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Gauch, in the Teutonic, is rendered stultus, fool, whence also our northern word, a Goke, or a Gawky. In Scotland, upon April 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."1

Maurice, in his Indian Antiquities, vi. 71, speaking of "the first of April, or the ancient feast of the vernal equinox, equally observed in India and Britain," tells us : "The first of April was anciently observed in Britain as a high and general festival, in which an unbounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the observance of this annual festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports, anciently celebrated in this country on the first of April, to have long since ceased, and although the changes occasioned during a long lapse of years, by the shifting the equinoctioal points, have in Asia itself been productive of important astronomical alterations, as to the exact era of the commencement of the year; yet, on both continents, some very remarkable traits of the jocundity which then reigned remain even in these distant times. Of those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry, the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of that month but this, Colonel Pearce (Asiatic Researches, ii. 334)

:

"Death!

In the old play of the Parson's Wedding, the Captain says: you might have left word where you went, and not put me to hunt like Tom Fool." So, in Secret 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 this pains never meeting me."

proves to have been an immemorial custom among the Hindoos, at a celebrated festival holden about the same period in India, which is called the Huli Festival. During the Huli, when mirth and festivity reign among the Hindoos of every class, one subject of diversion is to send people on errands and expeditions that are to end in disappointment, and raise a laugh at the expense of the person sent. The Huli is always in March, and the last day is the general holiday. I have never yet heard any account of the origin of this English custom; but it is unquestionably very ancient, and is still kept up even in great towns, though less in them than in the country. With 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 names of persons who it is known must be absent from their houses 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 told 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."

[Cardanus mentions having tried with success a precept, that prayers addressed to the Virgin Mary on this day, at eight o'clock a.m., were of wonderful efficacy, provided a Pater Noster and Ave Maria were added to them. The day was much esteemed amongst alchemists, as the nativity of Basilius Valentinus. In some parts of North America, the first of April is observed like St. Valentine's Day, with this difference, that the boys are allowed to chastise the girls, if they think fit, either with words or blows.]

SHERE THURSDAY,

ALSO

MAUNDAY THURSDAY,

SHERE THURSDAY is the Thursday before Easter, and is so called, says an old homily, "for that in old Fathers' days the people would that day shere theyr hedes and clypp theyr berdes, and pool theyr heedes, and so make them honest ayenst Easter day." It was also called Maunday Thursday, and is thus described by the translator of Naogeorgus in the Popish Kingdome, f. 51:

"And here the monkes their Maundie make, with sundrie solemne
rights,

And signes of great humilitie, and wondrous pleasant sights:
Ech one the others feete doth wash, and wipe them cleane and drie,
With hatefull minde, and secret frawde, that in their heartes doth

lye:

As if that Christ, with his examples, did these things require,
And not to helpe our brethren here with zeale and free desire,
Ech one supplying others want in all things that they may,
As he himselfe a servaunt made to serve us every way.

Then strait the loaves doe walke, and pottes in every place they
skinke,

Wherewith the holy fathers oft to pleasaunt damsels drinke.1

In Fosbrooke's British Monachism, ii. 127, mention occurs at Barking Nunnery, of "russeaulx (a kind of allowance of corn) in Lent, and to bake with eels on Sheer Thursday:" also p. 128, "stubbe eels and shafte eels baked for Sheer Thursday." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1779, p. 349, says: "Maunday Thursday, called by Collier Shier Thursday, Cotgrave calls by a word of the same sound and import, Sheere

2 "On Maunday Thursday hath bene the maner from the beginnyng of the Church to have a general drinkyng, as appeareth by S. Paule's writyng to the Corinthians, and Tertulliane to his wyfe."-Langley's Polidore Vergill, f. 101.

Thursday. Perhaps, for I can only go upon conjecture, as sheer means purus, mundus, it may allude to the washing of the disciples' feet (John xiii. 5, et seq.), and be tantamount to clean. If this does not please, the Saxon sciran signifies dividere, and the name may come from the distribution of alms upon that day; for which see Archæol. Soc. Antiq., i. 7, seq. Spelman, Gloss. v. Mandatum; and Du Fresne, iv. 400. Please to observe too, that on that day they also washed the altars, so that the term in question may allude to that business. See Collier's Eccles. Hist. ii. 197."

Cowell describes Maunday Thursday as the day preceding Good Friday, when they commemorate and practise the commands of our Saviour, in washing the feet of the poor, &c., as our kings of England have long practised the good old custom of washing the feet of poor men in number equal to the years of their reign, and giving them shoes, stockings, and money. Some derive the word from mandatum, command; but others, and I think much more probably, from maund, a kind of great basket or hamper, containing eight bales or two fats.

[Dr. Bright has given us the following very singular account of a ceremony he witnessed on this day at Vienna: "On the Thursday of this week, which was the 24th of March, a singular religious ceremony was celebrated by the Court. It is known in German Catholic countries by the name of the Fusswaschung, or the "washing of the feet." The large saloon in which public court entertainments are given, was fitted up for the purpose; elevated benches and galleries were constructed round the room, for the reception of the court and strangers; and in the area, upon two platforms, tables were spread, at one of which sat twelve men, and at the other

' In Moore's Answer to Tyndal, on the Souper of our Lord (pref.) is the following passage: "He treateth in his secunde parte the Maundye of Chryste wyth hys Apostles upon Shere Thursday." Among the receipts and disbursements of the Canons of the Priory of St. Mary in Huntingdon, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times in England, 1797, p. 294, we have: "Item, gyven to 12 pore men upon Shere Thursday, 28." In an account of Barking Abbey, in Select Views of London and its Environs, 1804, we read in transcripts from the Cottonian Manuscripts and the Monasticon, "Deliveryd to the Convent coke, for rushefals for Palme Sundaye, xxj. pounder fygges. Item, delyveryd to the seyd coke on Sher Thursday viij pounde ryse. Item, delyveryd to the said coke for Shere Thursday xviij pounde almans."

twelve women. They had been selected from the oldest and most deserving paupers, and were suitably clothed in black, with handkerchiefs and square collars of white muslin, and girdles round their waists. The emperor and empress, with the archdukes and archduchesses, Leopoldine and Clementine, and their suites, having all previously attended mass in the royal chapel, entered and approached the table to the sound of solemn music. The Hungarian guard followed in their most splendid uniform, with their leopard-skin jackets falling from their shoulders, and bearing trays of different meats, which the emperor, empress, archdukes, and attendants placed on the table, in three successive courses, before the poor men and women, who tasted a little, drank each a glass of wine, and answered a few questions put to them by their sovereigns. The tables were then removed, and the empress and her daughters, dressed in black, with pages bearing their trains, approached. Silver bowls were placed beneath the bare feet of the aged women. The grand chamberlain, in a humble posture, poured water upon the feet of each in succession from a golden urn, and the empress wiped them with a fine napkin she held in her hand. The emperor performed the same ceremony on the feet of the men, and the rite concluded amidst the sounds of sacred music."]

The British Apollo, 1709, ii. 7, says: "Maunday is a corruption of the Latin word mandatum, a command. The day is therefore so called, because as on that day our Saviour washed his disciples' feet, to teach them the great duty of being humble; and therefore he gives them in command to do as he had done, to imitate their Master in all proper instances of condescension and humility." Maunday Thursday, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1779, p. 354, "is the poor people's Thursday, from the Fr. maundier, to beg. The King's liberality to the poor on that Thursday in Lent [is at] a season when they are supposed to have lived very low. Maundiant is, at this day, in French, a beggar."

In Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614, p. 82, is the following: "A scrivener was writing a marchant's last will and testament; in which the marchant expressed many debts that were owing him, which he will'd his executors to take up, and dispose to such and such uses. A kinsman of this marchant's then standing by, and hoping for some good thing

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