it has received certain others; Ignis sacer, rual des artus, ergot, &c., and it was not unknown to the ancients. In the Cleveland country, the disease, instead of St. Anthony's fire, is known as Wildfire. The alleged reason was that the people of Dauphiny, cured by the saint of this complaint, gave it his name; but the real fact seems to be, that the disease sprang from his penury and physical undernourishment, and that the sufferers in this province were apt to be cured by being received into the Abbey of St. Antoine at Vienne, where they were properly fed. Sir John Bramston notes the death of his daughter-in-law Elizabeth Mountford, 9th December, 1689, and describes this complaint, to which she seems to have succumbed. "She had been very ill," he says, "with a distemper called St. Anthonie's fier, her eyes, nose, face, and head swelled vastly; at length it took her tongue and throat."-Autobiography, p. 348. A writer in the Globe newspaper, March 6th, 1899, observes: "One of the most picturesque customs in Mexico is that of blessing animals, called the blessings of San Antonio. The poorer class take their domestic animals of all kinds, dogs, cats, parrots, sheep, horses, burros, &c., to be sprinkled with holy water, and to receive through the priest St. Anthony's blessing. It is the custom of the common class to clean and bedeck their animals specially for this blessing. Dogs are gaily decorated with ribbons tied around their necks. Sheep are washed thoroughly until their fleece is as white as snow, and then taken to the father to be blessed. The beaks of the parrots are gilded. Horses and burros are adorned with garlands. Anthony of Padua, St., Abbot and Confessor. Riley furnishes the substance of the oath exacted in 1311, 4. Edward III., from the Renter as to the swine of the House of St. Anthony or Antonine, whereby that official was restrained from making the privilege enjoyed by such animals a cover for begging or alms, and from putting bells round their necks, or suffering others to do so in regard to their property to the extent of his power. Memorials of London Life, 1868, p. 83. Davis, Suppl. Glossary, 1881, P. 19. The exemption from the ordinary regulations in regard to vagrant swine also prevailed in mediæval times with perhaps greater latitude. Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 352. Bale, in his 'Kynge Johan," says: 'Lete Saynt Antoynes hogge be had in some regarde." There is an early notice of the legend of St. Anthony and the pigs to be found in the "Book of Days under January 17. 66 In The author mentions before persons "who runne up and downe the country, crying, "Have you anything to bestow upon my lord S. Anthonies swine?" Apostle Spoons.—It was anciently the custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as presents to the child: these spoons were called Apostle spoons, because the figures of the twelve Apostles were chased or carved on the tops of the handles. Opulent sponsors gave the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four; and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint in honour of whom the child received its name. It is in allusion to this custom that when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young Princess, Shakespear makes the King reply, "Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons." In the year 1560, we find entered in the books of the Stationers' Company: spoyne, the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte, with the pycture of St. John." Ben Jonson also, in his Bartholomew Fair," mentions spoons of this kind: "And all this for the hope of a couple of Apostle spoons and a cup to eat caudle in." So, in Middleton's "Chaste Maid in Cheapside," 1630: "Second Gossip: What has he given her? What is it, Gossip? Third Gossip: A faire highstanding cup and two great postle spoons, one of them gilt." Again, in Davenant's "Wits," 1636: "A "My pendants, carcanets, and rings, My christening caudle-cup and spoons, Are dissolved into that lump.' Again, in the "Noble Gentleman," by Beaumont and Fletcher: "I'll be a gossip. Bewford, I have an odd Apostle spoon." Shipman, in his "Gossips," is pleasant on the failure of the custom of giving Apostle spoons, &c., at christenings: Especially since Gossips now Comp. Nares, Glossary, 1859, and Halliwell's Dict., 1860, in vv. Apparitions. "The Chylde of Bristowe," the romances of "Sir Ama das " and "The Avowynge of King 66 "Are ye not fiends, but mortal bodies, then?" shall I pray for you?' To which he replied, I am as well as need be, but prayer is at all times good,' and with these words he vanished.' On the following Saturday, at five o'clock in the morning, Father Raby reappeared, having this time a long white beard and a white staff in his hand. Whereupon, says Darley, "I was afraid, but he, leaning on his staff, said to me, 'I am sorry that I did not live to become a martyr;' and I answered, that I thought he was as well as Arthur," Shakespear's "Hamlet," the though he had been a martyr. But he ballad of "William and Margaret," Dry- said, Nay, for my Lord of Rochester and den's "Cymon and Iphigenia" (a very our father were next to the angels.' I ancient fiction in a comparatively modern asked What else?' He replied, The dress), may be mentioned in passing, as angels of peace lamented and mourned unfair samples of the various shapes which ceasingly and again he vanished." The the inhabitants of the Land of Shadows "Lord of Rochester " was, of course, have taken from time to time at the bid- Bishop Fisher. A curious and interesting ding of poets, playwrights, novelists, and account of the pretended visions of Elizaballadmongers. Scott has sufficiently de- beth Barton, whose case excited so strong monstrated, in his "Letters on Demon- a sensation in the reign of Henry VIII., ology and Witchcraft," that the appear-will be found in Mr. Thomas Wright's ance of spectres to persons in their sleep, Collection of Original Letters. On the and even otherwise, can in most cases be Suppression of the Monasteries, 1843. In explained on the most common-place "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingmedical principles, and originates in menton," 1601, Matilda feels the man who has tal illusions engendered by undue indul- been sent by King John to poison her and gence or constitutional debility. A great the abbess, and says: deal of learning in connection with our popular superstitions generally is in that work most entertainingly conveyed to us; but I do not feel that I should be rendering any substantial service by transplanting thence to these pages detached passages illustrative of the immediate subject. The "Letters" should be read in their full integrity, for they are among the most admirable things Scott has left. In connection with the subject of apparitions, may be cited the visions of the Holy Maid of Kent, and the vision of John Darley, a Carthusian monk. The history of the former is perhaps too familiar to need any recapitulation here. Darley relates that, as he was atending upon the death-bed of Father Raby, in the year 1534, he said to the expiring man: "Good Father Raby, if the dead can visit the living, I beseech you to pay a visit to me by and by" and Raby answered, "Yes," immediately after which he drew his last breath. But on the same afternoon about five o'clock, as Darley was meditating in his cell, the departed man suddenly appeared to him in a monk's habit, and said to him, Why do you not follow our father?" "And I replied," Darley tellse us, Why?' He said, 'Because he is a martyr in heaven next to the angels.' Then I said," says Darley:" "Where are all our other fathers who did like him?' He answered and said' They are all pretty well, but not as well as he is.' And then I asked him how he was, and he said 'Pretty well.' And I said, Father, 666 66 The author of the popular ballad of "William and Margaret" (quoted in the Knight of the Burning Pestle," 1613), in describing Margaret's ghost, says: 66 "Her face was like an April morn, In Aubrey's Miscellanies, 1696, there strokes that rival the felicity of that dash of the sponge which (as Pliny tells us) hit off so well the expression of the froth in Protogenes' dog. It is impossible not to envy the author the conception of a thought which we know not whether to call more comical or more pointedly satirical. Comp. Ghosts, Spirits, &c. Apollonia's Day, St. (Feb 9.) In the Comedy of Calisto and Meliboa, circa 1520, in Hazlitt's Dodsley, i.: "It is for a prayer mestres my demandyng, That is sayd ye haue of Seynt Appolyne For the toth ake wher of this man is in pyne." In the Conflict of Conscience, by N; Woodes. 1581, this "virgin and martyr,' it is said, should be invoked in cases of toothache. Apple-Howling. In several counties the custom of apple-howling (or Yuling), to which Herrick refers in his "Hesperides," is still in observance. A troop of boys go round the orchards in Sussex, Devonshire, and other parts, and forming a ring about the trees, they repeat these doggerel lines: "Stand fast root, bear well top, Full quarter sacks full." words: "Stand fast root; bear well top; Every bough apple enow." ΟΙ For which incantation the confused rabble expect a gratuity in money drink, which is no less welcome: but if they are disappointed of both, they with great solemnity anathematize the owners and trees with altogether as significant a curse. "It seems highly probable that this custom has arisen from the ancient one of perambulation among the heathens, when they made prayers to the gods for the use and blessing of the fruits coming up. with thanksgiving for those of the preceding year; and as the heathens supplicated Eolus, god of the winds, for his favourable blasts, so in this custom they still retain his name with a very small variation; this ceremony is called Youling, and the word is often used in their invo cations." Comp. Twelfth Day, Wassail Appleton-Thorn. 66 April Fools.-Maurice, speaking of "the First of April, or the ancient Feast of the Vernal Equinox, equally observed in India and Britain," tells us: The first of April was anciently observed in Britain as a high and general festival, in through every order of its inhabitants; which an unbounded hilarity reigned entering into the sign Aries, the New for the sun, at that period of the year, Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight, was then supthe great antiquity of the observance of posed to have commenced. The proof of this annual festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports, anciently celebrated in this country on the first of April, to have long since ceased: and although the changes occasioned, during a long lapse of years, by the shifting of the Equinoctial points, have in Asia itself been productive of important astronomical alterations, as to the exact era of the comcontinents some very remarkable traits of mencement of the year; yet on both the jocundity which then reigned, remain even to these distant times. Of those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry, the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of the month; but this Colonel Pearce proves to have been an immemorial custom among the Hindoos, at a celebrated festival holden about the same period in India, which is called 'the Huli Festival.' During the Huli, when doos of every class, one subject of divermirth and festivity reign among the Hinsion is to send people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. March, and the last day is the general The Huli is always in holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this English custom but it is unquestionably very ancient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With 66 In the Cap us, it is chiefly confined to the lower class that he had been anticipated. of people; but in India high and low join "The Parson's Wedding,' in it; and the late Suraja Doulah, I am tain says: Death! you might have left told, was very fond of making Huli Fools, word where you went, and not put me to though he was a Mussulman of the high-hunt like Tom Fool." So, in Defoe's est rank. They carry the joke here so "Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campfar, as to send letters, making appoint- bel," 1732, p. 163: "I had my labour for ments in the name of persons who, it is my pains; or, according to a silly custom known, must be absent from their house in fashion among the vulgar, was made at the time fixed upon; and the laugh an April-Fool of, the person who had enis always in proportion to the trouble gaged me to take these pains never meetgiven.' The least inquiry into the ancient ing me." In the "British Apollo," 1708, customs of Persia, or the minutest ac- is the following query: "Whence quaintance with the general astronomical proceeds the custom of making April mythology of Asia, would have taught Fools? Answer. It may not improColonel Pearce that the boundless hilarity perly be derived from a memorable and jocund sports prevalent on the first transaction happening between the day of April in England, and during the Romans and Sabines, mentioned by DioHuli Festival of India, have their origin nysius, which was thus: the Romans, in the ancient practice of celebrating, about the infancy of the city, wanting with festival rites the period of the Ver- wives, and finding they could not obtain nal Equinox, or the day when the new the neighbouring women by their peaceyear of Persia anciently began." Ind. able addresses, resolved to make use of a Antiq., vi., 71. Cambridge tells us that stratagem; and accordingly Romulus inthe first day of April was a day held in stituted certain games, to be performed in esteem among the alchemists, because the beginning of April (according to the Basilius Valentinus was born on it. In Roman Calendar), in honour of Neptune. the North of England persons thus im- Upon notice thereof, the bordering inhabiposed upon are called " April gowks." A tants, with their whole families, flocked gouk or gowk is properly a cuckoo, and to Rome to see this mighty celebration, is used here metaphorically in vulgar where the Romans seized upon a language for a fool. The cuckoo is in- great number of the Sabine virgins, deed, everywhere a name of contempt. and ravished them, which imposition Gauch, in the Teutonic, is rendered stul- we suppose may be the foundation tus, fool, whence also our Northern word, of this foolish custom." This solua goke or a gawky. In Scotland, upon tion is ridiculed in No. 18 of the same April Fool Day, they have a custom of work as follows: "hunting the gowk," as it is termed. This is done by sending silly people upon fools' errands from place to place by means of a letter, in which is written : "On the first day of April Hunt the Gowk another mile." A custom, says "the Spectator," prevails everywhere among us on the first of April, when everybody strives to make as many fools as he can. The wit chiefly consists in sending persons on what are called "sleeveless errands, for the "History of Eve's Mother," for "pigeon's milk," with similar ridiculous absurdities. He takes no notice of the rise of this singular kind of anniversary. But Dr. Pegge, in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1766, has a tolerably plausible conjecture that the first of April ceremonies may be deducible from the old New Year's Day rejoicings. New Year's Day formerly falling on the 25th March, the first of April would have been the octaves on which the proceedings may have terminated with some such mummeries as these. A writer in one of the papers, under date of April 1, 1792, advances a similar theory, not aware "Ye witty sparks, who make pretence To answer questions with good sense, How comes it that your monthly Phobus Is made a fool by Dionysius? For had the Sabines, as they came, Pray think, and give a better reason." Poor Robin, in his "Almanack for 1760," alludes to All Fools' Day, and to the practice of sending persons "to dance Moll Dixon's round," and winds up with the query-Which is the greatest fool, the man that went, or he that sent him? The following verses are hardly perhaps worth quoting: "While April morn her Folly's throne exalts: While Dob calls Nell, and laughs because she halts; While Nell meets Tom, and says his tail Then laughs in turn, and calls poor Let us, my Muse, thro' Folly's harvest range, And glean some Moral into Wisdom's grange, Verses on several Occasions, 1782, p. 50 Hone, in his Every Day Book, of course mentions this custom, and illustrates it by the urchin pointing out to an old gentleman that his handkerchief is falling out of his tail-pocket. The French, too, have their All-Fools' Day, and call the person imposed upon "an April Fish," Poisson d'Avril. Minshew renders the expression, “Poisson d'Avril," a young bawd; a page turned pandar; a mackerell; which is thus explained by Bellingen: "Je sçay que la plus part du monde ignorant cette raison, l'attribue à une autre cause, & que parceque les marchands de chair humaine, ou courtiers de Venus, sont deputez a faire de messages d'Amour & courent de part et d'autre pour faire leur infame traffic; on prend aussy plaisir à faire courir ceux qu'on choisit á ce jour-lá pour objet de raillerie, comme si on leur vouloit faire exercer ce mestier honteux." Ibid. He then confesses his ignorance why the month of April is selected for this purpose, unless, says he, "on account of its being the season for catching mackerell, or that men, awaking from the torpidity of the winter season, are particularly influenced by the passions, which, suddenly breaking forth from a long slumber, excite them to the pursuit of their wonted pleasures." This may perhaps account for the origin of the word " macquereau" in its obscene sense. Leroux, "Dictionnaire Comique," tom. 1., p. 70, quotes the following: "Et si n'y a ne danger ne peril Mais j'en feray votre poisson d'Avril." Poesies de Pierre Michault. Goujet, Biblioth. Franç. tom. ix., p. 351. The Festival of Fools at Paris, held on this day, continued for two hundred and forty years, when every kind of absurdity and indecency was committed. This was probably a legacy from Pagan times, when, according to the authorities presently cited, the Calends of January were set apart by all the early Christians for a species of loose festival. Conf. "Montacut. Orig. Eccles." pars prior, p. 128. "Maeri Hiero-lexicon," p. 156; "Joannes Boemus Aubanus," p. 265 (all quoted by Brand). One of the Popes prohibited these unholy rites on pain of anathema, as appears from a Mass inserted in some of the old missals, "ad prohibendum ab Idolis." The French appear to have had analogous usage on another occasion: envoit au Temple les Gens un peu "A la Saint Simon et St. Jude on simple demander de Nefles (Medlars) a fin de les attraper & faire noircir an par des Valets."-Sauval Antiq. de Paris, vol. ii., p. 617.-DOUCE. The Quirinalia were observed in honour of Romulus on the 11th of the kal. of March; that is, the 19th of February. "Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? Either because they allowed this day (as Juba tell us) to those who could not ascertain their own tribes, or because they permitted those who had missed the celebration of the Fornacalia in their proper tribes, along with the rest of the people, either out of negligence, absence, or ignorance,, to hold their festival apart on this Plu. Quæst. Rom.; Opera, cum day." Xylandri notis, fol. Franc. 1599, tom. ii., cated to Mr. Brand by the Rev. W. Walp. 285. The translation was ter, of Christ's College, Cambridge. The custom of making fools on the 1st of April n Toreen's "Voyage to China," he says: prevails among the Swedes and Spaniards. We set sail on the 1st of April, and the forced to return before Shagen, and to wind made April Fools of us, for we were anchor at Riswopol." For a similar practice at Venice see Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 793. 66 communi it was anciently usual for apprentices to Apprentices. We are to infer that of what we call Christmas-boxes, for Aucollect presents at Christmas in the form in Wiltshire in 1654, tells us that it brey, speaking of an earthern pot dug up resembled an apprentice's earthern Christmas box. Miscellanies, ed. 1857, "Pleasant Remarks on P. 212. In the Humours of Mankind," we read: ""Tis common in England for Prentices, when they are out of their time, to make an entertainment, and call it the Burial of their Wives." This remains a common expression. Arbor Judæ.-See Elder. Archery. With the history of this exercise as a military art we have no concern here. Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., notices it among the summer pastimes of the London youth: and the repeated statutes from the 13th to the 16th century, enforcing the use of the bow, usually ordered the leisure time upon holidays to be passed in its exercise. Sir T. Elyot, in his "Governor," 1531, terms shooting with or in a long bow "principall of all other exercises," and he adds, " in mine opinion, none may bee compared with shooting in the long bowe, & that for sundry vtilities, yt come theroff, wherein it incomparably excelleth all other exercise. For in drawing of a bowe, easy and congruent to his strength, he that shooteth, doth moderately exercise his armes, and the other part of his body and if his bowe be bigger, he must adde too more strength wherin is no lesse : |