Of the pictures in valentines of our day little need be said: forty years ago to such an extent were these absurdities despatched, that in London alone the increase of twopenny-post letters on St. Valentine's Day (1821) exceeded 200,000. In 1840 the increase was about thirty per cent. The Post-office authorities now discountenance the custom by which their revenue once largely benefited. St. Matthias's Day. St. Matthias was one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, and one of the most constant attendants until the day of His Ascension into heaven; after which he was elected among the apostles, to fill up the place of the traitor Judas Iscariot. He disseminated the Gospel through Cappadocia and the coasts of the Caspian Sea, and was beheaded at Colchis. His festival is on the 24th of February. Shrovetide. Collop Monday, or Shrove Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, was formerly the last day of flesh-eating before Lent, when our ancestors cut their flesh-meat into collops, or steaks, for salting or hanging up till Lent was over; hence, in many places, it is still customary to have eggs and collops or slices of bacon at dinner on this day, as well as pancakes on the following day. These celebrations were termed Shrovings," which Sir Thomas Overbury thought a "Franklin" (see Chaucer) might observe without regarding them as "relique of Popery." Shrove Tuesday (the day before the first day of Lent) is so called, because in Romish times it was usual to confess on that day, which act is expressed by the Saxon terms shrive or shrove. It was formerly a day of extraordinary sport and feasting, an apprentices' holiday, &c. Cockfighting and throwing at cocks were almost universally Shrove Tuesday sports. Cockfighting is said to have originated with Themistocles, who instituted annual battles because he had seen two cocks fighting, and thus thought that he should encourage bravery. Cockfights appear upon the coins of Dardania; and upon a coin of Athens we see a cock crowned with palm. Polyarchus gave public funerals, and raised monuments with epitaphs, to cocks. The sport passed from the Greeks to the Romans: Caracalla and Getus, the sons of Severus, were great patrons of the cruel sport. Quails were sometimes fought instead of cocks. The cock was the emblem of impiety and parricide; and in Aristophanes, Philippides, who had beat his father, defends himself by the example of a cock. Cocks were put in the sack in which parricides were drowned; and it was a rule in ancient law (a rule upon which deodands were founded), that animals might be made to suffer for the sake of warning. Fosbroke is therefore of opinion, because it was usual with our ancestors to inculcate morals by sports and cere monies, that throwing at the cock was instituted to teach abhorrence of parricide. Others consider the throwing at a cock tied to a stake to have an allusion to the indignities offered to the Saviour of the world before his crucifixion. Others associate it with St. Peter's crime in denying his Lord and Master. Over the gateway of St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, was anciently a cockpit. English cocks are mentioned by Cæsar; but the first notice of English cockfighting is by Fitzstephen, in the reign of Henry II.; and it was a fashionable sport from temp. Edward III. almost to our time. Henry VIII. added a cockpit to Whitehall Palace, where James I. went to see the sport twice a-week. There were also cockpits in Drury-lane, Shoe-lane, Jewin-street, Cripplegate, and "behind Gray's Inn ;" and several lanes, courts, and alleys are named from having been the sites of cockpits. The original name of the pit in our theatres was the cock-pit, which seems to imply that cock-fighting had been their original destination. One of our oldest London theatres was called the Cockpit; this was the Phoenix, in Drury-lane, the site of which was Cockpit Alley, now corruptly written Pitt-place. Southwark has several of these sites. The Cockpit in St. James's Park, leading from Birdcage-walk into Dartmouth-street, was only taken down in 1816, but had been deserted long before. Howell, in 1657, described "cock-fighting, a sport peculiar to the English, and so is bear and bull baitings, there being not such dangerous dogs and cocks anywhere." Hogarth's print best illustrates the brutal refinement of the cock-fighting of the last century; and Cowper's "Cockfighter's Garland," greatly tended to keep down this modern barbarism, which is punishable by statute. It was, not many years since, greatly indulged in through Staffordshire and Wednesbury (Wedgbury) cockings," and their ribald songs were a disgrace to our times. The persecution was extended to the hen; and the ploughman, on Shrove Tuesday, "after confession, was suffered to thresh the fat hen;" and in Wales, hens who did not lay eggs before Shrove Tuesday were threshed by a man with a flail. 66 Eating Pancakes and Fritters on this day is a harmless observance. According to Fosbroke, pancakes are taken from the heathen Fornacalia, celebrated on February 18th, in memory of making bread before ovens were invented by the goddess Fornax. Brand considers that we have borrowed the custom from the Greek Church. The frying of the pancakes was formerly commenced, universally, at the ringing of "the Pancake Bell." In Scotland, Crowdie (oatmeal and water) is eaten on this day, as pancakes are in England. In many villages in South Wiltshire, boys and girls, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, go from door to door, chanting We're come a Shroving Or a piece of bacon, Or a little truckle cheese Of your own making. Is your pan hot? Is your pan cold? Is your bread-and-cheese cut? Is your best barrel tapped? In Hampshire the lines are: Knick a knock upon the block, Flour and lard is very dear; Please to give poor Shrovers something here. Miss Baker tells us (Glossary,* 1854) that the church bell, called the Pancake Bell, is still rung about noon on Shrove Tuesday, in most villages of Northamptonshire, as the signal for preparing pancakes. At Daventry, the bell is muffled on one side with leather, or buffed, as it is termed, and obtains the name of Pan-burn Bell. Jingling rhymes, in connexion with this day, are repeated by the peasantry, varying in different districts, places, and parishes. That the bells of the churches of Northampton used also to be rung on this day, may be inferred from the following: Roast beef and marsh mallows, Says the bells of All Hallows. Pancakes and fritters, Says the bells of St. Peter's. Roast beef and boil'd, Says the bells of St. Giles'. Poker and tongs, Says the bell of St. John's. Shovel, tongs, and poker, Says the bells of St. Pulchre's. At Westminster School, a curious custom is retained. At 11 o'clock A.M., a verger of the Abbey, in his gown, bearing the silver bâton, emerges from the College kitchen, followed by the cook of the school, in his white apron, jacket, and cap, and carrying a pancake. On arriving at the school-door, he announces himself, "the cook," and having entered the school-room, he advances to the bar which separates the upper school from the lower one, twirls the pancake in the pan, and then tosses it over the bar into the upper school, into a crowd of boys who scramble for the pancake, and he who gets it unbroken, and carries it to the deanery, demands the honorarium of a guinea (sometimes two guineas) from the Abbey funds; this custom being provided for by the Abbey statutes; the cook also receives two guineas for his performance. At Eton School, it was on this day, within the memory of living Etonians, customary to write long copies of verses on scrolls, called Bacchuses, which were hung up on the walls of the College. Football is another common Shrove Tuesday sport: it is still played in Derby, Nottingham, Kingston-upon-Thames, and a few other towns. We have to acknowledge several obligations to this very interesting Glossary: the authoress, Miss Anne Elizabeth Baker, sister of the late George Baker, Esq., historian of the county of Northampton, we regret to add, died on April 22nd, 1861, in her seventy-fifth year. The game was once thought fit for royalty to witness; for when James I. visited Sir Edward Baynton, at Bromeham, Wiltshire, the minister of Bishop's Cannings entertained His Majesty with a foot-ball match of his own parishioners. The parish, in those days, would have challenged all England for music, football, and ringing. The people of Kingston claim their ancient custom as a right obtained for them by the valour of their ancestors. Tradition states that the Danes, in one of their predatory incursions, were defeated at Kingston, and the Danish general being slain, his head was cut off, and kicked about the place in triumph. This happened on Shrove Tuesday; and hence the origin of their football on that day. Lent. ; Lent is commonly said to be named from a Saxon word for Spring. It was originally called Quadragesima, and only lasted forty hours, from twelve on Good Friday to Easter morn; but it was gradually extended to forty days, after the fasts of Moses, Deut. ix.; of Elijah, Kings xix.; of the Ninevites, Jonah iii.; and of our Lord himself, Matthew ix. all of which fasted forty days. This fast begins on Wednesday, because the six Sundays, being festivals, were not included in the fasting days; and therefore, unless four days were added before the first Sunday in Lent, the fast would only last thirty-six days instead of forty.-(Elementa Liturgica.) Herrick has quaint instruction-How to keep a true Lent:— The most considerable of the seasons of fasting observed by the early Christians was Lent, the forty days preceding the great festival of Easter; when, either more vividly to realize the grief of the Apostles on the death of Christ; or that by the exercise of abstinence men might be recalled from secular cares to holy works, and by proper spiritual exercises all might be made fit to partake the Communion at Easter, which even the least devout considered at that time a duty; or in imitation of our Lord himself-fasting with more or less rigour was generally practised. However, no slight latitude of observance seems to have been allowed with regard to the length of this fast. That it was not originally or universally a fast of forty days appears clear, though everywhere it bore a name derived from the number forty, Quadragesima, which some learned men suppose to have had reference originally to hours and not to days; and the antiquity and universality of the observance of a forty days' fast before Easter Day, seems to be admitted by all students of ecclesiastical institutions.-(Bingham.) The present commencement of Lent with Ash Wednesday, does not seem to have been practised, at least till the time of Gregory the First, A.D. 600, if then. The name originated in the blessing of Ashes on that day, "to put in remembrance every Christian man, the beginning of Lent and Penance, that he is but ashes and earth, and thereunto shall return;" and this ceremony was reserved at the Reformation. The strict observance of Lent was enjoined in the Anglo-Saxon period: the great Alfred enacted that whoever committed a theft in Lent should make good double the damage; and Canute amplified these provisions against the commission of crimes in Lent. We owe the allowance of white meats to Henry VIII., who, four years before the close of his reign, struck the first blow at the practice of fasting. "Herrings, lings, salt fish, salmon, and stock-fish," were, he discovered, particularly scant and dear. His Highness, intending mercy to the pockets of his subjects, bethought him, "how this manner and kind of fasting, to abstain from milk, butter, eggs, cheese, and other white meats, is but a mere positive law of the Church, and used by a custom within this realm; and may be dispensed with by the authority of kings and princes; " wherefore the King's Highness granted his subjects free liberty to eat all manner of the aforesaid meats during Lent; adding that the fast which God especially requireth is "to renounce the world and its vanities, according to their vow and professions made at the font stone." The progress of the people in the disregard of fasting was, however, more rapid than the ruling powers approved of; and in 1548, Edward VI., by act of Parliament, imposed a penalty of 10s. and ten days' imprisonment, for the first offence; and 20s. and twenty days for its repetition; one-half of the penalty to be given to the informer. These penalties were increased by Elizabeth to 37. fine, or three months' close imprisonment; the fines to be equally divided between the Crown, the informer, and the poor of the parish. Licences were, however, granted by the Crown for eating certain kinds of flesh, excepting beef, at all times of the year, and veal from Michaelmas till May, on payment of 268. 8d. to the poor men's box of the parish of their residence, by any lord of Parliament or his wife; 13s. 4d. by a knight or a knight's wife; and 6s. 8d. by any person of inferior degree. Licences of eight days were granted to six persons, the process costing 4d. Mid-Lent.-The fourth Sunday in Lent was anciently kept by Roman Catholics visiting their mother church, and making their offerings at the high altar thence arose the dutiful custom of visiting parents on this day, therefore called Mothering Sunday; when the children were treated with a regale of furmety, or they presented their mother with a sum of money, a trinket, &c. On Mothering Sunday, above all other, Every child should dine with its mother. Herrick thus alludes to the day: |