y John Byrom.
In George Herbert's time it had been a frequent custom on all great
festivals to deck the church with boughs. This usage became almost, if
not quite, obsolete except at Christmastide. We most of us remember with
what sort of decorative skill the clerk was wont, at this season, to
'stick' the pews and pulpit with sprays of holly. In the time of the
'Spectator'[1020] and of Gay,[1021] and later still,[1022] rosemary was
also used, doubtless by old tradition, as referring in its name to the
Mother of the Lord. Nor was mistletoe excluded.[1023] In connection with
this plant, Stanley says a curious custom was kept up at York, which in
1754 had not long been discontinued. 'On the eve of Christmas Day they
carried mistletoe to the high altar of the cathedral and proclaimed a
public and universal liberty, pardon, and freedom to all sorts of
inferior and even wicked people, at the gates of the city, toward the
four quarters of heaven.'[1024] A number of other local customs, many of
great antiquity, now at last disused, lingered on at Yule into the time
of our grandfathers. On Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Whitsun Day there
were very commonly two celebrations of the Holy Communion in the London
churches.[1025] In a few cases, especially during the earlier years of
the century, there was a daily celebration during the octaves of these
great festivals.[1026] John Wesley, writing in 1777, makes mention that
in London he was accustomed to observe the octave in this manner 'after
the example of the Primitive Church.'[1027] Throughout the latter part
of the Georgian period little special notice seems to have been taken,
in most churches, of Easter and Whitsuntide, and Ascension Day was very
commonly not observed at all, except in towns.

As one among many other indications that at the beginning of the last
century a shorter period than now had elapsed since the days that
preceded the Reformation, it may be mentioned that 'Candlemas' was not
only a well-known date, especially for changing the hours of service,
but retained some traces of being still a festival under that name. For
instance, it was specially observed at the Temple Church;[1028] and 'at
Ripon, so late as 1790, on the Sunday before Candlemas Day, the
Collegiate Church was one continued blaze of light all the afternoon,
by an immense number of candles.'[1029] Such traditions lingered in the
north of England long after they had expired elsewhere.

It may be a