midnight
The Editor was favoured by a learned friend with the above extract , from a MS. of Lord Totness 's in the Lambeth library . -- A wake in England means a festival held upon the anniversary of the saint of the parish . At these wakes , rustic games , rustic conviviality , and rustic courtship , are pursued with all the ardour and all the appetite which accompany such pleasures as occur but seldom . In Ireland a wake is a midnight meeting , held professedly for the indulgence of holy sorrow , but usually it is converted into orgies of unholy joy . When an Irish man or woman of the lower order dies , the straw which composed the bed , whether it has been contained in a bag to form a mattress , or simply spread upon the earthen floor , is immediately taken out of the house , and burned before the cabin door , the family at the same time setting up the death howl . The ears and eyes of the neighbours being thus alarmed , they flock to the house of the deceased , and by their vociferous sympathy excite and at the same time soothe the sorrows of the family . It is curious to observe how good and bad are mingled in human institutions .