The hen is hung at a fellow's back, who has also some horse-bells about bim; the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chase this fellow and his Hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his Hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and his Hen, other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favouredly; but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweethearts with a peeping-hole, while the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this the Hen is boiled with Bacon, and store of Pancakes and Fritters are made.* She that is noted for lying a-bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first Pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dog's share at last, for no one will own it their due.” This latter part of the note is to illustrate the following lines

"Maids, Fritters and Pancakes, ynow see ye make,

Let Slut have one Pancake for company's sake."

Heath, in his Account of the Scilly Islands, has the following passage: "On a Shrove Tuesday each year, after the throwing at Cocks is over, the Boys in this Island have a custom of throwing stones in the evening against the doors of the dwellers' houses; a privilege they claim time immemorial, and put in practice without control, for finishing the day's sport. We could never learn whence this custom took its rise, but it was formerly used in several provinces of Spain, as well as in some parts of Cornwall. The terms demanded by the Boys are Pancakes, or Money, to capitulate."

PANCAKE CUSTOMS.+

In the North of England Shrove Tuesday is called vulgarly "Fasten's E'en," the succeeding day being Ash-Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten Fast.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1790 says that at Westminster School, upon Shrove Tuesday, the Under Clerk of the College enters the School, and, preceded by the beadle and other officers, throws a large pancake over the bar, which divides the upper from the under school.

A gentleman who was formerly one of the masters of that school confirmed the anecdote with this alteration, that the cook of the seminary brought it into the school, and threw it over the curtain which separated the forms of the upper from those of the under scholars. We have heard of a similar custom at Eton School.

"A learned foreigner (Erasmus ?) says the English eat a certain cake on Shrove Tuesday, upon which they immediately run mad, and kill their poor cocks. As if nothing less than some strong infatuation could account for con. tinuing so barbarous a custom among Christians and Cockneys" (Note to Veille a la Campagne, or the Simnel, a Tale, fol. Lond. 1745, p. 16).

+ "Let glad Shrove Tuesday bring the Pancake thin,

Or Fritter rich, with Apples stored within."-Oxford Sausage, p. 22.

The Status Scholæ Etonensis, A.D. 1560, mentions a custom of that school on Shrove Tuesday, of the boys being allowed to play from eight o'clock for the whole day, and of the cook's coming and fastening a pancake to a crow, which the young crows are calling upon, near it, at the school-door. The crows generally have hatched their young at this season.

Most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday, pancakes on Tuesday, and fritters on the Wednesday in the same week for dinner. From The Westinerland Dialect, by A. Walker (1790), it appears that cock-fighting and casting pancakes were then practised on Shrove Tuesday in that county. Thus: Whaar ther wor tae be Cock-feightin, for it war Pankeak Tuesday." And "We met sum Lads an Lasses gangin to kest their Pankeaks."

It appears from Middleton's Masque of The World tossed at Tennis, which was printed in 1620, that batter was used on Shrove Tuesday at that time, no doubt for the purpose of making pancakes.

Shakespeare alludes to this well-known custom of having pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in the following string of comparisons put into the mouth of the clown in All's Well that Ends Well: As fit-as Tib's rush for Tim's forefinger, as a Pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day," &c. In Gayton's Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote, speaking of Sancho Panza's having converted a cassock into a wallet, our pleasant annotator observes: "It were serviceable after this greasie use for nothing but to preach at a Carnivale or Shrove Tuesday, and to tosse Pancakes in after the exercise: or else (if it could have been conveighed thither) nothing more proper for the man that preaches the Cook's Sermon at Oxford, when that plump Society rides upon their Governours horses to fetch in the Enemie, the Flie."

That there was such a custom at Oxford, let Peshall in his History of that city be a voucher, who, speaking of St Bartholomew's Hospital, says: To this Hospital Cooks from Oxford flocked, bringing in on Whitsun-week the Fly." [Aubrey saw this ceremony performed in 1642. He adds: "On Michaelmas day they rode thither again to convey the Fly away."]

At Newcastle-upon-Tyne the great bell of St Nicholas' Church was tolled at twelve o'clock at noon on this day; shops were immediately shut up, offices closed, and all kind of business ceased; a little carnival ensuing for the remaining part of the day.*

* "The great bell which used to be rung on Shrove Tuesday, to call the people together for the purpose of confessing their sins, was called PancakeBell, a name which it still retains in some places where this custom is still kept up" (Gent. Mag. 1790).

Macaulay, in his History and Antiquities of Claybrook in Leicestershire, says: "On Shrove-Tuesday a bell rings at noon, which is meant as a signal for the people to begin frying their Pancakes."

In A Vindication of the Letter out of the North, concerning Bishop Lake's Declaration of his dying in the belief of the Doctrine of Passive Obedience &c. (1690), we find the subsequent passage: "They have for a long time York had a custom (which now challenges the priviledge of a prescription) tha

at

Taylor, the Water Poet, in his Jack-a-Lent (1620), gives the following most curious account of Shrove Tuesday—

"Shrove Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is inquiet, but by that time the clocke strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal'd the Pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie; then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the Cookes do mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragical, magicall inchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying-pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dissmall hissing (like the Lernean Snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton), untill at last, by the skill of the Cooke, it is transformed into the forme of a Flip-Jack, cal'd a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily. Then Tim Tatters (a most opulent villaine), with an ensigne made of a piece of a Baker's mawkin fi'xt upon a broome-staffe, he displaies his dreadful colours, and, calling the ragged regiment together, makes an illiterate oration, stuff't with most plentiful want of discretion."

Selden, in his Table-Talk, under Christmas, has this passage relating to the season: "So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, jack-of-lents, &c., they are all in imitation of church works, emblems of martyrdom."

Sir Frederick Morton Eden, Bart., in The State of the Poor, &c. (1797), tells us: "Crowdie, a dish very common in Scotland, and accounted a very great luxury by labourers, is a never-failing dinner in Scotland with all ranks of people on Shrove Tuesday (as Pancakes are in England), and was probably first introduced on that day (in the papal times) to strengthen them against the Lenten Fast: it being accounted the most substantial dish known in that country. On this day there is always put into the bason or porringer, out of which the unmarried folks are to eat, a ring, the finder of which, by fair means, is supposed to be ominous of the finder's being first married." Crowdie is made by pouring boiling water over oatmeal, and stirring it a little. It is eaten with milk, or butter.

In Fosbrooke's British Monachism we read: "At Barking Nun

all the apprentices, journeymen, and other servants of the town, had the liberty no go into the Cathedral, and ring the Pancake-bell (as we call it in the country) on Shrove Tuesday; and that being a time that a great many came out of the country to see the city (if not their friends) and church; to oblige the ordinary people, the Min ter used to be left open that day, to let them go up to see the Lanthorn and Bells, which were sure to be pretty well exercised, and was thought a more innocent divertisement than being at the alehouse. But Dr Lake, when he came first to reside there, was very much scandalized at this custom, and was resolved he would break it at first dash, although all his brethren of the Clergy did dissuade him from it. He was resolved to make the experi ment, for which he had like to have paid very dear, for I'll assure you it was very near costing him his life. However, he did make such a combustion and mutiny that I dare say York never remembered or saw the like, as many yet iving can testify."

In Dekker's Play of Match Me in London, Bilbo_says: I'll beate down the doore, and put him in mind of Shrove Tuesday, the fatall day for doores to be broke open."

The use of the game of football on this day has been already noticed from Fitzstephen's London.

We were informed that at Alnwick Castle, in Northumberland, the waits belonging to the town came playing to the Castle every year on Shrove Tuesday, at two o'clock P.M., when a football was thrown over the Castle walls to the populace. We saw this done in 1788.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1795), Parish of Inverness, County of Mid-Lothian, we read: "On Shrove Tuesday there is a standing match at Foot-ball between the married and unmarried women, in which the former are always victors."*

Of the Parish of Scone, County of Perth, we read: "Every year on Shrove Tuesday the batchelors and married men drew themselves up at the Cross of Scone, on opposite sides. A ball was then thrown up, and they played from two o'clock till sun-set. The game was this. He who at any time got the ball into his hands, run with it till overtaken by one of the opposite party, and then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he run on; if not, he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party; but no person was allowed to kick it. The object of the married men was to hang it, i.e., to put it three times into a small hole in the moor, the dool or limit on the one hand: that of the batchelors was to drown it, i.e., to dip it three times into a deep place in the river, the limit on the other. The party who could effect either of these objects won the game. But if neither party won, the ball was cut into equal parts at sun-set. In the course of the play one might always see some scene of violence between the parties: but as the proverb of this part of the country expresses it, 'All was fair at the ball of Scone.'

"This custom is supposed to have had its origin in the days of Chivalry. An Italian, it is said, came into this part of the country, challenging all the parishes, under a certain penalty in case of declining his challenge. All the parishes declined the challenge except Scone, which beat the foreigner and in commemoration of this gallant action the game was instituted.

"Whilst the custom continued, every man in the parish, the gentry not excepted, was obliged to turn out and support the side to which he belonged; and the person who neglected to do his part on that occasion was fined: but the custom, being attended with certain inconveniencies, was abolished a few years ago."

In Pennant's Account of the City of Chester, he tells us of a place without the walls called the Rood Eye, where the lusty youth in former days exercised themselves in manly sports of the age; in archery, running,leaping, and wrestling; in mock fights and gallant and romantic triumphs. A standard was the prize of emulation in the sports cele

In King's Vale Royal of England there is an account that, at the City of Chester in the year 1533, "the Offering of ball and foot-balls were put down, and the silver bell offered to the Maior on Shrove Tuesday."

brated on the Rood Eye, which was won in 1578 by Sheriff Montford on Shrove Tuesday.

In the Shepherd's Almanack for 1676, under February, we find : "Some say Thunder on Shrove Tuesday fortelleth wind, store of fruit, and plenty. Others affirm that so much as the sun shineth that day, the like will shine every day in Lent."

We close this account of the customs of Shrove Tuesday with a curious poem from Pasquil's Palinodia (1634). It contains a minute description of all that appears to have been generally pactised in England. The beating down the barbers' basins on that day is not alluded to elsewhere.

"It was the day of all dayes in the yeare,

That unto Bacchus hath his dedication,

When mad-brain'd Prentices, that no men feare,
O'erthrow the dens of bawdie recreation ;
When taylors, coblers, plaist'rers, smiths, and masons,
And every rogue will beat down Barbers' basons,
Whereat Don Constable in wrath appeares,
And runs away with his stout halbadiers.

It was the day whereon both rich and poore
Are chiefly feasted with the self-same dish,
When every paunch, till it can hold no more,
Is fritter-fill'd, as well as heart can wish;
And every man and maide doe take their turne,
And tosse their pancakes up for feare they burne,
And all the kitchen doth with laughter sound,
To see the pancakes fall upon the ground.

It was the day when every kitchen reekes,
And hungry bellies keepe a Jubile,
When flesh doth bid adieu for divers weekes,
And leaves old ling to be his deputie.

It was the day when Pullen goe to block,

And every spit is fill'd with belly timber,

When cocks are cudgel'd down with many a knock,

And hens are thrasht to make them short and tender;
When country wenches play with stoole and ball,
And run at barly-breake untill they fall."

From Lavaterus on Walking Spirits, it should seem that, anciently, in Helvetia, fires were lighted up at Shrove-tide. "And as the young men in Helvetia, who with their fire-brand, which they light at the bonefires at Shroftide," &c.

Douce's MS. Notes say: "Among the Finns no fire or candle may be kin died on the Eve of Shrove Tuesday."