This feast is annually celebrated the 14th of January, by the Society
of All-Souls, _in piam memoriam_ of their founder, the famous Henry
Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a custom at All-Souls'
College (says Pointer, in his OXONIENSIS ACADEMIA,) kept up on "their
mallard-night every year, in remembrance of a huge mallard or drake,
found (as tradition goes) imprisoned in a gutter or drain under
ground, and grown to a vast bigness, at the digging for the foundation
of the college." This mallard had grown to a huge size, and was, it
appears, of a great age; and to account for the longevity, he cites
the Ornithology of Willughby, who observes, "that he was assured by a
friend of his, a person of very good credit, that his father kept a
goose known to be sixty years of age, and as yet sound and lusty, and
like enough to have lived many years longer, had he not been forced to
kill her, for her mischievousness, worrying and destroying the young
geese and goslings." "And my Lord Bacon," he adds, "in his Natural
History, says, the goose may pass among the long-livers, though his
food be commonly grass and such kind of nourishment, especially the
wild goose; wherefore this proverb grew among the Germans, _Magis
senex quam Anser nivalis--Older than a wild-goose_." He might also
have instanced the English proverb, "As tough as a Michaelmas goose."
"If a goose be such a long-lived bird," observes Mr. P., "why not a
duck or a drake, since I reckon they may be both ranked in the same
class, though of a different species, as to their size, as a rat and
a mouse? And if so, this may help to give credit to our All-Souls'
mallard. However, this is certain, this mallard is the accidental
occasion of a great gaudy once a-year, and great mirth, though the
commemoration of their founder is the chief occasion; for on this
occasion is always sung," as extant in the Oxford Sausage, the
following "merry old song:"--