which

writ the art of hawking which is in English verse, is in Wilton library. This country was then a lovely champain, as that about Sheeston and Cots-wold; very few enclosures unless near houses. In my remembrance much hath been enclos'd, and every year more and more is taken in. Anciently the leghs--now corruptly called slaights-i. e. pastures, were noble large grounds. Then were a world of labouring people maintained by the plough, as yet in Northamptonshire, &c. There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather's days; but for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the church-ale at Whitsuntide did the business. In every parish is, or was, a church-house, to which belong'd spits, crocks, &c., utensils for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts &c., the ancients sitting gravely by and looking on. All things were civil and without scandal. This church-ale is doubtless derived from the ayanaι or love-feasts, mention'd in the New Testament. Mr. A. Wood assures me that there were no alms-houses, at least they were very scarce, before the Reformation; that over against Christ Church, Oxon, is one of the ancientest. In every church was a poor man's box, but I never remember'd the use of it; nay, there was one at great inns, as I remember it was before the wars. Before the Reformation, at their vigils or revels, they sate up all night fasting and praying. The night before the day of the dedication of the church, certain officers were chosen for gathering the money for charitable

OF VENERY, that is in verse. It is a black-letter volume printed by Wynkyn de Worde, with the lengthy title of "Treatyses perteynynge to Hawkynge and Huntynge; with other dyvers playsant matters, belongynge unto Noblesse: &c. &c." Folio. Westmestre, 1496.

uses. Since the Reformation and inclosures aforesaid these parts have swarm'd with poor people."

The pith of this extract, so far as concerns our present purpose, is no doubt, that part which is given in italics; but it is altogether curious as a picture of the old times, over which Aubrey laments with so much unction, stigmatizing every improvement as the root of all evil.-To return to our Whitsuntide.

It seems to be agreed on all hands, that the word ale, to which allusion has so often been made above, means a festival, and indeed, its occurrence in the compound words bride ale, church-ale, sometimes called quarter-ale, leet-ale, scot-ale, lamb-ale, clerk-ale, give-ale, sufficiently proves that this was its general use and meaning. But it appears to have been employed somewhat laxly, as in general is the case with words that are most popularly used. Thus in the following passage we see clearly enough, that it means

* Aubrey's Miscellanies on Several Curious Subjects, p. 28. 8vo. 1714. + Scot-ales were, as the word imports, ales or feasts, maintained by the joint contributions of the revellers, and were generally held in houses of public resort. Leet-ales were feasts held at the leets or manorial courts, and probably the drink-lean, mentioned above, signified much the same thing. Quarter-ales or church-ales, would seem to have been established to help out the funds for the repairing of chapels, as appears from the following quotation from Sir R. Worsley's History of the Isle of Wight (p. 210 )—"If the quarter shall need at any time to make a quarter-ale or church-ale for the maintenance of the chapel." The Clerks-ale took place in the Easter holydays, and was, as Warton tells us (Hist. of Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p.128), "for the clerk's private benefit and the solace of the neighbourhood;" or in other words, it was a mode of collecting his dues and eking out his salary. The Give-ales were feasts of an entirely gratuitous nature, whereas all the former may to a certain extent, be called compulsory; they arose out of legacies and donations, and being generally blended with religious objects—such as masses for the dead, lighting the altar of some particular saint, &c.-they were at first dispensed in the church, and still more frequently in the church-yard.

the brewage itself, which was especially made for some particular festival. "The parishioners of Elveston and Okebrook, in Derbyshire, agree jointly to brew four ales, and every ale of one quarter of malt, betwixt this and the feast of St. John the Baptist next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of Okebrook shall be at the several ales. And every husband and his wife shall pay two-pence, every cottager one penny; and all the inhabitants of Elveston, shall have and receive all the profits and advantages coming of the said ales to the use and behoof of the said church of Elveston." *

From all this it seems to me quite clear that ale, which now is restricted to mean the liquor only,-except in composition, originally signified a festival, and that the brewage from malt got its name from being the established drink at those festivals. As to its derivation, I feel as confident as any one has a right to be on so difficult a subject, that it is only a corruption of yule, as yule itself is of huly, and my supposition is farther strengthened by the fact of yale being a common pronunciation of ale in some of our provinces.

Restoration-Day-The 29th of May was at one time celebrated as being the anniversary both of the birth and the restoration of Charles II. The king's statue, which stood in the centre of the old Royal Exchange, used to be decked out with boughs of oak, and in the north it is still customary for the lower classes to wear oak-leaves in their hats, to commemorate Charles's escape from his pursuers by hiding in an oak. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the boys of one faction have a taunting rhyme of

* See the Archæologia, vol. xii. p. 13. The writer however quotes from Warton.

while those of the other, wearing plane-tree leaves in their hats, reply with,

"Plane-tree leaves !

The church-folk are thieves."

In Devonshire, the young rustics of Tiverton, dressed up in the style of the 17th century and armed with swords, parade the streets and gather contributions. At their head is a man called Oliver, in a black suit with a cord bound about him like a tether, and his face and hands smeared with soot and grease. These are followed by another troop in the same costume, and each man bearing an oakbranch, and behind these again come four others carrying a kind of throne, made of oaken boughs, on which a child is seated. The jest of this dull pageant is in the capering of the Oliver, the insults heaped upon him by the rabble of boys, and his punishing them when he can catch them, by rubbing them over with the grime and grease from his own face.

Trinity Sunday.-In all the ancient liturgies this feast was looked upon as an octave of Pentecost.* It appears to have been instituted by Gregory the Fourth, when he removed All Saints' Day to November, because the harvest being then gathered in, the supply of food would be more abundant.† But it was not introduced into this country 'till the time of Archbishop Becket, who ordained it for no better reason as it would seem, than because it was the anniversary of his first mass after his consecration.‡

Wheatley's Rat. Illustration, &c. p. 245.

+"Verùm Greg. quartus hoc festu martyrum transtulit ad Cal. Novembris, ut tunc collectis terræ frugibus convenienter ad hoc festum possent copiosius victualia inveniri, instituens tunc fieri festum non solum apostolorum et martyrum sed etiam Trinitatis et angelorum, &c."-G. Durandi Rationale Div. Offi. lib. vii. c. 34.

"Consecratus igitur iii. Nonas Junii, anno ætatis suæ circiter xl, astantibus omnibus ferè suffraganeis ecclesiæ Cantuariensis præsentibus

Of late years, a fair has been held at Deptford on the following Monday, which is said to have originated in the trifling pastimes of the visitors assembled to see the master and brethren of the Trinity House, on their annual visit to the Trinity House at Deptford. Each year brought with it some addition to the previous amusements, 'till at last the whole, from jingling matches and a show or two, swelled into a regular fair. And with this concludes all that is worthy of note in the month of May.

nunc ibidem. Hic post consecrationem suam instituit festivitatem principalem S. Trinitatis annis singulis in perpetuum celebrandam, quo die primam missam suam celebravit."-Anglia Sacra, p. 8. Folio. London, 1691.