the people, and saith thrice, Ave Rex Noster, Hayle be thou our King. He speketh not to the image that the carpenter hath made, and the peinter painted, but if the priest be a fole, for that stock or stone was never King; but he speakethe to hym that died on the crosse, for us all, to him that is Kynge of all thynge."l

"Upon Palm Sunday," says Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, "at our Lady Nant's Well, at Little Colan, idleheaded seekers resorted, with a palm crosse in one hand and an offering in the other. The offering fell to the priest's share; the cross they threw into the well, which, if it swamme, the party should outlive that yeare; if it sunk, a short ensuing death was boded, and perhaps not altogether untruly, while a foolish conceyt of this halsenyng (i. e. omen) might the sooner help it onwards."

The Russians (of the Greek Church) have a very solemn procession on Palm Sunday.

[There is a very singular ceremony at Caistor Church, Lincolnshire, on Palm Sunday, which must not be passed over unnoticed. A deputy from Broughton brings a very large

1 In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, in the city of London, 17 to 19 Edw. IV., I find the following entry: " Box and Palm on Palm Sunday, 12d." And among the annual church disbursements, “ Palm, Box, Cakes, and Flowers, Palm Sunday Eve, 8d. 1486: Item for flowrs, obleyes, and for Box and Palme ayenst Palm Sondaye, 6d. 1493: For settyng up the frame over the porch on Palme Sonday Eve, 6d. 1531: Paid for the hire of the rayment for the Prophets, 12d., and of clothes of Aras, 1s. 4d., for Palm Sunday." (Nichols's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times.) In Coates's History of Reading, p. 216, Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Laurence parish, 1505: "It. payed to the Clerk for syngyng of the Passion on Palme Sunday, in Ale, 1d. 1509: It. payed for a quart of bastard, for the singers of the Passhyon on Palme Sonday, iiijd. 1541: Payd to Loreman for playing the Prophet, on Palme Sondaye, iiijd." Among Dr. Griffith's Extracts from the old Books of St. Andrew Hubbard's parish, I found, " 1524-5: To James Walker, for making clene the churchyard against Palm Sonday, 1d.:-On Palm Sonday, for Palm, Cakes, and Flowrs, 6d. ob.-1526-7. The here of the Angel on Palme Sonday, 8d., Clothes at the Tower, on Palme Sonday, 6d.-1535-7. For Brede, Wyn, and Oyle, on Palm Sonday, 6d. : A Preest and Chylde that playde a Messenger, 8d.-1538-40. Rec. in the Church of the Players, 1s.: Pd. for syngyng bread, 2d. :-For the Aungel, 4d." In Mr. Lysons's Environs of London, i. 231, among his curious extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts, at Kingston-upon-Thames, occurs the following: "1 Hen. VIII. For ale upon Palm Sonday on synygng of the Passion, ld."

ox-whip, called there a gad-whip. Gad is an old Lincolnshire measure of ten feet; the stock of the gad-whip is, perhaps, of the same length. The whip itself is constructed as follows. A large piece of ash, or any other wood, tapered towards the top, forms the stock; it is wrapt with white leather half way down, and some small pieces of mountain ash are inclosed. The thong is very large, and made of strong white leather. The man comes to the north porch about the commencement of the first lesson, and cracks his whip in front of the porch door three times; he then, with much ceremony, wraps the thong round the stock of the whip, puts some rods of mountain ash lengthwise upon it, and binds the whole together with whipcord. He next ties to the top of the whip-stock a purse containing two shillings (formerly this sum was in twenty-four silver pennies); then taking the whole upon his shoulder, he marches into the church, where he stands in front of the reading-desk till the commencement of the second lesson he then goes up nearer, waves the purse over the head of the clergyman, kneels down on a cushion, and continues in that position, with the purse suspended over the clergyman's head till the lesson is ended. After the service is concluded, he carries the whip, &c. to the manor-house of Undon, a hamlet adjoining, where he leaves it. There is a new whip made every year; it is made at Broughton and left at Undon. Certain lands in the parish of Broughton are held by the tenure of this annual custom.]

ALL FOOLS' DAY,

(OR APRIL FOOLS' DAY.)

"While April morn her Folly's throne exalts;
While Dobb calls Nell, and laughs because she halts;
While Nell meets Tom, and says his tail is loose,
Then laughs in turn and call poor Thomas goose;
Let us, my Muse, thro' Folly's harvest range,

And glean some Moral into Wisdom's grange."

Verses on several Occasions, 8vo. Lond. 1782, p. 50.

A CUSTOM prevails everywhere among us on the 1st 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. ["A neighbour of mine," says the Spectator, "who is a haberdasher by trade, and a very shallow conceited fellow, makes his boasts that for these ten years successively he has not made less than a hundred fools. My landlady had a falling out with him about a fortnight ago for sending every one of her children upon some sleeveless errand, as she terms it. Her eldest son went to buy a halfpenny worth of incle at a shoemaker's; the eldest daughter was despatched half a mile to see a monster; and, in short, the whole family of innocent children made April fools."] He takes no notice of the rise of this singular kind of anniversary, and I find in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1760 a metrical description of the modern fooleries on the 1st of April, with the open avowal of being ignorant of their origin :

"The first of April some do say,
Is set apart for All Fools Day;
But why the people call it so,
Nor I nor they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent

On purpose for pure merriment;

And though the day is known before,

Yet frequently there is great store

Of these forgetfuls to be found,

Who're sent to dance Moll Dixon's round;

And, having tried each shop and stall,

And disappointed at them all,

In John Heywood's Workes 1566, I find the following couplet .

"And one morning timely he tooke in hande

To make to my house a sleeveless errande."

The word is used by Bishop Hall in his Satires :

"Worse than the logogryphes of later times,

Or hundreth riddles shak'd to sleeveless rhymes."

:

B. iv. Sat. 1.

In Whimzies or a New Cast of Characters, 12mo. Lond. 1631, p. 83, speaking of "a Launderer," the author says: "She is a notable, witty, tatling titmouse, and can make twentie sleevelesse errands in hope of a good turne." See further in Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 755.

At last some teils them of the cheat,
Then they return from the pursuit,

And straightway home with shame they run,
And others laugh at what is done.
But 'tis a thing to be disputed,
Which is the greatest fool reputed,
The man that innocently went,
Or he that him design'dly sent."

[The Bairnsla Foaks Annual for 1844 says, "Ah think ah needant tell you at this iz April-fooil-day, cos, if yor like me, yol naw all abaght it, for ah wonce sent a this day to a stashoner's shop for't seckand edishan a Cock Robin, an a haupath a crockadile quills; ah thowt fasure, at when ah axt for am, at chap it shop ad a splittin t'caanter top we laffiin."] A similar epoch seems to have been observed by the Romans, as appears from Plutarch, ed. 1599, ii. 285,-"Why do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? Either, because they allowed this day (as Juba tells 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 from business, absence, or ignorance, to hold their festival apart on this day." [The following verses on the tricks practised on this day occur in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1738,—

'No sooner doth St. All-fools morn approach,

But waggs, e'er Phebus mount his gilded coach,
In sholes assemble to employ their sense,

In sending fools to get intelligence;

One seeks hen's teeth, in farthest part of th' town;
Another pigeons milk; a third a gown,

From stroling coblers stall, left there by chance;
Thus lead the giddy tribe a merry dance :

And to reward them for their harmless toil,
The cobler 'noints their limbs with stirrup oil.
Thus by contrivers inadvertent jest,
One fool expos'd makes pastime for the rest.
Thus a fam'd cook became the common joke,}
By frying an unboiled artichoak,

And turn'd his former glory into smoak.

Oft have I seen a subtle monkey fix

His eyes, intent on our weak, silly tricks,

No sooner shall our backs be turn'd but he.

Will act distinctly each deformity.

Where then is room to follow such a course,

Monkeys to teach and make the world still worse?"]

In Ward's Wars of the Elements, 1708, p. 55, in his Epitaph on the French Prophet, who was to make his resurrection on the 25th May, he says:

"O' th' first of April had the scene been laid,

should have laugh'd to've seen the living made Such April Fools and blockheads by the dead."

Dr. Goldsmith, also, in his Vicar of Wakefield, describing the manners of some rustics, tells us, that, among other customs which they followed, they "showed their wit on the

first of April."

A late ingenious writer in the World (No. 10), if I mistake not, the late Earl of Orford, has some pleasant thoughts on the effect the alteration of the style would have on the First of April. "The oldest tradition affirms that such an infatuation attends the first day of April as no foresight can escape, no vigilance can defeat. Deceit is successful on that day out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Grave citizens have been bit upon it: usurers have lent their money on bad security experienced matrons have married very disappointed young fellows mathematicians have missed the longitude: alchymists the philosopher's stone: and politicians preferment on that day. What confusion will not follow if the great body of the nation are disappointed of their peculiar holiday! This country was formerly disturbed with very fatal quarrels about the celebration of Easter; and no wise man will tell me that it is not as reasonable to fall out for the observance of April Fool Day. Can any benefits arising from a regulated calendar make amends for an occasion of new sects? How many warm men may resent an attempt to play them off on a false first of April, who would have submitted to the custom of being made fools on the old computation ! If our clergy come to be divided about Folly's anniversary, we may well expect all the mischiefs attendant on religious wars." He then desires his friends to inform him what they observe on that holiday both according to the new and old reckoning. "How often and in what manner they make or are made fools: how they miscarry in attempts to surprise, or baffle any snares laid for them. I do not doubt but it will be found that the balance of folly lies greatly on the side of the old first of April; nay, I much question whether