum genere conditur, inque varias formas animalium pisciumque fictus apponi solet. Originem hujus ritus earn esse credo, quod apud veteres usu receptum erat, ut praediorum locatores dominis suis hoc tempore offerrent panem, ut dicebatur natalitium, qui in Gallia cuignets appellabatur, et, ut speciosior esset, in diversas ejusmodi formas pinsebatur, v. Du Fresne in v. PANIS NATALITIUS." Glossar. Suio-Goth. auctore J. Hire. 3769, i. 1009. Du Fresne says: "PANIS INATALITIUS, cujusmodi fieri solet in die Natalis Domini, et prseberi Dominis, a praediorum conductoribus, in quibusdam provinciis, qui ex farina delicatiori, ovis et lacte confici solent: Cuignets appellant Picardi, quod in cuneorum varias species efformentur."

298. "In Vaticano, dulcia Patribus exhibentur. In Cupidinariorum mensis, omnia generum imagunculae." On Christmas Day, in this Calendar, we read: "Dulcia continuantur et Strenae."

299. "My dish of chastity with rosemary and bays," Pericles, iv. 6. Anciently many dishes were served up with this garniture during the season of Christmas.

300.  "At Rippon, in Yorkshire, on Christmas Day, the singing boys come into the church with large baskets full of red apples, with a sprig of rosemary stuck in each, which they present to all the congregation, and generally have a return made them of 2d., 4d., or 6d., according to the quality of the lady or gentleman." Gent. Mag. for August, 1790, p. 719.

301. "Duo abusus, qui in festo Stephani et Johannis irrepserunt notemus.  Altera superstitio est, quod in Festo S. Stephani equos exerceant, donee toto corpore sudent: postea ad Fabrosducant, qui equisvenampertundant, rati tales equos, anno proximo mori non posse. Quasi vero S. Stephanus equorum unquam curam gesserit. Altera superstitio est, quod in Festo S. Johannis Apostoli sibi invicem benedictionem S. Johannis, vel haustum Johannis mittere solent. Putant nonnulli hunc morem a veteribus ethnicis descendere qui sub initium Januarii, vinum honorarium amicis suis mittere solebant, in honorem bicipitis Jani quern primum vitium satorem putant. Christiani, postea, ex Jano Johannem formarunt. Legitur alias, in vita Johannis, quod poculum vini, veneno mixtura, propinatum ei fuerit, sed Johannes, cum poculum cruce signasset, sine damno ebibit. Hinc adhuc S. Johannis cum calice pingitur, ex quo serpens promicat. Forte nine nata est superstitio mittendi in Festo Johannis vinurn, ut Johannes eidem adhuc benedicat." J. Hildebrandi de Diebus Festis, SS. Antiquitat. Epitome, p. 33.

302. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, the Diction, de Furetiere, and Diction, de Trevoux, v. INNOCENTER. This custom is mentioned by Hospinian de Orig. Festor. Christianor. fol. 160. "Hujus lanienae truculentissimae ut pueri Christianorum recordentur et simul discant odium, persecutionem, crucem, exilium, egestatemque statim cum nato Christo incipere, virgis caedi solent in aurora hujus diei adhuc in ectulis jacentes a parentibus suis."