Note 162 — THE CITY GALLANT.

Shrove Tuesday was formerly a holiday for apprentices. So in Ben Jonson's "Epicæne," act i. sc. 1, it is said of Morose, "he would have hanged a pewterer's 'prentice on a Shrove Tuesday's riot, for being o' that trade, when the rest were quit."

On Shrove Tuesday in the County of Sussex (and I suppose in many others) apprentices are always permitted to visit their families or friends, to eat pancakes, &c. This practice is called shroving. "Apollo Shroving" is the name of an old comedy, written by a schoolmaster in Suffolk [William Hawkins], to be performed by his scholars on Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 6, 1626-7.

See note 6 to "The Hog hath lost his Pearl," post. The custom in London, I believe, is almost abolished; it is, however, still retained in many parts of the kingdom. [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," by Hazlitt, i. 47, where it is said] that "at Newcastle upon Tyne the great bell of St Nicholas' Church is tolled at twelve o'clock at noon on this day; shops are immediately shut up, offices closed, and all kinds of business ceases; a sort of little carnival ensuing for the remaining part of the day." Again: the custom of frying pancakes (in turning of which in the pan there is usually a good deal of pleasantry in the kitchen) is still retained in many families in the north, but seems, if the present fashionable contempt of old custom continues, not likely to last another century. The apprentices whose particular holiday this day is now called, and who are on several accounts so much interested in the observation of it, ought, with that watchful jealousy of their ancient rights and liberties (typified here by pudding and play) which becomes young Englishmen, to guard against every infringement of its ceremonies, and transmit them entire and unadulterated to posterity! [A copious account of this subject will be found in "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," i. 37-54.]