money arising from them they made a feast every Christmas Eve, which they called a Rumbald. The master of each boat provided this feast for his own company. These whitings, which are of a very large size, and are sold all round the country, as far as Canterbury, are called Rumbald whitings. This custom (which is now left off, though many of the inhabitants still meet socially on a Christmas Eve, and call it Rumbald Night), might have been antiently instituted in honour of St Rumbald, and at first designed as an offering to him for his protection during the fishery."

In a very rare tract entitled Canterbury Christmas; or a true Relation of the Insurrection in Canterbury on Christmas Day last (1648), we read

"Upon Wednesday, Dec. 22, 1647, the cryer of Canterbury, by the appointment of master Maior, openly proclaimed that Christmas Day, and all other superstitious festivals, should be put downe, and that a market should be kept upon Christmas Day."

Among the single Sheets in the British Museum is an Order of Parliament, dated Dec. 24th 1652, directing "that no Observation shall be had of the five and twentieth Day of December, commonly called CHRISTMAS DAY; nor any solemnity used or exercised in Churches upon that day in respect thereof."

In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, parish of Kirkden, county of Angus (1792), Christmas is said to be held as a great festival in the neighbourhood. "The servant is free from his master, and goes about visiting his friends and acquaintance. The poorest must have beef or mutton on the table, and what they call a dinner with their friends. Many amuse themselves with various diversions, particularly with shooting for prizes, called here Wad-shooting; and many do but little business all the Christmas week; the evening of almost every day being spent in amusement." And in the account of Keith, in Banffshire, the inhabitants are said to "have no pastimes or holidays, except dancing on Christmas and New Year's Day."

THE CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Bishop Taylor observes that the "Gloria in Excelsis," the wellknown hymn sung by the angels to the shepherds at our Lord's Nativity, was the earliest Christmas carol. Bourne cites Durandus to prove that, in the earlier ages of the Church, the bishops were accustomed on Christmas Day to sing carols among their clergy. He seems perfectly right in deriving the word carol from cantare, to sing, and rola, an interjection of joy. This species of pious song is undoubtedly of most ancient date. We have already considered that of which the burden is Hagmena.

The following Anglo-Norman carol (translated by Douce) is of the date of the thirteenth century. The original exists in the British Museum

"Now, Lordings, listen to our ditty,

Strangers coming from afar;
Let poor Minstrels move your pity,
Give us welcome, soothe our care:

In this mansion, as they tell us,
Christmas wassal keeps to-day;
And, as the king of all good fellows,
Reigns with uncontrolled sway.

"Lordings, in these realms of pleasure,
Father Christmas yearly dwells;
Deals out joy with liberal measure,
Gloomy sorrow soon dispels :
Numerous guests, and viands dainty,
Fill the hall and grace the board;
Mirth and beauty, peace and plenty,
Solid pleasures here afford.

"Lordings, 'tis said the liberal mind,
That on the needy much bestows,
From Heaven a sure reward shall find;
From Heaven, whence every blessing flows.
Who largely gives with willing hand,

Or quickly gives with willing heart;
His fame shall spread throughout the land,
His memory thence shall ne'er depart.

"Lordings, grant not your protection
To a base, unworthy crew,
But cherish, with a kind affection,
Men that are loyal, good, and true.
Chace from your hospitable dwelling
Swinish souls, that ever crave;
Virtue they can ne'er excel in,
Gluttons never can be brave.

"Lordings, Christmas loves good drinking,
Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou,
English ale, that drives out thinking,

Prince of liquors old or new.

Every neighbour shares the bowl,
Drinks of the spicy liquor deep,

Drinks his fill without control,

Till he drowns his care in sleep.

"And now-by Christmas, jolly soul !
By this mansion's generous sire!
By the wine, and by the bowl,
And all the joys they both inspire!
Here I'll drink a health to all:

The glorious task shall first be mine:

And ever may foul luck befall

Him that to pledge me shall decline!

Gascoigne and Anjou, being at this time under the dominion of the

English sovereigns, were not regarded as part of France.

THE CHORUS.

"Hail, father Christmas! hail to thee!
Honour'd ever shalt thou be !
All the sweets that Love bestows,
Endless pleasures, wait on those
Who, like vassals brave and true,
Give to Christmas homage due."

Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciles, writing of the Christmas Day ceremonies in the Inner Temple, says: "Service in the church ended, the gentlemen presently repair into the hall to breakfast, with brawn, mustard, and malmsey ;" and at the first course at dinner, is served" a fair and large BORE'S HEAD, upon a silver platter, with minstralsye."

Warton tells us that in 1521 Wynkyn de Worde printed a set of Christmas Carols.* These were festal chansons for enlivening the merriments of the Christmas celebrity; and not such religious songs as are current at this day with the common people, under the same title, and which were substituted by those enemies of innocent and useful mirth, the Puritans. The boar's head soused was anciently the first dish on Christmas Day, and was carried up to the principal table in the hall with great state and solemnity. For this indispensable ceremony there was a carol, which Wynkyn de Worde has given us in the Miscellany just mentioned, as it was sung in his time with the title

A CAROL bryngyng in the Bore's Head.

Apri defero

Reddens laudes Domino,

The Bore's Heade in hande bring I,
With garlandes gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merely,

Qui estis in convivio.

The Bore's Head, I understande,
Is the chefe servyce + in this lande:
Loke wherever it be fande

Servite cum Cantico.

Be gladde, Lordes, both more and lasse,
For this hath ordayned our stewarde
To chere you all this Christmasse,

The Bore's Head with mustarde.

"This Carol," Warton adds, " yet with many innovations, is retained at Queen's College in Oxford."

* He adds: "I have seen a fragment of this scarce book, and it preserves this colophon: Thus endeth the Christmasse Carolles newly imprinted at London, in the Flete-strete, at the sygne of the Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde. The yere of our Lord M.D. xxi.'

That is, the chief dish served at a feast.

A copy of it, as it is still sung, may be found in the new edition of

R

In the Churchwarden's Accounts of St Mary-at-Hill, London, 1537, is the following entry: "To S Mark for Carolls for Christmas and for 5 square Books, iij". iiijd."

In Dekker's Wonderful Yeare, 1603, the reference to persons apprehensive of catching the plague is :-"They went (most bitterly) miching and muffled up and downe, with rue and wormewood stuft into their eares and nosthrils, looking like so many BORES HEADS stuck with branches of rosemary, to be served in for brawn at Christmas."

Holinshed says that in the year 1170, upon the day of the young Prince's coronation, King Henry II. "served his son at the table as sewer, bringing up the BORE'S HEAD, with trumpets before it, according to the manner."

In Batt upon Batt, a Poem upon the Parts, Patience, and Pains of Barth. Kempster, Clerk, Poet, Cutler, of Holy-Rood-Parish, in Southampton, by a Person of Quality (1694), speaking of Batt's carving knives and other implements, the author tells us :

"Without their help, who can good Christmass keep?
Our teeth would chatter, and our eyes would weep;
Hunger and Dulness would invade our feasts,
Did not Batt find us arms against such guests.
He is the cunning engineer, whose skill

Makes fools to carve the goose, and shape the quill:
Fancy and wit unto our meals supplies :

Carols, and not minc'd-meat, make Christmas pies.
'Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off;

Brutes and Phanaticks eat, and never laugh.

When brawn, with powdred wig, comes swaggering in,
And mighty serjeant ushers in the Chine,
What ought a wise man first to think upon?
Have I my Tools? if not, I am undone :
For 'tis a law concerns both saint and sinner,
He that hath no knife must have no dinner.
So he falls on; pig, goose, and capon, feel
The goodness of his stomach and Batt's steel.

In such fierce frays, alas! there no remorse is;

All flesh is grass, which makes men feed like horses:
But when the battle's done, off goes the hat,"

And each man sheaths, with God-a-mercy Batt."

The annexed specimen of a very curious carol in the Scottish language, preserved in Ane compendious Booke of Godly and spirituall

Herbert's Typographical Antiquities. It is probable that Chaucer alluded to the above custom in the following passage, in his Franklein's Tale

"Janus sitteth by the fire with double berd,
And he drinketh of his bugle-horne the wine,

Before him standeth the brawne of the tusked swine.

Seemingly it was the custom of the period to sit at meat with their hats on. They took them off, however, while grace was saying.

Sangs, Edinburgh, 1621, printed from an old copy, will no doubt be thought a precious relic by those who have a taste for the literary antiquities of this island

"ANE SANG OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST :

With the Tune of Baw lula law.
(Angelus, ut opinor, loquitur.)

"I come from Hevin to tell
The best nowellis that ever befell;
To yow this tythinges trew I bring,
And I will of them say and sing.
"This day to yow is borne ane Childe
Of Marie meike and Virgine mylde,
That blissit Barne, bining and kynde,
Sall yow rejoyce baith heart and mynd.
"My saull and lyfe, stand up and see
Quha lyes in ane cribe of tree,
Quhat Babe is that, so gude and faire ?
It is Christ, God's sonne and aire.
"O God! that made all creature,
How art thow becum so pure,
That on the hay and stray will lye,
Among the asses, oxin, and kye?
"O, my deir hert, zoung Jesus sweit,
Prepare thy creddill in my spreit,
And I sall rocke thee in my hert,
And never mair from thee depart.
"But I sall praise thee ever moir,
With sangs sweit unto thy gloir,
The knees of my hert sall I bow,
And sing that right Balulalow."

In Lewis's Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed (1720), in a catalogue of Presbyterian books, occurs the following: "A Cabinet of choice Jewels, or the Christian's Joy and Gladness: set forth in sundry pleasant new Christmas Carols, viz., a Carol for Christmass Day, to the tune of Over Hills and high Mountains; for Christmass Day at Night, to the tune of My Life and My Death; for St Stephen's Day, to the tune of O cruel bloody Tale; for New Year's Day, to the * In this collection there is a hunting song, in which the author attacks Rome with great fury. The following is a specimen

"The Hunter is Christ, that hunts in haist,

The Hunds are Peter and Paul;

The Paip is the Fox, Kome is the Rox

That rubbis us on the gall."

Indulgences are alluded to in a most comical thought in the following

stanza

"He had to sell the Tantonie Bell,

And Pardons therein was,

Remission of sins in auld sheep skinnis,

Our sauls to bring from grace."