Note 87 — XLVIII. BURLESQUE SURVIVALS.
Reading edition
See, in Rousselet’s “India,” London, 1876, pp. 173, 343. It has been identified as our April Fool’s Day. See in “Asiatic Researches,” Calcutta, 1790, vol. ii. p. 334; also, in Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon,” London, 1810, pp. 156, 157; also, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and Appleton’s Encyclopædia, article “April.”
On the Sunday and Monday preceding Lent people are privileged at Lisbon to play the fool; it is thought very jocose to pour water on any person who passes, or throw powder in his face; but to do both is the perfection of wit.—(Southey, quoted in Hone’s “Every-Day Book,” vol. i. p. 206, London, 1825. See Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. i., p. 131, article “April Fool’s Day.”)