Bartholomew Fair" (i.
6), where Ursula, the pig-woman, is an important personage.[679] Gay,
too, speaks of the pig-dressers: "Like Bartholomew Fair pig-dressers,
who look like the dams, as well as the cooks, of what they roasted." A
further allusion to this season is found in "Henry V," (v. 2), where
Burgundy tells how "maids, well-summered and warm kept, are like flies
at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they
will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on."

[679] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 57; Morley's "Memoirs
of Bartholomew Fair," 1859.

_Harvest Home._ The ceremonies which graced the ingathering of the
harvest in bygone times have gradually disappeared, and at the present
day only remnants of the old usages which once prevailed are still
preserved. Shakespeare, who has chronicled so many of our old customs,
and seems to have had a special delight in illustrating his writings
with these characteristics of our social life, has given several
interesting allusions to the observances which, in his day, graced the
harvest-field. Thus, in Warwickshire, the laborers, at their
harvest-home, appointed a judge to try misdemeanors committed during
harvest, and those who were sentenced to punishment were placed on a
bench and beaten with a pair of boots. Hence the ceremony was called
"giving them the boots." It has been suggested that this custom is
alluded to in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (i. 1), where Shakespeare
makes Proteus, parrying Valentine's raillery, say, "nay, give me not the
boots."

In Northamptonshire, when any one misconducted himself in the field
during harvest, he was subjected to a mock-trial at the harvest-home
feast, and condemned to be booted, a description of which we find in the
introduction to Clare's "Village Minstrel:" "A long form is placed in
the kitchen, upon which the boys who have worked well sit, as a terror
and disgrace to the rest, in a bent posture, with their hands laid on
each other's backs, forming a bridge for the 'hogs' (as the truant boys
are called) to pass over; while a strong chap stands on each side with a
boot-legging, soundly strapping them as they scuffle over the bridge,
which is done as fast as their ingenuity can carry them." Some, however,
think the allusion in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" is to the diabolical
torture of the boot. Not a great while before this play was written, it
had been inflicted, says Douc