Prince Regent, the Duke of Cumberland, the Dean of Windsor, Sir Henry Halford, and two other gentlemen. The body was found tolerably entire and in good condition. "At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discoloured. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately; and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black."*

The service formerly appointed to be used in the churches on this day has for several years been discontinued by royal warrant.

PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN.

The festival of the Purification of the Virgin (which is still a holiday of the Church of England) is kept on the second of February, commonly called Candlemas Day. At Rome, the Pope every year officiates at this festival in the chapel of the Quirinal. When he has blessed the candles, he distributes them with his

* Sir Henry Halford.

own hand to those in the church, each going up singly, and kneeling to receive it. The cardinals go first, then bishops, and the different orders in the Church, according to their rank, down to the sacristans. Then the poor conservatori, the representatives of the Roman Senate and people, receive theirs. This ceremony over, the candles are lighted, the Pope is mounted in his chair and carried in procession, with hymns chanting, round the ante-chapel. The candle-bearing is understood to refer to Simeon when he took the infant Jesus in his arms, declaring that he was a light to lighten the Gentiles. It was formerly customary, in consequence, for women who went to be churched, to carry candles with them.

There is a universal superstition throughout Christendom, that good weather on this day indicates a long winter and a bad crop, and a foul day the contrary.

The usual time for churching in this country is a month after the birth of the child, in the Greek Church the fortieth day after, and the practice is generally observed in all Christian countries.

It was one time customary on Candlemas Eve, in the villages bordering on the Trent, to decorate not only churches, but houses, with branches of box, and to light up a number of candles in the evening, as being the last day of Christmas rejoicings.

"On Candlemas Day, throw candles away," is a popular proverb of the following day.

VALENTINE'S DAY.

(14th February.)

Valentine was a presbyter of the Church, and suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Claudius about 270.

There is a rural tradition that on this day every bird chooses its mate, to which Shakespeare alludes in "Midsummer Night's Dream❞—

Saint Valentine is past;

Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

The custom of choosing Valentines was practised in the houses of the English gentry as early as 1476. It is alluded to by an old writer (Bourne), who says, "It is a ceremony never omitted among the vulgar to draw lots, which they term valentines, on the eve before Valentine Day. The names of a select number of one sex are, by an equal number of the other, put into the same vessel; and after that, every one draws a name, which for the present is called their Valentine, and is looked upon as a good omen of their being man and wife afterwards."

Wheatley says that St. Valentine was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valentines upon his Festival (which is still practised) took its rise from thence.

L

Grose explains Valentine to mean the first woman seen by a man, or man seen by a woman, on the 14th February.

COLLOP MONDAY.

The Monday before Shrove Tuesday is so called because it was the last day of flesh-eating before Lent, and our ancestors cut their fresh meat into collops or steaks, for salting or hanging up till Lent was over; thence, in many places, it is still a custom to have eggs and collops, or slices of bacon, at dinner on this day.

Polydore Virgil affirms of this season and its delicacies, that it sprang from the feasts of Bacchus, which were celebrated in Rome with rejoicings and festivities at the same period. This, therefore, is another adoption of the Romish Church from the heathens; and Brand observes, that on Shrove Monday it was a custom of the boys at Eton to write verses concerning Bacchus, in all kinds of metre, which were affixed to the college doors. This Eton practice was doubtless a remnant of the Catholic custom.

SHROVE TUESDAY.

The name is derived from the ancient practice in the Romish Church of confessing sins, and obtaining absolution (called being shrived or shriven) on this

day. It comes immediately before the season of Lent. The origin of pancakes being eaten on this day is involved in obscurity. A kind of pancake feast was used in the Greek Church, from whence we may probably have borrowed it.

Taylor, the Water Poet, in his "Jack-a-Lent," published in 1620, gives the following curious account of this day :

"Shrove Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is inquiet, but by that time the clock strikes 11, which (by the help of a knavish sexton is commonly before 9), then there is a bell rung, called the Pancake-bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful, either of manners or humanitie; then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the cookes do mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragical, magical enchantments, and then they put it by little and little into a frying-pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismall hissing (like the Lernean snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton), untill at last by the skill of the cooke, it is transformed into the forme of a Flip-Jack, called a Pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily. Then Tim Tatters (a most opulent villaine), with an ensigne made of a piece of a baker's mawkin fixt upon a broom staffe, he displaies his dreadful colours, and, calling the ragged regiment together, makes an