Nicholas' Church is tolled at Twelve o'clock at Noon on this Day; Shops are immediately shut up, Offices closed, and all Kind of Business ceases; a Sort of little Carnival ensuing for the remaining Part of the Day.

The preceding Monday is vulgarly called here Collop Monday ;-Eggs and Collops compose a usual Dish at Dinner on it, as Pancakes do on this Day, from which Customs they both derive their Names.

On Collop Monday in papal Times they must have taken their Leave of Flesh, which was antiently preserved through the Winter, by salting, drying, and hanging up: Slices of this Kind of Meat are at this Day called Collops * in the North, whereas they are named Steaks when cut from fresh Meat, as unsalted Flesh is usually stiled here; a Kind of Food which our Ancestors seem to have seldom tasted in the Depth of Winter.

*Collop (S. of doubtful Etymology) a small Slice of Meat, a Piece of any Animal. Ash!

Colab, Colob, Segmentum. unde Anglis Colabs & Egges dicuntur Segmenta lardi ovis instrata. Kóλabos Suidæ est Offula, buccea parvula. à noλobow, decurto, minuo. Adi quoque Etym. Voss. in Collabi. M. Casaubon. de vet. ling. Angl. p. 279.

Lye's Junii Etymolog.

Collop, Minshew deflectit à Kohanlw, incido, vel à Belg. kole, carbo, & op, super, ut idem sit quod Fr. G. Carbonade, vel à Koλao, Corium durius in Cervicibus et dorsis boum, aut Ovíum, vel à Koov, cibus, vel à Koλa¤òs, quod Vossio in Et. LL. exp. Buccea. Offula. Skinner in V.

Dr. Kennett, in the Glossary to his Parochial Antiquities, tells us of an old Latin Word colponer, Slices or cut Pieces, in Welch a Gollwith.

A kind of Pancake Feast, preceding Lent,* was used in the Greek Church, from whence we have probably borrowed it, with Pasche Eggs, and other such-like Ceremonies: "The Russes, as Hakluyt "tells us, begin their Lent always eight Weeks be"fore Easter; the first Week they eat Eggs, Milk,

Cheese, and Butter, and make great Cheer with "Pancakes, and such other Things."

The Custom of frying Pancakes, (in turning of which in the Pan, there is usually a good deal of pleasantry in the Kitchen) is still retained in many Families in the North, but seems, if the present fashionable Contempt of old Customs continues, not likely to last another Century.

The Apprentices, whose particular Holiday this Day is now called, and who are on several Accounts so much interested in the Observation of it, ought, with that watchful Jealousy of their antient Rights and Liberties, (typified here by Pudding and Play,) which becomes young Englishmen, to guard against

"

*Bishop Hall, in his Triumphs of Rome, thus describes the jovial Carneval: "Every Man cries Sciolto, letting himself loose "to the maddest of Merriments, marching wildly up and down in "all Forms of Disguises; each Man striving to outgo other in strange Prancks of humorous Debauchedness, in which even "those of the Holy Order are wont to be allowed their Share: For "howsoever it was by some sullen Authority forbidden to Clerks "and Votaries of any Kind to go masked and misguised in those "seemingly abusive Solemnities, yet more favourable Construction "hath offered to make them believe, that it was chiefly for their "" Sakes, for the Refreshment of their sadder and more restrained Spirits, that this free and lawless Festivity was taken up. P. 19.

every Infringement of its Ceremonies, and transmit them entire and unadulterated to Posterity!

In the Oxford Almanacks, the Saturday preceding this Day is called Fest. Ovorum, the Egg Feast. Their Egg Saturday corresponds with our Collop Monday.

OF THE RING FINGER.

THE particular Regard to this Finger is of high Antiquity. It hath been honoured with the Golden *Token and Pledge of Matrimony preferably to any other Finger, not, as Levinus Lemnius in his Occult Miracles of Nature tells us, because there is a Nerve,† as some have thought, but because a small Artery runs from the Heart to this Finger, the Motion of which in parturient Women, &c. may be perceived by the Touch of the Finger Index.

* Annulus Sponsa dono mittebatur à Viro, qui pronubus dictus. Alex, ab. Alex. lib. 2. cap. 5. Et mediante annulo contrahitur Matrimonium papanorum. Moresini Deprav. Rel. Orig. p. 12. Dextra data, acceptaque invicem Persæ et Assyrii fœdus matrimonii ineunt. Alex ab Alex. lib. 2. cap. 5. Papatus retinet.

Ibid. p. 50.

Mr. Wheatly tells us, that the Rubrick of the Salisbury Manual has these Words: "It is because from thence there proceeds a particular Vein to the Heart." This indeed, he adds, is now contradicted by Experience; but several eminent Authors, as well Gentiles as Christians, as well Physicians as Divines, were formerly of this Opinion, and therefore they thought this Finger the properest to bear this Pledge of Love, that from thence it might be conveyed as it were to the Heart. Illust. Comm. Prayer. p. 437.

This

This Opinion has been exploded by later Physi cians, but it was from hence that Antiquity judged it worthy, and selected it to be adorned with the Circlet of Gold. They called it also the Medical Finger, and were so superstitious as to mix up their Medicines and Potions with it.

Some of the common Ceremonies at Marriages seem naturally to fall under this Class of popular Antiquities.

I have received, from those who have been present at them, the following Account of the Customs used at vulgar Northern Weddings about Half a Century ago*.

The young Women in the Neighbourhood, with Bride Favours (Knots† of Ribbands) at their Breasts, and Nosegays in their Hands, attended the Bride on her Wedding Day in the Morning.-Fore-Riders announced with shouts the Arrival of the Bridegroom; After a Kind of Breakfast, at which the Bride-Cakes were set on and the Barrels broached,

they

*The Author of the Convivial Antiquities thus describes the Rites at Marriages in his Country and Time: “ Antequam eatur "in Templum jentaculum Sponsa et invitatis apponitur, serta atque Corolla distribuuntur. Postea certo ordine viri primum cum Sponso, deinde Puella cum Sponsa in Templum procedunt. Peracta re divina Sponsa ad Sponsi domum deducitur, indeque panis projicitur, qui à pueris certatim rapitur. Prandium sequitur "Cana, cœnam comessatio, quas Epulas omnes tripudia atque Sal"tationes comitantur. Postremo Sponsa abrepta ex Saltutione su bitò, atque Sponsus in thalamum deducuntur."

+ See the Article true-love-knot in the Appendix.

Fol. 63.

There was a Ceremony used at the Solemnization of a Marriage, called Confarreation, in Token of a most firm Conjunction

they walked out towards the Church.-The Bride was led by two young Men; the Bride-groom by two young Women: Pipers preceded them, while the Crowd tossed up their Hats, shouted and clapped their Hands. An indecent Custom prevailed after the Ceremony, and that too before the Altar :— Young Men strove who could first unloose*, or rather pluck off the Bride's Garters: Ribbands supplied their Place on this Occasion; whosoever was so fortunate as to tear them thus off from her Legs, bore them about the Church in Triumph.

It is still usual for the young Men present to salute the Bride immediately after the performing of the Marriage Service.

between the Man and Wife, with a Cake of Wheat or Barley: This Ceremony, Blount tells us, is still retained in Part with us, by that which we call the Bride-cake, used at Weddings. Confarreation and the Ring were used antiently as binding Ceremonies, in making Agreements, Grants, &c. as appears from the subsequent Extract from an old Grant, cited in Du Cange's Glossary. Verb. Confarreatio:

"Miciacum concedimus et quidquid est fisci nostri intra Flu"minum alveos et per sanctam Confarreationem et annulum inexceptionaliter tradimus.”

Moresin mentions the Bride-cake thus: Sumanalia, Panis erat ad formam rota factus: hoc utuntur Papani in nuptiis, &c. Deprav. Rel. Orig. p. 165.

I will give one Authority more:

Quint. Curtius tells us, lib. 1. de gest. Alex. "Et Rex. mediq "cupiditatis ardore jussit afferri patrio more panem (hoc erat apud "Macedones sanctissimum coeuntium pignus) quem divisum gladio " uterque libabat."

In the North, slices of the Bride-cake are put through the Wedding Ring, they are afterwards laid under Pillows at Night to cause young Persons to dream of their Lovers.

* I have sometimes thought this a Fragment of the antient Grecian and Roman Ceremony, the loosening the Virgin Zone or Girdle, a Custom that wants no Explanation.

*

Four,