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 solemnize the Festival of Gifts, and to shew 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, p. 755, has the following most severe 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 Feare's Day (a chiefe part of Christmas) with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in mummeries, stageplayes, 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 and idolatry, derived from the heathen Romans' feast of twofaced Janus, 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, Edinb. 1793, 8vo. vol. vii. p. 488, Parishes of Cross, Burness, &c. County of Orkney,-New Year's Gifts occur, under the title of "Christmas Present," and as given to servant maids by their masters. Ibid, p. 489, 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 Statistical Account of Scotland, 8vo, Edinb. 1795, vol. xv. p. 201, note, 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."

Ibid, vol. v. p. 66. 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.”

"De l'Usage de donner des Eufs dans les Fêtes de Nouvel An et de Pâques, et son Origine.

"C'étoit un usage commun à tous les peuples agricoles d'Europe et d'Asie de célébrer la Fête du Nouvel An en mangeant des Œufs; et les Eufs faisoient partie des presens qu'on s'envoyoit ce jour-là. On avoit meme soin de les teindre en plusieurs couleurs, sur-tout en rouge, couleur favorite des anciens peuples, et des Celtes en particulier.

Mais la Fête du Nouvel An se célébroit, comme nous l'avons vu, à l'equinoxe du Printems, c'est-à-dire, au tems où les Chretiens ne célébrent plus que la Fête de Pâques, tandis qu'ils ont transporté le Nouvel An au Solstice d'Hyver. Il est arrivé de-la que la Fête des Eufs a été attachée chez eux à la Páques, et qu'on n'en a plus donnée au Nouvel An.

"Cependant ce ne fut pas le simple effet de l'habitude; mais parce qu'on attachoit à la Fête de Paques les mêmes prérogatives qu'au Nouvel An, celles d'être un renouvellement de toutes choses, comme chez les Persans; et celles d'être d'abord le triomphe du Soleil physique, et ensuite celui du Soleil de Justice, du Sauveur du Monde, sur la mort, par sa résurrection.

"Ainsi tout ce que nous aurons à dire sur cet usage, aura également pour objet, et la Pâques et le Nouvel An, ces fêtes s'étant presque toujours confondues, et pour le temps, et pour les motifs. Nous voyons, par exemple, dans les Voyages de Corneille le Bruyn (tom. i. in fol. p. 191), que le 20 Mars, 1704, les Perses célébrerent la Fête du Nouvel An Solaire, qui dura, selon lui, plusieurs jours, en se donnant entr'autres choses des Eufs colores."

Monde Primitif, par M. Court de Gebelin, tome iv. 4to. Paris, 1787, p. 251. Maurice, Bishop of Paris in the twelfth century, has left us a curious Sermon, in which, speaking of New Year's Day, he says: "Hui suelent entendre à malvais gens faire et mettent lor creance en Estrennes, et disoient que non resteroit riches en l'An s'il restoit hui Estrennes." See Le Boeuf Divers Ecrits, &c. tom. i. p. 307.

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 Saint Maximus and Peter Chrysologus declaimed; whence in some of the very antient missals we find written in the Mass for this day, "Missa ad prohibendum ab Idolis." See Maeri Hiero-Lexicon, p. 156.

THIS 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

a 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, p. 286, speaking of "Orders for Government-Gray's Inne," cites an order of 4 Car. I. (Nov. 17) that

the greatest of the twelve, and of more jovial observation for the visiting of friends, and Christmas gambols.

The customs of this day, various in different countries, yet agree in the same end, that is, to do honour to the Eastern Magic, 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 d.

"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."

b The following extract from Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 163, seems to account in a satisfactory manner for the name of Twelfth Day. "In the days of King Alfred, 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 the subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Virgidemiarum, 12mo, Lond. 1598, p. 67, 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."

Atque ab ipso natali Jesu Christi die ad octavam usque ab Epiphania lucem, jejunia nemo observato, nisi quidem judicio ac voluntate fecerit sua, aut id ei fuerit à sacerdote imperatum." Seld. Analecton Anglo-Britannicon, lib. ii. p. 108.

"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: according to this distich:

"Tres Reges Regi Regum tria dona ferebant;
Myrrham Homini, Uncto Aurum, Thura dedere Deo."
Festa Anglo-Romana, p. 7.

"Datum in our

The dedication of "The Bee-hive of the Romish Church," concludes thus: Museo the 5 of January, being the even of the three Kings of Collen, 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."

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 Fêté de Sans-Culottes." It was called an anti-civic feast, which made every priest that kept it a Royalist.

There is a very curious account in Le Roux Dictionnaire Comique, tom. ii. p. 431, of the French ceremony of the“Roi de la Feve," which explains Jordaen's fine picture of "Le Roi boit."

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 occasione.

The chusing of a person King or Queenf by a bean found in a piece of a divided cake, was formerly a common Christmas gambol in both the English universities.

See an account of this custom in Busalde de Verville Palais des Curieux, edit. 1612, p. 90. See also Pasquier Recherches de la France, p. 375.

Among the Cries of Paris, a poem composed by Guillaume de Villeneuve in the thirteenth century, and printed at the end of Barbasan Ordene de Chevalerie, Beans for Twelfth Day are mentioned: "Gastel à feve orrois crier."

To the account given by Le Roux of the French way of chusing King and Queen, may be added, that 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 chuses the King or Queen, according as it happens to be a man or woman.

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, in his curious work, entitled "The Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel, found in the Kennel of Worcester Streets, the day after the Fight, 1651,” says, p. 237, “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 curious book, entitled "A World of Wonders," fol. Lond. 1607, we read, p. 189, 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."

Quia vero creditum fuit Magos hos Reges fuisse, propterea in honorem et memoriam eorum varii ritus hac die hinc inde observantur. In Gallia unus ex ministris aulicis Regis eligitur Rex, cui Rex ipse, cæterique proceres inter epulandum ministrant. Idem etiam in Germania observatur hoc die per Academias et Urbes à studiosis et civibus: ut nimirum aliquem ex sese Regem sorte creent, cui apparatur convivium magnificum, in quo cæteri ipsi tanquam Regi, et simul hospiti ministrant. Fit boc ad imitationem Gentilium. Apud Romanos enim Saturnaliorum diebus moris fuit, ut domini famulos suos convivio exciperent, ipsique Servorum officio fungerentur. Idem etiam apud alias Gentes usurpatum fuit."-Hospinian de Orig. Festorum Christian. fol. 35 b.

f Thomas Randolph, in a curious letter to Dudley, Lord Leicester, dated Edin. 15 Jan. 1563, mentions Lady Flemyng being "Queene of the Beene" on Twelfth Day. Pinkerton's Ancient Scot. Poems, vol. ii. p. 431.