to it in the "Common Prayer-Book," which of course every body has an opportunity of seeing, "EASTER-DAY is always the first Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon, or next after, the twenty-first day of March; and if the Full Moon happen upon a Sunday, Easterday is the Sunday after."

One would think, that when such precise directions had been given, and the state of the moon on any day is so clearly and easily ascertained, that there would be no difficulty in following them; but experience has proved that contrary deviations from the act of parliament have been numerous. These have been pointed out at various times, but without any effect on the public. In the year 1735, Henry Wilson, of Tower-hill, styling himself mathematician, denounced the errors on this subject in a very ingenious work, entitled "The regulation of Easter, or the cause of the errours and differences contracted in the calculation of it, discovered and duly considered, showing The frequency and consequence of that errour, with the cause from whence it proceeds, and a method proposed for rectifying it, and reconciling the differences about it, and for restoring the time of celebrating that great solemnity in its primitive certainty and exactness, and that without the difficulty and confusion which some have objected would attend such a regulation." 8vo.

Within these few years an error in the observance of Easter took place, and on all the almanacs fixing an improper day for its observance, a memorial was presented to the lords in council and to the prince regent, humbly soliciting their interference on this subject. It was noticed also by Mr. Frend, in his "Evening Amusements;" and a clergyman of Oxford published a pamphlet on the oc casion. There was also, we believe, one clergyman, who, disregarding the almanac, obeyed the rubric, and read the services for Easter-day, and the Sundays depending on it, on very different days from those adopted in other churches. It was remarkable also, that in that very year, judge Garrow arrived at Gloucester a short time after twelve o'clock at night, of the day on which the assizes were to commence, and the high-sheriff very properly representing his scruples, on the egality of then commencing the assizes, they were delayed till the opinion of the judges could be taken, and the conse

quence was, the issuing of a new writ Thus the difference of a few minutes was considered fatal to the opening of a country court, though the courts of law at Westminster had been opened a few months before, when a much greater error had taken place with respect to Easter-day, on which, as before observed, the opening of those courts depends.

To understand this subject we must refer back to the origin of this festival, instituted in honour of the resurrection of our saviour, which took place on the third day after his execution as a malefactor. Friday had been fixed upon as the day of commemorating his death, and as that took place on the day of full moon, the first full moon after the twentyfirst of March was fixed upon as the regulator of the festival. The great point had in view was to prevent the festival of Easter-day from being observed on the day of a full moon, but as near to it as circumstances would admit, and in consequence there is a great difference in the times of observing this festival; it being specially provided, however, that it should happen after a full moon. Jews observe their passover by juster rules; the day for the celebration of it taking place on different days of the week: but the Christians having fixed on Friday for the celebration of the fast on the death of our saviour, the Easter-day, on the following Sunday, was accommodated to it, and both were so fixed, that there could not be a full moon on the Easter-day, nor for some weeks after it.

The

In this year, 1825, the fuil moon occurs at twenty-three minutes past six in the morning of the third of April; consequently, according to the act of parliament, and the rubric of the church, Easter-day ought to be celebrated on the tenth, and the courts of law ought to open, or Easter term begin, on the twentyseventh; but Our almanac-makers thought good to fix Easter-day on the third, and consequently Easter term is placed by them on the twentieth, on which day it is presumed that judicial proceedings will commence.

Easter-day is observed all over Christendom with peculiar rites. In the catholic church high mass is celebrated, the host is adored with the greatest reverence, and both Catholics and Protestants might be led from it, to a more particular attention to the circumstances attending its form and substance. The host, de

rived from the Latin word hostia, meaning a victim, is a consecrated wafer, of a circular form, composed of flour and water. Both substance and form are regulated by custom of very ancient date. On the night before his execution, our saviour took bread, and blessing it, divided it among his missionaries; but the bread he took was not ordinary bread, but unleavened bread, such as is used by the Jews during the passover week in the present days. This bread is composed of merely flour and water, no leaven during the festival of their passover being permitted to enter the house of a Jew. It is a kind of biscuit of a circular form, and the host thus, by its form and substance, brings us back to the recollection of the Catholics, and the rite celebrated by our saviour. It is the representation of the Jewish cake, or unleavened bread, which is to this day eaten by that nation during the passover week.

The Protestants have deviated from this custom, and in their churches use leavened bread, without any regard to form, and they cut it with a knife into small pieces, forgetting that our saviour broke the bread; but some use leavened bread, and, as they cannot break it, they attempt to imitate our saviour's action by tearing it in pieces.

For those who wish to have a more comprehensive view of this subject, the following works are recommended: Cardinal Bona on the mass; Dean Comber on the liturgy; and above all, the Hebrew ritual, which is translated into English, and to which both Catholics and Protestants are indebted for greater part of their services.*

April 3.

1825. EASTER SUNDAY.

Henry III who seized his temporalities. These he regained by replevin, and pleading his cause against the king's deputies before Innocent IV. at Rome, a papal decree confirmed his election. Among his clergy he was a strict disciplinarian, and a friend and comforter to the poor Preaching a crusade, according to the fashion of those times, against the Saracens, he fell sick, and died in the hospital at Dover, called God's-house, in 1253, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and in the ninth of his episcopal functions. This is a brief character of an exemplary prelate, but the credulous Butler chooses to affirm, that three dead persons were restored to life, and other miraculous cures were worked at his tomb. Father Porter gossips a story of a miraculous flow of unction at his consecration; of a dead-born child having been brought to life by his dead merits; and of the touch of his old clothes having cured the diseased, with other performances, "which moved pope Boniface IV. to enrol him into the number of the canonized saincts." Such wonders have never been performed in our days, and hence late popes have not been able to make saints. If bibles could be suppressed, and the printing-press destroyed, miracles and canonizations would come in" again.

For particulars respecting Easter-day and Easter Monday, see Easter Tuesday, 5th of APRIL.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Evergreen Alkanet. Anchusa sempervi

rus.

Dedicated to St. Agape.

April 4.

tion. Sts. Agape, Chionia, and Irene, Sisters, and their Companions, A. D. 304; St. Richard. St. Ulpian. St. Nicetas, Abbot, A. D. 824.

St. Richard de Wiche Was born at Wiche, near Worcester; studied at Oxford, Paris, and Bologna; became chancellor to the diocese of Canterbury; and was consecrated bishop of Chichester in 1245, against the desire of

This article on "Easter" is communicated by the gentleman who favoured the editor with the eunt of the " Vernal Equinox," at p. 375.

Easter Customs.

Dancing of the Sun.

The day before Easter-day is in some parts called "Holy Saturday." On the evening of this day, in the middle districts of Ireland, great preparations are made for the finishing of Lent. Many a fat hen and dainty piece of bacon is put in the pot by the cotter's wife about eight or nine o'clock, and woe be to the person who should taste it before the cock crows. At twelve is heard the clapping of hands, and the joyous laugh, mixed with "Shidth or mogh or corries,” i. e. out with the Lent: all is merriment for a few hours, when they retire, and rise about four o'clock to see the sun dance in honour of the resurrection. This ignorant custom is not confined to the humble labourer and his family, but is scrupulously observed by many highly respectable and wealthy families, different members of whom I have heard assert positively that they had seen the sun dance on Easter morning.*

* Communicated to the Every-Day Book by Mr. T. A—

It is inquired in Dunton's "Athenian Oracle," "Why does the sun at his rising play more on Easter-day than WhitSunday?" The question is answered thus :- "The matter of fact is an old, weak, superstitious error, and the sun neither plays nor works on Easter-day more than any other. It is true, it may sometimes happen to shine brighter that morning than any other; but, if it does, it is purely accidental. In some parts of Engand they call it the lamb-playing, which they look for, as soon as the sun rises, in some clear or spring water, and is nothing but the pretty reflection it makes from the water, which they may find at any time, if the sun rises clear, and they themselves early, and unprejudiced with fancy." The folly is kept up by the fact, that no one can view the sun steadily at any hour, and those who choose to lo k at it, or at its reflection in water, see it apparently move, as they would on any other day. Brand points out an allusion to this vulgar notion in an old ballad:But, Dick, she dances such away! No sun upon an Easter day Is half so fine a sight.

Again, from the "British Apollo," a presumed question to the sun himself upon the subject, elicits a suitable an

swer:

Q. Old wives, Phoebus, say

That on Easter-day

To the music o' th' spheres you do caper ;
B the fact, sir, be true,

Pray let's the cause know,
When you have any room in your paper.
A. The old wives get merry
With spic'd ale or sherry,
On Easter, which makes them romance;
And whilst in a rout
Their brains whirl about,
They fancy we caper and dance.

A bit of smoked glass, such as boys use to view an eclipse with, would put this matter steady to every eye hut that of wilful self-deception, which, after all, superstition always chooses to see through. Lifting.

Mr. Ellis inserts, in his edition of Mr. Brand's " Popular Antiquities," a letter from Mr. Thomas Loggan of Basinghallstreet, from whence the following extract is made: Mi. Loggan says, "I was sitting alone last Easter Tuesday, at breakfast, at the Talbot in Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm

chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favours of different colours. I asked them what they wanted, their answer was, they came to heave me; it was the custom of the place on that morning, and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was impossible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and to a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the

ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each. I told then, I supposed there was a fee due upon the occasion, and was answered in the affirmative; and, having satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom; but, on inquiry I found that on Easter Monday, between nine and twelve, the men heave the women in the same manner as on the Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men."