On the Monday before Shrove Tuesday the boys of Eton wrote verses about Bacchus in every kind of metre and fixed them to the college doors. Hone took the custom from Brand, who said the Bacchus verses were still written and put up on that day. Hone set it beside the old derivation of Shrovetide feasting from the Roman feasts of Bacchus, and called the Eton practice a remnant of the Catholic carnival.
Bacchus verses on the Eton doors
48 days before Easter · Eton College, Buckinghamshire
No longer kept
on Shrove Monday it was a custom with the boys at Eton to write verses concerning Bacchus, in all kinds of metre, which were affixed to the college doors
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, col. 242. Read the original
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