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, circâ 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, Hats full, caps full, Full quarter sacks full." Hasted says: words: "Stand fast root; bear well top; Every bough apple enow." or 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 Mr. Wilbraham, in his "Cheshire Glossary," 1826, says: "At Appleton, Cheshire, it was the custom at the time of the wake to clip and adorn an old hawthorn which till very lately stood in the middle of the town. This ceremony is called the Bawming (dressing) of Appleton Thorn." Appleton-Thorn. 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 which an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight, was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the observance 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 the shifting of Equinoctial points, have in Asia itself been productive of important astronomical alterations, exact to the mencement of the year; yet on both continents some very remarkable traits of 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 immemorial custom among the Hindoos, Colonel Pearce proves to have been an at a celebrated festival holden about the same period in India, which is called 'the mirth and festivity reign among the HinHuli Festival.' During the Huli, when doos of every class, one subject of diversion 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. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general 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 as era of the com us, it is chiefly confined to the lower class "On the first day of April A custom, says "the Spectator," prevails In that he had been anticipated. "Ye witty sparks, who make pretence Is made a fool by Dionysius? 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-là pour objet de raillerie, comme si on leur vouloit faire exercer ce mestier honteux." Ibid. He 66 then confesses his ignorance why the par des Valets."-Sauval Antiq. de Paris, it was anciently usual for apprentices to P. 212. In Arbor Judæ.-See Elder. 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." cise. 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 an analogous usage on another occasion : envoit au Temple les Gens peu "A la Saint Simon et St. Jude on simple demander de Nefles (Medlars) a fin de les attraper & faire noircir un on 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 exerSir 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 : valiant exercise then in any other. In shooting at buttes, or broade arrowe markes, is a mediocritie of exercise of the lower partes of the bodye and legges, by going a little distaunce a measurable pase. At couers or pryckes, it is at his pleasure that shoteth, howe faste or softly he listeth to goo, and yet is the praise of the shooter, neyther more ne lesse, for as farre or nigh the marke is his arrow, whan he goeth softly, as when he runneth." No one requires to be told, that a few years after the appearance of Elyot's "Governor," the learned Ascham devoted an entire treatise to this peculiarly national subject. His "Toxophilus " was published in 1545, and is still justly celebrated and admired. The regulations connected with the practice of archery constantly underwent alteration or modification. The common "Abridgement of the Statutes" contains much highly curious matter under this, as under other heads. It is sufficiently remarkable that by the Act, 12 Edw. IV. c. 2 (1472), each Venetian merchant, importing wine into England, was required to give in with each butt "four good bowstaves," under the penalty of a fine of 6s. 8d. for each default. This demand was enlarged, 1 Richard III. c. 11, in the case, at any rate, of Malvoisin or Tyre wine, with every butt of which ten bowstaves were to be reckoned in, under pain of 13s. 4d. By 19 Hen. VII. c. 2, all bowstaves of the length of six feet and a half were admitted into England free of duty. The price of a bow, by 22 Edw. IV. c. 4, was not to exceed 3s. 4d. under pain of 20s. fine to the seller. In the Robin Hood collection, printed in Hazlitt's Tales and Legends, 1892, p. 312, there is an account of a shooting at Nottingham, under the greenwood shade, to which all the bowmen of the North were freely invited to repair, and the prize to the winner was a silver arrow, feathered with gold. Robin won the award. We are to regard this narrative of a fourteenth century incident as one edited by a late-fifteenth century writer, namely the compiler of the Little Gest. By 6 Hen. VIII. cap. 13, it was ordered: "That non Shote in any crosebow nor handgon excepte he haue possessyons to the yerely valew of ccc. marke or els lycence from hensforth by the kynges placard vnder payne of xli. ye one halfe to the kynge and the other halfe to hym that wyll sew for it and ye forfetour of the same crosbow or handgonne to hym that wyll sease hit by accyon of det/ and yt non kepe any crosebowe or hand gonne in his house on payne of iprisonment & of forfetour to the kynge x li... prouydyd alway that this acte extend not to crosebow makers nor to dwellers i wallyd townes within vii. myle of the see and other holders on the see costes or marchis for agayns Scotlad/kepyng crosebows for theyr defence/ nor to no marchautes hauyng crosebowes & handgonnys to sel only/nor to non host loggyng any ma bryngyng them in to his house, but the forfetur to be onely vpon the brynger." Among the Churchwardens' accounts of St. Laurence Parish, Reading, 1549, is the following entry :"Paid to Will'm Watlynton, for that the p'ishe was indetted to hym for makyng of the Butts, xxxvis." Ibid. St. Mary's Parish, 1566: "Itm. for the makyng of the Buttes, viijs." Ibid. 1622: "Paid to two laborers to playne the grounde where the Buttes should be, vs. vjd." 1629: "Paid towards the butts mending, ijs. vjd." Among the accounts of St. Giles's Parish, 1566, we have: "Itm. for carrying of turfes for the buttes, xvjd." 1605: "Three labourers, two days work aboute turfes for the butts, iiijs." "Carrying ix. load of turfes for the butts, ijs." "For two pieces of timber to fasten on the railes of the buttes, iiijd." 1621: "The parishioners did agree that the Churchwardens and Constables should sett up a payre of buttes called shooting butts, in such place as they should think most convenient in St. Giles Parish, which butts cost xivs. xjd." Wood, in his Bowman's Glory,' 1682, has republished some of the statutes relating to archery; but the earliest which he gives is of the 29 Hen. VIII. A remarkably curious tract is printed by Wood in the same volume, called "A Řemembrance of the Worthy Show and Shooting of the Duke of Shoreditch (a man named Barlow, whom Henry VIII. jocularly so entitled) and his Associates, &c., 1583." Queen Elizabeth was fond of this sport, and indulged in it, as Henry Machyn the Diarist informs us, during her visit to Lord Arundel at Nonsuch, in the autumn of 1559. "The v day of August." Machyn, "the Queens grace removyd from Eltham unto Non-shyche, my lord of Arundells, and ther her grace had as gret chere evere nyght and bankettes. as ever was sene. 66 says On monday the Quens grace stod at her standyng in the further park, and there was corse after-." Upon which Mr. Nichols quotes Hunter's "New Illustrations of Shakespeare," to show that shooting with the cross-bow was a favourite amusement then and afterward among ladies of rank. But this fact had been already sufficiently demonstrated by Strutt, who has shown that in England women excelled and delighted in the use of the common bow and cross-bow from a very early date. "In the sixteenth century we meet with heavy complaints," says Strutt, "respecting the disuse of the long-bow, and especially in the vicinity of London." Stow informs us that before his time it had been cus tomary at Bartholomew-tide for the Lord Mayor, with the Sheriffs and Aldermen, to go into the fields at Finsbury, where the citizens were assembled, and shoot at the standard with broad and flight arrows for games; and this exercise was continued for several days: but in his time it was practised only one afternoon, three or four days after the festival of Saint Bartholomew. Stow died in 1605. After the reign of Chas. 1., archery appears to have fallen into disrepute. Davenant, in a mock poem, entitled "The long Vacation in London," describes the attorneys and proctors as making matches in Finsbury Fields: "With Loynes in canvas bow-case tied, Where arrows stick with mickle pride; Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme; Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him!" A correspondent of the "Gentleman's Magazine" for August, 1731, notices the ancient custom among the Harrow boys, of shooting annually for a silver arrow of the value of £3; this diversion, he states, was the gift of the founder of the school, John Lyon, Esq. About 1753, a society of archers appears to have been established in the Metropolis, who erected targets on the same spot during the Easter and Whitsun holidays, when the best shooter was styled captain, and the second lieutenant for the ensuing year. Of the original members of this society, there were only two remaining when Barrington published his Observations on the Statutes in the " Archæologia." It is now incor porated in the Archers' Division of the Artillery Company. In the latter half of the 18th century, the taste remained dormant; in the earlier part of the next one the Toxophilite Society started at Old Brompton, Robert Cruikshank being one of the members; and of late years the movement has exhibited symptoms of new vitality, and archery-clubs are established in almost every part of the country. The bow, however, has ceased for ever to be a weapon of offence. It has been resigned entirely to the ladies, who form themselves into Toxophilite associations. Archery forms one of the subjects of a series of papers on our Sports and Pastimes, contributed to the Antiquary. Arches, Court of, the original Consistory Court of the see of Canterbury, held in Bow Church, or St. Mary De Arcubus. See Nares, Glossary, in v. Arles, earnest money, given to servants at hiring as a retainer. See Halliwell in v. Armorial Bearings in Inns. See Pegge's Curialia, 1818, p. 349. Arthur, King. "A game used at sea, when nearing the Line, or in a hot latitude. It is performed thus: a man who is to represent King Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig, made out of oakum, or some old swabs, is seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoni ously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying. Hail, King Arthur! If, during this ceremony, the person introduced laughs or smiles, (to which his Majesty endeavours to excite him, by all sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes place with, and then becomes King Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar, who has as little command over his muscles as himself.' Arthur O'Bradley. See Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Arthur O'Bradley..-See Nares, Glossary, 1859, in v. Arthur's Show.-A sort of dramatic spectacle presented before Queen Elizaheth at Mile-End Green, in 1587-8. See Black's History of the Leathersellers' Company, 1871, p. 65, and Hazlitt's Monograph on Shakespear, second edition, 1903. Arvals. In the North of England, at funerals, a particular sort of loaf, called arvel - bread, is distributed among the poor. Brockett, N.C. Gloss.. 1825, p. 7. Mr. Atkinson notices a special kind of bread formerly made at Whitby, for use at the arval-suppers; he describes it as a thin, light, sweet cake." It has occurred to me that the game of hot cockles, of which Aubrey has left us a tolerably good description, originated in the practice of kneading one of these funeral loaves, as the rhyme with which the girls used to accompany the supposed moulding of cockle-bread, begins "My dame is sick and gonne to bed, And Ile go mould my cockle-bread-" And it is not an unreasonable supposition that, in course of time, the reason of the thing was lost, and the practice degenerated into a stupid and indelicate female sport. At the funeral of John Bagford, 1716, Mr. Clifton, a vintner, gave four bottles of sack to be drunk by the guests. Moresin, Papatus, tells us that in England in his time they were so profuse on this occasion, that it cost less to portion off a daughter, than to bury a dead wife. These burial feasts are still kept up in the North of England, and are there called arvals or arvils. The bread distributed on these occasions is called arvil bread. The custom seems borrowed from the ancients, amongst whom many examples of it are collected by Hornman.De miraculis Mortuorum, c. 36. This word occurs in "The Praise of Yorkshire Ale": |