In Fitz-Stephen's account of London, about Henry the Second's time, it is stated, that "the boys of every school do yearly at Shrove-tide bring game cocks to their masters, and all the forenoon is spent in school in seeing these cocks fight together." This practice was continued for several centuries; and even lately, in different parts of the North, and in Scotland. In an account of the latter country printed in Edinburgh in 1792, the schoolmaster of Applecross, in Ross, is mentioned as having among his perquisites, "the cock-fight dues, which are equal to one quarter's payment for each scholar." Dean Colet in his statutes for the government of St. Paul's School, 1518, left this order :-"I will they use no cock-fightinge, nor ridinge about of victorye, nor disputing at St. Bartilemeeve, which is but foolish babbling and losse of time."

Another shameful practice at this period was Whipping the cock, or throwing at the cock. Hearne, the antiquary, says :-" The custom of throwing at cocks must be traced to the time of Henry V. and the victories then gained over the French, whose name, in Latin, is synonimous to that of a cock; and that our brave countrymen hinted by it that they could as easily, at any time, overthrow the Gallic armies as they could knock down the cocks on Shrove Tuesday." The practice, however, prevailed in England long before this period. Carpenter in his Glossary, under the date 1355, mentions a petition of the scholars of Ramera to their master, soliciting him to "give them a cock," which they affirm," their said master owed them upon Shrove Tuesday, to throw sticks at, according to the usual custom, for their sport and entertainment."

:

Trusler, in his Hogarth Moralized, describing the Four Stages of Cruelty, says: "We have several groups of boys at their barbarous diversions; one is, throwing at a cock, the universal Shrove-tide amusement, beating the harmless feathered animal to jelly.” Threshing of the cock was another diversion. In Tusser Redivivus, we are told

At Shrove-tide to shroving, next thresh the fat Hen;
If blindfold can kill her, then give it thy men:

To these lines is appended a note descriptive of the practice:-" The Hen is hung on a fellow's back, who has also some horse-bells about him; the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chace this fellow and 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." Much to the credit of the present age these disgraceful practices are now almost entirely exploded.

The custom of eating Pancakes on this day is very ancient. Taylor, commonly called the Water Poet, in his Jacke-a-Lent, says :-" In the morning, at the entrance of Shrove Tuesday, all the whole kingdom is unquiet; 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, called the Pancake

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Bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie; then there is a thing called wheeten floure, which the cookes do mingle with water, egges, spice, and other tragicall, magicall inchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying-pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismall 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 form of a Flip-Jack, called a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people do devoure very greedily."

In the North of England, Shrove Tuesday is called Fasten's Ee'n or Fasting's Eve, from the succeeding day being the first of the Lenten fast.

16. ASH WEDNESDAY.

This is the first day of Lent, on which, in the Romish church, the priests heard the confessions of those who had neglected to conform to the established rules of worship, or who had committed any particular sin. The priest after confession clothed them in sackcloth, laid ashes on their heads, then sprinkled them with Holy Water, and repeated the seven penitential psalms over them, as they lay prostrate on the earth. They then walked in procession barefooted, and were not admitted into the church again till Maundy Thursday, when they received absolution.

The practice of strewing ashes on the heads of sinners was derived to the Christians of the first ages from the Jews; and the example of Job's friends is a proof that this was not peculiar to the children of Israel. Tertullian's Treatise of Penance, and St. Cyprian's Book

of those who fell, clearly show that sackcloth and ashes were in the most early times of Christianity made use of as marks of penance, according to the established canons of the church.

The practice of receiving ashes from the hands of the priest on this day became general in the eleventh century; for Rupert Abbot of Duytz, who wrote towards the beginning of the twelfth century, observes, in his Treatise of the Divine Offices, that the church then used this ceremony.

The Lenten fast, which commences on this day, is an ordinance of the church in imitation of the forty days in which Christ fasted in the wilderness; it seems ordained by the wisdom of the ancient fathers as a suitable penance, and is calculated to fit the mind for more intense meditation and for mental exertion in general, to which the vegetable diet certainly conduces. On fasting, much is to be said in a medical point of view. Forster observes:-" If not carried too far, it is very useful in clearing the blood of redundant and vicious humours, and in relieving the stomach from the too great action into which it is habitually called by our habits of repletion. By lessening the impetus of the circulation, likewise, it relieves the brain from pressure, and qualifies the mind in an eminent degree for the holy meditations and offices of the season of penance. Abstinence from flesh meat is also a salutary adjunct to fasting, and we are persuaded that the periodical fasts and abstinences of the church have a good physical effect on the body, as well as on the mind; and thus, in the consolidated wisdom of our forefathers, was contemplated the threefold benefit of health of body, vigilance and purity of

mind, and salutary penance for sins, by a periodical observance, which nothing but the idle, lazy, and dissipated gourmand of an age of refinement would venture to impugn."

20. QUADRAGESIMA; OR, FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

SABBATH MORNING.

Now along the morning gale

Tolls the church-bell soft and slowly,
And o'er mountain, wood, and vale,
Sleeps the sabbath silence holy.

Not a human voice is heard,
Voice of labour or of pleasure,
Mingling with the tuneful bird,
As it trills its early measure.
Now, from every mountain glen,
Scenes of unpolluted nature,
Come the lonely shepherd men
Peace in every heart and feature.

Now along the village way,

Clad in meet and homely dresses,

Matrons staid, and maidens gay,

Join the crowd that church-ward presses.

Now the youthful and the old,

Now the cheerful and the weeping,

Tread along the flowery mould

Where their kindred dust is sleeping.

Now the pious spirit glows,

Now the holy psalm is singing,

Bringing thoughts of long repose,
Thoughts of endless glory bringing.

23, 25, 26. EMBER DAYS.

The Ember days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent, and after the 13th of December. It is enjoined by a canon of the church," that Deacons and Ministers be ordained,