--_Cornell's
Interpreter_. Lammas day was always a great day of account, for in the
payment of rents our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters,
ending at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas, and this was as
common as the present divisions of Lady day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and
Christmas. In regard to Lammas, in addition to its being one of the days
of reckoning, it appears from the Confessor's laws, that it was the
specific day whereon the Peter-pence, a tax very rigorously executed, and
the punctual payment of which was enforced under a severe penalty, was
paid. In this view then, Lammas stands as a day of account, and Latter
Lammas will consequently signify the day of doom, which in effect, as to
all payments of money, or worldly transactions in money, is never. Latter
here is used for last, or the comparative for the superlative, just as it
is in a like case in our version of the book of Job, "I know that my
redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,"
meaning of course the last day, or the end of the world.
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