Croaker against Lurd Arundel, the grateful suitor on the next New Year's Day presented Sir Thomas with a pair of gloves containing forty angels. "It would be against good manners," said the urbane Chancellor, "to forsake a gentlewoman's New Year's gift, and I accept the gloves; their lining you will be pleased otherwise to bestow."

In A Banquet of Jests (1634) is the pleasant story of Archee, the King's jester, who, after a long course of successful fooling of others, was signally fooled himself. He received twenty pieces of gold from a nobleman on New Year's Day; but, covetously desiring more, he shook them in his hand, and said they were too light. "I prithee, Archee,” answered the donor, “let me see them again, for there is one amongst them I would be loth to part with." Expecting the sum to be increased, Archee returned the pieces to his lordship, who pocketed them with the cutting remark, "I once gave money into the hand of a fool, who had not the wit to keep it."

Moresin tells us that in his time it was the custom in Scotland to send New Year's gifts on New Year's Eve, but that on New Year's Day they wished each other a happy day, and asked a New Year's gift, as I believe it is still usual in Northumberland.

From a curious MS. in the British Museum, of the date of 1560 (Status Scholæ Etonensis), it appears that the boys of Eton school used on the day of the Circumcision to play for little New Year's gifts both before and after supper; and that, for good luck's sake, they had a custom, on that day, of making verses and sending them to the provost, masters, and others, and also of presenting them to each other. George Buchanan presented one of these poetical New Year's gifts to the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, but history is silent as to the manner in which her Majesty received it—

AD MARIAM SCOTIÆ Reginam.

"Do quod adest: opto quod abest tibi, dona darentur
Aurea, sors animo si foret æqua meo.

Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulciscere donis ;

Et quod abest opta tu mihi : da quod adest."

Overbury, in his Characters, speaking of a "Timist," says that "his New Yeare's Gifts are ready at Alhalomas, and the Sute he meant to meditate before them."

"Gevyng of New Yeare's Giftes," says Polydore Vergil, "had its original there likewyse (in old Rome), for Suetonius Tranquillus reporteth that the Knights of Rome gave yerely, on the calendes of January, a present to Augustus Cæsar, although he were absent. Whiche custom remayneth in England, for the subjects sende to their superiours, and the noble personages geve to the Kynge some great gyftes, and he to gratifye their kyndnesse doeth liberally rewarde them with some thyng again.”

The title-page of a rare tract entitled "Motives grounded upon the Word of God, and upon honour, profit, and pleasure, for the present founding an University in the Metropolis, London; with Answers to such Objections as might be made by any (in their incogitancy) against the same" (1647), runs thus: Humbly presented (instead

of heathenish and superstitious New Yeare's Gifts] to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the right worshipfull the Aldermen his brethren, and to those faithful and prudent Citizens which were lately chosen by the said City to be of the Common Counsell thereof for this yeare insueng, viz. 1647; by a true Lover of his Nation, and especially of the said City."

In another rare tract of an earlier date (1623), entitled "Vox Graculi," is the following under “January":—

"This month drink you no wine commixt with dregs;
Eate capons, and fat hens, with dumpling legs."

"The first day of January being raw, colde, and comfortlesse to such as have lost their money at dice at one of the Temples over-night, strange apparitions are like to be seene: Marchpanes marching betwixt Leaden-hall and the little Conduit in Cheape, in such aboundance that an hundred good fellowes may sooner starve then catch a corner, or a comfit to sweeten their mouthes.

"It is also to be feared that through frailty, if a slip be made on the messenger's default that carries them, for non-delivery at the place appointed; that unlesse the said messenger be not the more inward with his mistris, his master will give him rib-rost for his New Yeare's Gift the next morning.

"This day shall be given many more gifts then shall be asked for, and apples, egges, and orenges, shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a pome-water, bestucke with a few rotten cloves, shall be more worth than the honesty of an hypocrite; and halfe a dozen of egges of more estimation than the vowes of a strumpet. Poets this day shall get mightily by their pamphlets: for an hundred of elaborate lines shall be lesse esteemed in London then an hundred of Walfleet oysters at Cambridge."

In the Monthly Miscellany for December 1692 there is an Essay on New Year's Gifts, which states that the Romans were great observers of the custom of New Year's gifts, even when their year consisted only of ten months, of thirty-six days each, and began in March; also when January and February were added by Numa to the ten others, the calends or first of January was the time on which they made presents: and even Romulus and Tatius made an order that every year Vervine should be offered to them with other gifts, as tokens of good fortune for the New Year. Tacitus makes mention of an order of Tiberius, forbidding the giving or demanding of New Year's gifts, unless it were on the calends of January; at which time as well the senators as the knights and other great men brought gifts to the emperor, and, in his absence, to the capitol. The ancient Druids, with great ceremonies, used to scrape off from the outside of oaks the misleden, which they consecrated to their great Tutates, and then distributed it to the people thro' the Gauls, on account of the great virtues which they attributed to it; from whence New Year's gifts are still called in some parts of France Guy-l'anneuf. Our English nobility, every New Year's tide, still send to the King a purse with gold in it. Reason may be joined to custom to

justify the practice; for as presages are drawn from the first things which are met on the beginning of a day, week, or year, none can be more pleasing than of those things that are given us. We rejoice with our friends after having escaped the dangers that attend every year; and congratulate each other for the future by presents and wishes for the happy continuance of that course, which the ancients called Strenarum Commercium. And as formerly men used to renew their hospitalities by presents, called Xenia, a name proper enough for our New Year's gifts, they may be said to serve to renew friendship, which is one of the greatest gifts imparted by Heaven to men: and they, who have always assigned some day to those things which they thought good, have also judged it proper to solemnise the Festival of Gifts, and, to show how much they esteemed it, in token of happiness made it begin the year. The value of the thing given, or, if it is a thing of small worth, its novelty, or the excellency of the work, and the place where it is given, makes it the more acceptable, but above all, the time of giving it, which makes some presents pass for a mark of civility on the beginning of the year, that would appear unsuitable in another season."

Prynne, in his Histrio-Mastix, has the following invective against the Rites of New Year's Day :

"If we now parallel our grand disorderly Christmasses with these Roman Saturnals and heathen festivals; or our New Yeare's Day (a chiefe part of Christmas) with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in mummeries, stage-playes, dancing, and such like enterludes, wherein fidlers and others acted lascivious effeminate parts, and went about their towns and cities in women's apparrell: whence the whole catholicke church (as Alchuvinus, with others write) appointed a solemn publike faste upon this our New Yeare's Day (which fast, it seems, is now forgotten), to bewaile those heathenish enterludes, sports, and lewd idolatrous practices which had been used on it: prohibiting all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from observing the calends, or first of January (which wee now call New Yeare's Day) as holy, and from sending abroad New Yeare's Gifts upon it (a custome now too frequent); it being a meere relique of paganisme ana idolatry, derived from the heathen Romans' feast of two-faced Fanus, and a practise so execrable unto Christians, that not onely the whole catholicke church, but even the four famous Councels of," &c. &c (here he makes a great parade of authorities) "have positively prohibited the solemnization of New Yeare's Day, and the sending abroad of New Yeare's Gifts, under an anathema and excommunication."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793), Parishes of Cross, Burness, &c., County of Orkney,-New Year's gifts occur under the title of "Christmas Presents," and as given to servant-maids by their masters; and we read: "There is a large stone, about nine or ten feet high and four broad, placed upright in a plain in the isle of North Ronaldshay; but no tradition is preserved concerning it, whether erected in memory of any signal event, or for the purpose of administering justice, or for religious worship. The writer of this (the parish priest) has seen fifty of the inhabitants assembled there, on

the first day of the year, and dancing with moon-light, with no other music than their own singing."

In the same work for 1795, the minister of Tillicoultry, in the county of Clackmannan, under the head of Diseases, says: "It is worth mentioning that one William Hunter, a collier, was cured in the year 1758 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm or yest. The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of HANDSEL MONDAY, as it is called, (i.e., the first Monday of the New Year, O.S.) some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale, as it passed round the company, and, in the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was that he had the use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint."

So also the minister of Moulin, in Perthshire, informs us that "beside the stated fees, the master (of the parochial school there) receives some small gratuity, generally two-pence or three-pence from each scholar, on Handsel-Monday, or Shrove Tuesday."

Upon the Circumcision, or New Year's Day, the early Christians ran about masked, in imitation of the superstitions of the Gentiles. Against this practice St Maximus and Peter Chrysologus declaimed; whence in some of the very ancient missals we find written in the Mass for this day: "Missa ad prohibendum ab Idolis."

THIS

TWELFTH DAY.

HIS day, which is well known to be called the Twelfth from its being the twelfth in number from the Nativity, is called also the Feast of the Epiphany, from a Greek word signifying manifestation, from our Lord's having been on that day made manifest to the Gentiles. This, as Bourne observes,* is one of the greatest of the twelve, and of more jovial observation for the visiting of friends, and Christmas gambols.+

Chap. xvii. "With some," he tells us, "Christmas ends with the twelve days; but, with the generality of the vulgar, not till Candlemas." Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, speaking of "Orders for Government-Gray's Inne," cites an order of 4 Car. I. (Nov. 17) that "all playing at dice, cards, or otherwise, in the hall, buttry, or butler's chamber, should be thenceforth barred and forbidden at all times of the year, the TWENTY days in Christmas onely excepted."

"In the days of King Alfred," says Collier in his Ecclesiastical History, "a law was made with relation to holidays, by virtue of which the twelve days after the Nativity of our Saviour were made Festivals."

From Hall's Virgidemiarum, the whole twelve days appear to have been dedicated to feasting and jollity

"Except the Twelve Days, or the wake-day feast,
What time he needs must be his cosen's guest."

The customs of this day, various in different countries, yet agree in the same end, that is, to do honour to the Eastern Magi,* who are supposed to have been of royal dignity. In France, while that country had a court and king, one of the courtiers was chosen king, and the other nobles attended on this day at an entertainment. But at the end of the year 1792, the Council-general of the Commons at Paris passed an arrêt, in consequence of which "La Fête de Rois" (Twelfth Day) was thenceforth to be called "La Fête de SansCulottes." It was called an anti-civic feast, which made every priest that kept it a Royalist.

At La Fête de Rois the French monarch and his nobles waited on the Twelfth-Night king; but the custom was not revived on the return of the Bourbons. In place of it, the royal family washed the feet of some people, and gave them alms.

In Normandy they place a child under the table, which is covered in such a manner with the cloth that he cannot see what is doing; and, when the cake is divided, one of the company, taking up the first piece, cries out, "Fabe Domini pour qui?" The child answers, Pour le bon Dieu," and in this manner the pieces are allotted to the company. If the bean be found in the piece for the "bon Dieu," the king is chosen by drawing long or short straws. Whoever gets the bean chooses the king or queen, according as it happens to be a man

or woman.

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, in The Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, found in the Kennel of Worcester Streets, the day after the Fight (1651), says: "Verily, I think they make use of Kings-as the French on the Epiphany-day use their Roy de la fehve, or King of the Bean; whom after they have honoured with drinking of his health, and shouting aloud 'Le Roy boit, Le Roy boit,' they make pay for all the reckoning; not leaving him sometimes one peny, rather than that the exorbitancie of their Debosh should not be satisfied to the full."-In A World of Wonders (1607) we read of a Curate, "who having taken his preparations over evening, when all men cry (as the manner is) the King drinketh, chanting his Masse the next morning, fell asleep in his Memento: and, when he awoke, added with a loud voice, The King drinketh."

In Germany they observed nearly the same rites in cities and academies, where the students and citizens chose one of their own number for king, providing a most magnificent banquet on the occasion.

Of these Magi, or Sages (vulgarly called the three Kings of Colen), the first, named Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, offered gold: the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered frankincense: the third, Balthasar, a black or Moor, with a large spreading beard, offered myrrh.

The dedication of "The Bee-hive of the Romish Church" concludes thus: "Datum in our Museo the 5 of January, being the even of the three Kings of Colen, at which time all good Catholiks make merry and crie, 'The King drinkes.' In anno 1569. Isaac Rabbolence, of Loven."

Selden in his Table-Talk, p. 20, says: "Our chusing Kings and Queens on Twelfth-Night has reference to the three Kings."