It is affirmed, that at Queen’s-college, Oxford, the first dish brought to the table on Easter-day, is a red herring, riding away on horseback, that is to say, a herring placed by the cook, something after the likeness of a man on horseback, set on a corn sallad.[104] This is the only vestige of the pageants which formerly were publicly exhibited by way of popular rejoicing for the departure of the forty days Lent fast, and the return to solid eating with the Easter festival.
The custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter, still maintained in some parts of England, is founded on the abhorrence our forefathers thought proper to express, in that way, towards the Jews at the season of commemorating the resurrection.[105]
Lifting at Easter, and pace or paste eggs, with other usages derived from catholic customs, are described and traced in vol. i. p. 421.
Since these “Caps well fit; by Titus in Sandgate and Titus every where,” a curious little duodecimo, printed at Newcastle in 1785, has come into the editor’s hands, from whence is extracted the following—
Paste Egg Tale
Once—yes once, upon a Paste-Egg-Day,
Some lords and ladies met to play;
For then such pastimes bore the bell.
Like old Olympicks—full as well;
And now, our gentry on the green,
Throng’d forth, to see, and to be seen,
Moment this, for assignation,
And all the courtesy of fashion.
A poor old woman, passing by,
Gaz’d at the ring with curious eye
Sometimes frowning, sometimes smiling.
In thought approving—or reviling.
Not yet quite froze, by want or age,
Her fancy could at times engage;
Her age might reckon eighty-five,
But curiosity alive,
She fix’d her barnacles to nose
The better to observe the shows.
Discover’d soon—some wags stept forth,
And ask’d her, what such sights were worth,
What did she think of genteel modes,
Where half believ’d themselves half-Gods?
And t’other half, so wondrous wise,
Believe that bliss—in trifling lies?
They begg’d that she would frank declare
What she thought such people were?