[Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, says, that in 1530, at Peterborough Abbey, that prelate on Maundy Thursday "made his maundy there in our Lady's chapel, having fiftynine poor men whose feet he washed and kissed; and after he had wiped them, he gave every of the said poor men twelve pence in money, three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new shoes, a cast of red herrings, and three white herrings; and one of these had two shillings." At the Maundy festival in 1818, in consequence of the advanced age of the King, the number of the poor was one hundred and sixty, it being customary to relieve as many men and a like number of women as he is years old. A new stair-case being then erected to Whitehall chapel, a temporary room was fitted up in Privy Gardens for the ceremony to take place, where two cod, two salmon, eighteen red herrings, eighteen pickled herrings, and four loaves, were given to each person in a wooden bowl, to which was afterwards added three pounds and a half of beef, and another loaf.]

Dr. Clarke, in his Travels in Russia, 1810, i. 55, says: "The second grand ceremony of this season takes place on Thursday before Easter, at noon, when the Archbishop of Moscow washes the feet of the Apostles. This we also witnessed. The priests appeared in their most gorgeous apparel. Twelve monks, designed to represent the twelve Apostles, were placed in a semicircle before the Archbishop. The ceremony is performed in the cathedral, which is crowded with spectators. The archbishop, performing all, and much more than is related of our Saviour in the thirteenth chapter of St. John, takes off his robes, girds up his loins with a towel, and proceeds to wash the feet of them all, until he comes to the representative of St. Peter, who rises, and the same interlocution takes place as between our Saviour and that Apostle."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, li. 500, states, that "it is a general practice of people of all ranks in the Roman Catholic countries to dress in their very best clothes on Maunday Thursday. The churches are unusually adorned, and everybody performs what is called the Stations; which is, to visit several churches, saying a short prayer in each, and giving alms to the numerous beggars who attend upon the occasion," Another writer in the same journal, for July 1783, p. 577, tells us that "the inhabitants of Paris, on

Thursday in Passion Week, go regularly to the Bois de Boulogne, and parade there all the evening with their equipages. There used to be the Penitential Psalms, or Tenebres, sung in a chapel in the wood on that day, by the most excellent voices, which drew together great numbers of the best company from Paris, who still continued to resort thither, though no longer for the purposes of religion and mortification (if one may judge from appearances), but of ostentation and pride. A similar cavalcade I have also seen, on a like occasion, at Naples, the religious origin of which will probably soon cease to be remembered."

GOOD FRIDAY.

[IN the north of England a herb-pudding, in which the leaves of the passion-dock are a principal ingredient, is an indispensable dish on this day. The custom, says Carr, is of ancient date; and it is not improbable that this plant, and the pudding chiefly composed of it, were intended to excite a grateful reminiscence of the Passion, with a suitable acknowledgment of the inestimable blessings of Redemption. This plant, in the parts of fructification, produces fancied representations of the cross, hammer, nails, &c.]

Hospinian tells us that the kings of England had a custom of hallowing rings, with much ceremony, on Good Friday, the wearers of which will not be afflicted with the falling sickness. He adds, that the custom took its rise from a ring which had been long preserved, with great veneration, in Westminster Abbey, and was supposed to have great efficacy against the cramp and falling sickness, when touched by those who were afflicted with either of those disorders. This ring is reported to have been brought to King Edward by some persons coming from Jerusalem, and which he himself had long before given privately to a poor person, who had asked alms of him for the love he bare to St. John the Evangelist.

Andrew Boorde, in his Breviary of Health, 1557, f. 166, speaking of the cramp, adopts the following superstition among

the remedies thereof: "The Kynge's Majestie hath a great helpe in this matter in halowyng crampe ringes, and so geven without money or petition." Lord Berners, the accomplished translator of Froissart, when ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., writing "to my Lorde Cardinall's grace, from Saragoza, the xxj. daie of June," 1518, says: "If your grace remember me with some crampe ryngs, ye shall doo a thing muche looked for; and I trust to bestowe thaym well with Goddes grace, who evermor preserve and encrease your moost reverent astate,” Harl. MS. 295, f. 119.1

Mr.

Hearne, in one of his manuscript diaries in the Bodleian, lv. 190, mentions having seen certain prayers, to be used by Queen Mary at the consecration of the cramp-ring. Gage Rokewode, in his History of the Hundred of Thingoe, 1838, Introd. p. xxvi, says that in Suffolk "the superstitious use of cramp-rings, as a preservative against fits, is not entirely abandoned; instances occur where nine young men of a parish each subscribe a crooked sixpence, to be moulded into a ring for a young woman afflicted with this malady."

[In the confession of Margaret Johnson, in 1633, a reputed witch, she says: "Good Friday is one constant day for a generall meeting of witches, and that on Good Friday last they had a generall meetinge neere Pendle Water syde;" and Mr. Hampson quotes an old charm for curing the bewitched,

"Upon Good Friday

I will fast while I may,
Until I hear them knell
Our Lord's own bell!"

In the midland districts of Ireland, viz. the province of

"On s'imagine en Flandre, que les enfans, nez le Vendredy-Saint, ont le pouvoir de guerir naturellement des fievres tierees, des fievres quartes, et de plusieurs autres maux. Mais ce pouvoir mest beaucoup suspect, parceque 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 plutost que ceux qui sont nez un autre jour," Traité 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.

Connaught, on Good Friday, it is a common practice with the lower orders of Irish Catholics to prevent their young from having any sustenance, even to those at the breast, from twelve on the previous night to twelve on Friday night, and the fathers and mothers will only take a small piece of dry bread and a draught of water during the day. It is a common sight to see along the roads, between the different market towns, numbers of women, with their hair dishevelled, barefooted, and in their worst garments; all this is in imitation of Christ's passion.]

The old Popish ceremony of Creepinge to the Crosse on Good Friday, is given, from an ancient book of the Ceremonial of the Kings of England, in the Notes to the Northumberland Household Book. The usher was to lay a carpet for the Kinge to " creepe to the crosse upon." The Queen and her Ladies were also to creepe to the Crosse. In an original Proclamation, black letter, dated 26th February, 30 Henry VIII, in the first volume of a Collection of Proclamations in the Archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London, p. 138, we read: "On Good Friday it shall be declared howe creepyng of the Crosse signifyeth an humblynge of ourselfe to Christe before the Crosse, and the kyssynge of it a memorie of our redemption made upon the Crosse."

In a Short Description of Antichrist, the author notes the Popish custom of "Creepinge to the Crosse with egges and apples." "Dispelinge with a white rodde" immediately fellows; though I know not whether it was upon the same day. "To holde forth the Crosse for egges on Good Friday" occurs among the Roman Catholic customs censured by John Bale, in his Declaration of Bonner's Articles, 1554, as is "to creape to the Crosse on Good Friday featly."

It is stated in a curious Sermon, preached at Blandford Forum, in Dorsetshire, January 17th, 1570, by William Kethe, minister, and dedicated to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, p. 18, that on Good Friday the Roman Catholics "offered unto Christe egges and bacon, to be in his favour till Easter Day was past;" from which we may at least gather with certainty that eggs and bacon composed a usual dish on that day. In Whimsies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631, p. 196, we have this trait of " a zealous brother:"-" he is an Antipos to all church-government: when she feasts, he fasts; when she fasts,

he feasts: Good Friday is his Shrove Tuesday: he commends this notable carnall caveat to his family—eate flesh prohibited, it is good against Popery."

upon days [A provincial newspaper, of about the year 1810, contains the following paragraph:-Good Friday was observed with the most profound adoration on board the Portuguese and Spanish men-of-war at Plymouth. A figure of the traitor Judas Iscariot was suspended from the bowsprit end of each ship, which hung till sunset, when it was cut down, ripped up, the representation of the heart cut in stripes, and the whole thrown into the water; after which, the crews of the different ships sung in good style the evening song to the Virgin Mary. On board the Iphigenia, Spanish frigate, the effigy of Judas Iscariot hung at the yard-arm till Sunday evening, and when it was cut down, one of the seamen ventured to jump over after it, with a knife in his hand, to show his indignation of the traitor's crime, by ripping up the figure in the sea; but the unfortunate man paid for his indiscreet zeal with his life; the tide drew him under the ship, and he was drowned.]

The following is Barnabe Googe's account of Good Friday, in his English version of Naogeorgus, f. 51 :—

"Two priestes, the next day following, upon their shoulders beare
The image of the crucifix about the altar neare,

Being clad in coape of crimozen die,1 and dolefully they sing :
At length before the steps, his coate pluckt of, they straight him

bring,

And upon Turkey carpettes lay him down full tenderly,

With cushions underneath his heade, and pillows heaped hie;
Then flat upon the grounde they fall, and kisse both hand and

feete,

And worship so this woodden god with honour farre unmete;
Then all the shaven sort2 falles downe, and foloweth them herein,
As workemen chiefe of wickednesse, they first of all begin :
And after them the simple soules, the common people come,
And worship him with divers giftes, as golde, and silver some,
And others corne or egges againe, to poulshorne persons sweete.
And eke a long-desired price for wicked worship meete.

In the list of Church Plate, Vestments, &c., in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, 10 Henry VI. occurs, " also an olde vestment of red silke lyned with 3elow for Good Friday."

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