CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



only throughout Catholic Europe, and in the 

 countries where the Greek Church is established, 

 but in Turkey and the Mohammedan countries 

 along the coast of Africa. The festival is an 

 ingraftment upon the Jewish Passover, the name 

 of which (pascha) is still applied to it in almost 

 every country besides England. The Catholic 

 observances of Easter are of an elaborate char- 

 acter. At Rome, the pope is carried in state to 

 perform high-mass in St Peter's, from the bal- 

 cony of which he afterwards blesses the people 

 assembled in the Piazza below perhaps one of 

 the most imposing religious spectacles which the 

 world anywhere presents. In England, before the 

 Reformation, the Catholic observances of Easter 

 were as fully enacted as in any other country. 

 Early in the morning, a sort of theatrical repre- 

 sentation of the Resurrection was performed in 

 the churches, the priests coming to the little 

 sepulchre where, on Good Friday, they had de- 

 posited the host, which they now brought forth 

 with great rejoicings, as emblematical of the 

 rising of the Saviour. 



At present, Easter Sunday is distinguished by 

 little besides the few peculiarities of the service, 

 and the custom of going to church in attire as gay 

 as possible. 



The viands appropriate to Easter-day in the old 

 time were, first and above all, eggs, then bacon, 

 tansy-pudding, and bread and cheese. The origin 

 of the connection of eggs with Easter is lost in 

 the mists of remote antiquity. They are as rife at 

 this day in Russia as in England. There it is 

 customary to go about with a quantity, and to 

 give one to each friend one meets, saying : ' Jesus 

 Christ is risen ; ' to which the other replies : ' Yes, 

 he is risen ; ' or, ' It is so of a truth.' The pope 

 formerly blessed eggs, to be distributed through- 

 out the Christian world for use on Easter-day. 

 In Germany, instead of the egg itself, the people 

 offer a print of it with some lines inscribed. For- 

 merly, the king of England had hundreds pre- 

 pared to give to his household : in a roll of the 

 expenses of Edward I. the following occurs, in 

 the accounts of Easter Sunday, in the eighteenth 

 year of his reign ' Four hundred and a half of 

 eggs, eighteenpence.' 



At this day, the Easter eggs used in England 

 are boiled hard in water containing a dye, so that 

 they come out coloured. The boys take these 

 eggs and make a kind of game, either by throwing 

 (bowling) them to a distance on the greensward 

 he who throws oftenest without breaking his 

 eggs being the victor or hitting them against 

 each other in their respective hands, in which 

 case the owner of the hardiest or last surviving 

 egg gains the day. 



It was at one time customary to have a gammon 

 of bacon on this day, and to eat it all up, in signi- 

 fication of abhorrence of Judaism. The tansy 

 seems to have been introduced into Easter-feasts 

 as a successor to the bitter herbs used by the Jews 

 at the Passover. It was usually presented well 

 sugared. 



It was a custom in the thirteenth century to 

 seize all ecclesiastics found walking abroad be- 

 tween Easter and Pentecost, and make them pur- 

 chase their liberty with money. This was an 

 acting of the seizure of the apostles after Christ's 

 passion. 



' Lifting at Easter' is another old custom, which 



454 



may be presumed to have originated in a design 

 of dramatising the events connected with Christ's 

 passion. It consisted in hoisting individuals up 

 into the air, either in a chair or otherwise, until 

 they relieve themselves by a forfeit. A curious 

 record makes us aware that on Easter-day, in the 

 eighteenth year of the reign of Edward I. seven 

 ladies of the queen's household went into the 

 king's chamber and lifted htm, for which fourteen 

 pounds appears to have been disbursed as a forfeit 

 The men lifted the women on Easter Monday, 

 and the women claimed the privilege of lifting 

 the men in return on the ensuing day. Three 

 hoists were always given, attended by loud huzzas. 



23. Easter Monday. This and the ensuing day 

 are holidays of the Church. The week commenc- 

 ing with Easter, and called thence Easter Week, 

 is a season of festivity and partial suspension of 

 business ; and the earlier days of it after Easter 

 itself are in London devoted by the working- 

 classes to recreation and amusement, which they 

 chiefly seek for in excursions to taverns near 

 town. 



25. The Annunciation of Our Lady, a festival 

 of the Church of England. It is commonly called 

 in England Lady-day, as an abridgment of the 

 Day of our Blessed Lady. This festival is in 

 celebration of the incarnation of Christ, or the 

 announcement by the Holy Ghost to Mary that 

 she should bear the Son of God. The Annuncia- 

 tion is observed as a holiday at all the public 

 offices, excepting the Stamps, Excise, and Cus- 

 toms. It is a gaudy day in the Romish Church. 

 In Catholic countries the service of this day 

 resounds with ' Hail, Mary ! ' uttered in a strain 

 of the highest enthusiasm. The 25th of March 

 is held as a quarter-day for many commercial 

 purposes in England. 



29. The first Sunday after Easter, called Low 

 Sunday, because it is Easter-day repeated, with 

 the church service somewhat abridged or lowered 

 in the ceremony from the pomp of the festival the 

 Sunday before. 



Natiiral History. March is eminently a spring 

 month, and the season more particularly devoted 

 to sowing. Its general character, as far as the 

 extreme uncertainty of our climate warrants us to 

 speak, is dryness. The frosts of winter, followed 

 by the sharp dry winds of this month, have the 

 effect of pulverising the soil, and fitting it for the 

 reception of the seed. The value of the weather 

 appropriate to March is expressed in the saying, 

 ' A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom/ 

 This month is also expected to undergo a change 

 between its beginning and its end. The English 

 say : ' March comes in like a lion, and goes out 

 like a lamb ; ' the Scotch version of the same idea 

 is : ' March comes in with an adder's head, and 

 goes out with a peacock's tail.' The general 

 average temperature of March (41 degrees) is so 

 little above that of February, as to make the 

 greater dryness appear to arise in but a small 

 degree from heat. There is in March a general 

 bursting of the trees into leaf, of the meadows 

 into flower, and partly, it may be added, of the 

 birds into song. 



APRIL. 



The Romans gave this month the name 

 Aprilis, from aperio, because it was the 

 when things opened. By the Saxons it 



