And in such posture place as best may serve To hide his charmer's blushes. Then with shouts (So custom has ordain'd) a largess claim." To the same festal time is referable the MEADOW VERSE. In Herrick's Hesperides we have "The Meddow Verse, or Aniversary, to Mistris Bridget Lowman. This year again the Medow's Deity. To make this neat distinction from the rest, Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall The parting Verse, the Feast there ended. Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever, "If Fates do give Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live, Herrick shall make the Meddow-Verse for you." In parts of Suffolk and Essex, at the termination of the Harvest Home feast, till recently there survived the old custom of "Hallooing Largess." At the beginning of their operations the most skilful of the reapers was appointed a leader with the title of "the lord;" and under his presidency the husbandmen were borne home upon the last load of grain; their wives and children and immediate friends following in procession, carrying the implements used during harvest, with green boughs, a sheaf of wheat, and perhaps a flag or two extemporised from handkerchiefs. At the farmer's house they were provided with a substantial supper, to which neighbouring farmers were generally invited. This was called the "horkey," or Harvest Home. During the day it was the office of "the lord" to collect "largess money" from neighbours and friends; and, at the conclusion of the horkey, the farm labourers assembled upon some adjacent eminence and shouted "Holla, holla, holla,"-Largess; the "holla" being repeated quickly, and all their vocal strength reserved for "largess," on which they dwelt to the full of their voice. These shouts were repeated as often as they had received "largess." In Hertfordshire it was customary for those employed in getting in the corn to meet in companies on the morning next after "Harvest Home," for the purpose of perambulating the neighbourhood to beg what they termed a "fow-largess." In the north of Devon, after the wheat was all cut, they were careful to observe the old custom of "crying the neck." While the labourers were reaping the last field, one of their number most familiar with the traditions of the season, went round to the shocks and sheaves, and selected a little bundle of all the best ears he could find. This bundle, which he tied up very neatly, plaiting and arranging the straws most tastefully, was called "the neck." At the termination of their operations, the reapers, binders, and women, stood round in a circle, in the centre of which was the person with "the neck," which he grasped with both hands. He first stooped and held it near the ground, and all the men around him took off their hats, stooping and holding them with both hands downwards. Then they began to cry, all together, in a very prolonged and harmonious tone, "the neck!” at the same time slowly raising themselves upright, and elevating their arms and hats above their heads; the holder of "the neck" also raising it on high. This was repeated thrice; after which they changed their cry to "wee yen !"-"way yen !" which they prolonged as they did "the neck," and also sounded thrice; with the same movements of the body and arms. Thereupon the company burst out into boisterously joyous laughter, and hats and caps were flung up into the air. Next one of the men secured "the neck" and ran with all possible haste to the farmhouse, where one of the young female domestics stood at the door with a pail of water ready to her hands. If the holder of "the neck" could contrive to get into the house otherwise than by the door at which the girl stood, he could lawfully kiss her; if, however, he failed, he was regularly soused with the contents of the bucket. The explanation of "crying the neck" was that it was designed to give the surrounding country notice of the end of the harvest; "we yen" being the rustic delivery of "we end." It should be added that "the neck" generally was suspended in the farmhouse, sometimes for three or four years. THE FEAST OF SHEEP-SHEARING. AUBANUS notes that the pastoral life was anciently accounted an honourable one, particularly among the Jews and the Romans. In the Old Testament we have record of the festive entertainments of the former on this occasion, particularly in the Second Book of Samuel, where Absalom the king's son was master of the feast; while Varro may be consulted as to the mode of celebration by the latter. In England, particularly in the South, for these festivities are not so common in the North, on the day they begin to shear their sheep they provide a plentiful dinner for the shearers and their friends who visit them on the occasion. A table also, if the weather permit, is spread in the open village for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep is attended with great mirth and festivity. Indeed, the value of the covering of this very useful animal must always have made shearing time, in all pastoral countries, a kind of Harvest Home. In Tusser's Husbandry, under The Ploughman's Feast Days, we have these lines, bearing upon this festivity "Sheep Shearing. "Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corne, The following passage in Ferne's Glory of Generositie would seem to imply that Cheese Cakes were the principal dainty at the Feast of Sheep-shearing. "Well vor your paines (if you come to our Sheep Shering Veast) bum vaith yous taste of our CHEESE CAKE." This is put into the mouth of Columell the Plowman. In The Lancashire Lovers (1640), Camillus the clown, courting Doriclea, tells her: "We will have a lustie CHEESE-CAKE at our Sheepe Wash." The expense attending these festivities seems to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus in Questions of profitable and pleasant Concernings (1594) we read: "If it be a Sheep Shearing Feast, Master Baily can entertaine you with his Bill of Reckonings to his Maister of three Sheapherd's Wages, spent on fresh Cates, besides Spices, and Saffron Pottage." There is a beautiful description of this festivity in Dyer's Poem, called The Fleece, at the end of the first book. According to Piers, on the first Sunday in Harvest, that is, in August, they are careful in Westmeath to drive their cattle into some pool or river and therein swim them. This observance is followed as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast can live the whole year through unless it be thus drenched. The swimming of cattle, especially at this season of the year (writes he), is healthful unto them, as the poet Virgil hath observed "Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri ; "but precisely to do this on the first Sunday in Harvest, I look on as not only superstitious but profane." IN SATURDAY AFTERNOON. N Bourne's time it was usual in country villages, where the politeness of the age had made no great conquest, to pay greater deference to Saturday afternoon than to any other of the working days of the week. The first idea of this cessation from labour at that time was that every one might attend evening prayers as a kind of preparation for the ensuing Sabbath. The eve of the Jewish Sabbath is called the preparation, Moses having taught that people to remember the Sabbath over night. In Hearing and Doing the ready Way to Blessednesse, by Henry Mason, parson of St Andrew Undershaft (1635), is the annexed passage, which seems to show that Saturday Afternoon was then kept holy by some even in the metropolis "For better keeping of which [the Seventh] Day, Moses commanded the Jews (Exod, xvi. 23) that the Day before the Sabbath they should bake what they had to bake; and seeth what they had to seeth; that so they might have no businesse of their own to do, when they were to keepe God's holy day. And from hence it was that the Jews called the Sixth Day of the week, the preparation of the Sabbath. (Matt. xxvii. 62, and Luke xxiii. 54.) "answerably whereunto, and (as I take it) in imitation thereof, the Christian Church hath beene accustomed to keepe Saterday half holy-day, that in the afternoon they might ridd by-businesses out of the way, and by the evening service might prepare their mindes for the Lord's Day then ensuing. Which custome and usage of God's people, as I will not presse it upon any man's conscience as a necessarie dutie; so every man will grant mee, that God's people, as well Christian as Jewish, have thought a time of preparation most fit for the well observing of God's holy day." In Jacob's History of Faversham, under Articles for the Sexton of Faversham, 22 Hen. VIII. we find: "Item, the said Sexton, or his Deputy, every Saturday, Saint's Even, and principal Feasts, shall ring noon with as many bells as shall be convenient to the Saturday, Saint's Even, and principal Feasts." The following curious extract is from a MS. volume of Sermons for all the Saints' Days, and remarkable Sundays in the year, in the Episcopal Library at Durham "It is written in yo liffe of Seynt ****** that he was bisi on Ester Eve before None that he made one to shave him or ye sunne wente doune. And the fiend aspied that: and gadirid up his heeris and whan this holi man sawe it, he conjured him and badde him tell him whi he did so. Thane said he bycause y" didest no reverence to the Sundaie and therfore thise heris wolle I kepe unto ye Day of Dome in reproffe of y. Thane he left of all his shavyng and toke the heris of the fiend and made to brene hem in his owne hand for penaunce, whiche him thought he was worthe to suffre and bode unshaven unto Monday. This is saide in reproffe of hem that worchen at Afternone on Saturdayes." The Hallowyng of Saturday Afternoon is thus accounted for in the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper (1493): "The thridde Precepte, xiv. chap. Dives. How longe owyth ye haliday to be kept and halowyd. Pauper. From even to even.-Nathelesse summe begynne sonner to halow after that the feest is, and after use of the Cuntre. But that men use in Saturdaies and Vigilies to ryng holy at midday compellith nat men anon to halowe, but warnythe them of the haliday folowynge, that they shulde thynke theron and spede theym, and so dispose hem and their occupacions that they might halowe in due tyme." From a Council held by William, King of Scotland, in 1203, it appears that it was then determined that Saturday, after the twelfth hour, should be kept holy. King Edgar in 958 made an ecclesiastical law that the Sabbath or Sunday should be observed on Saturday at noon, till the light should appear on Monday morning. Hence, without doubt, was derived the custom of spending a part of Saturday afternoon without servile labour. Upon this law Johnson (Const.) wrote: "Noon-tide signifies three in the afternoon, according to our present account: and this practice, I conceive, continued down to the Reformation. In King Withfred's time, the Lord's Day did not begin till sunset on the Saturday. Three in the afternoon was hora nona in the Latin account, and therefore called noon. How it came afterwards to signifie Mid-day, I can but guess. The Monks by their rules could not eat their dinner till they had said their Noon-song, which was a service regularly to be said at three o'clock: but they probably anticipated their devotions and their dinner, by saying their Noon Song immediately after their Mid-day Song, and presently falling on. But it may fairly be supposed, that when Mid-day became the time of dining and saying Noon Song, it was for this reason called Noon by the Monks. In the Shepherd's Almanack Noon is mid-day; High Noon, three." we are instructed : In Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe (154 your holye Father "Processyon upon Saturdayes at Even-songe. Agapitus, popett of Rome, fyrst dreamed it out and enacted it for a lawdable ceremonye of your whoryshe Churche. But I marvele sore that ye observe yt upon Saturdayes at nyght at Even-songe he commaundynge yt to bee observed upon the Sondayes, in the mornynge betwixt holie water makynge and high masse."- Moch is Saturnus beholden unto yow (whych is one of the olde Goddes) to garnyshe the goyng out of hys daye with so holye an observacyon. Joye yt ys of your lyfe as to remember your olde fryndes. Doubtlesse yt ys a fyne myrye pageant, and yow worthye to be called a Saturnyane for it.' In the year 1332, at a Provincial Council held by Archbishop Mepham at Mayfield, after complaint made that instead of fasting upon the Vigils they ran out to all the excesses of riot, &c., it was appointed, among many other things relative to holy-days, that "The solemnity for Sunday should begin upon Saturday in the evening and not before, to prevent the misconstruction of keeping a Judaical Sabbath." Wheatley tells us that in the East the Church thought fit to indulge the humour of the Judaising Christians so far as to observe the Saturday as a festival day of devotion, and thereon to meet for the exercise of religious duties, as is plain from several passages of ancient writers. We find these homely rhymes upon the several days of the week in Divers Crab-tree Lectures (1639)— "You know that Munday is Sundayes brother; |