it has received certain others; Ignis sacer, rual des artus, ergot, &c., and it was not unknown to the ancients. In the Cleveland country, the disease, instead of St. Anthony's fire, is known as Wildfire. The alleged reason was that the people of Dauphiny, cured by the saint of this complaint, gave it his name; but the real fact seems to be, that the disease sprang from his penury and physical undernourishment, and that the sufferers in this province were apt to be cured by being received into the Abbey of St. Antoine at Vienne, where they were properly fed.

Sir John Bramston notes the death of his daughter-in-law Elizabeth Mountford, 9th December, 1689, and describes this complaint, to which she seems to have succumbed. "She had been very ill," he says, "with a distemper called St. Anthonie's fier, her eyes, nose, face, and head swelled vastly; at length it took her tongue and throat."-Autobiography, p. 348.

A writer in the Globe newspaper, March 6th, 1899, observes: "One of the most picturesque customs in Mexico is that of blessing animals, called the blessings of San Antonio. The poorer class take their domestic animals of all kinds, dogs, cats, parrots, sheep, horses, burros, &c., to be sprinkled with holy water, and to receive through the priest St. Anthony's blessing. It is the custom of the common class to clean and bedeck their animals specially for this blessing. Dogs are gaily decorated with ribbons tied around their necks. Sheep are washed thoroughly until their fleece is as white as snow, and then taken to the father to be blessed. The beaks of the parrots are gilded. Horses and burros are adorned with garlands.

Anthony of Padua, St., Abbot and Confessor. Riley furnishes the substance of the oath exacted in 1311, 4. Edward III., from the Renter as to the swine of the House of St. Anthony or Antonine, whereby that official was restrained from making the privilege enjoyed by such animals a cover for begging or alms, and from putting bells round their necks, or suffering others to do so in regard to their property to the extent of his power. Memorials of London Life, 1868, p. 83. Davis, Suppl. Glossary, 1881, P. 19. The exemption from the ordinary regulations in regard to vagrant swine also prevailed in mediæval times with perhaps greater latitude. Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 352. Bale, in his "Kynge Johan," says: "Lete Saynt Antoynes hogge be had in some regarde." There is an early notice of the legend of St. Anthony and the pigs to be found in the "Book of Days' under January 17. In

The author mentions before persons "who runne up and downe the country, crying, "Have you anything to bestow upon my lord S. Anthonies swine?"

Apostle Spoons.—It was anciently the custom for the sponsors at christenings to offer gilt spoons as presents to the child: these spoons were called Apostle spoons, because the figures of the twelve Apostles were chased or carved on the tops of the handles. Opulent sponsors gave the whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four; and the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhibiting the figure of any saint in hon

our of whom the child received its name. It is in allusion to this custom that when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young Princess, Shakespear makes the King reply, Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. In the year 1560, we find entered in the books of the Stationers' Company: "A spoyne, the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte, with the pycture of St. John." Ben Jonson also, in his "Bartholomew Fair," mentions spoons of this kind: "And all this for the hope of a couple of Apostle spoons and a cup to eat caudle in.' So, in Middleton's Chaste Maid in Cheapside," 1630: "Second Gossip: What has he given her? What is it, Gossip?-Third Gossip: A faire highstanding cup and two great postle spoons, one of them gilt." Again, in Davenant's "Wits," 1636:

"My pendants, carcanets, and rings, My christening caudle-cup and spoons, Are dissolved into that lump." Again, in the "Noble Gentleman," by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"I'll be a gossip. Bewford, I have an odd Apostle spoon." Shipman, in his "Gossips," is pleasant on the failure of the custom of giving Apostle spoons, &c., at christenings:

Especially since Gossips now
Eat more at christenings than bestow.
Formerly, when they us'd to troul
Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl;
Two spoons at least; an use ill kept;
'Tis well now if our own be left."

Comp. Nares, Glossary, 1859, and Halliwell's Dict., 1860, in vv.

Apparitions. "The Chylde of Bristowe," the romances of "Sir Amadas " and "The Avowynge of King Arthur," Shakespear's Hamlet,' the ballad of "William and Margaret," Dryden's "Cymon and Iphigenia" (a very ancient fiction in a comparatively modern dress), may be mentioned in passing, as fair samples of the various shapes which the inhabitants of the Land of Shadows have taken from time to time at the bidding of poets, playwrights, novelists, and balladmongers. Scott has sufficiently demonstrated, in his "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," that the appear ance of spectres to persons in their sleep, and even otherwise, can in most cases be explained on the most common-place medical principles, and originates in mental illusions engendered by undue indulgence or constitutional debility. A great deal of learning in connection with our popular superstitions generally is in that work most entertainingly conveyed to us; but I do not feel that I should be rendering any substantial service by transplanting thence to these pages detached passages illustrative of the immediate subject. The "Letters" should be read in their full integrity, for they are among the most admirable things Scott has left. In connection with the subject of apparitions, may be cited the visions of the Holy Maid of Kent, and the vision of John Darley, a Carthusian monk. The history of the former is perhaps too familiar to need any recapitulation here. Darley relates that, as he was atending upon the death-bed of Father Raby, in the year 1534, he said to the expiring man: "Good Father Raby, if the dead can visit the living, I beseech you to pay a visit to me by and by:" and Raby answered, "Yes," immediately after which he drew his last breath. But on the same afternoon about five o'clock, as Darley was meditating in his cell, the departed man suddenly appeared to him in a monk's habit, and said to him, "Why do you not follow our father?" "And I replied," Darley tellse us, "'Why?' He said, 'Because he is a martyr in heaven next to the angels.' Then I said," says Darley:" "Where are all our other fathers who did like him?' He answered and said' They are all pretty well, but not as well as he is.' And then I asked him how he was, and he said 'Pretty well.' And I said, 'Father,

shall I pray for you?' To which he replied, "I am as well as need be, but prayer is at all times good,' and with these words he vanished.' On the following Saturday, at five o'clock in the morning, Father Raby reappeared, having this time a long white beard and a white staff in his hand. Whereupon, says Darley, "I was afraid, but he, leaning on his staff, said to me, 'I am sorry that I did not live to become a martyr;' and I answered, that I thought he was as well as though he had been a martyr. But he said, Nay, for my Lord of Rochester and our father were next to the angels.' asked What else?' He replied, 'The angels of peace lamented and mourned unceasingly; and again he vanished." The "Lord of Rochester" was, of course, Bishop Fisher. A curious and interesting account of the pretended visions of Elizabeth Barton, whose case excited so strong a sensation in the reign of Henry VIII., will be found in Mr. Thomas Wright's Collection of Original Letters. On the Suppression of the Monasteries, 1843. In "The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," 1601, Matilda feels the man who has been sent by King John to poison her and the abbess, and says:

"Are ye not fiends, but mortal bodies,

then ?"

In

is

"Her face was like an April morn, Clad in a wintry cloud: And clay-cold was her lily hand, That held her sable shroud." Aubrey's Miscellanies, 1696, there the well-known tradition of Lady Diana Rich, daughter of the Earl of Holland, beholding her own apparition, as she walked in her father's garden at Kensington, in the day-time, shortly before her death, and of her sister experiencing the same thing prior to her decease. The former lady was in bad health at the time, a fact which may partly account for the circumstance. It may be recollected that at an abbey not far from the residence of Sir Roger de Coverley was an elm walk, where one of the footmen of Sir Roger saw a black horse without a head, and accordingly the butler was against anyone going there after sunset. In this legend have we the germ of Captain Mayne Reade's Headless Horseman? Gay has left us a pretty tale of an apparition. The golden mark being found in bed is indeed after the indelicate manner of Swift, or rather is another instance of the obligation of our more modern writers to the ancient storybooks), but yet is one of those happy

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 inquiry 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." Ind. Antiq., vi., 71. Cambridge tells us that the first day of April was a day held in esteem among the alchemists, because Basilius Valentinus was born on it. 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 Fool 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."

A custom, says "the Spectator," prevails everywhere among us on the first of April, when everybody strives to make as many fools as he can. The wit chiefly consists in sending persons on what are called "sleeveless errands, for the "History of Eve's Mother," for "pigeon's milk." with similar ridiculous absurdities. He takes no notice of the rise of this singular kind of anniversary. But Dr. Pegge, in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1766, has a tolerably plausible conjecture that the first of April ceremonies may be deducible from the old New Year's Day rejoicings. New Year's Day formerly falling on the 25th March, the first of April would have been the octaves on which the proceedings may have terminated with some such mummeries as these. A writer in one of the papers, under date of April 1, 1792, advances a similar theory, not aware

In

that he had been anticipated. "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." So, in Defoe's "Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbel," 1732, p. 163: "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 these pains never meeting me." In the "British Apollo," 1708, is the following query: 66 Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools? Answer. It may not improperly be derived from a memorable transaction happening between the Romans and Sabines, mentioned by Dionysius, which was thus: the Romans, about the infancy of the city, wanting wives, and finding they could not obtain the neighbouring women by their peaceable addresses, resolved to make use of a stratagem; and accordingly Romulus instituted certain games, to be performed in the beginning of April (according to the Roman Calendar), in honour of Neptune. Upon notice thereof, the bordering inhabitants, with their whole families, flocked to Rome to see this mighty celebration, where the Romans seized upon great number of the Sabine virgins, and ravished them, which imposition we suppose may be the foundation of this foolish custom." This solution is ridiculed in No. 18 of the same work as follows:

a

"Ye witty sparks, who make pretence To answer questions with good sense, How comes it that your monthly Phobus

Is made a fool by Dionysius?

For had the Sabines, as they came,
Departed with their virgin fame,
The Romans had been styl'd dull tools,
And they, poor girls! been April Fools.
Therefore, if this ben't out of season,

Pray think, and give a better reason." Poor Robin, in his "Almanack for 1760," alludes to All Fools' Day, and to the practice of sending persons 66 to dance Moll Dixon's round," and winds up with the query-Which is the greatest fool, the man that went, or he that sent him? The following verses are hardly perhaps worth quoting:

"While April morn her Folly's throne exalts:

While Dob calls Nell, and laughs because she halts;

While Nell meets Tom, and says his tail
is loose,

Then laughs in turn, and calls poor
Thomas goose;

Let us, my Muse, thro' Folly's harvest range,

And glean some Moral into Wisdom's grange,

Verses on several Occasions, 1782, p. 50 Hone, in his Every Day Book, of course mentions this custom, and illustrates it by the urchin pointing out to an old gentleman that his handkerchief is falling out of his tail-pocket. The French, too, have their All-Fools' Day, and call the person imposed upon an April Fish," Poisson d'Avril. Minshew renders the expression, “Poisson d'Avril," a young bawd; a page turned pandar; a mackerell; which is thus explained by Bellingen: "Je sçay que la plus part du monde ignorant cette raison, l'attribue à une autre cause, & que parceque les marchands de chair humaine, ou courtiers de Venus, sont deputez a faire de messages d'Amour & courent de part et d'autre pour faire leur infame traffic; on prend aussy plaisir à faire courir ceux qu'on choisit á ce jour-là pour objet de raillerie, comme si on leur vouloit faire exercer ce mestier honteux." Ibid. He then confesses his ignorance why the month of April is selected for this purpose, unless, says he, on account of its being the season for catching mackerell, or that men, awaking from the torpidity of the winter season, are particularly influenced by the passions, which, suddenly breaking forth from a long slumber, excite them to the pursuit of their wonted pleasures.' This may perhaps account for the origin of the word " macquereau "in its obscene sense. Leroux, "Dictionnaire Comique," tom. 1., p. 70, quotes the following:

"Et si n'y a ne danger ne peril Mais j'en feray votre poisson d'Avril." Poesies de Pierre Michault. Goujet, Biblioth. Franç. tom. ix., p. 351. The Festival of Fools at Paris, held on this day, continued for two hundred and forty years, when every kind of absurdity and indecency was committed. This was probably a legacy from Pagan times, when, according to the authorities presently cited, the Calends of January were set apart by all the early Christians for a species of loose festival. Conf. "Montacut. Orig. Eccles." pars prior, p. 128. "Maeri Hiero-lexicon," p. 156; "Joannes Boemus Aubanus," p. 265 (all quoted by Brand). One of the Popes prohibited these unholy rites on pain of anathema, as appears from a Mass inserted in some of the old missals, "ad prohibendum ab Idolis." The French appear to have had an analogous usage on another occasion: envoit au Temple les Gens un peu "A la Saint Simon et St. Jude on simple demander de Nefles (Medlars) a fin de les attraper & faire noircir

66

par des Valets."-Sauval Antiq. de Paris, vol. ii., p. 617.-DOUCE. The Quirinalia were observed in honour of Romulus on the 11th of the kal. of March; that is, the 19th of February. Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? Either because they allowed this day (as Juba tell us) to those who could not ascertain their own tribes, or because they permitted those who had missed the celebration of the Fornacalia in their proper tribes, along with the rest of the people, either out of negligence, absence, or ignorance,, to hold their festival apart on this Plu. Quæst. Rom.; Opera, cum Xylandri notis, fol. Franc. 1599, tom. ii., day." p. 285. The translation was communicated to Mr. Brand by the Rev. W. Walter, of Christ's College, Cambridge. The custom of making fools on the 1st of April In Toreen's "Voyage to China," he says: prevails among the Swedes and Spaniards. "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."

For a similar

practice at Venice see Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii., 793.

Apprentices. We are to infer that it was anciently usual for apprentices to collect presents at Christmas in the form of what we call Christmas-boxes, for Aubrey, speaking of an earthern pot dug up in Wiltshire in 1654, tells us that it resembled an apprentice's earthern Christmas box. Miscellanies, ed. 1857, In "Pleasant P. 212. Remarks the Humours of Mankind," we read: ""Tis common in England for Prentices, when they are out of their time, to make an entertainment, and call it the Burial of their Wives." This remains a common expression.

Arbor Judæ.-See Elder.

cise.

on

Archery. With the history of this exercise as a military art we have no concern here. Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., notices it among the summer pastimes of the London youth : and the repeated statutes from the 13th to the 16th century, enforcing the use of the bow, usually ordered the leisure time upon holidays to be passed in its exerSir T. Elyot, in his "Governor,' 1531, terms shooting with or in a long bow "principall of all other exercises,' and he adds, " in mine opinion, none may bee compared with shooting in the long bowe, & that for sundry vtilities, yt come theroff, wherein it incomparably excelleth all other exercise. For in drawing of a bowe, easy and congruent to his strength, he that shooteth, doth moderately exercise his armes, and the other part of his body and if his bowe be bigger, he must adde too more strength wherin is no lesse

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