1820.

BLESSING CANDLES AT ROME.

This was seen by Lady Morgan in The ceremony takes place in the beautiful chapel of the Quirinal, where the pope himself officiates, and blesses, and distributes with his own hands, a candle to every person in the body of the church; each going individually and kneeling at the throne to receive it. The ceremony commences with the cardinals; then follow the bishops, prelati, canons, priors, abbots, priests,

&c., down to the sacristans and meanest officers of the church. When the last of these has gotten his candle, 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 antichapel; the throne is stripped of its splendid hangings; the pope and cardinals take off their gold and crimson dresses, put on their ordinary robes, and the usual mass of the morning is sung. The blessing of the candles takes place in all the parish churches.*

SYMBOLS OF THE HERMETIC SCIENCE.

On the porticoes of the church of Notre Dame, at Paris, there are sculptured certain figures, which the adepts have deemed hieroglyphical of their art.

Golineau de Montluisant, a gentleman of the Pays de Chartres, an amateur of the hermetic science, explains these figures in the following manner. The Almighty Father, stretching out his arms, and holding an angel in each of his hands, represents the Creator, who derives from nothing the sulphur, and the mercury of life represented by the two angels. On the left side of one of the three doors are four human figures of natural size; the first has under his feet a flying dragon, biting its own tail. This dragon represents the philosopher's stone, con posed of two substances, the fixed and the volatile. The throat of the dragon denotes

the "fixed salt." which devours the "volatile," of which the slippery tale of the anımal is a symbol. The second figure Creads upon a lion, whose head is turned towards heaven. This lion is nothing but the "spirit of salt," which has a tendency to return to its sphere. The third has

Lady Morgan's Italy.

under his feet a dog and a bitch, who are biting each other furiously, which signify the contention of the humid and the dry, in which the operation of the " magnum opus" almost entirely consists. The fourth figure is laughing at all around him, and thus represents those ignorant sophists who scoff at the hermetic science.

Below these large figures is that of a bishop, in an attitude of contemplation, representing William of Paris, a learned adept. On one of the pillars which separate the several doors is another bishop, who is thrusting his crosier into the throat of a dragon. The monster seems making an effort to get out of a bath, in which is the head of a king with a triple crown. This bishop represents the philosophical alchymist, and his crosier the hermetic art. The mercurial substance is denoted by the dragon escaping from his bath, as the sublimated mercury escapes from its vase. The crowned head is sulphur, composed of three substances, namely, the ethereal spirit, the nitrous salt, and the alkali.

Near one of the doors, on the right, are the five wise virgins holding out a cup, in which they receive something poured from above by a hand that comes out of a cloud. These represent the true philosophical chemists, the friends of nature, who receive from heaven the ingredients proper for making gold. On the left are five foolish virgins, holding their cup turned down towards the ground. These are symbols of the innumerable multitude of ignorant pretenders.

There are many other figures, which our adept makes use of, in order to explain all the secrets of alchymy. But those who examine this portal with other eyes find nothing in the figures relating to the philosopher's stone. The person treading under his feet a dragon is the conqueror of Satan. The other figures represent David, Solomon, Melchisedec, the Sibyls, &c. A large statue of stone, which forme formerly was situated at the entrance of the Parvis Notre Dame, and which was taken for a statue of Mercury, was pro bably the principal cause of the first explanation. But, however that may have been, it is certain that students and reputed adepts in the science of transmutation and the pabulum of life have regarded these sculptures as hieroglyphics of the great mystery.**

This is the representation of an old finely carved oak chair in the possession of a gentleman to whom it was presented by the possessor of Penshurst, the venerable seat of the Sidney family, in the county of Kent. The height of the chair is three feet eleven inches; its width one foot ten inches. From tradition at Penshurst, it was the chair of Sir Philip Sidney "the delight and admiration of the age of Elizabeth"-in which he customarily sat, and perhaps wrote "the best pastoral romance, and one of the most popular books of its age," the celebrated "Arcadia;" a work so much read and admired by the ladies at court, in the reign of the "virgin queen," that it passed through fourteen editions, and laid Shakspeare under obligations to it for his play of "Pericles." This name, it is contended, Shakspeare derived from "Pyrocles," the hero of the "Arcadia." Many

By admirers, then, of the character of Sir Philip Sidney, who "was the ornament of the university," and "was also the ornament of the court;" who "appeared with equal advantage in a field of battle or in a tournament; in a private conversation among his friends, or in a public character as an ambassador;" the print of his chair will be looked on with interest.

The chair of Shakspeare, the illustrious contemporary of Sidney and the admirer of the "Arcadia," is alleged to have passed into foreign exile from his house at Strat

us one day she gives us leave to take out another-first there is a Carnival and then a Lent. So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, jack-of-lents, &c., they are all in imitation of church works, emblems of martyrdom." At Eton school it was the custom on Shrove Monday, for the scholars to write verses either in praise or dispraise of Father Bacchus: poets being considered as immediately under his protection. He was therefore sung on this occasion in all kinds of metres, and the verses of the boys of the seventh and sixth, and of some of the fifth forms, were affixed to the inner doors of the College. Verses are still written and put up on this day, but the young poets are no longer confined to the god of wine. Still, however, the custom retains the name of " the Bacchus."

"Ben Tyrrell," it might have been premised, was a respectable cook in the High street, Oxford, who formed a laudable design of obliging the University with mutton pies twice a week, and advertised his gratifying purpose in the Oxford Journal, Nov. 23, 1758.

"Vox Graculi," a curious quarto tract, printed in 1623, says of this season, "Here must enter that wadling, stradling, carnifex of all Christendome, vulgarly enstiled Shrove Tuesday, but, more pertinently, sole monarch of the mouth, high steward to the stomach, prime peere of the pullets, first favourite to the fryingpans, greatest bashaw to the batter-bowles, protector of the pancakes, first founder of the fritters, baron of bacon-flitch, earle of the egg-baskets, &c. This corpulent commander of those chollericke things called cookes will show himself to be but of ignoble education: for, by his manners you may find him better fed than taught,

wherever he comes."

To eat pancakes and fritters on Shrove Tuesday is a custom from time immemo rial, and the great bell which used to be rung on Shrove Tuesday, to call the people together for the purpose of confessing their sins, was called pancake-bell, a name which it still retains in some places where this custom is still kept up.

Shakspeare, through the clown in "All's well that ends well," alludes to the pancake custom. -" As fit-as Tib's rush for Tim's forefinger; as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day."

Of the pancake-bell, Taylor, the waterpoet, in his works, 1630, has a curious account. "Shrove Tuesday, at whose entrance in the morning all the whole kingdom is inquiet; but by that time the clocke strikes eleven, which (by the help of a knavish sexton) is commonly before nine, then there is a bell rung, cal'd the pancake bell, the sound whereof makes thousands of people distracted, and forgetful either of manners or humanitie; which the cookes do mingle with water, then there is a thing called wheaten floure, egges, spice, and other tragical, magicall inchantments; 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 cal'd a pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily."

Respecting an attempt to prevent the ringing of the pancake-bell, at York, there is a remarkable passage in a quarto tract, entitled "A Vindication of the Letter out of the North, concerning Bishop Lake's declaration of his dying in the belief of the doctrine of passive obedience, &c., 1690." The writer says, "They have for a long time, at York, had a custom (which now challenges the priviledge of a pre scription) that all the apprentices, journeymen, and other servants of the town, had the liberty to go into the cathedral, and ring the pancake-bell (as we call it in the country) on Shrove Tuesday; and, that being a time that a great many came out of the country to see the city (if not their friends) and church, to oblige the ordinary people, the minster used to be left open that day, to let them go up to see the lantern and bells, which were sure to be pretty well exercised, and was thought a more innocent divertisement than being at the alehouse. But Dr. Lake, when he came first to reside there, was very much scandalized at this custom, and was resolved he would break it at first dash, although all his brethren of the clergy did dissuade him from it. He was

resolved to make the experiment, for which he had like to have paid very dear, for I'le assure you it was very near costing him his life. However, he did make such a combustion and mutiny, that, I dare say, York never remembered nor saw the like, as many yet living can testify."

The London apprentices, upon Shrove Tuesday, according to Dekker's " Seven Deadly Sinnes, 1606," were accustomed to keep holiday, take the law into their own hands, and do as they pleased.

In Pennant's Tour in Wales, he says, in former days the youth of Chester exercised themselves in running, archery, leaping, wrestling, mock-fights, gallant and romantic triumphs, and other manly sports, at the "Rood Eye," a place without the walls of the city; and that in the sports there on Shrove Tuesday, 1578, a standard was the prize, and won by sheriff

Montford.

It appears from "The Westmorland Dialect, by A. Walker, 1790," that cock

fighting and "casting" of pancakes were then common in that county, thus: "Whaar ther wor tae be cock-feightin, for it war pankeak Tuesday:" and, "We met sum lads an lasses gangin to kest their pankeaks."

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, so late as 1790, says, "Most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday, pancakes on Tuesday, and fritters on the Wednesday, in the same week, for dinner."

Shrove Monday, or the Monday before Shrove Tuesday, was called Collop Monday.

The barbarous usage of throwing at cocks, tied to a stake, was anciently a common custom on Shrove Tuesday. A learned foreigner says, "the English eat a certain cake on Shrove Tuesday, upon which they immediately run mad, and kill their poor cocks."

A royal household account, possessed byCraven Ord, esq., contains the following entry:

"March 2. 7th Hen. VII. Item, to Master Bray for rewards to them that brought cokkes at Shrovetide, at Westminster, xxs."

The manuscript life of Thomas Lord Berkeley, speaking of his recreations and delights, tells the reader, "hee also would to the threshing of the cocke, pucke with hens blindfolde, and the like." This Lord was born A. D. 1352, and died in 1417.

In the time of king Henry VIII. this cruel diversion was practised at court.

Mr. Strutt has engraved, on the thirtyeighth plate of his "Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," a drawing from the margin of the "Roman d'Alexandre," in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, representing two boys carrying a third on a stick thrust between his legs, who holds a cock in his hands. They are followed by another boy, with a flag or standard, emblazoned with a cudgel. They had evidently been throwing at the cock. Mr. Strutt mistakenly dates this MS. 1433, which Mr. Brand rectifies to 1343, placing it ninety years earlier. The engraving here spoken of is on p. 394 of "Strutt's Sports," recently published in octavo.*

* Edited by William Hone; published by T. Tegg.