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This day also, like those immediately preceding it, had its peculiar superstition. Amongst other things it was believed that whatever was asked of Heaven on Whitsunday would be infallibly granted, a notable instance of which we have in the Echo of a certain fanatic,* who called himself Arise Evans, and who tells us, hearing some say that whatsoever one did ask of God upon Whitsunday morning at the instant when the sun arose and play'd, God would grant it him; having a charitable beliefe of the report, being willing to try all the ways possible to obtain my petition, I arose betimes on Whitsunday morning, and went up a hill, at a place called Gole Ronnw, to see the sun arise-Gole Ronnw in Eng

Author est anonymus, qui de Festo Pentecostes agens hoc habet : 'Judæi quatuor præcipua celebrant solemnia; Pascha, Pentecosten, Scenopegiam, Encænia. Nos autem duo de illis celebramus, Pascha et Pentecosten, sed alia ratione. Illi celebrant Pentecosten, quia tunc legem perceperunt; nos autem ideo, quia tunc Spiritus Sanctus missus est discipulis. Illi susceperunt tabulis lapideis extrinsecus scripta, ad designandam eorum duritiem, quoniam usque ad spiritualem intellectum literæ non pertingebant; sed Spiritus Sanctus datus est sexaginta duobus discipulis in corde, digito Dei spiritualem intellectum intus dedicante. Ideoque Dies intellectus dicitur Witsonen day, vel item Vitsonenday; quia prædecessores nostri omne lac ovium et vaccarum suarum solebant dare pauperibus illo die, pro Dei amore, ut puriores efficirentur ad recipiendum Donum Spiritus Sancti.'Quocum, fere ad verbum, consentit manuscriptus alter hoc titulo Doctrina quomodo Curatus possit sanctorum vitas per annum populo denunciare. Et certe quod de lacte vaccarum refert, illud percognitum habeo, in agro Hamptoniensi (an et alibi nescio) decimas lacticiniorum venire vulgo sub hoc nomine, The Whites of Kine; apud Leicestrenses etiam Lacticinia vulgariter dicuntur Whitemeat.”Wheatley's Rational Illustration of Common Prayer, p. 241, Folio, Lond. 1720.

*

An Echo to the voice from Heaven, or a narration of the life and manner of the special calling and visions of Arise Evans. 12mo. Blackfriars, 1652, p. 9.

lish is, they will give light—and seeing the sun at its rising skip, play, dance, and turn about like a wheel, I fell down upon my knees."

At this particular season were used to be celebrated the so-called Whitsun-ales. Of the meaning and derivation of this word I shall speak presently; the sport, or feast is thus described by Rudder.* "Two persons are chosen previous to the meeting, to be lord and lady of the yule who dress as suitably as they can to the characters they assume. A large empty barn, or some such building, is provided for the lord's hall, and fitted up with seats to accommodate the company. Here they assemble to dance and to regale in the best manner their circumstances and the place will afford, and each young fellow treats his girl with a ribband or favour. The lord and lady honour the hall with their presence, attended by the steward, sword bearer, purse-bearer, and macebearer, with their several badges or ensigns of office. They have likewise a page, or train-bearer, and a jester drest in a party-coloured jacket, whose ribaldry and gesticulation contribute not a little to the entertainment of some part of the company. The lord's music, consisting generally of a pipe and tabor is employed to conduct the dance. All these figures, handsomely represented in basso-relievo, stand in the north wall of the nave of Cirencester church, which vouches sufficiently for the antiquity of the custom. Some people think it a commemoration of the ancient drink-lean, a day of festivity formerly observed by the tenants and vassals of the lord of the fee within his manor, the memory of which, on

*

History of Gloucestershire, p. 23. Folio, Cirencester. 1779. Yule, i.e. the festival. This affords a sufficient proof of what I have stated above, that the word, yule, was not originally restricted to Christmas, but meant a festival generally.

account of the jollity of those meetings, the people have thus preserved ever since. It may notwithstanding have its rise in Druidism,* as on these occasions they always erect a May-pole, which is an eminent sign of it. I shall just remark that the mace is made of silk finely plaited with ribbands on the top, and filled with spices and perfume for such of the company to smell to as desire it. Does not this afford some light towards discovering the original use, and account for the name of the mace, now carried in ostentation before the steward of the court on court days, and before the chief magistrate in corporations; as the presenting of spices by great men at their entertainments was a very ancient practice."

From what Aubrey says, these Whitsun-ales supplied the place of poor-rates, which did not exist at all in his time; but indeed there is something so delightful in his picture of the general happiness of the lower classes in the age immediately preceding his own-mixed up, it must be owned, with more questionable matters,—that I can not resist the temptation of transcribing it: "No younger brothers then were by the custom and constitution of the realm to betake themselves to trades, but were churchmen or retainers, and servants to great men, rid good horses, now and then took a purse, and their blood, that was bred of the good tables of their masters, was upon every occasion freely let out in their quarrels; it was then too common among their masters to have feuds with one another; and their servants at market, or where they met

*

May!-unquestionably it had. It would be hard indeed to find any popular festival that did not spring from some ancient religious observance, and Druidism being the earliest known form of religion in England, to what other source can we refer them? That Druidism itself was borrowed from the east is another matter.

in that slashing age, did commonly bang one another's bucklers. Then an esquire when he rode to town, was attended by eight or ten men in blue coats with badges. The lords-then lords in deed as well as title-lived in their countries like petty kings,-had jura regalia belonging to their seignories, had their castle and boroughs, and sent burgesses to the Lower House; had gallows within their liberties, where they could try, condemn, draw and hang; never went to London but in parliamenttime, or once a year to do their homage and duty to the king. The lords of manors kept good houses in their countries, did eat in their Gothick halls at the high table— in Scotland still the architecture of a lord's house is thus, viz, a great open hall, a kitchen and buttery, a parlour, over which a chamber for my lord and lady; all the rest lye in common, viz. the men-servants in the hall, the women in a common room, or oriele, the folk at the side tables-oriele is an ear, but here it signifies a little room at the upper end of the hall, where stands a square or round table, perhaps in the old times was an oratory; in every old Gothick hall is one. The meat was served up by watch-words. Jacks are but an invention of the other age; the poor boys did turn the spits, and licked the dripping-pan, and grew to be huge, lusty knaves. The beds of the servants and retainers were in the great halls, as now in the guard-chamber, &c. The hearth was commonly in the middle, as at most colleges, whence the saying, Round about our Coal-fire. Here in the halls were the mummings, cob-loaf stealing, and great number of old Christmas plays performed. Every baron and gentleman of estate kept great horses for a man at arms. Lords had their armories to furnish some hundreds of The halls of justices of the peace were dreadful to behold; the skreens were garnish'd with corslets and

men.

helmets gaping with open mouth, with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern calivers and petronils (in King Charles the First's time) turned into muskets and pistols. Then were entails in fashion, a good prop for monarchy. Destroying of manours began temp. Henry VIII. but now common; whereby the mean people live lawless, nobody to govern them, they care for no body, having no dependance on any body. By this method, and by the selling of the church lands, is the ballance of the government quite altered and put into the hands of the common people. No ale-houses, nor yet inns, were there then, unless upon great roads. When they had a mind to drink they went to the fryaries; and when they travell'd, they had entertainment at the religious houses for three days, if occasion so long requir'd. The meeting of the gentry was not then at tipling houses, but in the fields or forests, with their hawks and hounds, with their bugle-horns in silken bordries.* This part (north of Wiltshire) very much abounded with forests and parks. Thus were good spirits kept up, and good horses and hides made; whereas now the gentry of the nation are so effeminated by coaches, they are so far from managing great horses, that they know not how to ride hunting-horses, besides the spoiling of several trades dependant. In the last age every yeoman almost kept a sparrow-hawk; and it was a divertisement for young gentlewomen to manage sparrow-hawks and

merlins.

"In King Henry the Eighth's time one Dame Julian↑

* Borderies, i.e. BALDRICKS, or girdles; but I do not remember having ever met with the word so spelt before.

+This, I presume, alludes to a work by Juliana Berners, or Barnes, prioress of Sopwell, near St. Albans. If so, Aubrey is not quite correct in his account of it, for it is only the portion, called the GESTYS