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made for thy entertainment there whither thou goest ?" "None at all." "No!" said the fool, "none at all? Here, take my staff, then. thou going away for ever, and hast taken no order, whence thou shalt never return? take my staff, for I am not guilty of any such folly as this."

The Lord Mayor's Fool was a distinguished character of that class; and there was a curious feat which he was bound by his office to perform, in the celebration of Lord Mayor's Day. He was to leap, clothes and all, into a large bowl of custard, at the inauguration dinner; and this was a jest so exactly suited to the taste of the lower class of spectators, that it was not easily made stale by repetition. It is alluded to by Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, as follows:

"You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs, and all, like him that leapt into the custard."-All's Well that Ends Well.

He may, perchance, in tail of a Sheriff's dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from new nothing,
And take his Almain leap into a custard,

Shall make my Lady Mayoress and her sisters

Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders.-Devil's an Ass.

Custard was

a food much used in City feasts."-(Johnson's Dict.) Now may'rs and shrieves all hush'd and satiate lay; Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day.-Pope.

Perhaps it is this custard which, in the Staple of News, is called “the custard politick, the Mayor's.'

We have all heard the vulgar comparison-" You are like my Lord Mayor's Fool, who knows what is good."

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Here may be mentioned a surmise, that the low humour of "the Judge and Jury Club" of our days has precedent of nearly two centuries. William Mountfort, the actor, and also a clever mimic, was retained for some time in the family of Lord Chancellor Jeffries, who," says Sir John Revesby, "at an entertainment of the Lord Mayor and court of aldermen, in the year 1685, called for Mr. Mountfort to divert the company, as his lordship was pleased to call it. He being an excellent mimic, my lord made him plead before him in a feigned cause, in which he aped all the great lawyers of the age, in their tone of voice, and in their action and gesture of body, to the very great ridicule, not only of the lawyers, but of the law itself; which to me [says the historian] did not seem altogether prudent in a man of his lofty station in the law: diverting it certainly was; but prudent in the Lord High Chancellor I shall never think it."

It is hardly worth while to discuss the varieties of Fools, or to trace them from the idiot to the jester, or witty table companion. The clown in Shakspeare (say the commentators) is commonly taken for a licensed jester, or domestic Fool. This is, however, disputed. The Fool was, indeed, the inmate of opulent houses; but the rural jester, or clown, seems to have been peculiar to the country families; his rusticity and

bluntness heightening the poignancy of his jests. Shakspeare's Clowns were deservedly celebrated for their wit and entertaining qualities: yet they did not escape sarcasm :

Shakspeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lies

I' th' lady's questions and the fool's replies;

Old-fashion'd wit, which walked from town to town

In trunk-hose ;-which our fathers call'd the clown.

Cartwright's Verses prefixed to Beaumont and Fletcher.

In an old play, 1580, we have this stage direction: "Entreth Moros, counterfeiting a vaine gesture, and a foolish countenance; synging the foote of many songs, as fools were wont." Shakspeare's Fools and Clowns abundantly answer to this character, since the foot or burden of many songs, or the fragments of them, are exclusively preserved by these personages. (See especially All's Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night, and King Lear.) His clowns have certainly more wit than fools in general, and sometimes appear to have a little consciousness of their own talents.

In our time the term Fool is vulgarly applied to the Clown of the Ring for equestrianism; and possibly this may have arisen from such clowns talking more than clowns upon the stage.

A few other applications of the word fool may be amusing. Thus, fool is an old word for a confection: hence gooseberry fool :

Apples, tarts, fools, and strong cheese to keep down

The steaming vapours from the parson's crown.-Satyr, 1689.

Scogin, in his Jests, has a fool of all fools, i.e. a very great fool. Fool's fever is an euphuistic term for folly. Fool's Paradise is deceptive good fortune. Fool's Parsley is a poisonous plant somewhat resembling the plain-leaved parsley; hence the curled parsley is the safest. The Feast of Fools was a ridiculous ceremony performed, in which the rites of the church were burlesqued unsparingly; from this spectacle our Lord of Misrule took its rise; and a carving in Beverley Minster, date 1520, shows the performers in the Feast of Fools; and Mr. Douce had, in his museum, a girdle, stated to have been worn by the Abbot of Fools. Foolify is a seventeenth-century word. In our day, Sydney Smith humorously proposed a Foolometer, i.e., an instrument to measure the height of folly in nations or individuals.

The name of foolscap applied to paper of a certain size is popularly believed to have arisen from the water-mark having been changed by the Parliament under Cromwell, from the King's Arms to a fool's cap and bells, as an indignity to the memory of Charles; but in Archeologia, vol. xii., the date given to this paper-mark is 1661. Although the mark has been removed, paper of the size of the Rump Parliament's journals still bears the name of "foolscap.'

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The conjuring cap is a piece of olden cheatery. Ericus, King of Sweden, had his enchanted cap, and pretended, by the additional assistance of some medical jargon, to be able to command spirits, to trouble the

air, and to turn the winds themselves; so that when a great storm arose, his ignorant subjects believed that the king had got his conjuring cap on ; and from this fact originated the custom of our mountebanks and legerdemain men playing their tricks in a conjuring cap.

Brawn.

Dr. Johnson describes brawn" of uncertain etymology;" the " fleshy or musculous parts" of a boar, from two to five years of age; and a brawner or a boar killed for table.

At Christmas time, be careful of your fame,
See the old tenant's table did the same;

Then if you would send up the brawner head,
Sweet rosemary and bays around it spread.

Dr. King, the author of these lines, in his Art of Cookery, speaks of Brawn in the same way as Kit-cat and Locket: Brawn was a celebrated cook, and kept the "Rummer in Queen-street." King, in his Analogy between 1hysicians, Cooks, and Playwrights, says:—

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Though I seldom go out of my own lodgings, I was prevailed on the other day to dine with some friends at the Rummer in Queen-street. Sam Trusty would needs have me go with him into the kitchen, and see how matters went there. He assured me that Mr. Brawn had an art, &c. I was, indeed, very much pleased and surprised with the extraordinary splendour and economy I observed there; but above all with the great readiness and dexterity of the man himself. His motions were quick but not precipitate; he in an instant applied himself from one stove to another without the least appearance of hurry, and in the midst of smoke and fire preserved an incredible serenity of countenance.

Beau Brummel, according to Mr. Jesse, spoke with a relish worthy a descendant of "the Rummer" of the savoury pies of his Aunt Brawn, who then resided at Kilburn; she is said to have been the widow of a grandson of the celebrity of Queen-street, who had himself kept the public-house at the old Mews Gate at Charing Cross.-See Notes and Queries, 2nd S., No. xxxvi.

Brawn is probably as old as Boar's-head. The "begging frere," in Chaucer's Sompnoure's Tales, says, "Geve us your brawn, if ye have any," and it may be found in most of the coronation and grand feasts. Brawn and mustard appear in the coronation feasts of Katherine, queen to Henry V. in 1421; and of Henry VII. At the latter was "brawne royall," for the king's table. In the 16th century brawn was called a great service, and was accompanied by plentiful draughts of wine :

Even the two rundlets,

The two that was our hope, of muscadel,
(Better ne'er tript over) these two cannons,
To batter brawn withal, at Christmas, sir,—
Even these two lovely twins, the enemy
Had almost cut off clean.

We find Henry VI. directing the Sheriff of Sussex to buy for a Christmas feast, "ten brawns with the heads," which would lead one to

infer Sussex to be noted for its brawn. Kent has, however, long enjoyed this celebrity, and Canterbury brawn is, to this day, sent to all parts of the kingdom.

At the palace, and at the revels of the Inns of Court, it was a constant dish at a Christinas breakfast: Tusser prescribes it among the good things, and it has remained so to the present time.

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The old method of brawning a young boar was by shutting him up a small room, in harvest-time, feeding him with nothing but sweet whey, and giving him every morning clean straw to lie upon; and before Christmas he was sufficiently brawned, and proved fat, wholesome, and sweet, for the great feast of the year.

The word has strayed away from its use in festive matters in a very opposite direction; for we read in history of a pious lady, who had been so constant in her religious duties that her knees became brawned (hardened) in kneeling.

Apostle Spoons.

These old silver or silver-gilt spoons are named from their being made in sets of twelve, each being surmounted with a figure of an Apostle. The earliest notice of these spoons is believed to be that on the books of the Stationers' Company in the year 1500: "A spoyne of the gyfte of Master Reginold Wolfe, all gylte with the pycture of St. John."

Pegge, in his Preface to A Forme of Curry, a Roll of Ancient Cookery, thus accounts for these spoons becoming baptismal presents :-"The general mode of eating must either have been with the spoon or the fingers; and this perhaps may have been the reason that spoons became the usual present from gossips to their god-children at christenings." The practice of sponsors giving spoons at christenings seems to date from the reign of Elizabeth; previously the gifts were of a different kind. Hall, in his account of the baptism of Elizabeth, 1533, describes the gifts presented by the sponsors as a standing cup of gold, and six gilt bowls with covers.

In the first year of Elizabeth, Howes, the continuator of Stow's Chronicle, says that "At this time, and for many years before, it was not the use and custome, as now it is [1631], for godfathers and godmothers generally to give plate at the baptism of children as spoones, cups, and such like; but only to give christening shirts, with little bands and cuffs wrought either with silk or blue thread; the best of them for chief persons were edged with a small lace of black silke and golde; the highest prices of which, for great men's children, were seldom above a noble, and the common sort two, three, or four, or five shillings apiece."

An allusion to Apostle Spoons occurs in "Merry Passages and Jeastes," Harl. Mis., 6895:- Shakspeare was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in deepe study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and ask'd him why he was so melancholy. faith, Ben,' says he, not I; but I have been considering a great while

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what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last.' I pr'ythee what ?' says he. 'I'faith, Ben, I'll give him a douzen good latten* [Latin] spoons, and thou shalt translate them."" But the story is doubted.

Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has :-" And all this for the hope of twelve Apostle Spoons." It is in allusion to this custom, that, when Cranmer professes to be unworthy of being sponsor to the young princess, the king replies:-" Come, come, my Lord, you'd spare your spoons."-Henry VIII., act v. sc. 2.

A set of Apostle Spoons is cleverly engraved, by Samuel Williams, in Hone's Every-day Book, vol. i. p. 175; and Table Book, p. 117.

In the Bernal Collection, dispersed in 1855, were Twelve Apostle Spoons, silver-gilt, English, 1579, an uniform and unbroken set, described as almost unique, sold for 657. 2s.

For the spoons, in our day, has been substituted the christening-cup : that of the Marquis of Chandos, whose names and title are inscribed upon it, was sold at Stowe, in 1848, for 997. 8s.: it is a superb chalice and cover, embossed with figures, scrolls, and arabesques, of fine ancient work, the cover surmounted with the figure of a child.

The God-sib, Anglo-Saxon for godfather or godmother, signifies a spiritual relationship to each other, and to the child for which they are responsible in baptism, through the performance of a religious rite or ceremony. Spenser calls it gossib; it is now gossip.

Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertook for the child at baptisme, called each other by the name of God-sib, which is as much as to say, that they were all sib together, that is, of kin together through God. And the child, in like manner, called such his God-fathers or God-mothers.-Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence.

The Gossiping-pot was a two-handled pot, requiring two persons to carry it, and which brought them into such close contact as allowed them to indulge in gossiping, as they went along.

Congleton Cakes.

The old town of Congleton, upon the Staffordshire border of Cheshire, is an interesting nook for the antiquary. It contains many of the ancient houses of the latter county, which are constructed entirely of timber framework and plaster. It has long been famed for its silk-mills, and was formerly celebrated for tagged leather laces, called Congleton points. These have, however, been outlived by the sack and cakes which have for ages figured in the ancient festivities of Congleton; eclipsed for a while, during the gloomy mayoralty of President Bradshaw, but happily retained to our own time.

The Cakes are of triangular form, with a raisin inserted at each corner. These have been used at the Grammar-school breaking-up for three

* An old word for brass.

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