Which knowne let us make

Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then 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 bowle full

With gentle lamb's-wooll;

Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale too;

And thus ye must doe

To make the wassaile a swinger.

Give then to the king

And Queene wassailing;

And though with ale ye be whet here;
Yet part ye from hence

As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here." *

This has generally been supposed to be in honour of the Three Kings of Cologne; but in all probability owes its origin to the Greek and Roman custom of casting lots at their banquets,† for who should be the rex convivii, or, as Horace calls him, the arbiter bibendi. The lucky cast was termed Venus or Basilicus, and whoever threw it, gave

* HERRICK'S HESPERIDES, p. 376, 8vo. London, 1648. See also Speeches to the Queen at Sudley, p. 8-NICHOL'S PROGRESSES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, sig. b. 3.

This however was not always the case; sometimes the symposiarch, or KING, as he was also termed of the compotation, was elected solely by imposition of a coronet of flowers upon his head. Both customs are fully explained by Rosinus, or as I should rather call him Roszfeld, for he was a native of Eisenach, in Germany, and has therefore better claims to the last appellation-"Jam et hoc notandum in cōviviis moris fuisse, ut talis astragalisve sorte missis Symposiarcha, quem alii REGEM, alii magistrum convivii, Varro Modimperatorem appellat, duceretur. Nonnunquam etiam sola corollæ impositione diceretur." Rosini Antiquitates Romanæ, lib. v. cap. xxx. Those who wish for more minute information upon this topic should consult the SYMPOSIACON of Plutarch, lib. i. Quæstio quarta.

laws for the night to his competitors. The unlucky throw was called canicula and chius.*

In some parts of France the Bean-King-le Roi de la Feve-is elected by another process. A child is placed under a table where he can see nothing, and the master of the feast holding up a piece of cake demands, whose portion it is to be. The child replies according to his own fancy, and this game continues 'till the piece, which contains the bean, has been allotted.† A whole court is thus formed, the fool not being forgotten; and every time. either of their majesties is seen to drink, the company are bound to cry out, under pain of a forfeit, "the king (or the queen) drinks."‡

There is little more to be said of this day except that

* "Talorum vero canis damnosus; senio medius et anceps, siquidem modo lucra, nonnunquam damnum afferebat: is vero quaternarium numerum facit, chius verò ternarium. Venus autem, quæ summum continet numerum, multum lucri affert; semperque felici exitu ludum terminavit." ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO-Geniales Dies, lib. iii.

cap. xxi. p. 791.

"Celui, qui est le maistre du banquet, a un grand gasteau, dans lequel y a une febue cachée,-gasteau, dy je, que l'on coupe en autant de parts qu'il y a de gens conviez au festin. Cela fait en met un petit enfant sous la table, lequel le maistre interroge sous ce nom de Phebé, comme si ce fut un qui en l' innocence de son ange representast une forme d'oracle d'Apollon. A cét interrogatoire l'enfant respond d'un mot Latin, Domine; sur cela le maistre l'adjure de dire à qui il distribuera la portion du gasteau qu'il tient en sa main; l'enfant le nomme ainsi qu'il luy tombe en la pensèe, sans acception de la dignité des personnes, jusques à ce que la part est donnée à celuy ou est la febue, et par ce moyen il est reputè Roy de la compagnie, ancores qu'il fust le moindre. Qu'il n'y ait en ceci beaucoup de l'ancien pa. ganisme, je n'en fais doute. Ce que nous representons ce jous là est le feste des Saturnales que l'on celebroit dedans Rome sur la fin du mois de Decembre et conmencement de Janvier." LES RECHERCHES DE LA FRANCE D'ESTIENNE PASQUIER, livre iv. chap. ix. p. 375.

DICTIONAIRE COMIQUE, par P. J. LEROUX, tom. ii. p. 431, Roi de

la Feve.

it is with many the end of Christmas, though amongst the lower classes the festival is generally considered not to terminate till Candlemas. Still it would seem that these twelve days,—the real Christmas according to ecclesiastical computation,—had something in them peculiarly sacred in the estimation of the vulgar, for they were supposed, if rightly observed, to prefigure the weather for the rest of the year."

ST. DISTAFF'S DAY; ROCK DAY—January 7th. St. Distaff is nothing more than a jocular saint of the people's creation, the rock being a distaff that is held in the hand, from which the wool is spun by twirling a ball below. It would appear from Herrick's little poem on the subject that the men now amused themselves with burning the flax and tow of the women, who in requital dashed pails of water over them.

SAINT DISTAFF'S DAY. or the Morrow after Twelfth

"Others observe the twelve days of Christmas, to foreshew the weather in all the twelve succeding moneths respectively." NATURE'S SECRETS, by Thomas Willsford, p. 145. London, 1658.

+ HERRICK'S HESPERIDES, p. 374. I have omitted two lines of the song, as being somewhat two coarse for modern refinement.

PLOUGH MONDAY; the first Monday after Twelfth Night -This day is more peculiarly the ploughman's holyday, for though Tusser says:

66

Plough Monday next, after that Twelfthtide is past,
Bids out with the plough, the worst husband is last,"

yet it is plain from the custom of the Stot Plough,↑ White Plough, or Fond Plough, i.e. Fool Plough, that the days of merry-making are not yet over. It belongs to the olden times of papal supremacy, and is incidentally noticed by John Bale in his never-ending catalogue of the sins pertaining to Catholicism. Never did crusader belabour paynim with more right good will than does our stout Bishop of Ossory belabour the papists, his language being always garnished with the choicest flowers of Billingsgate, and indeed it may be said with an energy beyond Billingsgate.§

* FIVE HUNDRED POINTS OF HUSBANDRY.

A STOT signifies a young bullock or steer. See Grose's Provincial Glossary.

It was called the White Plough "because the gallant young men that compose it appear to be dressed in their shirts, (without coat or waistcoat) upon which great numbers of ribbons, folded into roses, are loosely stitched on. It appears to be a very airy habit at this cold season, but they have on warm waistcoats under it." See Brand, vol. i. p. 280. We have an instance of this name in the EXTRACTS FROM THE CHURCHWARDEN's Accompts of Heybridge. "Item, recey ved of the gadryng of the white plowe.... £0 ls. 3d. NICHOL'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANTIENT MANNERS, &c., p. 169. At page 240 we have a similar item, upon which the editor observes,-“ Plowgathering; but why this was applied to the use of the church I can not say. There is a custom in this neighbourhood" (Wigtoft, Lincolnshire) of the ploughmen parading on Plow-Monday; but what little they collect is applied wholly to feasting themselves."

§ The proofs of this assertion are somewhat too coarse for quotation, but they are to be found in all his pamphlets, and they are pretty numerous, being for the most part published under the assumed name of John Harryson, but sometimes under that of Henrye Stalbrydge.

In speaking of the ceremonies appertaining to this day, it must be recollected that they varied much according to the time and place in which they were enacted. Sometimes the sword dance formed a part of them, and the whole formed a sort of character-pageants, the dancers in strange attire dragging a plough, preceded by music, and accompanied by the Bessy" in the grotesque habit of an old woman, and the fool almost covered with skins, a hairy cap on, and the tail of some animal hanging from his back. The office of one of these characters is to go about rattling a box amongst the spectators of the dance, in which he receives their little donations."*

The passage alluded to in the text, as showing the popish origin of Plough Monday, is in a pamphlet with the odd title of Yet a course at the Romyshe foxe, A DYSCLOSYNGE or opening of the Manne of synne &c. It is as follows." Than ought my Lorde," (Bonner, bishop of London) "also to suffre the same selfe ponnyshment for not goynge abought with saynt Nycolas' clarkes, for not hallowynge pelgrimes to Hierusalem and Rome, for not sensinge the plowghes upō plowgh mondaye, for not rostynge egges in the palme ashes fyre, and for not syngynge Gaudeamus in the worshypp of hoyle Thomas Becket, with such other lyke, which were sumtyme more laudable ceremonyes, than eyther saturdaye processyon or yet holye-water-making upon the sondaye, p. 28, 12mo. Zurich, 1543, the x daye of Decebre. These processionings seem particularly to have excited the wrath of Bale. In another part of the same work (p. 21.) he says, " he hath not gone processyon upon Saturdayes at even-song, a very haynous offence, and worthy to be judged no lesse than hygh treason agaynst your holye father, Agapitus, popett of Rome, whyche fyrst dreamed it out, and enacted it for a laudyble ceremonye of your whoryshe churche, for Christ knoweth it not. But I marvele sore that ye observe yt upon Saturdayes at nyght at evensonge, he comaundynge yt to be observed upon the sondayes in the mornynge betwixt holie-water-makynge and hygh masse."-There were two popes of the name of Agapitus; one, a Roman by birth, who was elected to the papal chair in 535; and a second, who arrived at the same dignity in 946. It is to the first of these that Bale alludes

* BRAND'S POPULAR ANTIQUITIES, vol. i.-p. 278.