the scholars once a week, but he has also the royal privilege of remitting all punishments. The number of scholars is from 50 to 60." A breaking-up is thus described in a poem entitled Christmas (Bristol, 1795)

"A School there was, within a well-known town,

(Bridgwater call'd,) in which the boys were wont,
At breaking-up for Christmas' lov'd recess,
To meet the master, on the happy morn,
At early hour: the custom, too, prevail'd,
That he who first the seminary reach'd
Should, instantly, perambulate the streets
With sounding horn, to rouse his fellows up;
And, as a compensation for his care,
His flourish'd copies, and his chapter-task,
Before the rest, he from the master had.
For many days, ere Breaking-up commenced,

Much was the clamour, 'mongst the beardless crowd,
Who first would dare his well-warm'd bed forego,
And, round the town, with horn of ox equipp'd,
His schoolmates call. Great emulation glow'd
In all their breasts; but, when the morning came,
Straightway was heard, resounding through the streets,
The pleasing blast (more welcome far, to them,
Than is, to sportsmen, the delightful cry

Of hounds on chase), which soon together brought
A tribe of boys, who, thund'ring at the doors
Of those, their fellows, sunk in Somnus' arms,
Great hubbub made, and much the town alarm'd.
At length the gladsome, congregated throng,
Toward the school their willing progress bent,
With loud huzzas, and, crowded round the desk,
Where sat the master busy at his books,

In reg'lar order, each received his own.

The youngsters then, enfranchised from the school,
Their fav'rite sports pursued.'

At St Mary's College, Winchester, the DULCE DOMUM was sung on the evening preceding the Whitson Holidays. The masters,

scholars, and choristers, attended by a band of music, walked in procession round the courts of the College, singing it. It is, no doubt, of very remote antiquity, and its origin must be traced, not to any ridiculous tradition, but to the tenderest feelings of human nature.

Few school-boys are ignorant that the first Monday after the holidays, when they are to return to school again, and produce, or repeat, the several tasks that had been set them, is called Black-Monday.

On the subject of School-sports may be added, that a silver arrow used formerly to be annually shot for by the scholars of the Freeschool at Harrow :

"Thursday, Aug. 5, according to an ancient custom, a silver arrow, value 34, was shot for at the Butts on Harrow-on-the-Hill, by six youths of that free-school, in Archery habits, and won by a son of Capt. Brown, commander of an East Indiaman. This diversion was the gift of John Lyon, esq., founder of the said School" (Gent. Mag. Aug. 1731).

CUSTOMS, A LITTLE BEFORE, AT, OR ABOUT CHRISTMAS.

GOING A GOODING AT ST THOMAS'S DAY.

WE which to been done

E find some faint traces of a custom of going a gooding (as it is

by women only, who, in return for the alms they received, appear to have presented their benefactors with sprigs of evergreens, probably to deck their houses with at the ensuing Festival. Perhaps this is only another name for the Northern custom to be presently noticed, of going about and crying Hagmena.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1794, the writer, speaking of the preceding mild winter, says: "The women who went a gooding (as they call it in these parts) on St Thomas's Day, might, in return for alms, have presented their benefactors with sprigs of palm and bunches of primroses."

There was a custom in Warwickshire for the Poor, on St Thomas's Day, to go with a bag to beg corn of the farmers, which they called going a corning.

HAGMENA.

Aubanus tells us that in Franconia, on the three Thursday nights preceding the Nativity of our Lord, it is customary for the youth of both sexes to go from house to house, knocking at the doors, singing their Christmas Carols, and wishing a happy New Year. They get, in return, at the houses they stop at, pears, apples, nuts, and even money.

Naogeorgus refers to the custom

"Three weekes before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace,
And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place,
And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps,
And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps.
And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell,

A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well :

Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee,
For these three nightes are alwayes thought vnfortunate to bee:
Wherein they are afrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight,

And dreadfull devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might."

In Whimzies (1631), the anonymous author, in his description of a good and hospitable housekeeper, has left the following picture of Christmas festivities : Suppose Christmas now approaching, the ever-green Ivie trimming and adorning the portals and partcloses of so frequented a building; the usuall carolls, to observe antiquitie, cheerefully sounding; and that which is the complement of his inferior comforts, his neighbours, whom he tenders as members of his owne family, joyne with him in this consort of mirth and melody." Again: he calls a piper "an ill wind that begins to blow upon Christmasse Eve, and so continues, very lowd aud blustring, all the twelve dayes or an airy meteor, composed of flatuous matter, that then appeares, and vanisheth, to the great peace of the whole family, the thirteenth day.”

Poor Robin, in his Almanack for 1676, speaking of the Winter Quarter, tells us: "And lastly, who but would praise it because of Christmas, when good cheer doth so abound, as if all the world were made of minc'd-pies, plumb-puddings, and furmity."

Little troops of boys and girls were wont to go about in this very manner at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and other places in the North of England, some few nights before, on the night of the Eve of Christmas Day, and on that of the day itself. The Hagmena was long preserved among them, and they always concluded their begging song with wishing a merry Christmass and a happy New Year.

The most remarkable word “Hagmena,” used on this occasion, is by some supposed to be of an antiquity prior to the introduction of the Christian Faith.

Selden, in his Notes on the 9th song of the Polyolbion, writes: "On the Druidian custom (of going out to cut the Misletoe) some have grounded that unto this day used in France; where the younger country-fellows, about New Yeare's-tide, in every village give the wish of good fortune at the inhabitants dores, with this acclamation, Au guy l'an neuf,' i.e., to the Mistletoe this New Year; which, as I remember, in Rabelais is read all one word, for the same purpose."

Borlase (in the Antiquities of Cornwall) writes: "When the end of the year approached, the old Druids marched with great solemnity to gather the mistletoe of the oak, in order to present it to Jupiter,

*See also Cotgrave's Dictionary in verbo "Au-guy-l'an neuf." The Celtic name for the oak was gue or guy.

inviting all the world to assist at this ceremony with these words: 'The new Year is at hand, gather the Misletoe.'

On the Norman Hoquinanno Douce observes: "This comes nearer to our word, which was probably imported with the Normans. It was also by the French called Haguillennes and Haguimento, and I have likewise found it corrupted into Haguirenleux." Others deduce it from three French words run together, and signifying "the man is born;" while others again derive it from two Greek words signifying the Holy Month.

In the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, we read: "It is ordinary among some plebeians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year's Eve, crying Hagmena, a corrupted word from the Greek ayıa μŋvn, i.e., holy month.

John Dixon, holding forth against this custom once, in a sermon at Kelso, says: "Sirs, do you know what Hagmane signifies? It is, the Devil be in the House! That's the meaning of its Hebrew original."

Douce's Notes add: "I am further informed that the words used upon this occasion are, 'Hagmena, Hagmena, give us cakes and cheese, and let us go away.' Cheese and oaten-cakes, which are called Farls, are distributed on this occasion among the cryers.”

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1790 tells us: "In Scotland, till very lately (if not in the present time), there was a custom of distributing sweet cakes, and a particular kind of sugared bread, for several days before and after the New Year; and on the last night of the old year (peculiarly called Hagmenai), the visitors and company made a point of not separating till after the clock struck twelve, when they rose, and, mutually kissing each other, wished each other a happy New Year. Children and others, for several nights, went about from house to house as Guisarts, that is, disguised, or in masquerade dresses, singing,

'Rise up, good wife, and be no' swier

To deal your bread as long's your here;
The time will come when you'll be dead,
And neither want nor meal nor bread.'

"Some of those masquerades had a fiddle, and, when admitted into a house, entertained the company with a dramatic dialogue, partly extempore."

An ingenious Essay on Hagmena appeared in the Caledonian Mercury for January 2d, 1792, with the signature PHILOLOGUS, the more important parts of which have been extracted in Dr Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, v. HOGMANAY. SINGIN-EEN, Jamieson informs us, is the appellation given in the county of Fife to the last night of the year. The designation, he adds, seems to have originated from the Carols sung on this evening. A superstitious notion prevails in the western parts of Devonshire that at twelve o'clock at night on Christmas Eve, the oxen in their stalls are always found on their knees, as in an attitude of devotion;

* Lazy.

and that (which is still more singular) since the alteration of the style they continue to do this only on the Eve of old Christmas Day. An honest countryman, living on the edge of St Stephen's Down, near Launceston, Cornwall, informed the author that he once, with some others, made a trial of the truth of the above; and watching several oxen in their stalls at the due time, they observed the two oldest oxen only fall upon their knees, and, as he expressed it in the idiom of the country, make "a cruel moan like Christian creatures." There is an old print of the Nativity, in which the oxen in the stable, near the Virgin and Child, are represented upon their knees, as in a suppliant posture. This graphic representation has probably given rise to the above notion on this head.

MUMMING.

Mumming is a sport of this festive season which consists in changing clothes between men and women, who, when dressed in each other's habits, go from one neighbour's house to another, partaking of Christmas cheer, and making merry with them in disguise.*

It is supposed to have been originally instituted in imitation of the Sigillaria, or Festival Days added to the ancient Saturnalia, and was condemned by the Synod of Thurles, where it was decreed that the days called the Calends should be entirely stripped of their ceremonies, that the faithful should no longer observe them, and that the public dancings of women should cease, as being the occasion of much harm and ruin, as being invented and observed in honour of the gods of the heathens, and therefore quite averse to the Christian life. They therefore decreed that no man should be clothed with a woman's garment, nor any woman with a man's.+

The author of the Convivial Antiquities, treating of Mumming in Germany, says that in the ancient Saturnalia there were frequent and luxurious feastings amongst friends: presents were mutually sent, and changes of dress made: that Christians have adopted the same customs, which continue to be used from the Nativity to the Epiphany: that feastings are frequent during the whole time, and we send what are called New Year's Gifts: that exchanges of dress, too, as of old among the Romans, are common; and neighbours, by mutual invitations, visit each other in the manner which the Germans call Mummery. He adds that, as the Heathens had their Saturnalia in December, their Sigillaria in January, and the Lupercalia and Bacchanalia in February, so, amongst Christians, these three months are devoted to feastings and revellings of every kind.‡

*Mummer signifies a masker; one disguised under a vizard; from the Danish Mumme, or Dutch Momme. Lipsius tells us, in his 44th Epistle, Book iii., that Momar, which is used by the Sicilians for a fool, signifies in French, and in our language, a person with a mask on.

of "The disguisyng and mummyng that is used in Christemas tyme in the Northe partes came out of the Feastes of Pallas, that were done with visars and painted visages, named Quinquatria of the Romaynes" (Langley's Polydore Vergil).

Upon the Circumcision, or New Year's Day, the early Christians ran