more general all
over England than they are at present, being become by time, necessity,
or avarice, complex, confined, and altered. They are commonly insisted
upon by the reapers as customary things, and a part of their due for the
toils of the harvest, and complied with by their masters perhaps more
through regards of interest than inclination; for should they refuse
them the pleasures of this much-expected time, this festal night, the
youth especially, of both sexes would decline serving them for the
future, and employ their labors for others, who would promise them the
rustic joys of the harvest-supper, mirth and music, dance and song.
These feasts appear to be the relics of Pagan ceremonies or of Judaism,
it is hard to say which, and carry in them more meaning and are of far
higher antiquity than is generally apprehended. It is true the subject
is more curious than important, and I believe altogether untouched; and
as it seems to be little understood, has been as little adverted to.
I do not remember it to have been so much as the subject of a
conversation. Let us make, then, a little excursion into this field, for
the same reason men sometimes take a walk. Its traces are discoverable
at a very great distance of time from ours,--nay, seem as old as a sense
of joy for the benefit of plentiful harvests and human gratitude to the
eternal Creator for His munificence to men. We hear it under various
names in different counties, and often in the same county; as,
"melsupper," "churn-supper," "harvest-supper," "harvest-home," "feast of
in-gathering," etc. And perhaps this feast had been long observed, and
by different tribes of people, before it became preceptive with the
Jews. However, let that be as it will, the custom very lucidly appears
from the following passages of S. S., Exod. xxiii. 16, "And the feast
of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in
the field." And its institution as a sacred rite is commanded in Levit.
xxiii. 39: "When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land ye shall keep
a feast to the Lord."

The Jews then, as is evident from hence, celebrated the feast of
harvest, and that by precept; and though no vestiges of any such feast
either are or can be produced before these, yet the oblation of the
Primitae, of which this feast was a consequence, is met with prior
to this, for we find that "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering to the Lord" (Gen. iv. 3).

Yet thi