March 12. 1850.
["O.E." informs us that these pretty lines form No. CCXXXIX. of
_A Collection of Epigrams. London. Printed for J. Walthoe_,
1727, and of which a second volume was published in 1737; and
"J.B.M." adds, that they are also to be found in the
_Encyclopædia of Wit_, published about half a century since.]
_Teneber Wednesday._--In Hall's _Chronicle_, under the date of 23rd Hen.
VIII., is this passage:
"When Ester began to draw nere, the Parliament for that tyme
ended, and was proroged till the last day of Marche, in the next
yere. In the Parliament aforesayde was an Acte made that
whosoeuer dyd poyson any persone, shoulde be boyled in hote
water to the death; which Acte was made bicause one Richard
Roose, int the Parliament tyme, had poysoned dyuers persons at
the Bishop of Rochester's place, which Richard, according to the
same Acte, was boyled in Smythfelde the _Teneber-Wednysday_
following, to the terrible example of all other."
I conjecture that Teneber Wednesday is the Wednesday next before Easter,
of "Feria quarta majoris Hebdomadao," and that the name is derived form
the Gospel for that day according to the ritual of the Church of Rome.
"Erat autem fere hora sexta, et _tenèbroe_ factoe sunt in
universam terram usque in horam nonam. Et obscuratus est sol: et
velum templi seissum est medium."--Luke, xxiii. 44, 45.
Should this conjecture be ill founded, I shall be glad to see it
corrected; at any rate, I shall be obliged if any of your correspondents
can supply other instances of the use of the term, or state what are or
were the ceremonies peculiar to the day.