of Lent,
For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee,
To make thee a purse."

Elderton, in a ballad called "Lenton Stuff," in a MS. in the Ashmolean
Museum, thus concludes his account of Lent:[645]

"When Jakke a' Lent comes justlynge in,
With the hedpeece of a herynge,
And saythe, repent yowe of yower syn,
For shame, syrs, leve yowre swerynge:
And to Palme Sonday doethe he ryde,
With sprots and herryngs by his syde,
And makes an end of Lenton tyde!"[646]

[645] "Notes and Queries," 1st series, vol. xii. p. 297.

[646] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 443; Brand's "Pop.
Antiq.," 1849, vol. i. p. 101. Taylor, the Water-Poet, has a
tract entitled "_Jack-a-Lent_, his Beginning and Entertainment,
with the mad Prankes of Gentlemen-Usher, Shrove Tuesday."

In the reign of Elizabeth butchers were strictly enjoined not to sell
fleshmeat in Lent, not with a religious view, but for the double
purpose[647] of diminishing the consumption of fleshmeat during that
period, and so making it more plentiful during the rest of the year, and
of encouraging the fisheries and augmenting the number of seamen.
Butchers, however, who had an interest at court frequently obtained a
dispensation to kill a certain number of beasts a week during Lent; of
which indulgence the wants of invalids, who could not subsist without
animal food, was made the pretence. It is to this practice that Cade
refers in "2 Henry VI." (iv. 3), where he tells Dick, the butcher of
Ashford: "Therefore, thus will I reward thee,--the Lent shall be as long
again as it is; and thou shalt have a license to kill for a hundred
lacking one."

[647] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. vi. p. 219.

In "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), Falstaff mentions an indictment against
Hostess Quickly, "for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary
to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl." Whereupon she
replies, "All victuallers do so: what's a joint of mutton or two in a
whole Lent?"

The sparing fare in olden days, during Lent, is indirectly referred to
by Rosencrantz in "Hamlet" (ii. 2): "To think, my lord, if you delight
not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive." We may
compare, too, Maria's words in "Twelfth Night" (i. 5), where she speaks
of a good lenten answer, _i. e._, short.

By a scrap of proverbial rhyme quoted by Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet"
(ii. 4), and the speech introduci