I speak only as to myself in this; for others, perhaps, may have discovered it in other parts, though I have not. Now, thirdly, to account for it; the name undoubtedly arose from the custom, and this I think arose from hence: our year formerly began, as to some purposes, and in some respects, on the 25th of March, which was supposed to be the Incarnation of our Lord; and it is certain that the commencement of the new year, at whatever time that was supposed to be, was always esteemed an high festival, and that both amongst the ancient Romans and with us. Now great festivals were usually attended with an Octave (see Gent. Mag. 1762, p. 568), that is, they were wont to continue eight days, whereof the first and last were the principal; and you will find the 1st of April is the octave of the 25th of March, and the close or ending, consequently, of that feast, which was both the Festival of the Annunciation and of the New Year. From hence, as I take it, it became a day of extraordinary mirth and festivity, especially amongst the lower sorts, who are apt to pervert and make a bad use of institutions, which at first might be very laudable in themselves."

The following is extracted from the Public Advertiser, April 13, 1789

"Humorous Jewish Origin of the Custom of making Fools on the First of April.

"This is said to have begun from the mistake of Noah in sending the Dove out of the Ark before the water had abated, on the first day of the month among the Hebrews which answers to our first of April: and, to perpetuate the memory of this deliverance, it was thought proper, whoever forgot so remarkable a circumstance, to punish them by sending them upon some sleeveless errand similar to that ineffectual message upon which the bird was sent by the patriarch."

Here is a newspaper cutting

"The 1st of April 1792.

"No Antiquary has even tried to explain the custom of making April Fools. It cannot be connected with 'the Feast of the Ass,' for that would be on Twelfth Day; nor with the ceremony of the Lord of Misrule,' in England, nor of the 'Abbot of Unreason,' in Scotland, for these frolics were held at Christmas. The writer recollects that he has met with a conjecture, somewhere, that April Day is celebrated as part of the festivity of New Year's Day. That day used to be kept on the 25th of March. All Antiquaries know that an octave, or eight days, usually completed the Festivals of our forefathers. If so, April day, making the octave's close, may be supposed to be employed in Fool-making, all other sports having been exhausted in the foregoing seven days."

Douce's MS. Notes say: "I am convinced that the ancient ceremony of the Feast of Fools has no connection whatever with the custom of making Fools on the 1st of April. The making of April Fools, after all the conjectures which have been formed touching its origin, is certainly borrowed by us from the French, and may, I think, be deduced from this simple analogy. The French call them April Fish (Poissons d'Avril), i.e., Simpletons, or, in other words, silly Mackerel,

who suffer themselves to be caught in this month. But as, with us, April is not the season of that Fish, we have very properly substituted the word Fools."

The custom of making fools on the 1st of April prevails among the Swedes. In Toreen's Voyage to China, he says: "We set sail on the 1st of April, and the wind made April Fools of us, for we were forced to return before Shagen, and to anchor at Riswopol." So also we read in Southey's letters from Spain and Portugal that on the Sunday and Monday preceding Lent, as on the 1st of April with us, the people of Lisbon were privileged to play the fool, it being thought very jocose to pour water on passers-by, or throw powder in their faces, and to do both being held the perfection of wit.

In the North of England persons thus imposed upon are called "April gowks." A gouk, or gowk, is properly a cuckoo, and is used here, metaphorically, in vulgar language, for a fool. The cuckoo is, indeed, everywhere a name of contempt. Gauch, in the Teutonic, is rendered stultus, fool; whence also our Northern word, a goke, or a gawky.

In Scotland, upon April Day, they have a custom of "hunting the gowk," as it is termed. This is done by sending silly people upon fools' errands, from place to place, by means of a letter, in which is written

"On the first day of April

Hunt the Gowk another mile."*

Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, speaking of " the first of April, or the antient Feast of the Vernal Equinox, equally observed in India and Britain," tells us: "The first of April was anciently observed in Britain as a high and general Festival, in which an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight, was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the observance of this annual Festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment, in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calenders, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports, anciently celebrated in this country on the first of April, to have long since ceased: and although the changes occasioned, during a long lapse of years, by the shifting of the Equinoctial points, have in Asia itself been productive of important Astronomical alterations, as to the exact æra of the commencement of the year; yet, on both Continents, some very remarkable traits of the

* In the old play of The Parson's Wedding, the Captain says: "Death! you might have left word where you went, and not put me to hunt like Tom Fool" (see Reed's Old Plays, ii. 419). So in Secret Memoirs of the late Mr Duncan Campbel: "I had my labour for my pains; or, according to a silly custom in fashion among the vulgar, was made an April-Fool of, the person who had engaged me to take this pains never meeting me."

jocundity which then reigned, remain even to these distant times. Of those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry, the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of that month: but this, Colonel Pearce (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 334), proves to have been an immemorial custom among the Hindoos at a celebrated Festival holden about the same period in India, which is called the Huli Festival. During the Huli, when mirth and festivity reign among the Hindoos of every class, one subject of diversion is to ser.d people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this English custom; but it is unquestionably very antient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With us, it is chiefly confined to the lower class of people; but in India high and low join in it; and the late Suraja Doulah, I am told, was very fond of making Huli Fools, though he was a Mussulman of the highest rank. They carry the joke here so far, as to send letters making appointments, in the name of persons who it is known must be absent from their house at the time fixed upon; and the laugh is always in proportion to the trouble given.' The least enquiry into the ancient customs of Persia, or the minutest acquaintance with the general astronomical mythology of Asia, would have taught Colonel Pearce that the boundless hilarity and jocund sports prevalent on the first day of April in England, and during the Huli Festival of India, have their origin in the ancient practice of celebrating with festival rites the period of the Vernal Equinox, or the day when the new year of Persia anciently began."

Cambridge, in his Notes on the Scribleriad, assures us that the first day of April was a day held in esteem among the alchemists, because Basilius Valentinus was born on it.

SHERE THURSDAY, ALSO MAUNDY THURSDAY.

HERE THURSDAY is the Thursday before Easter, and is so people would that day shere theyr hedes and clypp theyr berdes, and pool theyr heedes, and so make them honest ayenst Easter day."

In Fosbrooke's British Monachism, mention occurs, at Barking Nunnery, of" Russeaulx (a kind of allowance of corn) in Lent, and to bake with Eels on Sheer Thursday:" also, "stubbe Eels and shafte Eels baked for Sheer Thursday."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1779, says: Maunday Thursday, called by Collier Shier Thursday, Cotgrave calls by a word of the same sound and import, Sheere Thursday. Perhaps, for I can only go upon conjecture, as sheer means purus, mundus, it may allude to the washing of the disciples' feet (John xiii. 5, & seq.), and be tantamount to clean. If this does not please, the Saxon pciɲan signi

fies dividere, and the name may come from the distribution of alms upon that day. Please to observe too, that on that day they also washed the Altars: so that the term in question may allude to that business."

66

In More's answer to Tyndal, on the Souper of our Lord, is the following passage: He treateth, in his secunde parte, the Maundye of Chryste wyth hys Apostles upon Shere Thursday." Among the Receipts and Disbursements of the Canons of the Priory of St Mary in Huntingdon, in Nichol's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of antient Times in England (1797), we have: "Item, gyven to 12 pore men upon Shere Thorsday, 25." In an Account of Barking Abbey in Select Views of London and its Environs (1804), we read inter alia, in transcripts from the Cottonian Manuscripts and the Monasticon, "Deliveryd to the Co'vent coke, for rushefals for Palme Sundaye, xxi pounder fygges. Item, delyveryd to the seyd coke on Sher Thursday viii pounde ryse. Item, delyveryd to the said coke for Shere Thursday xviii pounde almans."

It was also called Maunday Thursday; and is thus described by the translator of Naogeorgus in the Popish Kingdome

"And here the monkes their Maundie make, with sundrie solemne rights And signes of great humilitie, and wondrous pleasaunt sights.

Ech one the others feete doth wash, and wipe them cleane and drie,
With hatefull minde, and secret frawde, that in their heartes doth lye:
As if that Christ, with his examples, did these things require,

And not to helpe our brethren here, with zeale and free desire;
Ech one supplying others want, in all things that they may,
As he himselfe a servaunt made, to serve us every way.

Then strait the loaves doe walke, and pottes in every place they skinke,
Wherewith the holy fathers oft to pleasaunt damsels drinke.'

Cowell, in the Book of Rates, describes Maundy Thursday as the day preceding Good Friday, when they commemorate and practise the commands of our Saviour, in washing the feet of the poor, &c., as our kings of England have long practised the good old custom on that day of washing the feet of poor men in number equal to the years of their reign, and giving them shoes, stockings, and money. Some derive the word from mandatum, command; but others, and I think much more probably, from maund, a kind of great basket or hamper, containing eight bales, or two fats.

66

Maundy Thursday," says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1779, "is the poor people's Thursday, from the Fr. maundier, to beg. The King's liberality to the poor on that Thursday in Lent [is at] a season when they are supposed to have lived very low. Maundiant is at this day in French a beggar."

In Wits, Fits, and Fancies (1595), we read: "A scrivener was writing a marchant's last will and testament; in which the marchant expressed many debts that were owing him, which he willed his exe

"On Maundy Thursday hath bene the maner from the beginnyng of the Church to have a general drinkyng, as appeareth by S. Paule's writyng to the Corinthians, and Tertulliane to his wyfe."—Langley's Polydore Vergill.

A kinsman of

cutors to take up, and dispose to such and such uses. this marchant's then standing by, and hoping for some good thing to be bequeathed him, long'd to heare some goode news to that effect, and said unto the scrivener, Hagh, hagh, what saith my uncle now? doth he now make his Maundies? No (answered the scrivener), he is yet in his demaunds.”

In Quarles' Shepheard's Oracles (1646) is the following passage

"Nay, oftentimes their flocks doe fare

No better than chamelions in the ayre;
Not having substance, but with forc'd content
Making their maundy with an empty sent."

The following is from the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1731: "Thursday April 15 being Maundy Thursday, there was distributed at the Banquetting House, Whitehall, to forty-eight poor men and forty-eight poor women (the king's age forty-eight) boiled beef and shoulders of mutton, and small bowls of ale, which is called dinner; after that, large wooden platters of fish and loaves, viz. undressed, one large old ling, and one large dried cod; twelve red herrings, and 12 white herrings, and four half quarter loaves. Each person had one platter of this provision; after which was distributed to them shoes, stockings, linen and woollen cloth, and leathern bags, with one penny, two penny, three penny, and four penny pieces of silver, and shillings; to each about four pounds in value. His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, performed the annual ceremony of washing the feet of a certain number of poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the kings themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's pattern of humility, &c. James the Second was the last king who performed this in person."*

* In Langley's Polydore Vergill we read: "The kynges and quenes of England on that day washe the feete of so many poore menne and women as they be yeres olde, and geve to every of them so many pence, with a gowne, and another ordinary almes of meate, and kysse their feete; and afterward geve their gownes of their backes to them that they se most nedy of al the nomber." Nor was this custom entirely confined to royalty. In the Earl of Northumberland's Household Book, begun anno Domini 1512, fol. 354, we have an enumeration of

"AL MANNER OF THINGS yerly geven by my Lorde of his MAUNDY, ande my Laidis and his Lordshippis Childeren, as the consideracion WHY more playnly hereafter folowith.

'Furst, my Lorde useth ande accustomyth yerely uppon Maundy Thursday, when his Lordship is at home, to gyf yerly as manny gownnes to as manny poor men as my Lorde is yeres of aige, with hoodes to them, and one for the yere of my Lordes aige to come, of russet cloth, after iii yerddes of brode cloth in every gowne and hoode, ande after xiid. the brod yerde of clothe.

"Item, my Lorde useth ande accustomyth yerly uppon Maundy Thursday, when his Lordship is at home, to gyf yerly as manny sherts of lynnon cloth to as manny poure men as his Lordshipe is yers of aige, and one for the yere of