on the month or year after the death of a person some solemn service for the good of his soul should be celebrated. In Ireland, writes Piers (1682), after the day of interment of a great personage they count four weeks; and that day four weeks all priests and friars, and all gentry far and near, are invited to a great feast, "usually termed the Month's Mind." Preparatory to this feast, masses for the repose of the soul of the departed were said in all parts of the house at once. If the room was large, three or four priests celebrated in the several corners thereof. The masses done, they proceeded to the entertainment; at the conclusion of which priests and friars were discharged from attendance with individual largesses. DRINKING CUSTOMS. PLEDGING. THE HE word pledge Blount thinks is most probably derived from the French Pleige, a surety or gage. Some deduce the drinking expression "I'll pledge you" from the time when the Danes bore sway in this land. It having been the common practice of those ferocious people to stab the natives, in the act of drinking, with knives or daggers, people would not drink in their company unless some one present undertook to be their pledge or surety that they should receive no hurt while they were indulging. Thus, in Timon of Athens we read -"If I Were a huge man, I should fear to drink at meals, Lest they should spy my Wind pipe's dangerous Notes; The allusion, Grey explains, is to the pledge exacted in the Danish period; and from Baker's Chronicle we learn that during Wyat's Rebellion, in 1553, the serjeants and other lawyers in Westminster Hall pleaded in harness. Others affirm the true sense of the word to be that, if the person drunk unto was not disposed to drink himself, he would procure another as a pledge to do it for him; else the proposer would take it ill. Strutt confirms the former of these opinions with the observation that, in the old mode of pledging each other, he who was going to drink asked any one of the company near him whether he would pledge him; whereupon the invited one, answering that he would, held up his knife or sword for his protection while he drank; for while a man is drinking he necessarily is in an unguarded posture, and exposed to the treacherous stroke of a hidden or secret enemy. But the custom, continues Strutt, is said to have originated from the death of Edward the Martyr, who by the contrivance of his stepmother was treacherously stabbed in the back while drinking. Henry's History refers to this subject in these terms: "If an Englishman presumed to drink in the presence of a Dane, without money, w the foresaid platers and sponys be geven unto suche poore persones as may be found in the parisshes of Theydon at Mount, and Theydon Boys, atter the discrecion of myn Executors; and if my said Monethes Mynde fall in Lent, or upon a fysshe day, than I will that the said .xxiiij. peces of fleshe be altered unto saltfyche or stokfyche, unwatered, and unsodeyn, and that every piece of beef or moton, saltfyshe or stokfysh, be well in value of a peny or a peny at the leest; and that noo dyner be purveyed for at hom but for my household and kynnysfolks: and I will that my Knyll be rongyn at my Monethes Mynde after the guyse of London. Also I will that myn Executrice doo assemble upon the said day of Moneths Mynde .xij. of the porest menys children of the foresaid parisshe, and after the Masse is ended and other ob seruances, the said Children to be ordered about my Grave, and there knelyng to say for my soule and all Cristen soules, De profundis as many of ther as can, and the residue to say a Pater noster, and an Ave oonly; to the whic .xij. childern I will be geven .xiij.d. that is to meane, to that childe th beginneth De profundis and saith the preces, ij.d. and to eueryche of t other j.d." The Will of Thomas Windsor, Esq., 1479, provides— "Item, I will that I have brennyng at my Burying and Funeral Serv four Tapers and twenty-two Torches of wax, every Taper to conteyn the wei of ten pounds, and every Torch sixteen pounds, which I will that twenty. very poor Men, and well disposed, shall hold as well at the tyme of my b ing as at my Moneth's Minde. Item, I will that after my Moneth's Mind done, the said four Tapers be delivered to the Churchwardens, &c. And there be a hundred Children within the age of sixteen years to be at Moneth's Minde, to say for my soul. That against my Moneth's Minde Candles bren before the rude in the Parish Church. Also that at my Mo Minde, my Executors provide twenty Priests to singe Placebo, Dirige, & Veron's reference (1561) is "I shulde speake nothing, in the mean season, of the costly feaste bankettes that are commonly made unto the priestes (whiche come to doinges from all partes, as Ravens do to a deade Carkase,) in their bury moneths mindes and yeares myndes." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Mary at Hill, in the London, 17 & 19 Edw. IV. occur these entries "pa to Sir I. Philips for keepyng the Morrow Mass at 6 o'cloc feryall days, each quarter v.s." "To the Par. Priest to remember in the pulpit the soul of R. Bli gave vj.s. viij.d. to the Church works. ij.d." In the Accounts of St Margaret, Westminster, we read"Item, at the Monyth Mynde of Lady Elizabeth Countess of Ox four Tapers, viijd." "Item, received for iiii. Torches of the black C On these occasions the word "*** the expressions a "Month's Al his express permission, it was esteemed so great a mark of disrespect that nothing but his instant death could expiate. Nay, the English were so intimidated that they would not adventure to drink even when they were invited, until the Danes had pledged their honour for their safety; which introduced the Custom of pledging each other in drinking, of which some vestiges are still remaining among the common people in the North of England, where the Danes were most predominant." Such great drinkers, writes Strutt, were the Danes in the time of Edgar, and such was the evil influence of their bad example over the English that, at the suggestion of Dunstan, the king put down many ale-houses, suffering only one to be in every village, or small town. He further ordained that pins or nails should be fastened into the drinking cups and horns at stated distances, and those who drank beyond the marks thus indicated at one draught were liable to severe punishment. This law seems to have originated a custom afterwards called pin-drinking, or nick the pin, which is thus explained in Cocker's Dictionary: "An old way of drinking exactly to a pin in the midst of a wooden cup, which being somewhat difficult, occasioned much drunkenness; so a law was made that Priests, Monks, and Friars, should not drink to or at the Pins." It is certainly difficult to say what law this was, unless it has been confounded with that passed by Edgar. The custom is differently alluded to in another English Dictionary, entitled Gazophylacium Anglicanum (1689), where the expression "He is on a merry Pin" is said to have arisen "from a way of drinking in a Cup in which a pin was stuck, and he that could drink to the Pin, i.e. neither under nor over it, was to have the Wager." One of the ecclesiastical regulations of 1102 was Ut presbyteri non eant ad potationes, nec ad pinnas bibant; accurately translated "That priests go not to drinking bouts, nor drink to pegs.' Barrington (1775) says that it was anciently the custom for a person swearing fealty "to hold his hands joined together, between those of his lord; the reason for which seems to have been that some Lord had been assassinated under pretence of paying homage; but, while the Tenant's hands continued in this attitude, it was impossible for him to make such an attempt." To this source he traces the ceremony observed by the scholars in Queen's College, Oxford, who, while waiting upon the fellows, placed their thumbs upon the table. The same observance, he remarks, prevailed in some parts of Germany while the superior drank the health of the inferior. The Speculum Regale, he adds, directs the courtier, when in the king's presence, to pull off his cloak; and one of the reasons given is, that he thereby shows he has no concealed weapons wherewith to make an attempt upon the king's life. In Nash's Pierce Pennilesse (1595) we read: "You do me the disgrace, if you doo not pledge me as much as I drinke to you ;" and Heywood (1598) has the line "I drinke (Quoth she.) Quoth he, I will not pledge.” Plat's Jewel-House of Art and Nature (1594) gives a recipe to prevent drunkenness, "for the help of such modest Drinkers, as only in Company are drawn, or rather forced to pledge in full Bolls such quaffing Companions as they would be loth to offend, and will require reason at their hands as they term it ;" and Overbury's character of a serving-man runs: "He never drinks but double, for he must be pledged; nor commonly without some short Sentence nothing to the purpose; and seldom abstains till he comes to a thirst." Young's England's Bane (1647) has the following passage: "Truely I thinke hereupon comes the name of good fellow, quasi goad fellow, because he forceth and goads his fellowes forward to be drunke with his persuasive Termes as I dranke to you pray pledge me, you dishonour me, you disgrace mee, and with such like words, doth urge his Consorts forward to be drunke, as Oxen being prickt with Goads, are compel'd and forced to draw the waine." Barnaby Rich, in The Irish Hubbub (1619), describes the mode of drinking healths in his time "He that beginneth the Health hath his prescribed Orders; first uncovering his head, hee takes a full Cup in his hand, and setling his Countenance with a grave aspect, hee craves for audience: Silence being once obtained, hee beginns to breath out the name, peradventure of some honourable personage, that is worthy of a better regard, than to have his name polluted amongst a Company of Drunkards: but his health is drunke to, and hee that pledgeth must likewise off with his Cap, kisse his Fingers, and bowing himselfe in signe of a reverent acceptance. When the Leader sees his follower thus prepared : he soups up his broath, turnes the bottom of the Cup upward, and in Ostentation of his Dexteritie, gives the Cup a phillip, to make it cry Twango. And thus the first Scene is acted. The Cup being newly replenished to the breadth of an haire, he that is the pledger must now beginne his part, and thus it goes round throughout the whole Company, provided alwaies by a Cannon set downe by the Founder, there must be three at the least still uncovered, till the Health hath had the full passage: which is no sooner ended, but another begins againe." In the second part of Dekker's Honest Whore (1630) we have- "Drank to your Health, whole Nights in Hippocrase, Than e're I said my prayers, which Heaven forgive me;" and again: "To our noble Duke's Health I can drink no lesse, not a drop lesse; and you his Servants will pledge me, I am sure." In Heywood's Philocothonista (1635) we read: "Divers authors report of Alexander that, carousing one day with twenty persons in his Company, hee dranke healths to every man round, and pledged them severally againe and as he was to rise, Calisthenes, the Sophist, coming into the Banquetting House, the king offered him a deepe quaffing-bowle, which he modestly refused, for which, being taxed by one there present, hee said aloud, I desire not, Oh Alexander, |