he children all provided with stores of hard-boiled
eggs, coloured or ornamented in various ways,--some being dyed an even
colour with logwood, cochineal, &c.; others stained (often in a rather
elegant manner) by being boiled in shreds of parti-coloured ribbons; and
others, again, covered with gilding. These they tumble about upon the grass
until they break, when they finish off by eating them. These they call
_pace_-eggs, being no doubt a corruption for _pasche_.

This custom is mentioned by Brande as existing among the modern Greeks; but
I believe it will be found more or less in almost all parts of Christendom.

I observed when in Syria during Easter quantities of eggs similarly dyed;
but it did not occur to me at the time to inquire whether the practice was
connected with the season, and whether it was not confined to the native
Christians.

Information upon this point, and also upon the general origin of this
ancient custom, would be interesting.

A SUBSCRIBER.

Carlisle, June 3. 1850.

_May Marriages_ (Vol. i., p. 467.).--This superstition is one of those
which have descended to Christianity from Pagan observances, and which the
people have adopted without knowing the cause, or being able to assign a
reason. Carmelli tells us that it still prevailed in Italy in 1750.[2] It
was evidently of long standing in Ovid's time as it had passed then into a
proverb among the people; nearly two centuries afterwards Plutarch (_Quaest.
Rom._ 86.) puts the question: [Greek: Dia ti toi Maiou menos ouk agontai
gunaikas], which he makes a vain endeavour to answer satisfactorily. He
assigns three reasons: _first_, because May being between April and June,
and April being consecrated to Venus, and June to Juno, those deities held
propitious to marriage were not to be slighted. The Greeks were not less
observant of fitting seasons and the propitiation of the [Greek: gamelioi
theoi]. _Secondly_, on account of the great expiatory celebration of the
_Lemuria_, when women abstained from the bath and the careful cosmetic
decoration of their persons so necessary as a prelude to marriage rites.
_Thirdly_, as some say, because May was the month of old men, _Majus a
Majoribus_, and therefore June, being thought to be the month of the young,
_Junius a Junioribus_, was to be preferred. The Romans, however, held other
seasons and days unpropitious to matrimony, as the days in February when
the Parentalia were celebrated, &c. _June_ was the f