"If Fates do give Me longer date, and more fresh_springs to live,

Oft as your field shall her old age renew, Herrick shall make the Meddow-Verse for you."

THE Author of the Convivial Antiquities tells us, that the pastoral life was anciently accounted an honourable one, particularly among the Jews and the Romans. Mention occurs in the Old Testament of the festive entertainments of the former on this occasion, particularly in the second book of Samuel, where Absalom the King's son was master of the feast. And Varro may be consulted for the manner of celebrating this feast among the latter. (1) In England, particularly in the Southern parts, for these festivities are not so common in the North, on the day they begin to shear their sheep, they provide a plentiful dinner for the Shearers and their friends who visit them on the occasion: a table also, if the weather permit, is spread in the open village for the young people and children. The washing and shearing of sheep is attended with great mirth and festivity. Indeed, the value of the covering of this very useful animal must always have made the shearing time, in all pastoral countries, a kind of Harvest Home.

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under "The Ploughman's Feast Days," are the following lines, alluding to this festivity:

"At Shearing time, along the lively vales,
Rural festivities are often heard:
Beneath each blooming arbor all is joy
And lusty merriment: while on the grass
The mingled youth in gaudy circles sport,
We think the golden age again return'd
And all the fabled Dryades in dance.
Leering they bound along, with laughing
air,

To the shrill pipe and deep remurm'ring
chords

Of th' antient harp, or tabor's hollow sound;
While th' old apart, upon a bank reclin'd,
Attend the tuneful carol, softly mixt
With ev'ry murmur of the sliding wave,
And ev'ry warble of the feather'd choir;;
Music of Paradise! which still is heard,
When the heart listens; still the views ap-
pear

Of the first happy Garden, when Content
To Nature's flowery scenes directs the sight.

*

*

*

*

*

And those of frugal store, in husk or kind; Stcep'd grain, and curdlet milk with dulcet

cream

Soft temper'd, in full merriment they quaff, And cast about their gibes: and some apace Whistle to roundelays: their little ones Look on delighted: while the mountainwoods,

And winding vallies, with the various notes Of pipe, sheep, kine, and birds, and liquid brooks,

Unite their echoes: near at hand the wide
Majestic wave of Severn slowly rolls
Along the deep-divided glebe: the flood,
And trading bark with low contracted sail,
Linger among the reeds and copsy banks
To listen, and to view the joyous scene."

Thus also Thomson, in his Summer, describes the washing and shearing of Sheep:

-In one diffusive band

They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog

Compell'd, to where the mazy-running brook Forms a deep pool: this bank abrupt and high,

And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore. Urg'd to the giddy brink, much is the toil, The clamour much of men, and boys, and dogs,

Ere the soft fearful people to the flood Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain

On some impatient seizing, hurls them in; (3)

Embolden'd then, nor hesitating more, Fast, fast, they plunge amidst the flashing wave,

And, panting, labour to the farthest shore. Repeated this, till deep the well-wash'd fleece

Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt

The trout is banish'd by the sordid stream; Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy brow Slow move the harmless race; where, as

Inly disturb'd, and wondering what this wild

Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints

The country fill; and toss'd from rock to rock

Incessant bleatings run around the hills.

At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks

Are in the wattled pen innumerous press'd Head above head; and rang'd in lusty rows The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears;

The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores With all her gay-drest maids attending round.

One, chief, in gracious dignity enthron'd, Shines o'er the rest the past ral Queen, and rays

Her smiles, sweet-beaming on her shepherdKing;

While the glad circle round them yield

(1) Apud Latinos oves tondere, ut et sementem facere omuino non fuit licitum, priusquam Catulatio, hoc est, ex Cane sacrum fieret: ut Gyraldus testatur de Diis gentium. Ex his ergo omnibus constat illam ovium tonsuram (quam Luna decrescente à veteribus fieri fuisse solitam M. Varro testatur: de tempore autem oves lavandi et tondendi, vide Plin. lib. xviii. c. 17) magna cum festivitate, lætitia, atque conviviis fuisse celebratam; id quod mirum non est. Nam in animalibus primum non sine causa putant oves assumptas, et propter utilitatem et propter placiditatem: maxime enim hæ natura quietæ et aptissimæ ad vitam hominum. Ad cibum enim lac et Caseum (a) adhibitum: ad corpus vestitum et pelles attulerunt. Itaque cum in illis tot presertim numero tondendis plurimum pastoribus atque famulis esset laboris exantlandum, justa profectò de causa Patresfamilias atque Domini illos conviviali hujusmodi lætitia recreare rursus atque exhilarare voluerunt." Antiq. Conviv. p. 62.

(2) By the following passage in Ferne's Glory of Generosite, p. 71, it should seem that Cheese-cakes composed a principal dainty at the Feast of Sheep-shearing. "Well vor

(a) I find the following account, I know not whether it will be thought satisfactory, of the aversion which some persons have to cheese. "L'aversione qui quelques personnes ont du fromage vient de ci. Quand une Nourice devient grosse, son lait s'epaissit, s'engrummelle et se tourne comme en fromage, de sorte que l'enfant qui est encore à la mamelle, ny trouvant plus in la saveure, in la nourriture accoutumée, s'en degoute aisement, se severe de lui meme et en prend une aversion si forte, qu'il la conserve tout le reste de sa vie." Tractat. de Butyro, Groninga, Mart. Schookii.

your paines (if you come to our Sheep Shering Veast) bum vaith yous taste of our CHEESE CAKE." This is put into the mouth of Columell the Plowman. In "The Lancashire Lovers," (a Romance founded on a true History in that County,) 8vo. Lond. 1640, Camillus the Clown, courting Doriclea, tells her: "We will have a lustie CHEESE CAKE at our Sheepe Wash," p. 19.

"The expence attending these festivities appears to have afforded matter of complaint. Thus in Questions of profitable and pleasant Concernings, &c. 1594: If it be a Sheep Shearing Feast, Master Baily can entertaine you with his Bill of Reckonings to his Maister of three Sheapherd's Wages, spent on fresh Cates, besides Spices, and Saffron Pottage." Steevens's last edit. of Shaksp. vol. vii. p. 113.

(3) In Ireland, "On the first Sunday in Harvest, viz. in August, they will be sure to drive their Cattle into some Pool or River and therein swim them: this they observe as inviolable as if it were a point of religion, for they think no beast will live the whole year thro' unless they be thus drenched. I deny not but that swimming of cattle, and chiefly in this season of the year, is healthful unto them, as the poet hath observed:

BOURNE observes (a) that in his time it was usual in Country Villages, where the polite

(a) Chap. xii.

ness of the age had made no great conquest, to pay a greater deference to Saturday Afternoon than to any other of the Working Days of the week.

The first idea of this cessation from labour at that time was, that every one might attend evening prayers as a kind of preparation for the ensuing Sabbath. The eve of the Jewish Sabbath is called the Preparation, Moses having taught that people to remember the Sabbath over night. (1)

It appears by a Council of William, king of Scotland, A. D. 1203, that it was then determined that Saturday, after the twelfth hour, should be kept holy. (2)

King Edgar, A. D. 958, made an Ecclesiastical Law that the Sabbath or Sunday should be observed on Saturday at noon, till the light should appear on Monday morn. ing. (3)

Hence, without doubt, was derived the present (or, more properly speaking, the late) custom of spending a part of Saturday Afternoon without servile labour. (*)

The religious observation of the Saturday Afternoon is now entirely at an end. It were

happy if the conclusion of that of the Sunday too did not seem to be approaching.

With regard to Saturday Afternoons, perhaps men who live by manual labour, and have families to support by it, cannot spend them better than in following the several callings in which they have employed themselves on the preceding days of the week. For industry will be no bad preparation for the Sabbath. Considered in a political view, much harm has been done by that prodigal waste of days, very falsely called Holy Days, in the Church of Rome. (5) They have, however well intended, greatly favoured the cause of vice and dissipation, without doing any essential service to that of rational religion. Complaints appear to have been made in almost every Synod and Council of the licentiousness introduced by the keeping of Vigils. (6) Nor will the Philosopher wonder at this, for it has its foundation in the Nature of Things.

(1) In "Hearing and Doing the ready Way to Blessednesse," by Henry Mason, parson of St. Andrew Undershaft, 12mo. Lond. 1635, p. 537, is the following, which would seem to prove that at that time Saturday Afternoon was kept holy by some even in the metropolis.

"For better keeping of which [the Seventh] Day, Moses commanded the Jews (Exod. xvi. 23) that the Day before the Sabbath they should bake what they had to bake, and seeth what they had to seeth; that so they might have no businesse of their own to do, when they were to keepe God's holy day. And from hence it was that the Jews called the Sixth Day of the week, the preparation of the Sabbath. (Matt. xxvii. 62, and Luke xxiii. 51.)

"answerably whereunto, and (as I take it) in imitation thereof, the Christian Church hath beene accustomed to keepe Saterday half holy-day, that in the afternoon they might ridd by-businesses out of the way,

and by the evening service might prepare their mindes for the Lord's Day then ensuing. Which custome and usage of God's people, as I will not presse it upon any man's conscience as a necessarie dutie; so every man will grant mee, that God's people, as well Christian as Jewish, have thought a time of preparation most fit for the well observing of God's holy day."

In Jacob's History of Faversham, p. 172, in "Articles for the Sexton of Faversham," 22 Hen. VIII. I find, "Item, the said Sexton, or his Deputy, every Saturday, Saint's Even, and principal Feasts, shall ring noon with as many bells as shall be convenient to the Saturday, Saint's Even, and principal Feasts," &c.

The following curious extract is from a MS. volume of Sermons for all the Saints' Days and remarkable Sundays in the year, in the Episcopal Library at Durham, communicated by the learned Mr. Robert Harrison: "It is writen in ye liffe of Seynt ******

that he was bisi on Ester Eve before None that he made one to shave him or ye sunne wente doune. And the fiend aspied that, and gadirid up his heeris; and whan this holi man sawe it, he conjured him and badde him tell him whi he did so. Thane said he, by cause yu didest no reverence to the Sundaie, and therfore thise heris wolle I kepe unto ye Day of Dome in reproffe of ye. Thane he left of all his shavyng and toke the heris of the fiend and made to brene hem in his owne hand for penaunce, whiche him thought he was worthe to suffre and bode unshaven unto Monday. This is saide in reproffe of hem that worchen at Afternone on Saturdayes."

The Hallowyng of Saturday Afternoon is thus accounted for in the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, fol. Lond. Pynson, 1493. "The thridde Precepte, xiv. chap. Dives. How longe owyth ye haliday to be kept and halowyd? Pauper. From even to even.-Nathelesse summe begynne sonner to halow after that the feest is, and after use of the Cuntre. But that men use in Saturdaies and Vigilies to ryng holy at midday compellith nat men anon to halowe, but warnythe them of the haliday folowynge, that they shulde thynke thereon and spede theym, and so dispose hem and their occupacions that they might halowe in due tyme."

(2)" In Scotia anno salutis 1203, Gulielmus Rex primorum Regni sui concilium cogit, cui etiam interfuit, pontificius Legatus, in quo decretum est, ut Saturni dies ab hora 12 meridiei sacer esset, neque quisquam res profanas exerceret, quemadmodum aliis quoque festis diebus vetitum id erat. Idque campanæ pulsu populo indicaretur, ac postea sacris rebus, ut diebus festis operam darint, concionibus interessent, vesperas audirent, idque in diem lunæ facerent, constituta transgressoribus gravi pœna." Boet. lib. xiii. de Scot. ex Hospinian. p. 176.

(3)"Dies Sabbathi ab ipsa diei Saturni hora pomeridiana tertia, usque in lunaris diei diluculum festus agitator," &c. Selden, Angl. lib. ii. cap. 6.

Mr. Johnson upon this law says, the Noontide "signifies three in the afternoon, according to our present account: and this practice, conceive, continued down to the Reformation. In King Withfred's time, the Lord's Day did

not begin till sunset on the Saturday. See 697. Numb. 10. Three in the afternoon was hora nona in the Latin account, and therefore called noon: how it came afterwards to signifie Mid-day, I can but guess. The Monks by their rules could not eat their dinner till they had said their Noon-song, which was a service regularly to be said at three o'clock: but they probably anticipated their devotions and their dinner, by saying their Noon Song immediately after their Mid-day Song, and presently falling on. I wish they had never been guilty of a worse fraud than this. But

may fairly be supposed that when Mid-day became the time of dining and saying Noon Song, it was for this reason called Noon by the Monks, who were the masters of the lan guage during the dark ages. In the Shepherd's Almanack, Noon is mid-day; High Noon, three." Johnson's Const. Part 1. Aun. 958. 5.

But

In a curious Treatise, b. l. 8vo. 1543, said to be "imprented at Zurik by Olyver Jacobson," entitled "Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe," &c. p. 21, is the following "Processyon upon Saturdayes at Even-songe."—"Your holye Father Agapitus, (a) popett of Rome, fyrst dreamed it out and enacted it for a lawdable ceremonye of your whoryshe Churche. I marvele sore that ye observe yt upon Saturdayes at night at Even-songe, he commaundynge yt to bee observed upon the Sondayes, in the mornynge betwixt holie water makynge and high masse."-"Moch is Saturnus beholden unto yow (whych is one of the olde Goddes) to garnyshe the goyng out of hys day with so holye an observacyon. Joye yt ys of your lyfe as to remember your olde fryndes. Doubtlesse yt ys a fyne myrye pageant, and yow worthye to be called a Saturnyane for it."

(4) In the year 1332, at a Provincial Council, held by Archbishop Mepham, at Mayfield, after complaint made, that instead of fasting upon the Vigils, they ran out to all the excesses of riot, &c., it was appointed, among many other things relative to holydays, that "The solemnity for Sunday should begin upon Saturday in the evening, and not before, to prevent the misconstruction of keeping a Judaical Sabbath." See Collier's Eccl. History, vol. i. p. 531.