March 7, 1818.] William Wray. In the same church. Impostures of History. (From New York Portfolio.) country, will give so very opposite an account of the passing events of the day, that a stranger might well suppose they were adverting to two different eras-to two different classes of persons—and, indeed, to the affairs of two distinct commonwealths and governments. performed a miracle. In a word, his tory may furnish illustrations, and wellwritten works of fiction; novels, for instance, may do the same; but natural sagacity, sharpened and guided by experience in the ways of men, and quick as intuition to avail itself of every advantage that arises, can alone make the To the spientic man who derives gra- statesman, and this the knowledge of A work of considerable utility to tification from comparing the infirmi- all the histories in the world cannot young readers in particular, who are ties of his fellow creatures with the supply; though a too great reliance u- naturally bribed into credulity by their comfortable estimate he has made of pon the information they impart, might love of the marvellous, was written I his own endowments-to the satirist thwart and defeat its operations. Not believe some time in the sixteenth cenwho feeds upon the exposure of human all the magnificent train of volumes tury, in the Italian language, and pubfoibles, as the worm does on putrid from Herodotus to Gillies could have lished by the abbé Lancelotti, a philoflesh, the inordinate encomiums which made a Ximenes, a Cromwell, a Riche- sopher, an historian, and a critic of the candidates for fame in political science lieu, or a Perigord. On the contrary, first eminence. It went to expose in, have pronounced on the uses of history, it would be difficult to find a series of perhaps, too minute detail, the falseand the mighty consequence which transactions in the whole, by the imi-hoods of history. In the beginning of some-and those not inconsiderable tation of which, as furnishing rules for the last century it was translated into statesmen, annex to the study of it, their conduct, those sagacious politi- French by the abbe Oliva, well known may perhaps afford matter of triumph. cians would not have defeated and ut- by his connexion with the celebrated He, however, who sincerely cultivates terly ruined their own projects. I Montesquieu. It contains a view of the interests of letters, while he urges should be obliged to the historical various historical impostures, from which the perusal of history as a liberal ex-book-worm who would point out any I have selected a few that are well calercise for the mind, will season his re-thing in the records of the earth, bear-culated to afford at once entertainment commendation with such reflections as ing even a distant analogy to the French and instruction to the reading part of may occur to him that have a tendency revolutions, within the last five-and- our community. to guard readers against an implicit twenty years, or even to our own more faith in even the most authentic histo- familiar and less complicated condition ry, as a source of instruction, or a di-at the period that we live in. How rection to practical conduct in the ma- idle-how mischievous then must it not nagement of human affairs. be, for mere closet-formed, book-read politicians to trust to their own shallow pedantry in tampering with affairs of state. We Man is a creature of so nice and complicated a texture-his dispositions and desires are so infinitely varied and capricious-his habits so subject to These truths are suggested upon the change the circumstances and situa-hypothesis that histories are good autions in which he may be placed are often so entirely independent of antecedent events, and the accidents to which he may be exposed so little to be foreseen, and so unsusceptible of being comprehended within any one act of generalization, that the rule of conduct deduced from the experience of yesterday may to-day be inapplicable, and the experience of to-day prove but a very fallacious light for the guidance of the morrow. This is more especially the case in political matters, respecting which he who should shape his conduct by historical analogies, would have little more chance of success than a painter who should attempt to draw a likeness of a child from a perfect intimacy with the physiognomical lineaments of its father and the mother; —a certain remote resemblance night, perhaps, exist, as is found to preside more or less in all families; but if the picture were even a tolerably good likeness, the pianter might be said to have thority for all they assert; but how "Zaleucus," says the abbe, "the prince and legislator of the Locrians, made a law that those who were convicted of adultery sbould have their eyes put out. His son was the first criminal, and he chose that he should suffer the rigour of the law; but the nobility and people in general solicited him so earnestly in the young man's favour, that he was unable to maintain his resolution. However, he found out an expedient to satisfy and support the dignity of the law. He gave up one of his own eyes, and took away one of his son's." The abbe's remarks on this story are too puerile to be noticed. The story, however, is certainly an imposture. It is taken from Valerius Maximus. Heraclides, of Pontus, tells us that this was the Locrian punishment of robbers, and Cicero doubts the very existence of Zaleucus. "Such is the reputation of Democritus," says the abbe again, "that almost all the world is persuaded he put his eyes out upon moral and honourable principles. Aulus Gellius assures us that he took this resolution, in order to concentrate his ideas, and to enable him more effectually to contemplate those mysteries of nature into which his eyes did not suffer him to penetrate. He quotes the verses of Laberius, wherein he says that Democritus lost his sight by looking too steadfastly on who wrote the man's life not even al- winter in a subterranean cave. "Lactantius, on the other hand, says that the mind decerns the object through the medium of the eye, as through a window. It is so essentially there, that through the same medium you may read what passes in it." "Upon the whole," says the Abbe, it is evident that this story of Democritus is a mere imposture. How could he possibly think of putting out his eyes, when those organs are the medium by which knowledge passes to the understanding. Might he not, with Pythagoras, have shut himself up in darkness. If his aversion to the sight of vicious men made him destroy his eyes, it was indeed very extraordinary. Tertullian, however, tells a different story," which may be conjectured by those who have read of the sacrifice of Origen, or remember why Dr Johnson abstained from going behind the scenes of Drury-lane theatre. [March 7, 1815. a young man of Tuscany, named Spurina, who was so singularly beautiful that the Tuscan ladies, even to a woman, were dying for love of him. The youth, however, disfigured his face in such a manner as to render himself as much an object of aversion as he had before been of love and admiration. The historan alleges that he took this method to preserve his morals, the reputation of which he preferred to that of beauty and love. "There is not a syllable of truth in this story, (says the Abbé) and St Ambrose has said so before me." Another imposture of history is the story of Hezegias, whose eloquence is said by his historians to be so powerful, that when he spoke of the evils of life, his audience voluntarily put themselves to death. Less impossible, but still very like impostures, are the stories re lated of the assassins sent to murder Mark Antony and Marius, being overpowered by the eloquence of the former, and the dignity of the latter. "If," continues the Abbé, "we were to credit all said about him by high historians, we cannot be astonished at the cruelties and follies of Xerxes, and at the same time believe him to be the pink of humanity and of every heroic excellence. Seneca in his noble piece De Ira, informs us that an old man, named Pythius, had five sons whom Xerxes ordered to the wars. The father begged one for the support of his age. The monarch gave him his choice, but immediately commanded the son who was selected to be cut asunder, and the parts to be laid on each side of the high way, for the expiation of his army. So much for the barbarity of the man, now for his folly. He commanded the sea to be beaten with rods, and cauterized with hot irons; and he wrote a letter to Mount Athos. Such are the tales and contemptible incongruities foisted upon mankind under the name of history-read in the first Ælian relates that the Celts looked universities in the world,-noted, illus-upon flight as, in every instance, so intrated, and commented upon by the supportably disgraceful, that they would learned, and, with most simple faith, not fly from a house that threatened an credited by many. There are many immediate fall, or that would in a other stories about this noise-making few minutes perish in the flames. "Plipersonage, Xerxes, such as his army ny (says the abbe) tells us that the rats drinking up rivers, leaving the Lissus, and spiders will leave a house that is the Chidorus, and even the Scamander about to fall. What a contemptible dry; and, above all, the story related opinion must the Celts have entertained of the cattle of the prodigious army of of those pusillanimous 'creatures? this prodigious king, being so numerous that they exhausted a lake of five miles in circumference. Yet this is history!!!" In some cases the gravity with which our honest Abbé reasons upon these monstrous absurdities, is as ridiculous as the stories are incredible. An instance or two may be given by way of amusement: "Pliny's accounts of the Thrasyme. nian lake being on fire, and of Anaxarchus's biting off his own tongue-de serve no quarter. "Herodotus, Athenæus, and Nicho las Damascenus, tell incredible stories of the excessive flattery of courtiers, who, to ingratiate themselves with princes, have imitated them in their greatest absurdities. If the prince was Cicero (says the Abbé) speaking of lame, his whole court was lame—if he the music of the spheres, says that the broke a limb, they underwent the same reason why we do not hear it, is owing punishment." The incredulous abbé. partly to its continuance, and partly to disbelieves this; but we are far from its loudness. "Thus," says he, "the peo-thinking it improbable. "It certainly was a most unphiloso-ple who live near the cataracts of the Pliny and Arrian mention a tree phical proceeding on all parts, if we Nile, hear nothing at all." Here the that spread its shade over five acres of take the facts from Tertullian; since, good Abbé seems angry. "Hear no-ground. though the eyes were put out, the im-thing! (says he very gravely) Why the agination was still alive. Cicero great-d-I should they choose to live in such ly doubts this passage in history. Cura place? How could the business of hæc eadem Democritus, qui, vere falso nequeremus dicitur oculis se privasse. "Here then is a fact stated of a man by a very high historiani, denied by others, by Cicero, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus, and by Diogenes Laertius, commerce and government be carried Valerius Maximus records a story of So far I have gone along with the abbé Lancelotti, in his exposure of the impostures of history; and now I would fain have an answer from some of your correspondents to this question, "Is it true that Hannibal cut his way across the Alps, as historians relate. WITH FIRE, IRON, AND VINEGAR--and if so, how did he apply the vinegar?' C. R. March 7. 1818.] Sketches of Society-Manners of the English in the Sixteenth Century. Sketches of Society. MANNERS OF THE ENGLISH IN hapel He falls very foul on Holland shirts, custom. In tymes past kynges (as old historiographers in their bookes yet extant doc recorde would not disdain to weare a paire of hosen of a noble, tenne shillynges or a marke price, with all the rest of their apparell after the same rate, but now it is a small matter to bestowe twentie nobles, tenne SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From "THE ANATOMY OF ABUSES; Containing a discoverie or brief summarie of such notable Vices and Imperfections as now raigne in many countreyes of the world, but (especiallye) in a famous ISLANDE called AILGNA; together with most fearefull examples of God's judgements executed upon the wic-pounde, 20 pounde. 40 pounde, yea le pounde ked for the same, as wel in AILGNA of late as on one paire of breeches (God bee mercifull unto in other places elsewhere. Very godly to us, and yet is this thought no abuse neither." be read of all true Christians, but most needAs the reader may like to be intro. full to be regarded in ENGLAND. Made diaduced to one of these Princes whose logue-wise by PHILLIP STUBBES Seen and allowed according to order. Printed at Londress was not worth more than themdon, by Richard Jones, 16, August 1683.” selves, we shall quote him Othello, act ii. scene 11. It will not require an Edipus to detect the geographical situation of this "famous ilande called Ailgna;" but should guessing not serve, dull wits will be much assisted by reading the word, like Hebrew, from right to left. Sir Egerton Brydges would have no dealings with such libellous matter, but honest Phillip Stubbes has nevertheless not lived to this time without honour. Chalmers notices him, and Stevens, in J. and S.'s Shakespeare, Vol. II. p. 257. refers to this work in the following passage:-" During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, plays were exhibited in the public theatres on Sundays as well as on other days in the week, in which Strype, in his additions to Stowe's Survey of London, says, the churches were forsaken, and the playhouses thronged." The reference subjoined is probably to these words:"You shall have them flocke thether thicke and threefolde, when the church of God shall be bare and emptie." LAGO. Oh sweet Englande. King Stephen was an a worthy peer, His breeches cost him but a crown, 257 some of this fashion, and some of that, and some of this colour, and some of that, according to the Another sort of dissolute minions and wanton variable fantasies of their serpentine mindes. * * sempromians (for I can terme them no better,) are so farie bewitched, as the are not ashamed to make holes in their eares, whereat thei hang rynges, and other jewels of gold and precious stones. But what this signifieth in them, I will holde my peace, for the thing itself speaketh sufficiently. There is a certaine kinde of people in the oriental part of the world, as writers assume, that are such lovers of themselves, and so proude withall, that havyng plentie of precious stones and margarites amongst them, setting therein these precious stones, to the ende thei cutt and launce their skinnes and fleche, thei maie glister and shine to the eye. So, except these women were minded to tread their pathes, and folowe their direfull waies in this cursed kind of pride, I wonder what thei meane. * * You heare not the tenth part, for no pen is able so well to describe it, as the eye is to describe it. The women there use great ruffes and neckerchers of hollande, laune, camericke, and such clothe as the greatest threed shall not be so big as the least haire that is, then least thei should fall doune, they are smeared and starched With that he called the tailor lown. * * * * * * the devil's liquor, I meane starche; after that dried with great diligence, streaked, patted, and rubbed very nicely, and so applied to their goodly necks, and withall underpropped with supportasses (as I told you before) the stately arches fetche, nothyng inferiour to the rest, as namely of pride beside all this, they have a farther datim, one beneath another, and all under the three or fower degrees of minor ruffes placed gramaister devill ruffe; the shirts then of these great ruffes are long and side, every waie plated, and crested full curiously, God wot. Abuses of Womens Apparell in Ailgna. I trust I shall not be unrewarded at their handes, if, at the least, to be called a thousand knaves be a sufficient guerdon for my paines. their hautie stomackes, and a nippitatum to their It maie bee perhappes a corrosive to tender breasts, to heare their dirtie dregges ript up, and cast in their diamond faces. The women (many of them) use to colour their faces with certaine oyles, liquors, unguentes, and waters made to that ende, whereby thei thinke their We then have a very horrible story beauty is greatly decored: but who seeth not of a young lady who cursed her maids, that their soules are thereby deformed, and thei and how the devil came to assist at her brought deeper into the displeasure and indignation of the Almightic, at whose voyce the yearth toilette, and how he kissed her, and how doeth tremble, and at whose presence the heavens she turned all "blacke and blewe.' shall liquefie and melt away? *It How further she was taken out of her an artificer or craftsman should make any thing coffin, and they found "a blacke catte belonging to his arte or science, and a cobler verie leane and deformed, sittyng in the should presume to correct the same, would not the other thinke hymself abused, and judge hym Coffin, setting of great ruffes, and frizworthie of reprehension? And dooe these wo-lyng of haire, to the great feare and men thinke to escape the judgement of God, wonder of all the beholders." Their who hath fashioned them to his glorie, when their great and more than presumptuous audacitie da gowns do not escape, and there is a reth to alter and chaunge his workmanship in sweeping condemnation of "their skirtes them? Doe they suppose they can make them- trailying on the ground, and cast over selves fairer than God that made us all? their shoulders like cowe tailes." Petthei would never goe aboute to colour their faces These must needes bee their intentions, or els ticoats are also not without their trimwith such sibbers-awces. ming. "So that," says he, "when loweth the trimming and trycking of their heddes, they have all these goodly robes upon in laiying out their haire to the shewe, whiche of them, women seem to be the smallest course must be curled, frisled, and crisped, laid part of themselves, not naturall women, out (a world to see) on wreathes and borders but artificiall women, not women of from one eare to another. And least it should fleshe and bluid, but rather puppits of fall doune it is under-proped with forks, wiers, To begin firste with their hattes Sometymes and I cannot tell what, rather like grim, sterne mawmets, consistyng of ragges and thei use them sharpe on the croune, pearking up monsters, than chaste christian matrones. Then cloutes compact together. like the spere or shaft of a steeple, standing a on toppes these stately turrets (I meane their quarter of a yarde above the croune of their goodly heades, wherein is more vanitie than true heades some more, ome lesse as please the phan-philosophie now and then stand their other catasies of their inconstant mindes. Other some be flat and broad in the croune, like the battlements of a house." The first dialogue is between Spudens and Philoponus. The latter is returned from his travels, and undertakes to describe Ailgna. Dialogue H. is "a a particuler description of Pride, the principall abuse in. Ailgna, and how manifold it is." He holds dress to be a great sin, " apparel and pride" being collaterall cosins." After the fall, "it was given us to cover our shame wtihall, and not to feed the insatiable desires of mens wanton and luxuriouse eyes." DIAL. III—“ A particuler description of Ap parell in Ailgna. by degrees. * * * Then fol pitalle ornaments, as French hood, hatt, cappe, After all this, when they have attired themselves thus, in the middest of their pride it is a worlde to consider their coinesse in gestures, their minsednesse in woordes and speeches, their gingernesse in tripping on toes like young goates, their demure nicitie and babishnesse, and witbal 259 Sketches of Society,-Manners of the English in the Sixteenth Century, &c. their hautie stomackes, and more than Cyclopi- | players, painted sepulchers, and double devill in them?" DIAL. VI.-Ghettonie and Excesse. Ass me be over largeous, so others some are spare inough, for when any meate is stirring, then locke thei up their gates, that no man may come in. An other sorte have so many houses, that they visit them not once in seven years; many chimnies, but little smoke, fair houses, but small hospitalitie. DIAL. VII.-Drunkenness. Every countrey, citie, toune, village, and other places, hath abundance of alehouses, taverns, and innes, which are so fraught with maltwormes night and day, that you would wounder to see them. DIAL. VIII.-Covetousnessc. Landlordes make merchandize of their poore tenants, racking their rents, raising their fines, and incomes, and setting them so straight upon the tenter hookes, as no man can live on them. Besides that, as tho' this pillage and pollage were not rapacious enough, thei take in, and inclose commons, moores, heathes, and other common pastures whereout the poor commonalitie were wont to have all their forage, and feedyng for their cattell, and (whiche is more) corne for themselves to live upon; all which are now in inoste places taken from them, by these greedy puttockes, to the great impoverishyng and utter beggeryng of many whole townes and parishes." Lawyers (he remarks,) purchase landes and lordshippes, and what not, and al upon the pollyng and pillying of the poore commons. DIAL. XVIII-The horrible Vice of pestiferous Dauncing. Thei are not ashamed to erect schooles of dauncing, thinkyng it an ornament to their chil- DIAL. XXVII.-Readyng of wicked Bookes. * If you have argent, or rather rubrum unquentum, I dare not say golde, but redde ointment, to grease them in the fist withall, then your sute shali want no furtherance; but if this liquor be wantyng, then farewell cliente, he maie goe shooe the goose, for any good successe he is to have of his matter. The worlde is suche, that he who hath money inough, shall be rabbied and maistered at every worde, and withall saluted by the vaine title of worshipfull, tho' notwithstanding he be a dunghili gentleman, or a gentleman of the first head, as thei use to terme them." DIAL, IX.-Usaurie. O cursed caitive, no man, but a devill, no Christian, but a cruell Tartarian and mercilesse Turke; Darest thou looke up toward heaven, or canst thou hope to bee saved by the death of Christ, that sufferest thine owne fleshe and bloud, thine owne brethren and sisters in the Lorde, and which is more, the fleshe and bloude of Christe Jesus, vesselles of salvation, coheires with hym of his supernall kingdome, adoptive sonnes of his grace, and finally sainctes in Heaven, to lye and rot in prison for want of payment of a little drosse, which at the daie of doome shall beare witness against thee, gnawe thy fleshe like a canker, and condemn thee for ever? The very stones of the prison walles shall rise up against thee, and condemne thee for thy crueltie. Is this thy love? Is this charitie? Is this to do to others as thou wouldest wish others to doe to thee; or rather as thou wouldest wish the Lord to doe unto thee." DIAL. XII-Of Stage-playes and Enterludes, with their wickednesse. He rails mightily at the "makyng Candlemas and Shrovetide. [March 7, 1818. and expressedly because it was considered as symbolical of the spiritual illumination of the Gospel. From Candlemas to Hallowmas, the tapers which had been lighted all the winter in cathedral and conventual churches ceased to be used; and so prevalent, indeed, was the relinquishment of candles on this day in domestic one of the proverbs in the collection of life, that it has laid the foundation of Mr Ray: On Candlemas day throw Candle and Candlestick away." On this day likewise the Christmas greens were removed from churches and private houses. Herrick, who may be considered as the contemporary of Shakspeare, being five-and-twenty at the a pleasing description of this obserperiod of the poet's death, has given us vance; he abounds, indeed, in the history of local rites, and, though surviv ing beyond the middle of the seventeenth century, paints with great accuracy the manners and superstitions of the Shaksperean era. He has paid we are describing, and enumerates the particular attention to the festival that various greens and flowers appropriated to different seasons, in a little poem. entitled CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMASSE EVE Down with the rosemary and bayes, The greener box (for show.) On Easter's eve appeare. When yew is out, then birch comes in, To honour Whitsontide. Green bushes then, and sweetest bents, Among the common people, the festivities of Christmas were frequently protracted to CANDLEMAS-DAY. This was done under the idea of doing honour to the Virgin Mary, whose purification is commemorated by the church at this period. It was generally, remarks Bourne, " a day of festivity, and more than ordinary observation among women, and is therefore called the The usage which we have alluded Wives' Feast-day." The term Candlemas, however, seems to have arisen from to, of the preserving the Christmas a custom among the Roman Catholics, cheer and hospitality to Candlemas, is of consecrating tapers on this day, and immediately afterwards recorded and bearing them about lighted in proces-connected with a singular superstition, sion, to which they were enjoined by in the following poems under the titles an edict of Pope Sergius, A. D. 684; of but on what foundation is not accurately ascertained. At the Reformation, among the rites and ceremonies which were ordered to be retained in a convocation of Henry VIII. this is one, CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMASSE DAY. March 7, 1818.1 Part must be kept wherewith to teend End now the white-loafe and the pye, And let all sports with Christmas dye. To the exorcising power of the Christmas brand is added, in the subsequent effusion, a most alarming denunciation against those who heedlessly leave in the hall, on Candlemas Eve, any the smallest portion of the Christmas greens. CEREMONY UPON CANDLEMAS EVE. That so the superstitious find No one least branch there left behind: Sketches of Society-Shakspeare and his Times. hen," says he, "is hung at 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 chase this fellow and his hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and his hen; at other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favour'dly; but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweet-hearts with a peeping hole, whilst the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this the hen is boil'd with bacon, and store of pancakes and fritters are made. She that is noted for lying in bed long, or any other miscar riage, hath the first pancake presented to her, which most commonly falls to the dog's share at last, for no one will The next important period of feastown it their due." Mr Hilman coning in the country occurred at SHROVE- cludes his comment on the text with a TIDE, which among the Roman Catho- singular remark; "the loss of the alics was the time appointed for shriving bove laudable custom, is one of the beor confession of sins, and was also ob-nefits we have got by smoaking toserved as a carnival before the com-bacco." mencement of Lent. The former of Shakspeare has twice noticed this these ceremonies was dispensed with at the Reformation; but the rites attend-in All's Well That Ends Well, where he season of feasting and amusement; first, ing the latter were for a long time sup makes the Clown tell the Countess (aported with a rival spirit of hilarity mong a string of other similies,) that his The Monday and Tuesday succeeding answer is as fit as a pancake for Shrove Sunday, called Collop Monday Shrove-tuesday *;" and in the Second and Pancake Tuesday, were peculiarly Part of King Henry IV. he has introdevoted to Shrove-tide Amusement; the duced Silence singing the following first having been, in papal times, the period at which they took leave of flesh, or slices of meat, termed collops in the north, which had been preserved through the winter by salting and drying, and the second was a relic of the feast preceding Lent; eggs and collops therefore on the Monday, and pancakes, as a delicacy, on the Tuesday, were duly if not religiously served up. Tusser, in his very curious and entertaining poem on agriculture, thus notices some of the old observances at Shrovetide: At Shroftide to shroving, go thresh the fat hen, Maids, fritters and pancakes, ynow see ye make, Let slut have one pancake for company sake. For an explanation of the obsolete custom of "threshing the fat hen," we are indebted to Mr Hilman. "The * Teend, to kindle. song: Be merry, be merry, my wife's as all; Be merry, be merry, &c. * Reed's Shakespeare, Vol. viii. p. 272 273 has given us the following most singular account: manitie." See his Works, folio, 1630, p. 115. 259 The third line of this song appears to have been proverbial, and of considerable antiquity; for Adam Davie, who flourished about 1312, has the same imagery with the same rhyme, in his Life of Alexander : Merry swithe it is in halle, When the berdes waveth alle. And the subsequent passage, quoted by Mr Reed from a writer contemporary with Shakspeare, proves, that it was a common burden or under song in the halls of our gentry at that period :"which done, grace said, and the table taken up, the plate presently conveyed into the pantrie, the hall summons this consort of companions (upon payne to dyne with Duke Humphrie, or to kisse the hare's foot,) to appear at the first call: where a song is to be sung, the under song or holding whereof is, It is merrie in haul where beards wag all." The Serving-man's Confort, 1598, sign C. The evening of Shrove-Tuesday was unusually appropriated, as well in the country as in town, to the exhibition of dramatic pieces. Not only at Court, where Johnson was occasionally employed to write Masques on this night, vincial schools, and in the halls of the but at both the Universities, in the progentry and nobility, were these the amusements of Shrovetide, during the days of Elizabeth and James. Warton, speaking of these ephemeral plays, adds, in a note, " I have seen an anonymous comedy, APPOLLO SHROVING, composed by the Master of Hadleighschool, in Suffolk, and acted by his scholars on Shrove-Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1626, printed 1627, 8vo. published, as it seems, by E. W. Shrove-tuesday, as the day immediately preceding Lent, and feasting. Some of these festiviwas always a day of extraordinary sport ties," he proceeds to say, "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 Shrowflewesday at night." The cruel custom of cock-throwing, which, until lately, was a diversion peculiar to this day, seems to have originated from the barbarous, yet less savage, amusement of cock-fighting; although it cannot be ascertained at what period this degenerated into cockthrowing. The great moral painter, Hogarth, was the first who effectually satirized this infamous sport; his be |