Stat.

other Roman Catholic countries. The great festival times here are from Christmas to Twelfth Day inclusive, at Easter, and at Whitsuntide." Travels in England, trans. by Ozell, p. 34. The Minister of Montrose tells us: At Christmas and the New Year, the opulent burghers begin to feast with their friends, and go a round of visits, which takes up the space of many weeks. Upon such occasions, the gravest is expected to be merry, and to join in a cheerful song." Acc. of Scotland, v., 48. In the "World," No. 104, the following occurs: "Our ancestors considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a chearful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy. With what punctual zeal did they wish one another a merry Christmas? and what an omission would it have been thought, to have concluded a letter without the compliments of the season? The great hall resounded with the tumultuous joys of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played served as amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who. by encouraging every art conducive to mirth and entertainment, endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and mitigate the influence of winter. What a fund of delight was the chusing King and Queen upon Twelfth Night! and how greatly ought we to regret the neglect of minced pyes, which, besides the ideas of merrymaking inseparable from them, were always considered as the test of schismatics! How zealously were they swallowed by the orthodox, to the utter confusion of all fanatical recusants! If any country gentleman should be so unfortunate in this age as to lie under a suspicion of heresy, where will he find so easy a method of ac quitting himself as by the ordeal of plumbporridge?" "In Christmas holidays,' says the author of "Round about our Coal Fire," (about 1730), "the tables were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloins of beef, the minced pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board: every one eat heartily, and was welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, Merry in the hall when beards wag all."

6

Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to Joanna Baillie, 1st January, 1819, says: "I wish you could have seen about a hundred children, being almost supported by their fathers' or brothers' labour, come down yesterday to dance to the pipes, and get a piece of cake and bannock, and pence apiece (no very deadly largess) in honour of Hagmanay. I declare to you, my dear

friend, that when I thought the poor fellows who kept these children so neat, and well taught, and well behaved, were slaving the whole day for eighteenpence or twentypence at the most, I was ashamed of their gratitude, and of their becks and bows.' In another letter (Jan. 1, 1815), Scott says: "Yesterday being Hogmanay, there was a constant succession of Guisards i.e., boys dressed up in fantastic caps, with their shirts over their jackets, and with wooden swords in their hands. These players acted a sort of scene before us, of which the hero was one Goloskin."

In an amusing news-letter from John Pory to а friend, dated December 13th, 1632, the writer says: "Sir William Curtis writes from Brussells, that the French there with the Queen Mother and monsieur made account to have kept a brave Christmas here in London, and for that purpose had trussed up their trinkets half-topmast high; but it seemeth they reckoned before their host." An agreeable writer describes the busy and bright scene in the churches of Rome on this anniversary, when the people of all ranks flock thither, the peasantry in their holiday attire, and there are processions of priests everywhere. The ceremonial observances last during the whole night until the advent of Christmas Day itself. The Pope and College attend service at Santa Maria Maggiore. Diary of an Invalid, by H. Matthews, 1820.

Christmas Mummers.-A proclamation issued 8 Edward III., A.D. 1334, by the authorities of the City of London, concludes thus: "Also we do forbid, on the same pain of imprisonment, that any man shall go about at this feast of Christmas with companions disguised with false faces, or in any other manner, to the houses of the good folks of the City, for playing at dice there Riley's Memorials of London, 1868, p. 192. At Tenby, among the Christmas mummings, was a dialogue between Father Christmas, St. George, Oliver Cromwell, and Beelzebub, where St. George is made to say: First, then, I fought in France; Second, I fought in Spain; Thirdly, I came to Tenby, To fight the Turk again.'

Where by Turk we are to understand the corsairs of Barbary, who at one time infested nearly every coast.

Christmas Pie.-Selden thought that the coffin of our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch, i.e., the manger wherein the infant Jesus was laid; and they were long known as coffin pasties. The modern survival is the covered fruit tart in an oval dish. Scogin, in the edition of his "Jests," pub lished in 1626, is made on his death-bed to

say: Masters, I tell you all that stand about mee, if I might live to eate a Christmasse pye, I care not if I dye by and by after: for Christmasse pyes be good meat.' In Robert Fletcher's poem styled "Christmas Day," we find the ingredients and shape of the Christmas pie:

"Christ-mass? give me my beads: the word implies

A plot, by its ingredients, beef and pyes. The cloyster'd steaks with salt and pepper lye

Like nunnes with patches in a monastrie. Prophaneness

much more,

in

a

conclave? Nay,

Idolatrie in crust! Babylon's whore
Rak'd from the grave, and bak'd by
hanches, then

Serv'd up in coffins to unholy men ;
Defil'd with superstition, like the
Gentiles

Of old, that worship'd onions, roots, and
lentiles!"

Ex Otio Negotium, 1656, p. 114. Misson describes the composition of a Christmas pasty as follows: "In every family they make at Christmas a famous pie, which they call a Christmas pie. The making of this is a great science; it is a learned medley of neats' tongue, the brawn of a chicken, eggs, sugar, currants, citron and orange-peel, various sorts of spice, &c." Travels in England, 322. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December, 1733, is an essay on "Christmas Pye," in which the author tells us: "That this dish is most in vogue at this time of the year, some think is owing to the barrenness of the season, and the scarcity of fruit and milk to make tarts, custards, and other desserts; this being a compound that furnishes a dessert itself. But I rather think it bears a religious kind of relation to the festivity from whence it takes its name. Our tables are always set out with this dish just at the time and probably for the same reason that our windows are adorned with ivy. I am the more confirmed in this opinion from the zealous opposition it meets with from Quakers, who distinguish their feasts by an heretical sort of pudding known by their name, and inveigh against Christmas pye as an invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon, an hodgepodge of superstition, popery, the devil, and all his works. Lewis, speak ing of the enthusiasts in the grand rebellion, tells us, that under the censure of lewd customs they include all sorts of public sports, exercises, and recreations, how innocent soever. Nay, the poor rosemary and bays, and Christmas Pye, is made an abomination. The famous Bickerstaffe rose up against such as would cut out the clergy from having any share in it. The

Christmas Pye,' says he is in its own nature a kind of consecrated cake, and a badge of distinction, and yet 'tis often forbidden to the Druid of the family. Strange! that a sirloin of beef, whether boiled or roasted, when entire, is exposed to his utmost depredations and incisions: but if minced into small pieces, and tossed up with plums and sugar, changes its property, and forsooth is meat for his master.' chaplains of noblemen in particular, and Thus with a becoming zeal he defends the the clergy in general, who it seems were debarred, under pretence that a sweet tooth and a liqourish palate are inconsistent with the sanctity of their character." "Come guard this night the Christmaspie

That the thiefe, though ne'r so slie,
With his flesh hooks don't come nié
To catch it;

From him, who all alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his eare,
And a deale of nightly feare

To watch it." Herrick. "Let Christmas boast her customary treat,

A mixture strange of suet, currants, meat,

Where various tastes combine, the greasy and the sweet."

Oxford Sausage, p. FT.

In the North of England, a goose is always the chief ingredient in the composition of a Christmas pye. Ramsay, in his "Elegy other baits by which the good ale-wife drew on Lucky Wood," tells us, that among customers to her house, she never failed to tempt them at Christmas with a goose

руе.

"Than ay at Yule, whene'er we came,
A bra' goose pye,

And was na that a good belly baum?
None dare deny."

Christmas Prince. In an audit book of Trinity College, Oxford, for 1559 Warton found a disbursement "Pro prandio Principis Natalicii." A Christmas Prince, or Lord of Misrule, he adds, corresponding to the Imperator at Cambridge, was a common temporary magistrate in the Colleges at Oxford. Wood, in his Athena, speaking of the "Christmas Prince of St. John's College, whom the juniors have annually for the most part elected from the first foundation of the College, says: "The custom was not only observed in that College, but in several other houses, particularly in Merton College, where, from the first foundation, the Fellows anually elected, about St. Edmund's Day, in November, a Christmas Lord or Lord of Misrule, styled in the registers Rex Fabarum and Rex Regni

Fabarum; which custom continued till, the Reformation of Religion, and then, that producing Puritanism, and Puritanism Presbytery, the profession of it looked upon such laudable and ingenious customs as popish, diabolical and antichristian." It is to be collected from the pageant known as the Christmas Prince, that the students of St. John's College, Oxford, met on All-Hallow Eve, 1607, and a fire was lighted in the Hall, accordinge to the custome and status of the same place, at wch time the whole companye, or most part of the students of the same house mette toogether to beginne their Christmas. On the next night, November 1, it seems, a second meeting was appointed, when it was proposed, for the preservation of order and peace, that a Christmas Lord or Prince of the Revels, should be chosen, We learn that no Christmas Lord had been created since 1577. In the present case, Thomas Tucker obtained a majority of suffrages, and being elected in his absence, was sought for, carried in triumph about the hall, and afterwards allowed to return to his own quarters, "to thinke of their loues and good will, and to consider of his owne charge and place." Is it worth while to inquire, if Thomas Tucker, Esq., had any conection with little Tom Tucker of the nursery rhyme?

Of this splendid and gay pageant there is the following contemporary description "On Christmas day in ye morning he (the Christmas lord or prince) was attended vnto prayers by ye whole company of the Bacchelours, and some others of his gentlemen vshers, bare before him. At diner beinge sett downe in ye Hall at ye high table in ye Vice Præsidents place (for ye Præsident himself was then allso psent) hee was serued wth 20 dishes to a messe, all woh were brought in by gentlemen of ye howse attired in his guards coats, vshered in by ye Lrd Comptroller, and other officers of ye Hall. The first mess was a boar's head, wch was carried by ye tallest and lustiest of all ye guard, before whom, (as attendants) wente first, one attired in a horsemans coate, wth a boars-speare in his hande, next to him an other huntsman in greene, wth a bloody falscion drawne; next to him 2 pages in tafatye sarcenet, each of yem wth a mess of mustard next to whome came hee yt carried ye boares-head, crost wth a greene silk scarfe, by wch hunge y empty scabbard of ye faulchion, wch was carried before him." As the boar's head entered the hall, they sang a carol, and during the dinner the prince's musicians played. They had been sent for from Reading, because the town-music, it appears, had given His Highness "the slip," as they always did when any one wanted them particularly." After supper

there was an interlude, contaynynge the order of ye Saturnalls, and shewinge the first cause of Christmas-candles, and in the ende there was an application made On to the Day and Natiuitie of Christ." the 26th, it had been intended to perform the tragical show of Philomela, but the carpenters were behindhand, and the show It had to be postponed until the 29th. seems that the person who represented Philomela on this occasion had so sweet a voice that the audience only regretted that it should be lost, and the coeval narrator quaintly says that they "could have found in their hartes that the story should have rather been falsified then so good a_voyce lost." On New Year's Day the Prince sent to the President of St. John's, by the hands of Mr. Richard Swinnerton, one of the squires of his body, a pair of gloves, with these two verses:

"The prince and his councell in signe of their loves,

Present you their Præsident with these paire of gloves."

For further particulars of the quasi- dramatic exhibitions, and other merry-makings during the twelve days of Christmas, see the tract itself in Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana, 1816.

"

Warton tells us that in an original draught of the statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, founded in 1546, one of the Chapters is entitled, "De Præfecto Ludorum qui Imperator dicitur," under whose direction and authority Latin comedies and tragedies are to be exhibited in the Hall at Christmas; as also six spectacula, or as many dialogues. With regard to the peculiar business and office of Imperator, it is ordered, that one of the masters of arts shall be placed over the juniors every Christmas, for the regulation of their games and diversions at that season of festivity. His sovereignty is to last during the twelve days of Christmas: and he is to exercise the same power on Candlemas Day. His fee is forty shillings. Fuller, in his Good Thoughts in Worse Times," 1647, p. 139, tells us: "Some sixty yeares since, in the University of Cambridge, it was solemnly debated betwixt the heads to debarre young schollers of that liberty allowed them in Christmas, as inconsistent with the discipline of students. But some grave governors mentioned the good use thereof, because thereby, in twelve days, they more discover the dispositions of scholars than in twelve moneths before." The Lords of Misrule in colleges were preached against at Cambridge by the Puritans in the reign of James the First, as inconsistent with a place of religious education and as a relict of the Pagan ritual. An account of a splendid Christmas festival, in the Inner Temple is given by Gerard Leigh in his Accidence of Armoury, 1562,