JACK O’ LENT.

This was a puppet, formerly thrown at, in our own country, during Lent, like Shrove-cocks. Thus, in “The Weakest goes to the Wall,” 1600, we read of “a mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent;” and in Greene’s “Tu quoque,” of “a boy that is throwing at his Jack o’ Lent;” and again, in the comedy of “Lady Alimony,” 1659:

———“Throwing cudgels
At Jack a Lents or Shrove-cocks.”

Also, in Ben Jonson’s “Tale of a Tub:”

———“On an Ash-Wednesday,
When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o’ Lent,
For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee.”

So, likewise, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Tamer tamed:”

———“If I forfeit,
Make me a Jack o’ Lent, and break my shins
For untagg’d points and counters.”

Further, in Quarles’ “Shepheard’s Oracles,” 1646, we read:

“How like a Jack a Lent
He stands, for boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws,
Or like a puppet made to frighten crows.”[72]

From the “Jack o’ Lent,” we derive the familiar term among children, “Jack o’ Lanthorn.”

[72] Brand’s Popular Antiquities.

Shrove Tuesday
AND
Ash Wednesday.

The copious particulars respecting these festivals, which have been brought together in another place,[73] admit of some addition.

In France and other parts of the continent, the season preceding Lent is universal carnival. At Marseilles, the Thursday before Lent is called le Jeudi gras, and Shrove Tuesday le Mardi gras. Every body joins in masquerading on these nights, and both streets and houses are full of masks the whole night long. The god of fritters, if such a god there be, who is worshipped in England only on Shrove Tuesday, is worshipped in France on both the Thursday and Tuesday. Parties meet at each other’s houses to a supper of fritters, and then set off masquerading, which they keep up to a very late hour in the morning.

On Ash-Wednesday, which has here much more the appearance of a festival than of a fast, there is a ceremony called “interring the carnival.” A whimsical figure is dressed up to represent the carnival, which is carried in the afternoon in procession to Arrens, a small village on the sea-shore, about a mile out of the town, where it is pulled to pieces. This ceremony is attended in some way or other by every inhabitant of Marseilles, whether gentle or simple, man or woman, boy or girl. The very genteel company are in carriages, which parade backwards and forwards upon the road between the town and the village, for two or three hours, like the Sunday processions in Hyde-park. Of the rest of the company, some make parties to dine at Arrens, or at the public-houses on the road; others make water parties; but the majority only go and walk about, or sit upon the rocks to see and be seen. It was one of the most delightful evenings imaginable; the air was inexpressibly mild; the road where the carriages parade is about half way up the rocks, and this long string of carriages constantly moving, the rocks filled with thousands and thousands of spectators, and the tranquil sea gilded by the setting sun, and strewed over with numberless little barks, formed altogether one of the most beautiful and picturesque scenes that could be presented. We sat down on a little detached piece of rock almost encircled by the sea, that we might have full enjoyment of it, and there remained till some time after the glorious sun had disappeared for the night, when we walked home by a lovely bright moonlight, in a milder evening, though in the month of February, than we often find in England at Midsummer.[74]

Naogeorgus, in the “Popish Kingdome,” mentions some burlesque scenes practised formerly on Ash Wednesday. People went about in mid-day with lanterns in their hands, looking after the feast days which they had lost on this the first day of the Lent fast. Some carried herrings on a pole, crying “Herrings, herrings, stinking herrings! no more puddings!”

And hereto joyne they foolish playes,
and doltish doggrel rimes,
And what beside they can invent,
belonging to the times.

Others, at the head of a procession, carried a fellow upon staves, or “stangs,” to some near pond or running stream, and there plunged him in, to wash away what of feasting-time might be in him. Some got boys to accompany them through the town singing, and with minstrels playing, entered the houses, and seizing young girls harnessed them to a plough; one man held the handles, another drove them with a whip, a minstrel sung drunken songs, and a fellow followed, flinging sand or ashes as if he had been sowing, and then they drove

—— both plough and maydens through
some pond or river small,
And dabbled all with durt, and wringing
wett as they may bee
To supper calle, and after that
to daunsing lustilee.

[73] The Every-Day Book.

[74] Miss Plumptre.

Quinquagesima.
Carnival in Spain.

“Carnival,” properly so called, according to Mr. Blanco White, is limited to Quinquagesima Sunday, and the two following days, a period which the lower classes pass in drinking and rioting in those streets where the meaner sort of houses abound, and especially in the vicinity of the large courts, or halls, called Corrales, surrounded with small rooms or cells, where numbers of the poorest inhabitants live in filth, misery, and debauch. Before these horrible places, are seen crowds of men, women, and children, singing, dancing, drinking, and pursuing each other with handfuls of hair-powder. I have never seen, however, an instance of their taking liberties with any person above their class; yet, such bacchanals produce a feeling of insecurity, which makes the approach of those spots very unpleasant during the carnival.

At Madrid, where whole quarters of the town, such as Avapiés and Maravillas, are inhabited exclusively by the rabble, these “Saturnalia” are performed upon a larger scale. Mr. White says, I once ventured with three or four friends, all muffled in our cloaks, to parade the Avapiés during the carnival. The streets were crowded with men, who, upon the least provocation, real or imaginary, would have instantly used the knife, and of women equally ready to take no slight share in any quarrel: for these lovely creatures often carry a poniard in a sheath, thrust within the upper part of the left stocking, and held up by the garter. We were, however, upon our best behaviour, and by a look of complacency on their sports, and keeping at the most respectful distance from the women, came away without meeting with the least disposition to insolence or rudeness.

A gentleman, who, either out of curiosity or depraved taste, attends the amusements of the vulgar, is generally respected, provided he is a mere spectator, and appears indifferent to the females. The ancient Spanish jealousy is still observable among the lower classes; and while not a sword is drawn in Spain upon a love-quarrel, the knife often decides the claims of more humble lovers. Yet love is by no means the main instigator of murder among us. A constitutional irritability, especially in the southern provinces, leads, without any more assignable reason, to the frequent shedding of blood. A small quantity of wine, nay, the mere blowing of the easterly wind, called “Solano,” is infallibly attended with deadly quarrels in Andalusia. The average of dangerous or mortal wounds, on every great festival at Seville, is, I believe, about two or three. We have, indeed, a well-endowed hospital named de los Herídos, which, though open to all persons who meet with dangerous accidents, is, from this unhappy disposition of the people, almost confined to the wounded. The large arm-chair, where the surgeon in attendance examines the patient just as he is brought in, usually upon a ladder, is known in the whole town by the name of “Silla de los Guapos,” the Bullies’ chair. Every thing, in fact, attests both the generality and inveteracy of that horrible propensity among the Spaniards.[75]

[75] Doblado’s Letters from Spain.