"There was an ancient custom at Twickenham," says 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. It appears that the sum of £1 per annum is still charged upon 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, 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." The following is copied from a collection of black-letter carols, formerly in the collection of Francis Douce

"Soone at Easter cometh Alleluya,

With butter cheese, and a Tansay,;"

which reminds one of the passage in The Oxford Sausage

"On Easter Sunday be the Pudding seen,

To which the Tansey lends her sober green."

On Easter Sunday, the young men in the Yorkshire villages had : custom of taking off the young girls' buckles. On Easter Monday young men's shoes and buckles were taken off by the young women On the Wednesday they were redeemed by little pecuniary forfeits

with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was shall b gayly arayed with fayre floures, and strewed with grene Rysshes all aboute." In Nichols's Illustrations of Antient Manners and Expences (4to, 1797), the Churchwardens' Accompts of St Martin Outwich, London, under the yea 1525, is the following item

"Paid for brome ageynst Ester, i4”

out of which an entertainment, called a Tansey Cake, was made, with dancing.*

Charles V., it is related in Seward's Anecdotes, whilst he was in possession of his regal dignity, thought so slightingly 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."

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. It was condemned by the Provincial Council of Rheims in 1583, and by that of Toulouse in 1590.

According to the Antiquarian Repertory, the first dish that was brought up to the table on Easter Day was a red herring 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-salad. The custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter, which is still kept up in many parts of England, was designed to show their abhorrence to Judaism at that solemn commemoration of our Lord's resurrection.

Douce's MS. notes say it was the practice in Germany (during the sixteenth century, at least) for the preachers to intermix their sermons with facetious stories on Easter Day.

OF EASTER EGGS;

COMMONLY CALLED PASCHE, OR PASTE EGGS.+

EBELIN, in his Religious History of the Calendar, informs us

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.

Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland, speaking of Pasche eggs, says: "Éggs were held by the Egyptians as a sacred emblem of the renovation of mankind after the Deluge. The Jews adopted it to suit the circumstances of their history, as a type of their departure from the land of Egypt; and it was used in the feast of the Passover

See an account of the practice of this custom at Ripon, in Yorkshire, in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1790, 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."

Coles, in his Latin Dictionary, renders the Pasche, or Easter egg, by "Ovum Paschale, croceum, seu luteum." It is plain that he was acquainted with the custom of dyeing or staining eggs at this season. Ainsworth leaves out these two epithets, calling it singly "Ovum Paschale."

as part of the furniture of the table, with the Paschal Lamb. The Christians have certainly used it on this day, as retaining the elements of future life, for an emblem of the Resurrection. It seems as if the egg was thus decorated for a religious trophy after the days of mortification and abstinence were over, and festivity had taken place; and as an emblem of the resurrection of life, certified to us by the Resurrection, from the regions of death and the grave."

The ancient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The extrusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has lain a long while dormant, or seemingly extinct, is a process so truly marvellous that, if it could be disbelieved, it would be thought by some a thing as incredible to the full as that the Author of Life should be able to reanimate the dead.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1783 supposes the egg at Easter "an emblem of the rising up out of the grave, in the same manner as the chick, entombed, as it were, in the egg, is in due time brought to life."

Le Brun, in his Voyages, tells us that the Persians, on the 20th of March 1704, kept the Festival of the Solar New Year, which he says lasted several days, when they mutually presented each other, among other things, with coloured eggs.

Easter and the New Year, says Gebelin, have been marked by similar distinctions. Among the Persians, the New Year is looked upon as the renewal of all things, and is noted for the triumph of the Sun of Nature, as Easter is with Christians for that of the Sun of Justice, the Saviour of the world, over death, by his resurrection.

The Feast of the New Year, he adds, was celebrated at the vernal equinox, that is, at a time when the Christians, removing their New Year to the winter solstice, kept only the Festival of Easter. Hence, with the latter, the Feast of Eggs has been attached to Easter, so that eggs are no longer made presents of at the New Year.

Father Carmeli, in his History of Customs, tells us that, during Easter and the following days, hard eggs, painted of different colours, but principally red, are the ordinary food of the season. In Italy, Spain, and in Provence, says he, where almost every ancient superstition is retained, there are in the public places certain sports with eggs. This custom he derives from the Jews or the Pagans, for he observes it is common to both.*

The Jewish wives, at the Feast of the Passover, upon a table prepared for that purpose, place hard eggs, the symbols of a bird called Ziz, concerning which the Rabbins have a thousand fabulous accounts.

Hyde, in his Oriental Sports (1694), tells us of one with eggs among the Christians of Mesopotamia on Easter Day and forty days afterwards, during which time their children buy themselves as many eggs as they can, and stain them with a red colour in memory of the blood

The writer saw in the window of a baker's shop in London, on Easter Eve 1805, a Passover Cake, with four eggs, bound in with slips of paste crossways in it. On inquiring of the baker what it meant, he was assured it was a Passover Cake for the Jews.

Some tinge them

of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion. with green and yellow. Stained eggs are sold all the while in the market. The sport consists in striking their eggs one against another, and the egg that first breaks is won by the owner of the egg that struck it. Immediately another egg is pitted against the winning egg, and so they go on (as in that barbarous sport of a Welsh-main at cockfighting) till the last remaining egg wins all the others, which their respective owners shall before have won.

This sport, he observes, is not retained in the midland parts of England, but seems to be alluded to in the old proverb, “An Egg at Easter," because the liberty to eat eggs begins again at that festival, and thence must have arisen this festive egg-game. For neither

Catholics nor those of the Eastern Church eat eggs during Lent, but at Easter begin again to eat them. And hence the egg-feast formerly at Oxford, when the scholars took leave of that kind of food, on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, on what is called "Cleansing Week." On Easter Eve, in Cumberland and Westmoreland, and other parts of the north of England, continues Hyde, boys beg eggs to play with, and beggars ask for them to eat. These eggs are hardened by boiling, and tinged with the juice of herbs, broom-flowers, &c. The eggs being thus prepared, the boys go out and play with them in the fields, rolling them up and down like bowls upon the ground, or throwing them up like balls into the air. Thus far Hyde. Eggs stained with various colours* in boiling, and sometimes covered with gold-leaf, are at Easter presented to children, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and elsewhere in the North, where these young gentry ask for their "paste eggs," as for a fairing, at this season;+ "paste" being plainly a corruption of "Pasque," Easter.

That the Church of Rome has considered eggs as emblematical of the Resurrection may be gathered from the subsequent prayer, which the reader will find in an extract from the Ritual of Pope Paul V., for the use of England, Ireland, and Scotland. It contains various other forms of benediction. "Bless, O Lord! we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs [huic Ovorum creatura], that it may become a wholesome sustenance to thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to thee, on account of the resurrection of our Lord," &c. The following, from Emilianne's Frauds of Romish Monks and Priests, is much to our purpose: "On Easter Eve and Easter Day, all the heads of families send great chargers, full of hard Eggs, to the

In the neighbourhood of Newcastle they are tinged yellow with the blossoms of furze, called there whin-bloom.

+ In a Roll of the Expences of the Household of Edward I., in his eighteenth year, is the following item in the accounts of Easter Sunday—

"For four hundred and a half of Eggs, eighteen pence:"

highly interesting to the investigator of our ancient manners, not so much on account of the smallness of the sum which purchased them, as for the purpose for which so great a quantity was procured on this day in particular-i.e., in order to have them stained in boiling, or covered with leaf-gold, and to be afterwards distributed to the royal household. This record is in Latin, and the original item runs thus: "Pro iiijc. di' ov' xviijd."

Church, to get them blessed, which the priests perform by saying several appointed prayers, and making great signs of the Cross over them, and sprinkling them with holy water. The priest, having finished the ceremony, demands how many dozen eggs there be in every bason?" "These blest Eggs have the virtue of sanctifying the entrails of the body, and are to be the first fat or fleshy nourishment they take after the abstinence of Lent. The Italians do not only abstain from flesh during Lent, but also from Eggs, cheese, butter, and all white meats. As soon as the Eggs are blessed, every one carries his portion home, and causeth a large table to be set in the best room in the house, which they cover with their best linen, all bestrewed with flowers, and place round about it a dozen dishes of meat, and the great charger of Eggs in the midst. 'Tis a very pleasant sight to see these tables set forth in the houses of great persons, when they expose on side-tables (round about the chamber) all the plate they have in the house, and whatever else they have that is rich and curious, in honour to their Easter Eggs, which of themselves yield a very fair show, for the shells of them are all painted with divers colours and gilt. Sometimes they are no less than twenty dozen in the same charger, neatly laid together in form of a pyramid. The table continues, in the same posture, covered, all the Easter week, and all those who come to visit them in that time are invited to eat an Eastern Egg with them, which they must not refuse."

In The Beehive of the Romishe Churche (1579), Easter eggs occur in the following list of Romish superstitions: "Fasting Dayes, Years of Grace, Differences and Diversities of Dayes, of Meates, of Clothing, of Candles, ... Holy Ashes, Holy Pace Eggs and Flanes, Palmes and Palme Boughes, Staves, Fooles Hoods, Shelles and Belles, Paxes, Licking of Rotten Bones," &c. The last articles relate to pilgrims and reliques.

...

Douce's MS. notes say: "The Author of Le Voyageur à Paris, supposes that the practice of painting and decorating Eggs at Easter, amongst the Catholics, arose from the joy which was occasioned by their returning to this favourite food after so long an abstinence from them during Lent."

In the ancient Calendar of the Romish Church we find the following

"Ova annunciata, ut aiunt, reponuntur,"

i.e., Eggs laid on the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary are laid by. Le Brun, too, in his Superstitions Anciennes et Modernes, says that some people keep eggs laid on Good Friday all the year.

This custom still prevails in the Greek Church. Chandler, in his Travels in Asia Minor, gives the following account of the manner o celebrating Easter among the modern Greeks: "A small bier, prettil deckt with orange and citron buds, jasmine, flowers, and boughs, wa placed in the church, with a Christ crucified, rudely painted o board, for the body. We saw it in the evening, and, before daybreak were suddenly awakened by the blaze and crackling of a larg bonefire, with singing and shouting, in honour of the Resurrection