By a subsequent entry these pageantries seem to have been continued during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1565, 'Rec. of the players of the stage at Easter, 17. 2s. l§d.”

Barnabe Googe, in his adaptation of Naogeorgus, has thus preserved the ceremonies of the day in the Popish Kingdome, f. 52::

"At midnight then with carefull minde they up to mattens ries,
The Clarke doth come, and after him, the Priest with staring eies.
At midnight strait, not tarying till the daylight doe appeere,
Some gettes in flesh, and, glutton lyke, they feede upon their cheere.
They rost their flesh, and custardes great, and egges and radish store,
And trifles, clouted creame, and cheese, and whatsoever more
At first they list to eate, they bring into the temple straight,
That so the Priest may halow them with wordes of wond'rous
waight.

The friers besides, and pelting priestes, from house to house do roame,
Receyving gaine of every man that this will have at home.
Some raddish rootes this day doe take before all other meate,
Against the quartan ague, and such other sicknesse great.
Straight after this into the fieldes they walke to take the viewe,
And to their woonted life they fall, and bid the reast adewe."

In the Doctrine of the Masse Book, from Wyttonburge, by Nicholas Dorcastor, 1554, in the form of "the halowing of the Pascal Lambe, egges and herbes, on Easter Daye," the following passage occurs: "O God! who art the Maker of all flesh, who gavest commandments unto Noe and his sons concerning cleane and uncleane beastes, who hast also permitted mankind to eate clean four-footed beastes even as egges and green herbs." The form concludes with the following rubrick : "Afterwards, let al be sprinkled with holye water and censed by the priest." Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, p. 276, speaking of Gray's Inn Commons, says :—"In 23 Eliz. (7 Maii) there was an agreement at the cupboard by Mr. Attorney of the Duchy and all the Readers then present, that the dinner on Good Friday, which had been accustomed to be made at the cost and charges of the chief cook, should thenceforth be made at the costs of the house, with like provision as it had been before that time. And likewise, whereas, they had used to have eggs and green sauce on Easter Day, after service and communion, for those gentlemen who came to breakfast, that in like manner they should be provided at the charge of the house."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, July 1783, p. 578, conjectures that "the flowers, with which many churches are ornamented on Easter Day, are most probably intended as emblems of the Resurrection, having just risen again from the earth, in which, during the severity of winter, they seem to have been buried."

[Every person must have some part of his dress new on Easter Day, or he will have no good fortune that year. Another saying is that unless that condition be fulfilled, the birds are likely to spoil your clothes. This is alluded to in Poor Robin ::

"At Easter let your clothes be new

Or else be sure you will it rue."

So says Mr. Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet,—

"Laste Easter I put on my blue

Frock cuoat, the vust time, vier new;
Wi' yaller buttons aal o' brass,
That glitter'd in the zun lik glass;
Bekiaze 'twer Easter Zunday."]

The Festival, 1511, f. 36, says, "This day is called, in many places, Godde's Sondaye: ye knowe well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fyre out of the hall, and the blacke wynter brondes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was shall be gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute." In Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners and Expences, 1797, in the Churchwardens' Accompts of St. Martin Outwich, London, under the year 1525 is the following item :- "Paid for brome ageynst Ester, jd."

"There was an ancient custom at Twickenham," according to Lysons, "of dividing two great cakes in the church upon Easter Day among the young people; but it being looked upon as a superstitious relick, it was ordered by Parliament, 1645, that the parishioners should forbear that custom, and, instead thereof, buy loaves of bread for the poor of the parish with the money that should have bought the cakes. appears that the sum of 11. per annum is still charged upon

It

the vicarage for the purpose of buying penny loaves for poor children on the Thursday after Easter. Within the memory of man they were thrown from the church-steeple to be scrambled for; a custom which prevailed also some time ago at Paddington, and is not yet totally abolished."

Hasted, in his History of Kent, iii. 66, speaking of Biddenden, tells us that "twenty acres of land, called the Bread and Cheese Land, lying in five pieces, were given by persons unknown, the yearly rents to be distributed among the poor of this parish. This is yearly done on Easter Sunday, in the afternoon, in 600 cakes, each of which have the figures of two women impressed on them, and are given to all such as attend the church; and 270 loaves, weighing three pounds and a half a-piece, to which latter is added one pound and a half of cheese, are given to the parishioners only, at the same time. There is a vulgar tradition in these parts, that the figures on the cakes represent the donors of this gift, being two women, twins, who were joined together in their bodies, and lived together so till they were between twenty and thirty years of age. But this seems without foundation. The truth seems to be, that it was the gift of two maidens of the name of Preston; and that the print of the women on the cakes has taken place only within these fifty years, and were made to represent two poor widows, as the general objects of a charitable benefaction." An engraving of one of these cakes will be found in Hone's Every Day Book, ii. 443.

The following is copied from a collection of Carols in Douce's collection,

"Soone at Easter cometh Alleluya,

With butter, cheese, and a tansay :"

which reminds one of the passage in the Oxford Sausage, p. 22,

"On Easter Sunday be the pudding seen,

To which the tansey lends her sober green."

On Easter Sunday, as I learnt from a clergyman of Yorkshire, the young men in the villages of that county have a custom of taking off the young girls' buckles. On Easter Monday young men's shoes and buckles are taken off by the young women. On the Wednesday they are redeemed by

little pecuniary forfeits, out of which an entertainment, called a Tansey Cake, is made, with dancing. An account of this custom at Ripon, in Yorkshire, occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1790, p. 719, where it is added, that, some years ago no traveller could pass the town without being stopped, and having his spurs taken away, unless redeemed by a little money, which is the only way to have your buckles returned.”

The following is from Seward's Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, i. 35. "Charles (the Fifth) whilst he was in possession of his regal dignity, thought so slightly of it, that when, one day, in passing through a village in Spain, he met a peasant who was dressed with a tin crown upon his head, and a spit in his hand for a truncheon, as the Easter King (according to the custom of that great festival in Spain), who told the Emperor that he should take off his hat to him: My good friend,' replied the Prince, 'I wish you joy of your new office: you will find it a very troublesome one, I can assure you.'

دوو

A superstitious practice appears to have prevailed upon the Continent, of abstaining from flesh on Easter Sunday, to escape a fever for the whole year. I know not whether it ever reached this island. It was condemned by the Provincial Council of Rheims, in 1583, and by that of Toulouse in 1590. (Traité des Superstitions, 1679, i. 319, 320.)

The following is taken from the Antiquarian Repertory, 1780, iii. 44, from the MS. Collection of Aubrey, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, dated 1678: "The first dish that was brought up to the table on Easter Day was a redherring riding away on horseback; i. e. a herring ordered by the cook something after the likeness of a man on horseback, set in a corn sallad. The custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter, which is still kept up in many parts of England, was founded on this, viz. to shew their abhorrence to Judaism at that solemn commemoration of our Lord's Resurrection."

EASTER EGGS; COMMONLY CALLED PASCHE, OR PASTE EGGS.

[IN the North of England it is still the custom to send reciprocal presents of eggs1 at Easter to the children of families respectively betwixt whom any intimacy exists. The modes adopted to prepare the eggs for presentation are the following: there may be others which have escaped my recollection. The eggs being immersed in hot water for a few moments, the end of a common tallow candle is made use of to inscribe the names of individuals, dates of particular events, &c. The warmth of the egg renders this a very easy process. Thus inscribed, the egg is placed in a pan of hot water, saturated with cochineal, or other dye-woods; the part over which the tallow has been passed is impervious to the operation of the dye; and consequently when the egg is removed from the pan, there appears no discoloration of the egg where the inscription has been traced, but the egg presents a white inscription on a coloured ground. The colour of course depends upon the taste of the person who prepared the egg; but usually much variety of colour is made use of. Another method of ornamenting "pace eggs" is, however, much neater, although more laborious, than that with the tallow candle. The egg being dyed, it may be decorated in a very pretty manner, by means of a penknife, with which the dye may be scraped off, leaving the design white, on a coloured ground. An egg is frequently divided into compartments, which are filled up according to the taste and skill of the designer. Generally one compartment contains the name, and (being young and unsophisticated) also the

The learned Court de Gebelin, in his Religious History of the Calendar, iv. 251, informs us that this custom of giving eggs at Easter is to be traced up to the theology and philosophy of the Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks, Romans, &c., among all of whom an egg was an emblem of the universe, the work of the supreme Divinity. Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, renders the Pasch, or Easter Egg, by Ovum Paschale, croceum, seu luteum. It is plain, from hence, that he was acquainted with the custom of dying or staining of eggs at this season. Ainsworth leaves out these two epithets, calling it singly Ovum Paschale. I presume he knew nothing of this ancient custom, and has therefore omitted the croceum and luteum, because it is probable he did not understand them.