The feast of the dedication of every church was ordered to be kept upon one and the same day everywhere; that is, on the first Sunday in October; and the Saint's day to which the church was dedicated entirely laid aside. This act is now disregarded; but probably it arose from thence that the feast of Wakes was first put off till the Sunday following the proper day, that the people might not have too many avocations from their necessary and domestic business.

The following entries occur in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Mary at Hill, in the city of London, 1495: "For bred and wyn and ale to Bowear (a singer) and his co., and to the Quere on Dedication Even, and on the morrow, is. vjd." 1555. "Of the Sumcyon of our Lady's Day, which is our church holyday, for drinkyng over-night at Mr. Hayward's, at the King's Head, with certen of the parish and certen of the chapel and other singing men, in wyne, pears, and sugar, and other chargis, viiis. jd. For a dynner for our Lady's Day, for all the synging men & syngyng children, il. For a pounde and halfe of sugar at dinner, is. vijd. ob. 1557. For garlands for our Lady's Day & for strawenge yerbes, ijs. ijd. For bryngyng down the images to Rome Land and other things to be burnt." In these accounts, "To singing men and children from the King's chapel and elsewhere,' on some of the grand festivals, particularly the parish feast (our Lady's Assumption), a reward in money and a feast is charged in several

years.

When an order was made in 1627 and in 1631, at Exeter and in Somersetshire, for the suppression of the Wakes, both the ministers and the people desired their continuance, not only for preserving the memorial of the dedication of their several churches, but for civilizing their parishioners, composing differences by the mediation and meeting of friends, increasing of love and unity by these feasts of charity, and for the relief and comfort of the poor. In King Charles the First's Book of Sports, Oct. 18, 1633, we read: "His majesty finds that, under pretence of taking away abuses, there hath been a general forbidding, not only of ordinary meetings, but of the feasts of the dedications of the churches, commonly called Wakes. Now his majesty's express will and pleasure is, that these feasts, with others, shall be observed; and that his justices of the peace, in their several divisions, shall look to it,

both that all disorders there may be prevented or punished, and that all neighbourhood and freedom, with manlike and lawful exercises be used." (See Harris's Life of Charles I. p. 50.)

In the southern parts of this nation, says Bourne, most country villages are wont to observe some Sunday in a more particular manner than the rest; i. e. the Sunday after the day of dedication, or day of the saint to whom their church was dedicated. Then the inhabitants deck themselves in their gaudiest clothes, and have open doors and splendid entertainments, for the reception and treating of their relations and friends, who visit them on that occasion from each neighbouring town. The morning is spent for the most part at church, though not as that morning was wont to be spent, not in commemorating the saint or martyr, or in gratefully remembering the builder and endower. The remaining part of the day is spent in eating and drinking. Thus also they spend a day or two afterwards, in all sorts of rural pastimes and exercises, such as dancing on the green, wrestling, cudgelling, &c.

Carew tells us, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 69, "The Saint's Feast is kept upon the Dedication Day, by every householder of the parish, within his own dores, each entertaining such forrayne acquaintance as will not fayle, when their like turne cometh about, to requite them with the like kindness." But Borlase informs us that, in his time, it being very inconvenient, especially in harvest time, to observe the parish feast on the Saint's day, they were, by the bishop's special authority, transferred to the following Sunday.

Stubs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1585, p. 95, gives us the manner of keeping of Wakesses and Feastes in England. "This is their order therein :-Every towne, parish, and village, some at one time of the yeare, some at another (but so that every one keeps his proper day assigned and appropriate to itselfe, which they call their Wake-day), useth to make great preparation and provision for good cheare, to the which all their friendes and kinsfolkes farre and neere are invited." He adds that there are such doings at them, "insomuch as the poore men that beare the charges of these feastes and wakesses are the poorer, and keep the worser houses a long tyme after. And no marvaile, for many spend more at one of these wakesses than in all the whole yere besides." Stubs has been already mentioned as a Puritan, and conse

quently one who did not duly distinguish between the institution itself and the degenerate abuse of it.

Borlase says, the parish feasts instituted in commemoration of the dedication of parochial churches were highly esteemed among the primitive Christians, and originally kept on the Saint's Day to whose memory the church was dedicated. The generosity of the founder and endower thereof was at the same time celebrated, and a service composed suitable to the occasion. This is still done in the colleges of Oxford, to the memory of the respective founders. On the eve of this day prayers were said and hymns were sung all night in the church; and from these watchings the festivals were styled Wakes; which name still continues in many parts of England, although the vigils have been long abolished. See also Wheatley on the Common Prayer, 1848, p. 89; and Dugd. Warw., p. 515.

Speght, in his Glossary to Chaucer, says: "It was the manner in times past, upon festival evens, called vigiliæ, for parishioners to meet in their church-houses or churchyards, and there to have a drinking-fit for the time. Here they used to end many quarrels between neighbour and neighbour. Hither came the wives in comely manner: and they which were of the better sort had their mantles carried with them, as well for show as to keep them from cold at the table. These mantles also many did use in the church at morrowmasses and other times." In the 28th canon given under King Edgar (preserved in Wheloc's edition of Bede), I find decent behaviour enjoined at these church wakes. The people are commanded to pray devoutly at them, and not to betake themselves to drinking or debauchery.

The following is preserved in the MS. Collections of Aubrey (relating to North Wilts) in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; dated 1678: "Before the Wake or feast of the dedication of the church, they sat up all night fasting and praying." That is, upon the eve of the wake.

Captain Silas Taylor says, that "in the days of yore, when a church was to be built, they watched and prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that point of the horizon where the sun arose for the east, which makes that variation, so that few (churches) stand true except those built between the two equinoxes. I have experimented some churches, and

have found the line to point to that part of the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that Saint to whom the church is dedicated."

In the Introduction to the Survey of North Wiltshire, printed in Aubrey's Miscellanies, 1714, p. 33, we read: "The night before the day of dedication of the church, certain officers were chosen for gathering the money for charitable uses. Old John Wastfield, of Langley, was Peter Man at St. Peter's Chapel there."

The following ludicrous trait in the description of a country wake is a curious one from a most rare little book entitled A strange Metamorphosis of Man, transformed into a Wildernesse, deciphered in Characters, 1634. He is speaking of the Goose. "They hate," says our quaint author, "the laurell, which is the reason they have no poets amongst them; so as if there be any that seeme to have a smatch in that generous science, he arrives no higher than the style of a ballet, wherein they have a reasonable facultie; especially at a WAKE, when they assemble themselves together at a towne-greene, for then they sing their ballets, and lay out such throats as the country fidlers cannot be heard." I cannot omit quoting thence, also, the well-known singularity of this domestic fowl. "She hath a great opinion of her own stature, especially if she be in company of the rest of her neighbours and fellow-gossippes, the duckes and hennes, at a harvest feast; for then if she enter into the hall there, as high and wide as the doore is, she will stoop for feare of breaking her head."

Great numbers attending at these wakes, by degrees less devotion and reverence were observed, till at length, from hawkers and pedlars coming thither to sell their petty wares, the merchants came also, and set up stalls and booths in the churchyards; and not only those, says Spelman, who lived in the parish to which the church belonged resorted thither, but others also, from all the neighbouring towns and villages: and the greater the reputation of the Saint, the greater were the numbers that flocked together on this occasion. The holding of these fairs on Sundays was justly found fault with by the clergy. The Abbot of Ely, in King John's reign, inveighed much against so flagrant a profanation of the sabbath; but this irreligious custom was not entirely abolished till the reign of King Henry the Sixth.

[A good description of a Wake is given in the Spectator, No. 161: "I was last week at one of these assemblies, which was held in a neighbouring parish; where I found their green covered with a promiscuous multitude of all ages and both sexes, who esteem one another more or less the following part of the year according as they distinguish themselves at this time. The whole company were in their holiday clothes, and divided into several parties, all of them endeavouring to show themselves in those exercises wherein they excelled, and to gain the approbation of the lookers-on." The sports described are cudgel-playing, football, and wrestling.]

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, xvi. 460, 1795, Parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, co. Orkney, we read: "Parish of Sandwick:-The people do no work on the 3d day of March, in commemoration of the day on which the church of Sandwick was consecrated; and as the church was dedicated to St. Peter, they also abstain from working for themselves on St. Peter's Day (29th June); but they will work to another person who employs them." In the same work, xviii. 652, Parish of Culross, we are told: "St. Serf was considered as the tutelar Saint of this place, in honour of whom there was an annual procession on his day: viz. 1st July, early in the morning of which all the inhabitants, men and women, young and old, assembled and carried green branches through the town, decking the public places with flowers, and spent the rest of the day in festivity. (The church was dedicated not only to the Virgin Mary, but also to St. Serf.) The procession is still continued, though the day is changed from the Saint's day to the present king's birthday.'

In many villages in the north of England these meetings are still kept up, under the name of Hoppings. We shall hope that the rejoicings on them are still restrained in general within the bounds of innocent festivity; though it is to be feared they sometimes prove fatal to the morals of our swains, and corrupt the innocence of our rustic maids. So

1 Hopping is derived from the Anglo-Saxon hoppan, to leap or dance, which Skinner deduces from the Dutch huppe, coxendix (whence also our hip). "Hæc enim saltitatio, quà corpus in altum tollitur ope robustissimorum illorum musculorum, qui ossibus femoris et coxendicis movendis dicati sunt, præcipue peragitur." Skinner, in v. Hop. Dancings in the north of England, and in some other parts, are called hops.