go in solemn procession with his fellows, to the altar of the Holy Trinity and All Saints, or (as the Pie directs) to the altar of Holy Innocents or Holy Trinity in their copes, and burning tapers in their hands. The Bishop beginning, and the other boys following: "Centum quadraginta quatuor," &c. Then the verse, "Hi emti sunt ex omnibus,' &c. and this was sung by three of the boys. Then all the boys sang the "Prosa sedentem in supernâ majestatis arce,' &c. The Chorister Bishop, in the mean time, fumed the altar first, and then the image of the Holy Trinity. Then the Bishop said modesta voce the verse "Lætamini," " and the response was, "Et gloriamini," &c. Then the prayer which we yet retain: "Deus cujus hodierna die," &c. In their return from the altar Præcentor puerorum incipiat, &c., the chanter-chorister began "De Sancta Maria," &c. The response was "Felix namque," &c., et "sic processio," &c. The procession was made into the quire, by the west door, in such order that the dean and canons went foremost: the chaplains next: the Bishop, with his little Prebendaries, in the last and highest place. The Bishop took his seat, and the rest of the children disposed themselves upon each side of the quire, upon the uppermost ascent, the canons resident bearing the incense and the book: and the petit canons the tapers, according to the Rubrick. And from this hour to the full end of the next day's procession no clerk is accustomed (whatever his condition may be) to take place above his superiors. Then the Bishop on his seat said the verse: Speciosus forma, &c. diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis," &c. Then the prayer, "Deus qui salutis æternæ," " &c., "Pax vobis," &c. Then after the "Benedicamus Domino," the Bishop, sitting in his seat, gave the Benediction to the people in this manner: "Princeps Ecclesiæ Pastor ovilis cunctam plebam tuam benedicere digneris," &c. Then, turning towards the people, he sang or said: "Cum mansuetudine & charitate humiliate vos ad benedictionem the chorus answering, "Deo gratias." Then the cross-bearer delivered up the crozier to the Bishop again, et tunc Episcopus puerorum primo signando se in fronte sic dicat," Adjutorium nostrum,' &c. The chorus answering "Qui fecit Coelum & Terram." Then, after some other like ceremonies performed, the Bishop began the Completorium or Complyn; and that done, he turned towards the quire, and said, "Adjutorium," &c., and then, last of all, he said, "Benedicat Vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, and Filius, & Spiritus Sanctus." All this was done with solemnity of celebration, and under pain of anathema to any that should interrupt or press upon these children. See was Gregory's Works, 1649, p. 114. The show of the Boy Bishop, rather on account of its levity and absurdity, than of its superstition, was formally abrogated by a Proclamation, July 22, 1542. But it had been interdicted abroad, a century before, by the Council of Basle, 1431, as appears from a citation in Prynne's Histriomastix," 1633, and the later statutory prohibition more or less disregarded in England. The conclusion of Henry VIII.'s Proclamation is: "And whereas heretofore dyvers and many superstitious and chyldysh observauncies have be used, and yet to this day are observed and kept, in many and sundry partes of this Realm, as upon Saint Nicholas, the Holie Innocents, and such like, children be strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit Priests, Bishops, and Women, and to be ledde with songes and dances from house to house, blessing the people, and gathering of money; and boyes do singe masse and preache in the pulpitt, with such other unfittinge and inconvenient usages, rather to the derysyon than anie true glorie of God, or honour of his sayntes. The Kynges Majestie wylleth and commaundeth that henceforth all such superstitious observations be left and clerely extinguished throwout all this Realme and Dominions." Bishop Tanner, in a letter to Hearne, says in allusion to the abuse of the ancient custom, that the choristers chose a bishop and waited on him in procession to several houses in the city, where the little rogues took great liberties. And Tanner traces to this circumstance the bye-name of St. Nicholas's Clerks conferred on them. In Hall's "Triumphs of Rome" (Triumphs of Pleasure) he equally animadverts on the licence, which had crept into this Romish Observance, when he says, "What merry work it was here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not whether, in some places, it may not be so still), that upon St. Nicholas, St. Katherine, St. Clement, and Holy Innocents' Day, children were wont to be arrayed in chimers, rochets, surplices, to counterfeit bishops and priests, and to be led, with songs and dances, from house to house, blessing the people, whe stood girning in the way to expect that ridiculous benediction. Yea, that boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learnedly and edifyingly) to the simple auditory. And this was so really done, that in the cathedral church of Salisbury (unless it be lately defaced) there is a perfect monument of one of these Boy Bishops (who died in the time of his young pontificality) accoutred in his episcopal robes, still to be seen. Strype, however, in his "Memorials," speaking of the Boy Bishop, among scholars, says: "I shall only remark that there might be this at least be said in favour of this old custom, that it gave a spirit to the children, and the hopes that they might at one time or other attain to the real mitre, and so made them mind their books." were num, psalmo centesimo xij et pro buius colacionis fundamento." on Aubanus tells us, that scholars St. Nicholas's Day used to elect three out of their numbers, one of whom was to play the bishop, the other two the parts of Deacons. The Bishop was escorted by the rest of the boys, in solemn procession, to church, where with his mitre on, he presided during the time of divine worship: this ended, he and his deacons went about singing from door to door,, and collected money, not begging it as alms, but demanding it as the Bishop's subsidy. On the eve of this day the boys were prevailed upon to fast, in order to persuade themselves that the little presents which were put that night for them into shoes (placed under the table for that purpose), were made them by St. Nicholas: and many of them In the Posthumous Works of John Gregory, 1650, there is a monograph on this subject with three engravings; it is called: Episcopus Puerorum, In die Innocentium; or a Discoverie With the Catholic Liturgy, all the of an Antient Custom in the Church of pageantries of popery restored Sarum, making an Anniversarie Bishop to their ancient splendour by Queen III., while the King was at Antwerp, the In 12 Edward among the Choristers." Mary. Among these, the procession Boy-Bishop there received 13s. 6d. for singof the Boy Bishop was too popular a mummery to be overlooked. In Strype we reading before his majesty in his chamber. that, Nov. 13, 1554, an edict was issued Hazlitt's Warton, 1871, ii., 229. by the Bishop of London to all the Clergy of his Diocese, to have a Boy Bishop in procession. In the same volume, however, we read, "The which was St. Nicholas Eve, at even-song time came a commandment that St. Nicholas should not go abroad nor about. But, notwithstanding, it seems, so much were the citizens taken with the mock of St. Nicholas, that is, a Boy Bishop, that there went about these St. Nicholases in divers parishes, as in St. Andrew's, Holborn, and St. Nicolas Olaves in Bread-street. The reason the procession of St. Nicolas was forbid, was, because the Cardinal had this St. Nicolas Day sent for all the Convocation, Bishops, and inferior Clergy, to come to him to Lambeth, there to be absolved from all their perjuries, schisms and heresies." In the accounts of St. Mary-at-kept the fast so rigorously on this account, Hill, London, 1554, is the following entry: "Paid for makyng the Bishops myter, with staff and lace that went to it, iiis. Paid for a boke for St. Nicholas, viijd." Strype says, that in 1556, on St. Nicholas' Even, "St. Nicholas, that is a boy habited like a bishop in pontificalibus, went abroad in most parts of London, singing after the old fashion, and was received with many ignorant but well-disposed people into their houses, and had as much good cheer as ever was wont to be had before, at least in many places." The Boy Bishop would naturally be put down again when Queen Elizabeth came to the crown: and yet, by Puttenham's account, it was exhibited in the country villages after her accession. Puttenham wrote his "Art of English Poesy many years before it was published in 1589. He says: "Methinks this fellow speaks like Bishop Nicholas: for on St. Nicholas's night, commonly, the scholars of the country make them a bishop, who, like a foolish boy, goeth about blessing and preaching with such childish terms as make the people laugh at his foolish counterfeit speeches." The special service for Innocents' Day, in an early printed copy of it, is described as "In die innocentium sermo pro episcopo puerorum." It commences with the words: "Laudate, pueri, domi that their friends, in order to prevent them from injuring their healths, were under the necessity of forcing them to take some sustenance. Bowle says, that in Spain formerly, on this commemorationday, a chorister being placed with solemnity in the midst of the choir, upon a scaffold, there descended from the vaulting of the ceiling a cloud, which stopping, midway, opened. Two angels within it carried the mitre, and descended just so low as to place it on his head, ascending immediately in the same order in which they camo down. This came to be an occasion of some irregularities; for till the day of the Innocents, he had a certain jurisdiction, and his prebendaries took secular offices, such as alguasils, catchpoles, dog-whippers and sweepers. From a paper in the St. James's Chronicle," for Nov. 16-18, 1797, it appears that at Zug, in Switzerland, the ceremonies of this day were suppressed in addressed to the authorities against the that year in consequence of the complaint exactions of the Boy Bishop and his attendants, who visited all the booths, &c., and demanded money. Bragot Sunday. In Lancashire, or some parts of it, a spiced ale, called Braget or Bragot, used to be drunk very largely on Palm Sunday, which was thence called Bragot Sunday. Branks. "They have an artifice at Newcastle under Lyme and Walsall," says Plot, for correcting of scolds, which it does, too, so effectually and so very safely, that I look upon it as much to be preferred to the cucking stoole, which not only endangers the health of the party, but also gives the tongue liberty 'twixt every dipp: to neither of which this is at all liable: it being such a bridle for the tongue as not only quite deprives them of speech, but brings shame for the transgression and humility thereupon, before 'tis taken off which being put upon the offender by order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind, she is led round the town by an officer, to her shame, nor is it taken off till after the party begins to shew all external signes imaginable of humiliation and amendment." Staffordshire, p. 389. In a plate annexed, he gives a representation of a pair of branks. They still preserve a pair in the Town Court at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where the same custom once prevailed. Gardner's England's Grievance, 1656, and Brand's History, ii., 292. A fuller description of the brank occurs in Willis's "Current Notes" for May, 1854, where several engravings accompany and illustrate the letter-press. The writer says: It may be described as an iron skeleton helmet, having a gag of the same metal, that by being protruded into the mouth of an inveterate brawler, effectually branked that unruly member, the tongue. As an instrument of considerable antiquity at a time when the gag, the rack, and the axe were the ratio ultima Roma, it has doubtless been employed, not unfrequently for purposes of great cruelty, though in most examples, the gag was not purposely designed to wound the mouth, but simply to restrain or press down the tongue. Several of these instruments are yet extant, though their use has now, thanks to more considerate civilization, become obsolete. The earliest use of the brank in England is not antecedent to the reign of Charles." A curious variety of this old mode of penance is noticed in the same miscellany for October, 1854. Brawl. A dance introduced from France in or about the middle of the sixteenth century. See Halliwell in v. Bread.-In Craven, in the West Riding of York, those who knead dough for baking are in the habit of making the sign of the cross, both when they knead or stiffen the material, and when they elt or moisten it with additional milk or milk and water, as a precaution against the sinister action of any witch or evil-eyed person at hand. Douce, in his interleaved copy of Brand's " Antiquities," pointed out that M. Thiers (in his Traite des Superstitions) mentioned a belief as prevalent in France that bread baked on Christmas Eve would not turn mouldy. Bread and Cheese Land.— Hasted, speaking of Biddenden, tells us that "twenty acres of land, called the Bread and Cheese Land, lying in five pieces, were given by persons unknown, the yearly rents to be distributed among the poor of this parish. This is yearly done on Easter Sunday, in the afternoon, in 600 cakes, each of which have the figures of two women impressed on them, and are given to all such as attend the church; and 270 loaves, weighing three pounds and a half a-piece, to which latter is added one pound and a half of cheese, are given to the parishioners only at the same time. There is a vulgar tradition in these parts, that the figures on the cake represent the donors of this gift, being two women twins, who were joined together in their bodies, and lived together so till they were between twenty and thirty years of age. But this seems without foundation. The truth seems to be, that it was the gift of two maidens, of the name of Preston; and that the print of the women on the cakes has taken place only within these fifty years, and was made to represent two poor widows, as the general objects of a charitable benefaction." "At Biddenden, Kent, yesterday, there was observed a curious Easter custom of distributing cakes hearing the impressed figures of the "Biddenden Maids." Their names were Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, and they are said to have lived to the age of 34 years, when one died, and the other followed within six hours. They bequeathed land in the parish which produces about forty guineas a year, and from this the cost of the distribution is defrayed. The custom always attracts a very considerable number of visitors from the surrounding villages, and it is among these that the cakes, having a quaint representation of the maids, stamped with a boxwood die, are distributed, bread and cheese being given to the poor of the parish." Globe, April, 8 1890. There is a similar custom at Paddington, near London, where the gifts are thrown from the church steeple. Sussex Arch. Coll., xiv., 135. Breakfasting. — A Sussex custom, Gloucestershire, a very strange quasi-jocuBriaval's, St.-At St. Briaval's, lar custom formerly prevailed on WhitSunday. Several baskets full of bread and cheese, cut very small, were brought into church, and immediately after service were thrown by the churchwardens from the galleries among the congregation, who scrambled for them. The custom was kept up, and may be still, in order to secure to the poor of St. Briaval's and Havelfield the right of cutting and carrying wood from 3,000 acres of coppice in Hudknoll and the Meend. Every householder was assessed 2d. towards defraying the cost of the bread and cheese. In 1687, the "Orders and Rules of the Court of St. Briavells in the Forest of Dean, in the County of Gloucester," were printed in a volume with similar regulations for the miners in the Forest. Bridal Bed. In the papal times no new-married couple could go to bed together till the bridal bed had been blessed. In a MS. cited by Blakeway, it is stated that "the pride of the clergy and the bigotry of the laity were such that new married couples were made to wait till midnight, after the marriage day, before they would pronounce a benediction, unless handsomely paid for it, and they durst not undress without it, on pain of excommunication." Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 221. "Here new situation. This custom must have doubtless been often abused: it breathed, however, a great deal of philanthropy, and would naturally help to increase population by encouraging matrimony. This custom of making presents at weddings seems also to have prevailed amongst those of the higher order. From the account of the nuptials of the Lady Susan with Sir Philip Herbert, in the reign of James I. it appears that the presents of plate and other things given by noblemen were valued at £2,500, and that the king gave £500 for the bride's jointure. His majesty gave her away, and, as his manner was, archly observed on the occasion that if he were unmarried he would not give her, but keep her for himself." Bride-ales are mentioned by Puttenham in his "Arte of Poesie": During the course of Queen Elizabeth's entertainments at Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, a bryde-ale was celebrated Bride-Ale. In Ihre's "Glossarium with a great variety of shews and sports.' Suio-Gothicum," 1769, we read: v. Brud- From a passage in Jonson's Silent skal. Gifwa i Brudskálen dicitur de Woman," Andrews infers that it seems to Erano vel munere_collectitio, quod Spons have been a general custom to make predie Nuptiarum a Convivis in pateram mit-sents to the married pair, in proportion titur, habito antea brevi Sermone a præsente Sacerdote. Nescio, an huc quicquam faciat Tributum illud, quod in Gallia Sponsæ dabatur Escuellatta dictum, et de quo Du-Fresne in Gloss. Lat." Ibid. v. Jul p. 1005: " 'Hemkomol, Convivium quod novi Conjuges in suis ædibus instruunt." In the "Christen State of Matrimony," 1543, fol. 48, verso, we read: "When they come home from the church, then beginneth excesse of eatyng and dryncking-and as much is waisted in one daye, as were sufficient for the two newe married folkes halfe a year to lyve upon.' The following is from the Court Rolls of Hales-Owen Borough, Salop, of the 15th Elizabeth: Custom of Bride - Ale: "Item, payne is made that person or persons that shall brewe any weddyn ale to sell, shall not brewe above twelve strike of mault at the most, and that the said persons so married shall not keep nor have above eight messe of persons at his dinner within the burrowe: and before his brydall daye he shall keep no unlawfull games in hys house, nor out of hys house, on pain of 20 shillings." In Harrison's Description of Britain," it is remarked "In feasting also the husbandnien do exceed after their manner, especially at bridales, &c., where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent; -ech one brings such a dish, or so manie with him, as his wife and he doo consult upon, but alwaies with this consideration, that the leefer friend shall have the better provision." Thus it appears that among persons of inferior rank a contribution was expressly made for the purpose of assisting the bridegroom and bride in their a no to the gay appearance of their wedding. be Bride-Cake. The connection tween the bride-cake and wedding is strongly marked in the following custom still retained in Yorkshire, where the former is cut into little square pieces, thrown over the bridegroom's and bride's head, and then put through the ring. The cake is sometimes broken over the bride's head, and then thrown away among the crowd to be scrambled for. This is noted by Aubanus in his description of the rites of marriage in his country and time. "Peractâ re divinâ Sponsa ad, paucis a Pronubo de mutato vitæ genere Sponsi domum deducitur, indeque Panis prefatis, in signum constantiæ, virtutis, projicitur, qui a pueris certatim rapitur," defensionis et tutelæ, propinat Sponsæ et fol. 68. To break the cake over the head simul Morgennaticam (Dotalitium ob virof the bride appears to have been some-ginitatem) promittit, quod ipsa grato anitimes usual in Drayton's time, for that mo recolens, pari ratione et modo, paulo writer, in his " Nimphidia, or the Court post mutato in uxorium habitum operculo of Fairy," 1627, applies the custom, with Capitis, ingressa, poculum, ut nostrates the licence habitual to poets, to the fairy vocant, uxorium leviter delibans, amorem, Tita: fidem, diligentiam, et subjectionem promissum."."-Stiernhook De Jure Suecorum et Gothorum vetusto, 672, p. 163, quoted by Malone. In the Workes of John Heiwood, the following passage occurs: "Mertilla. But coming back when she Who breaks the cake above her head? Thus Smollett, in his Humphrey Clinker, says: "But, Madam, as a present take "The drinke of my brydecup I should have forborne, Till temperaunce had tempred the taste beforne. I see now, and shall see while I am alive Who wedth or he be wise shall die or he thrive." Edit. 1576, sign. B. 4. Bride Favours.-In "The Fifteen Comforts of Marriage," a conference is introduced, concerning bridal colours in dressing up the bridal bed by the bridemaids-not, say they, with yellow ribbands, these are the emblems of jealousynot with "Fueille mort," that signifies fading love--but with true blue, that signifies constancy, and green denotes youthput them both together, and there's youthful constancy. One proposed blew and black, that signifies constancy till death; but that was objected to, as those colours will never match. Violet was proposed as signifying religion; this was objected to as being too grave: and at last they concluded to mingle a gold tissue with grassgreen, which latter signifies youthful jollity. For the bride's favours, top-knots, and garters, the bride proposed blew, goldcolour, popingay-green, and limon-colour objected to, gold-colour signifying avaThe rice popingay-green, wantonness. younger bridemaid proposed mixturesflame-colour, flesh-colour, willow, and milk-white. The second and third were objected to, as flesh-colour signifies lasciviousness, and willow forsaken. It was settled that red signifies justice, and seagreen inconstancy. The milliner, at last, fixed the colours as follows: for the favours, blue, red, peach-colour, and orange16-tawney for the young ladies' top-knots, flame-colour, straw-colour, (signifying plenty), peach-colour, grass-green, and milk-white and for the garters, a perfect yellow, siguifying honour and joy. this variety of colours in the bride favours used formerly, the following passage, wherein Lady Haughty addresses Morose, in Jonson's "Silent Woman," evidently alludes: Bride-Cup. This custom has its traces in Gentilism. It is of high antiquity, says Malone, for it subsisted among our Gothic ancestors. "Ingressus domum convivalem Sponsus cum pronubo suo, sumpto poculo, quod maritale vocant, ac To |