rise from thence." But the explanation is hardly satisfactory. Were not all the saints famous for their love and charity? Surely he does not mean that we should take the word love here to imply gallantry?

Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, affirms that in February young persons draw Valentines, from which they collect their future fortune. in the nuptial state; and Goldsmith, in the Vicar of Wakefield, describing rustic manners, says they sent true-love knots on Valentine morning.

Owen, in The Unmasking of all Popish Monks, Friers, and Jesuits (1628), speaking of its being " now among the papists as it was heretofore among the heathen people," says the former "have as many saints, which they honour as gods, and every one have their several charge assigned unto them by God, for the succour of men, women, and children, yea over Countries, Commonwealths, Cities, Provinces, and Churches; nay, to help Oves et boves et cætera pecora campi;” and among others he instances "S. Valentine for Lovers."

Moresin tells us that at this festival the men used to make the women presents, as, upon another occasion, the women used to do to the men but that presents were made reciprocally on this day in Scotland.

Gay has left us a poetical description of some rural ceremonies used on the morning of this day—

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind
Their paramours with mutual chirpings find,
I early rose, just at the break of day,
Before the sun had chas'd the stars away:
A-field I went, amid the morning dew,

To milk my kine (for so should house-wives do).
Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see,
In spite of Fortune, shall our true love be."

Grose explains Valentine to mean the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on the 14th of February.

Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, says: "To abolish the heathens' lewd, superstitious custom of Boys drawing the names of Girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the 15th of February, several zealous Pastors substituted the names of Saints in billets given on that day." St Frances de Sales, he says, "severely forbad the custom of Valentines, or giving Boys in writing the names of Girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them to honour and imitate in a particular manner."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (1779) mentions a sort of sport used in Kent during the month of February, where the girls were burning in triumph a figure which they had stolen from the boys, called a Holly-Boy, whilst the boys were doing the same with another figure called an Ivy-Girl.

We find the following curious species of divination in the Connoisseur, as practised on Valentine's Day or Eve: "Last Friday was Valentine Day, and the night before I got five bay-leaves, and pinned

four of them to the four corners of my pillow, and the fifth to the middle; and then, if I dreamt of my sweet-heart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure, I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk, and filled it with salt; and when I went to bed, eat it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers' names upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in clay, and put them into water and the first that rose up was to be our Valentine. Would you think it, Mr Blossom was my man. I lay a-bed and shut my eyes all the morning, till he came to our house; for I would not have seen another man before him for all the world."

Misson, in his Travels in England, has the following observations on Valentines: "On the Eve of the 14th of February, St Valentine's Day, a time when all living Nature inclines to couple, the young folks in England and Scotland too, by a very ancient custom, celebrate a ittle Festival that tends to the same end. An equal number of Maids and Bachelors get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which they roll up, and draw by way of lots, the Maids taking the Men's billets, and the Men the Maids'; so that each of the young Men lights upon a Girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the Girls upon a young man which she calls hers. By this means each has two Valentines: but the Man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than to the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often ends in Love. This ceremony is practised differently in different Counties, and according to the freedom or severity of Madam Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which is the first young Man or Woman that chance throws in your way in the street, or elsewhere, on that day."

In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1676, that facetious observer of our old customs tells us, opposite to St Valentine's Day in February—

"Now Andrew, Antho

ny, and William, For Valentines draw Prue, Kate, Jilian."

• Herrick says of a bride

"She must no more a-maying:
Or by Rose-buds divine
Who'l be her Valentine!

IN

32

COLLOP OR Shrove MONDAY.

N the North of England the Monday preceding Shrove Tuesday, of Pancake Tuesday, is called Collop Monday: eggs and collops compose an usual dish at dinner on this day, as pancakes do on the following, from which customs they have plainly derived their names. It should seem that on Collop* Monday in Catholic times they took their leave of flesh, which was anciently prepared to last during the winter by salting, drying, and being hung up. Slices of this kind of meat are to this day termed collops in the North, whereas they are called steaks when cut off from fresh or unsalted flesh, a kind of food which our ancestors probably seldom tasted in the depth of winter.

In the Ordinary of the Butchers' Company at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dated 1621, is the following very curious clause: "Item, that noe one Brother of the said Fellowship shall hereafter buy or seeke any Licence of any person whatsoever to kill Flesh within the Towne of Newcastle in the Lent season, without the general consent of the Fellowship, upon payne for every such defaute to the use aforesaide, £5." They are enjoined, it is observable, in this charter, to hold their head meeting-day on Ash-Wednesday. They have since altered it to the preceding Wednesday.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine asserts that most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday. In the neighbourhood of Salisbury, the boys used to go about before Shrove-tide, singing these rhymes—

"Shrove Tide is nigh at hand,

And I am come a shroving;
Pray, Dame, something,
An Apple or a Dumpling,
Or a piece of Truckle Cheese
Of your own making,

Or a piece of Pancake."

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, speaking of a "Franklin," says that among the ceremonies which he annually observes, and that without considering them as reliques of Popery, are "Shrovings."

At Eton School it was the custom, on Shrove Monday, for the scholars to write verses either in praise or dispraise of Father Bacchus, poets being considered as immediately under his protection. He was therefore sung on this occasion in all kinds of metres, and the verses of the boys of the seventh and sixth, and of some of the fifth forms, were affixed to the inner doors of the College.

Verses are still written and put up on this day; but the young poets are no longer confined to the subject of writing eulogiums on the god of wine. It still, however, retains the name of Bacchus.

Collop (s. of doubtful etymology), a small slice of meat, a piece of any animal, as Ash has it.

Kennett, in the Glossary to his Parochial Antiquities (v. Collerus) tells us of an old Latin word colponer, slices, or cut pieces; in Welsh, a gollwith.

SHROVE-TIDE, OR SHROVE TUESDAY; CALLED ALSO FASTERN'S EVEN AND PANCAKE TUESDAY.*

SHROVE the of

HROVE-TIDE plainly signifies the time of confessing sins, as This

season had been anciently set apart by the Church of Rome for a time of shriving or confessing sins; but this seemingly no bad preparative for the austerities that were to follow in Lent was, for whatever reason, laid aside at the Reformation.

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Mary at Hill, in the City of London, A.D. 1493, is the following article: "For a Mat for the Shreving Pewe, iij d.'

The luxury and intemperance that usually prevailed at this season were vestiges of the Romish carnival, which Moresin derives from the times of Gentilism, introducing Aubanus as describing it thus: "Men eat and drink, and abandon themselves to every kind of sportive foolery, as if resolved to have their fill of pleasure before they were to die, and as it were, forego every sort of delight." Thus also Selden: "What the Church debars us one day, she gives us leave to take out another. First there is a Carnival, and then a Lent."

Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, thus describes the Jovial Carneval: "Every man cries Sciolta, letting himself loose to the maddest of merriments, marching wildly up and down in all forms of disguises; each man striving to outgo other in strange pranks of humorous debauchedness, in which even those of the holy order are wont to be allowed their share; for howsoever it was by some sullen authority forbidden to Clerks, and Votaries of any kind, to go masked and misguised in those seemingly abusive solemnities, yet more favourable construction hath offered to make them believe that it was chiefly for their sakes, for the refreshment of their sadder and more restrained spirits, that this free and lawless Festivity was taken up.” Shrove-Tide, says Warton, was formerly a season of extraordinary sport and feasting. In the Romish Church there was anciently a Feast immediately preceding Lent, which lasted many days, called CARNISCAPIUM. In some cities of France an officer was annually chosen, called Le Prince d'Amoreux, who presided over the sports of the youth for six days before Ash Wednesday. Some traces of these Festivities still remain in our Universities." In the Percy Household Book (1512), it appears "that the Clergy and Officers of Lord Percy's Chapel performed a play before his Lordship, upon Shrowftewesday at night."

In Vox Graculi (1623) is the following quaint description of Shrove Tuesday: "Here must enter that wadling, stradling, burstengutted Carnifex of all Christendome, vulgarly enstiled Shrove Tuesday, but, more pertinently, sole Monarch of the Mouth, high

In the Oxford Almanacs, the Saturday preceding this day is called the Egg-Feast. Perhaps the same as our Collop Monday.

Steward to the Stomach, chiefe Ganimede to the Guts, prime peere of the Pullets, first Favourite to the Frying-pans, greatest Bashaw to the Batter-bowles, Protector of the Pancakes, first Founder of the Fritters, Baron of Bacon-flitch, Earle of Eggebaskets, &c. This corpulent Commander of those chollericke things called Cookes, will shew himselfe to be but of ignoble education; for by his manners you may finde him better fed than taught wherever he comes."

"This furnishyng of our bellies with delicates," says Polydore Vergil, "that we use on Fastingham Tuiesday, what tyme some eate tyl they be enforsed to forbeare all again, sprong of Bacchus Feastes, that were celebrated in Rome with great joy and delicious fare."

In Blomefield's Norfolk we read that among the Records of the City of Norwich mention is made of one John Gladman, "who was ever, and at thys our is a man of sad disposition, and trewe and feythfull to God and to the Kyng, of disporte as hath ben acustomed in ony Cite or Burgh thorowe alle this reame, on Tuesday in the last ende of Cristemesse [1440], viz. Fastyngonge Tuesday, made a disport with hys neyghbours, havyng his hors trappyd with tynnsoyle and other nyse disgisy things, corroned as Kyng of Crestemesse, in tokyn that seson should end with the twelve monethes of the yere, aforn hym went yche moneth dysguysed after the seson requiryd, and Lenton cladin whyte and red heryngs skinns and his hors trappyd with oystershells after him, in token that sadnesse shuld folowe and an holy tyme, and so rode in divers stretis of the Cite with other people with hym disguysed, makyng myrth, disportes, and plays, &c."

In Naogeorgus we read

"Both men and women chaunge their weede, the men in maydes aray,
And wanton wenches drest like men, doe trauell by the way,
And to their neighbours houses go, or where it likes them best,
Perhaps unto some auncient friend or olde acquainted ghest,
Unknowne, and speaking but fewe wordes, the meat deuour they up
That is before them set, and cleane they swinge of euery cup.

Some runne about the streets attyrde like Monks, and some like Kings,
Accompanied with pompe and garde, and other stately things.
Some hatch yong fooles as hennes do egges with good and speedie lucke,
Or as the goose doth vse to do, or as the quacking ducke.

Some like wilde beastes doe runne abrode in skinnes that diuers bee
Arayde, and eke with lothsome shapes, that dreadfull are to see :
They counterfet both beares and woolves, and lions fierce in sight,
And raging bulles. Some play the cranes, with wings and stilts upright.
Some like the filthie forme of apes, and some like fooles are drest,
Which best beseeme these Papistes all, that thus keepe Bacchus feast.
But others beare a torde, that on a cushion soft they lay,

And one there is that with a flap doth keepe the flies away.

I would there might an other be, an officer of those,

Whose roome might serve to take away the scent from every nose.
Some others make a man all stuft with straw or ragges within,
Apparayled in dublet faire, and hosen passing trim:
Whom as a man that lately dyed of honest life and fame,

In blanket hid they beare about, and streightwayes with the same