This allusion by Fluellin to the Welsh having worn the leek in a battle under the Black Prince, is not, as some writers suppose, wholly decisive of its having originated in the fields of Cressy or Poictiers, but shows that when Shakespeare wrote Welshmen wore leeks. In the same play the well-remembered Fluellin’s enforcement of Pistol to eat the leek he had ridiculed, further establishes the wearing as a usage.--_Every Day Book_, vol. i. p. 318. A contributor to a periodical work, entitled _Gazette of Fashion_ (March 9th, 1822), rejects the notion that wearing leeks on St. David’s Day originated at the battle between the Saxons and the Welsh in the sixth century; and considers it more probable that leeks were a Druidic symbol employed in honour of the British _Ceudven_, or Ceres. In which hypothesis he thinks there is nothing strained in presuming that the Druids were a branch of the Phœnician priesthood. Both were addicted to oak worship; and during the funereal rites of Adonis at Byblos, leeks and onions were exhibited in “pots with other vegetables, and called the gardens of that deity.” In the fifteenth century, the celebration of St. David’s Day was honoured with the patronage of royalty; and numerous entries of payments, such as the following, are recorded in the “Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Seventh,” a monarch whose liberality is not proverbial: “March 1 (1492). Walshemen on Saint David Day, £2.” “March 6 (1494). To the Walshemen towardes their feste, £2.”--_Med. Ævi Kalend._, vol. i. p. 168. From _Poor Robin’s Almanack_ for 1757 it appears that, in former times in England, a Welshman was burnt in effigy on this anniversary: “But it would make a stranger laugh To see th’ English hang poor Taff: A pair of breeches, and a coat, Hat, shoes, and stockings, and what not, All stuffed with hay to represent The Cambrian hero thereby meant: With sword sometimes three inches broad, And other armour made of wood, They drag hur to some publick tree, And hang hur up in effigy.” To this custom Pepys probably alludes in his Diary for 1667 (Bohn’s Edition, 1858, vol. iii. p. 761): “In Mark Lane I do observe (it being St. David’s Day) the picture of a man dressed like a Welshman, hanging by the neck upon one of the poles that stand out at the top of the merchant’s houses, in full proportion; and very handsomely done, which is one of the oddest sights I have seen a good while.” Brand, in his _Pop. Antiq._ (1849, vol. i. p. 105), thinks that from this custom arose the practice, at one time in vogue amongst pastrycooks, of hanging or skewering _taffies_ or Welshmen of gingerbread for sale on St. David’s Day. The goat has by time-honoured custom been attached to the regiment of the Royal Welsh (23rd) Fusiliers, and the following extract, taken from the _Graphic_ (No. 171, March, 8th, 1873), shows how St. David’s Day is observed by the officers and men of this regiment: