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.