It was customary also at this time for the bishops and archbishops to play at dice or ball with their subordinates, and to lay aside all the pomp and distance belonging to their station, a manifest imitation of the Saturnalia. Moreover, the whole body of the ecclesiastics were now wont to shave the head and beard, to bathe and to indue the white stole; and to each of these actions was supposed to attach a spiritual type, the use of the bath signifying that the soul should in like manner be purified; the shaving, that our vices should be laid aside ;; while the white vestments might refer either to the appearance of the angels, or to a firm expectation of the robe of immortality; or it might allude to the severity of penance being over.* Above all, it was requi site that no one on Easter Day should eat anything that had not been blessed by the priest, or at least without first making the sign of the cross over it; for the devil just then was held to be particularly on the watch for souls.† Durand gives a lamentable instance of the fatal consequences arising from the neglect of this precaution, and

Ecclesiasticum, without which notice the reference to Du Cange is about as useful as a direction would be "to a small village somewhere in Europe.” In this version, if we may so call it, the three priests wore head-dresses to represent the three Marys, namely, Mary Magdalen, Mary of Bethany, and Mary of Naim; or, in the words of the old manuscript, from which Du Cange quotes, "tres diaconi canonici induti dalmaticis et amictis, habentes super capita sua ad similitudinem mulierum &c."-i.e. "three deacons clad in dalmatics and amices, and wearing upon their heads after the fashion of women, &c." In Durandus again the ceremony appears to have some variations, two of the apostles St. John and St. Peter being added to the performers. Vide Durandi Rationale Divin. Officior. lib. vi. cap. 87, p. 247.

* Vide Durandi Rat. Div. Offic. lib. vi. cap 86, p. 245.

+ Durand. Rat. Div. Offic. ut supra.

K

of which he was himself an eye-witness.* Two devils got possession of a young girl and tormented her for three years, a miracle which I may add is often renewed in our own days, but with this especial difference, that, when the devil now possesses a woman, he does not torment herself but others. However, on this occasion a cunning exorcist drove the fiends out at last, having previously made them confess that they had been lying perdu in a melon which the girl had incautiously eaten without first making the sign of the cross.

Many similar absurdities were practised upon this day, the growth of a rude age, and which the judicious reader will as little think of imputing to Catholicism, as of condemning the Protestant faith for the ravings of the Munster Anabaptists or for the follies of Joanna Southcott and her disciples.

A variety of sports characterised the Easter holidays among the people. In Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and some other counties, the custom of heaving or lifting prevailed; the men heaving or lifting the women in a chair on Easter Monday, and the women doing the same by the men on the Tuesday following. At the end of the ceremony, the person lifted was duly kissed by his lifters and obliged to pay a forfeit. Sometimes this took place within, but more frequently out of, doors; the custom in some places being to place the victim upright in a chair, while in others he was laid horizontally on the bearers' hands, and raised above their heads. At another period, or perhaps at a different part of the country, the men took the buckles on Monday from the shoes of the women, who the next day returned the compliment, a forfeit having to be paid in either case for the redemption of the plundered article.† * Durandi Rat. Div. Offic. lib vi. cap. 86, p. 245 Brand's Pop. Antiq., vol. i., p. 103,

We are told, moreover, by Durandus,* that in many places it was the custom on the second day after Easter for the women to beat their husbands, and on the third, for the husbands to beat their wives. At Coleshill, in the county of Warwick, there is a custom, that if the young men of the town can catch a hare and bring it to the parson of the parish before ten o'clock, the parson is bound to give them a calf's head and a hundred of eggs for their breakfast, and a groat in money.† The game of quintain, too, was in olden times played upon the water, according to Fitz-Stephens, as quoted by Stow at the end of his Survay of London-" In the Easter holydays they have a sort of naval fight. A shield being strongly fastened to a pole in the middle of the river, a youth prepared to strike it with a lance, stands in the prow of a boat, which is impelled by the stream and oars. If he break the lance against the shield and continues firm, he has succeeded; if the lance strikes strongly and remains whole, he is flung into the river; the boat, impelled by its own motion, passes on. Nevertheless, two boats are stationed near the shield, in which are several young men to pick up the striker upon his fall into the river, or as soon as he rises again upon the water." ‡

* "In plerisque et regionibus mulieres secundâ die post pascha verberant maritos suos; die verò tertiâ, mariti uxores suos."-Durandi Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, lib. vi. ch. 86-9, p. 245. 4to. 1609.

+ Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis, &c.

"In feriis paschalibus ludunt quasi prælia navalia ; in arbore siquidem mediamne scuto fortiter innexo, navicula remo et raptu fluminis cita in prorâ stantem habet juvenem, scutum illud lancea percussurum, qui si scuto illi lanceam illidens frangat eam et immotus persistat, habet propositum, voti compos est; si vero lanceâ integrâ fortiter percusserit, in profluentem amnem dejicitur. Navis motu suo acta præterit. Sunt tamen hinc inde secus scutum duæ

Cakes made of flour, eggs, and tansies, whence they derived the name of tansays, or tansy-cakes, were eaten about this time, the bitter herb being considered a great purifier of the blood, and very necessary after the long fish-diet. These cakes were often made the prizes at games of football, races, &c.*

Hock, or Hoke, Day or Tide.-The derivations of this word are so numerous, and at the same time so uncertain, that it is not worth while to trouble the reader with them. According to Douce, it fell upon the second Tuesday after Easter, while ancient writers say it was celebrated on the quindena Paschæ. The custom of the day was for both men and women to hold a rope across the road, barring the way, and pulling to them the passers by, who were obliged to pay a toll, which was supposed to be appropriated to pious uses.

St. George of Cappadocia, the hero of our nursery tales, in conjunction with the dragon, claims the 23rd of April. Many of the miracles attributed to him were rejected by the Council of Nice who in his case seem to have been troubled with an unusual access of discretion; for after all they were not out of the usual order ; it was only pretended that he could neither be drowned, nor crushed by the imposition of enormous weights, nor burned by red-hot iron or boiling lead, nor be destroyed by being confined in a brazen bull heated to a white heat, all of which things Hospinian pronounces to be suspicious and unworthy of a martyr. He is too fastidious.

naves stationariæ et in eis juvenes plurimi ut eripiant percussorem flumine absorptum cum primo emersus comparet, vel summa rursus cum bullit in unda."-Stephanides, in Stow's Survay, p. 577.

* De Orig. Fest. Christ. p. 79.

Authorities for this may be found in many works. See Lewis' Presbyterian Eloquence, p, 17. Brand's Pop. Antiq., &c.

In former times it was the custom for people of fashion to wear blue coats on St. George's day; because, as some will have it, of the abundant flowering of blue bells in the fields about that season; or, according to many, because blue was the national colour, as Saint George was the national saint; and, therefore, the one was appropriate to the other.

St. Mark's Day or Eve-was observed, not as a fast, but as a day of abstinence, which in the Church of Rome meant very different things. On fast-days it allowed but one meal in four-and-twenty hours; while on days of abstinence, provided the people abstained from flesh and made but a moderate meal, they were indulged in a collation at night. The reason of this privation, originally ordained by Saint George the Great, the Apostle of England, was that they might imitate Saint Mark's disciples, the first Christians of Alexandria, who under his guidance were eminent for piety and fasting.† Many allusions are made to this by old writers; and Davies tells us that " upon St. Mark's Day after Easter, which was commonly fasted throughout all the country, and no flesh eaten upon it, the friars with the monks had solemn procession and went to the Bow, or Bough, Church with the procession, and had very solemn service there and one of the monks did make a sermon to all the people of the parish that came thither." Nor was the day without its superstitions. Brand was informed by a clergyman of Yorkshire, that it was a custom of the people of that county to "sit and watch in the church porch on St. Mark's Eve from eleven o'clock at night till one in the morning. The third year-for this must

* Wheatley, Rational Illustration, p. 201, fol. Lond. 1720. + Ibid. p. 202.

Ancient Rites, &c. of the Church of Durham, published by J. D. of Kidwelly, p. 156, 12mo. London, 1672.