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Lady Mountjoy, two smocks. In after years, Lady Dorset gave Mary wrought smocks and handkerchiefs; her brother, the Prince, a little tablet of gold; the Princess Elizabeth, a little chain and a pair of hose, wrought in gold and silk; the Lady Margaret, a gown of carnation satin of the Venice fashion; Lady Butler, a pepper box, silver-gilt; the Earl of Hertford, a diamond ring; three Venetians, a fair steel mirror; the yeoman of the robes, a pair of silver snuffers; Mrs Wheeler, a pen and inkhorn, silver gilt; Lady Brown, a fuming-box of silver; and the King's master-cook, a marchpane (resembling our macaroons)— the usual present of this functionary. Bishop Latimer once presented to Henry VIII., instead of a sum in gold, a New Testament, with the leaf folded down at Hebrews xiii. 4.

In the British Museum is a small volume, in the handwriting of Elizabeth, when Princess, which she presented as a New Year's Gift to her father, Henry VIII. This book, about five and a half inches long by four broad, contains 234 pages of writing in the bold printing character used by Elizabeth in her younger days. The subject of the MS. is a collection of Prayers and Meditations in English, made by Queen Catherine Parr, and translated by Elizabeth into Latin, French, and Italian.

Mary's New Year's Gifts, in 1556, included the forepart of a kirtle and sleeves, of cloth of silver embroidered, given by the Princess Elizabeth; a table, painted with the Queen's marriage, by Suete, painter; a smock, wrought with silk, and collar and ruff of damask, gold, pearl, and silver, by the Duchess of Somerset; six sugar-loaves, six tapnetts of figs, four barrels of suckets, and orange-water, &c., by Lady Yorke; two fat oxen, by Mr. Michael Wentworth; two guinea cocks, scalded, by Gent; a marchpane and two dishes of jelly, by Burrage, master-cook; a fat goose and a capon, by Mrs. Preston; a cake of spice bread, by Kelley, plasterer; nutmegs and ginger, and a long stick of cinnamon elect, in a box, by Smalwodde, grocer; a basket of pomegranates, cherries, apples, oranges, and lemons, by Harris, fruiterer; three rolls of songs, by Sheparde, of the chapel; a fair lute, edged with passamayne of gold and silke by Browne, instrument maker.

Elizabeth received New Year's Gifts from all classes connected with her; from Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, down to Smyth, the dustman. In 1560, she accepted a pair of silk stockings from Mrs. Montagu, her silk-woman, said to have been the first pair worn in England. In this year, she gave sixty French crowns, as a New Year's Gift, to Widow Penne, who had been nurse to King Edward. In the following year she received presents in money-from 40%., by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a red silk purse, in demy sovereigns, to 47. by Lady Cheeke, in a russet silk purse; also smocks, worked in silk; collars and partelets worked with gold, silver, and silk; and a pye of quinces from the servant of the pastry. The royal doctors gave a pot of orange-blossoms, and a pot of ginger; the apothecary a box of lozenges, or a box of conserves. The gifts from celebrated persons were more striking. Thus, in 1574, the favourite Earl of Leicester gave the Queen

a superb fan of white feathers, set in a handle of gold, set with emeralds, diamonds, and rubies. In 1578, Sir Philip Sidney gave a cambric smock, edged with gold and silver lace, and set with spangles; and in the same year, Sir Gawen Carew gave a smock worked and edged with Venice gold. In 1582, Lady Howard gave a jewel of gold, representing a cat and mice, and garnished with diamonds and pearls. In 1589, Sir Francis Drake gave a feather fan with gold handle, jewelled, and bearing Her Majesty's picture. Lord North, in his Household Book, charges 401. as his New Year's Gifts to the Queen, and 167. 10s. given at court at New Year's-tide. In several years, there were presented handsome gowns, petticoats, kirtles, doublets, and mantles, embroidered with precious stones; so that it does not appear surprising that Elizabeth left a hoard of 2000 dresses.

Throughout the reign of James I. plays and masques were favourite New Year's entertainments: they were written by Ben Jonson, Shakspeare, and Fletcher; the scenery and decorations by Inigo Jones. The Queen and her ladies took parts. On January 1st, 1611, Prince Henry performed in Inigo Jones' and Ben Jonson's masque of Oberon, in the new Banqueting-house at Whitehall, when the expenses exceeded 1000%.

The New Year's Gifts were continued: in the list we find an ivory cabinet, wrought with silver; and a pair of fat oxen from the Corporation of Coventry; and Sir Francis Bacon sent to a lady and her daughters some carnation stockings, requesting they would wear them for his sake. In the reign of Charles II., the Court gifts were generally in money, amounting to 30007., sent in purses worth 30s. or 40s each, the donors receiving gifts of gilt plate in return. Pepys mentions his going to the Jewel Office on Jan. 4th, 1661, to choose a piece of plate for the Earl of Sandwich, who had given twenty pieces of gold in a purse; he selected a gilt tankard, which, weighing one ounce and a half more than the value of the Earl's gift, Pepys was obliged to pay the difference.

The Court masques and pageants declined after the Restoration; but grand feasts remained until the last relic, the tureen of plum-porridge at the chaplain's table, which was superseded by crown-pieces placed under the plates as New Year's Gifts.

Previous to the time of Queen Anne, it was customary for the officers and suitors of the Court of Chancery to present New Year's Gifts to the Chancellor; the officers, however, being reimbursed by gifts from the suitors. Sir Thomas More always returned the gifts; but on one occasion, he kept the gloves, and refused the lining, forty angels. The practice was also common to the other courts; and the Marshal of the King's Bench used to present the judges with a piece of plate. Lord Keeper Cowper, in 1705, set the example which led to the abolition of these questionable practices.

Tenants were accustomed to give capons to their landlords at this season; in old leases, a capon is sometimes reserved as a sort of rent:

Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord's hall,
With often presents at each festivall;

With crammed capons every New Year's morne.

Gaming was a royal pastime of this season, which the subjects of the sovereign were permitted to witness. The play ran high in Charles the Second's time, and it lasted almost to our day. George I. and II. played at hazard in public at the groom-porter's, St. James's Palace, where the nobility, and even the Princesses, staked considerable sums.

The gaming in public was discontinued in the reign of George III.; but the office of groom-porter is still kept up, and the names of three groom-porters occur among the inferior servants in the enumeration of Her present Majesty's household.

Sir Henry Ellis, in 1839, saw in the possession of Mr. E. Hawkins, of the British Museum, a silver token marked to the amount of ten pounds, which appears to have passed among the players for the groom-porter's benefit at basset. It is within the size of a halfcrown: in the centre of the obverse is .; legend round, AT THE GROOM-PORTER'S · BASSETT '; mint-mark, a fleur-de-lis. On the reverse, a wreath and gold coronet; the coronet being of gold let in: legend, NOTHING VENTURD NOTHING WINNS; mint-mark, again, a fleur-de-lis.

An interesting custom is preserved at Queen's College, Oxford. On the morning of every New Year's Day, the Bursar presents to each member of the Society a needle and thread, accompanying it with the injunction, "Take this, and be thrifty." The practice is referred to a somewhat fanciful derivation of the name Eglesfield (the founder of the college), from the French aiguille, needle, and fil, the thread. Holinshed mentions, as a confirmation of the antiquity of this custom, that when Prince Henry (V.), who had been a student of Queen's, went to court, to clear himself from "certain charges of disaffection," he wore a gown of blue satin, full of_oilet-holes, and at every hole a needle hanging by a silken thread. De Eglesfield made two provisions in the statutes of the college, strongly in the feudal spirit of the time. The sound of a trumpet was to summon the members of the college to their daily repast; when the poor scholars were to kneel on one side of the table, while the Fellows, arrayed in scarlet robes, from the other side, propounded to them questions in philosophy. The first of these customs, the trumpet-call, is still retained.

In the North of England is an old custom,-that the first person who enters the house on New Year's Day is called First-foot, and is considered to influence the fate of the family, especially the founder, for the whole year.

Divinations are practised on this day in many cottage-homes of the Midland Counties: the good man sits in his chair under a canopy of holly, with the Bible across his knees; the children gathering round him, eager for the dip into futurity. The book is opened with closed and the first passage touched by the finger expounded to refer to coming events. Fosbroke tells us that the custom of not suffering any

eyes,

person to take fire out of the house, or anything of iron, or lending anything on New Year's Day, which still prevails in Herefordshire, was usual on this day at Rome.

Another divination is to observe narrowly the atmospheric changes of the first twelve days of the year, each day representing a month, and forming an index to the weather of the period for which it stands.

God-cakes are sent on New Year's Day by all classes in Coventry : they are triangular, an inch thick, and filled with a kind of mincemeat. One of the annual duties of the Poet Laureate (in the reign of Henry III. styled "the King's versifier") was to compose "A New Year's Ode;" but this practice has long been discontinued.

In New York and Paris, the custom on this day is to pay visits and make presents; in Paris, the gifts are rich and tasteful.

This day is the Festival of the Circumcision, kept as a holiday throughout Europe, when the bells and carillons of most churches are played at midnight. In the emblem of the Circumcision, two women hold a child on an altar, before a man looking upwards.

Twelfth Day.

The Epiphany (Twelfth Day) is kept to commemorate the manifestations of our Lord both as God and man. To the Epiphany, tradition assigned not only the worship of the Magi, but the baptism of Christ; the miracle of turning water into wine, and that of feeding the 5000, both considered to be typical of spiritual blessing; and the Eastern Christians, until shortly before the age of Chrysostom, when they adopted the custom of the Latin church in this respect, celebrated this day the anniversary of the birth of Christ.

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This festival (Jan. 6, the twelfth day after Christmas) is of remote sacred origin, which the learned Selden thus explains :Our choosing Kings and Queens on Twelfth Night have reference to the Three Kings, the latter supposed to be the Magi, or Wise Men, who followed the guidance of the star, after the Nativity, to Bethlehem; and some fanciful persons have gone so far as to invent names for them, and even describe their persons. "Of these Magi, or Sages (vulgarly called the Three Kings of Colon), the first, named Melchior, an aged man with a long beard, offered gold; the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered frankincense; the third, Baltasar, a black, or Moor, with a large spreading beard, offered myrrh." The Epiphany is represented by the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Christ, and the Three Kings offering.

In this strange conceit of the Wise Men having been Kings, the choice was formerly made by means of a bean found in a piece of divided cake, the person who happened to select it being the King of the Bean. It appears to have been very common in France, and in a poem written about six hundred years since, "Beans for Twelfth Day" is mentioned as one of the Cries of Paris.

Edward I., in 1284, offered at the high altar of Bristol Cathedral, on the Epiphany, one golden florin, frankincense, and myrrh, in commemoration of the offering of the Three Kings. A chafing-dish with burning frankincense was also lit, and the odour snuffed up by the whole family, to keep off disease for the year. with the pan, a taper, and a loaf, against witchcraft. Sometimes twelve fires of straw were made in the fields to burn the old witch.

The master then went round the house

In the wardrobe accounts of Edward II., the King of the bean is mentioned as having received handsome_silver basins and ewers; and presents to the Court minstrels on the Epiphany, in the name of the King of the bean, occur in the accounts of Edward III.

In 1493, Henry VII. kept his Twelfth Night with a grand banquet and wassail; and a pageant of St. George, with a castle; and lords, knights, and esquires danced after the wassail.

We find, from some verses of the time of Queen Elizabeth, that the Twelfth-cake was made with plenty of plums, and with a bean and a pea. Whoever got the former was the King, whoever the latter, the Queen. In one of Elizabeth's progresses, she was entertained on Twelfth Night at Sudley, and in the dialogue then recited occurs :

Melibaus. Cut the cake: who hath the beane shall be King, and where the peaze is, shee shal be Queene.

Nisa. I have the peaze, and must be Queene.

Melibaus. The beane, and King: I must commaunde.

In Herrick's carol, of somewhat later date, the whole festivity is thus described :

Now, now, the mirth comes,

With the cake full of plums,

Where bean's the king of the sport here;

Beside we must know

The pea also

Must revell as queene in the court here.

Begin then to chuse,
This night as ye use,

Who shall for the present delight here;

Be a king by the lot,

And who shall not,

Be Twelfe-day queene for the night here:

Which knowne, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake,

And let not a man be seen here,

Who unurg'd will not drinke,
To the base from the brink,

A health to the king and the queene here.

Next crowne the bowl full
With gentle lambs-wooll;

Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
With store of ale, too;

And thus ye must doe

To make the wassail a swinger,

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