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The wind made April fools of us, for we were forced to return before Skagen, and to anchor at Rifwefiol."*

Amongst the French the custom itself exists, though the name attached to it is changed. With them the person imposed upon is called a "poisson d'Avril," which Bellingen explains to be a corruption of Passion, and contends that it is a memorial of the Jews' mockery of our Saviour in taking him backwards and forwards from Annas to Caiphas, from Caiphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate. His words are, “Quant au mot de poisson, il a esté corrompu, comme une infinité d'autres, par l'ignorance du vulgaire, et la longeur du temps a presque effacè la memoire du terme

A voyage to Suratte, China, &c., from the 1st of April 1750 to 26th of June 1752. By Olof Toreen. This voyage, which is detailed in a series of letters, addressed to the celebrated Linnæus, is not published separately, but is to be found at the end of Peter Osbeck's "Voyage to China and the East Indies, translated from the German by J. R. Forster, 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1771." I am not however without my suspicions that Forster's translation is from Dominique Blackford's French version, published at Milan in the same year, though I have never seen the original, which is much more likely to be in Swedish than in German, considering that Toreen was a Swede writing to a Swede and for the Swedish public.

This quotation is also given in Ellis's edition of Brand, though there is some reason to doubt whether he ever saw the book he pretends to cite. His only giving the name of Toreen, without any mention of the work itself would not indeed be conclusive as to this point, but the suspicion almost becomes certainty when we find the extract shamefully garbled, and the only two names of places, that occur, so deformed by misspelling as scarcely to be recognizable, while the voyage is, as I have just mentioned, not published by itself, but as a sort of supplement to Osbeck. The places, I allude to, are Skagen, printed by Sir H. Ellis, Shagen, and Rifwefiol transformed by him into Riswopol, and that not only in the old quarto but in the recent 12mo edition, published by Knight; but indeed the last is the worst of the two; every page is full of blunders, both typographical and literary.

original; car au lieu qu'on dit presentment Poisson on a dit Passion de le commencement; parceque la passion du Sauveur du Monde est arrivée environ ce temps la, et d'autantque que les Juifs firent faire diverses courses à Jesus Christ, pour se moquer de luy et pour luy faire de la peine, le renvoyant d'Annè a Caïphe, de Caïphe a Pilate, de Pilate à Herode, et d'Herode a Pilate, on a pris cette ridicule ou plutot impie contume de faire courir et de renvoyer d'un droit a l'autre ceux desquels on se veut moquer environ ces jours la."* The absurdity of such an explanation will need no comment to those, who recollect what has been already mentioned of the same custom having existed in India and Rome, ages before the Jews had an opportunity of mocking Christ. But at the same time there seems to be just as little reason for agreeing with Mr. Donce, when he tells us, "I am convinced that the ancient ceremony of the Feast of Fools has no connection whatever with the custom of making fools on the first of April. The making of April fools, after all the conjectures which have been formed touching its origin, is certainly borrowed by us from the French, and may I think be deduced from this simple analogy. The French call them poissons d'Avril, i. e. simpletons, or, in other words, silly mackarel, which suffer themselves to be caught in this month. But as with us April is not the season of that fish, we have very properly substituted the word fools."t

How mackerel should be in season with the French, and not with us, Mr. Donce has not thought proper to explain, and we may safely reject this absurdity without

* L'Etymologie, ou Explication des Proverbes Français, par Fleury de Bellingen, p. 34. 8vo. à la Haye, 1656. See also, Leroux, Dictionnaire Comique, Tome i. p. 70. Minshew's Ductor in Linguas; and Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes. Tom. ii. p. 97.

+ Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. p. 82.

any farther argument. It is possible that he may be right in denying the identity of All Fools' Day with the Feast of Fools; but it certainly admits of question; for although the latter was held on the first of November, yet it stands marked in the ancient Romish Calendar as having been removed thither from some other day-" Festum Stultorum hunc translatum est,"- "the Feast of Fools was removed hither." Removals of this kind were far from being uncommon in the Roman Calendar, when, as often happened, any particular day became laden with more Saints than it could conveniently carry.

Upon this subject it only remains to notice that in the North, April fools were called April Gouks, gouk, or gowk, which literally means a cuckoo, being commonly used for a term of contempt.

Palm Sunday, Dominica Palmarum, Dominica in Ramis Palmarum, Parasceue* or Pascha Floridum, is the sixth and last Sunday in Lent, and the one immediately preceding Easter. It was thus called from the old Roman Catholic custom of carrying palm branches in procession on that day in comemoration of the palms or olives, that the Jews strewed in the way of Christ when he went up to Jerusalem. Strutt, in the third volume of Horda Angel-Cynnan, p. 174, quotes from an old manuscript, "wherefor holi

* Parasceue, though sometimes peculiarly applied to this day, is also a general term, for it often signifies the eve or vigil of any other solemn feast, in which there is a rest from labour:-" interdum etiam," says Hospinian (p. 59—de Fest. Christ.)" significat vigiliam sive profestum cujuscunque alterius festi solennis, in quo ab omni opere servili quiescendum est."—According to etymology it signifies nothing more than the day of preparation, from the Greek πаρаσkεvǹ, a preparation.

+ See Festa Anglo-Romana, p. 39, 12mo. London, 1678; Historia Sacra, p. 151, 8vo. London, 1720; Wheatley's Illustration, &c. p. 225, fol. London, 1720; Durandi Rationale Divin. Offic, lib. vi. De Domin. in Ramis Palmarum, p. 215, Qto. Venetiis, 1609.

Chirche this day makeith solempne processyon, in mynde of the processyon that Cryst made this dey; but for encheson* that wee have noone Olyve that bearith greene leaves, therefor we taken Palme, and geven instede of Olyve, and bear it about in processione."

Hospinian, however, denies that any mention of this custom occurs till about the year 455, and is extremely indignant with Polydorus for saying that it was instituted by the Apostles.†

It had also the name of Dominica Magna, or the Great Lord's Day, because of the "great and many infallible good things that were conferred on the faithful the week ensuing, namely, death abolished, slander, and the tyranny of Satan, removed by the painful and ignominious death of our Saviour."‡

Lastly, it was called Capitilavium by the vulgar, because it was a custom on that day to wash the heads of

* Encheson is a law term, borrowed from the French, signifying the "cause or reason wherefore any thing is done." See Glossographia, sub voce.

+ Caruit autem istis nominibus (Pascha Floridum scilicet, et Dominica in Ramis Palmarum,) longo tempore. Unde credibile est sequentibus aliquot sæculis post natum Christum, nomen cum superstitione incæpisse demum. Mentio ejus primum fit circa annum Domini, 455; nam Dominicæ in Ramis Palmarum titulum, sed eum planè nudum, habet quædam homilia Maximi Taurinensis, qui circa hæc tempora vixit, in qua illud tantum ex psalmo 21. 'Deus, deus, respice in me' &c. tractat; festi ne verbulo quidem meminit. Unde etiam titulus ille non immerito diu post additus judicari debet. Meminit deinde ejus Paulus Diaconus, lib. xxiii. Rom. Rerum circa annum 800. In Constitutione autem eâ de Festis Caroli M. quæ extat, lib. i. cap. 158, nulla ejus fit mentio prorsùs. Quocirca mirandum est quâ authoritate, imò quâ audaciâ, Polydorus Dominicam Palmarum, sicut ut alios dies festos multos, qui diu post apostolorum, tempora demùm festivi habiti sunt, ab apostolis institutos et ordinatos esse dicere ausit." Hospinian De Origine Festorum Christianorum, p. 55, fol. Tiguri, 1612.

Fest. Ang. Rom. p. 39.

the children, who were to be anointed, lest they should be unclean from the previous observance of Quadragesima.* The boughs used on these occasions were previously blessed by the priest, a solemn ritual being appointed for the purpose. In the Doctrine of the Mass, as quoted by Brand, we read that the priest was directed, after the conclusion of the Gospel to array himself in a red cope, and, taking his place upon the third step of the altar, to turn towards the south, palm-flowers and branches of palm being first laid on the altar for the clergy, and upon the altar-step on the south side for others. He is then to recite certain prayers, appropriated to the occasion, and accompanied by crossings and genuflections, duly established in the rubric, the whole being clearly the invention of monkish times, if we may believe the authority of Hospinian as to the period when the custom originated.‡ So far, however, it is easy to understand the policy of the priesthood, who lost no opportunity of impressing scriptural events upon the people's minds by connecting them with fasts or holidays. But one cannot help being surprised at finding these ceremonies so frequently of a low and ridiculous nature, and calculated above all measure to bring the thing celebrated into contempt. Thus on the present occasion the progress of Christ to Jerusalem was burlesqued, rather than commemorated, by a wooden mage placed upon a wooden ass, which went upon wheels, accompanied by troops of priests, and a concourse of people, bearing palms; these they threw upon

* "Vulgus autem ideo eum diem capitilavium vocat, quia tunc moris erat lavandi capita infantum, qui unguendi sunt, ne forte observatione Quadragesimæ sordidati ad unctionem accederent." Sancti Isidori Hispalensis Episc. De Officiis Ecclesiæ, lib. 1. cap. xxvii. Opera. p. 397. Fol. Col. Agrip. 1617.

"Finito evangelio sequatur," &c. Vide Brand's Popular Antiquities, Vol. 1, p. 70, 12mo. London, 1841.

Vide supra, p. 128. Note.

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