times. Here John held his Christmas feasts in 1213 and 1214; and Henry III. in 1234, 1238, and 1241; and in 1248, whilst Henry himself kept Christmas at Winchester, he commanded his Treasurer "to fill the king's great Hall from Christmas Day to the day of Circumcision [Jan. 1st] with poor people, and feast them there." In the next (Edward I.) reign, in 1277, Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, sat a guest at the Christmas feast in Westminster Hall. In 1290, 1292, and 1303, Edward I. also kept Christmas here; as did Edward II. in 1317, when, however, few nobles were present, "because of discord between them and the king;" but in 1320, he kept Christmas here "with great honour and glorie.'

Edward III. was a right royal provider of Christmas cheer. The art of cookery was now well understood; and the making of blancmanges, tarts, and pies, and the preparing of rich soups of the brawn of capons, were among the cook's duties at this period. French cooks were employed by the nobility; and in the merchants' feast we find jellies of all colours, and in all figures-flowers, trees, beasts, fish, fowl, and fruit. The wines were a collection of spiced liquors;" and cinnamon, grains of paradise, and ginger were in the dessert confections. Edward kept his Christmas in Westminster Hall, in 1358, and had for his guests at the banquet the captive King of France, and David, King of Scotland. And, in 1362, King David and the King of Cyprus met here at two grand entertainments given by King Edward.

Richard II., according to Stow, gave "a house-warming in this Hall," upon the completion of this magnificent edifice, of "profuse hospitality," when he feasted 10,000 persons. We need not wonder, then, that Richard kept 2000 cooks: they were learned in their art, and have left to the world "The Form of Cury; or a Roll of English Cookery, compiled about the year 1390, by the Master Cook of Richard II." In 1399, Richard kept Christmas sitting in the great Hall, in cloth-of-gold, garnished with pearls and precious stones, worth 3000 marks.

In 1478, Edward IV. kept Christmas here with great pomp, wearing his crown, and making costly presents to his household. Richard III., although his reign was short and turbulent, kept two Christmases here in sumptuous state: one in 1488, when, chronicles Philip de Comines, "he was reigning in greater splendour than any king of Eng. land for the last hundred years." Next year he solemnized the festival most splendidly, and so attentive was the king to trivial matters, that we find a warrant for the payment of "200 marks for certain New Year's gifts against the feast of Christmas." The festivities continued till the day of Epiphany, when they terminated with an extraordinary feast; "the king himself," says the historian of Croyland, "wearing his crown, and holding a splendid feast in the great Hall, similar to that of his coronation."

Henry VII., though little inclined to hospitalities, kept the ninth Christmas of his reign with great magnificence in Westminster Hall; feasting the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, and showing them sports on the night following, in the Hall, hung with tapestry;

which sports being ended in the morning, the King, Queen, and Court sat down to a table of stone, to 120 dishes, placed by as many knights and squires, while the Mayor was served with twenty-four dishes, and abundance of wine. And finally, the King and Queene being conveyed with great lights into the palace, the maior and his company, in barges, returned to London by breake of the next day.

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Henry VIII. kept his first and second Christmases at Richmond; and next at Greenwich and Eltham : he had his king for Christmas Day, and king of the Cockneys, with jousts, banquets, masks, and disguisings, gambling, and costly presents: and then few men played at cards but at Christmas. Waits played music and kept watch at night. Edward VI., at Christmas, 1551-2, kept one of the most magnificent revellings on record; but in Queen Mary's short reign the Christmas festivities were neglected. They were, however, renewed by Queen Elizabeth with great pomp, when plays and masques were specially encouraged, and the children of St. Paul's and Westminster often performed before the Queen the play of St. George became very popular; and Shakspeare himself may have acted before Elizabeth at Christmas. In "Father Hubbard's Tale," written in this reign, we find the old Christmas gambols, "carols, wassail-bowls, dancing of sellengers round in moonshine about Maypoles, shoeing the mare, hoodman-blind, and hot cockles.” Throughout the reign of James I., plays and masques continued to be favourite Christmas festivities; and the gambling at Court ran high. These were observed after the accession of Charles I.; but, about 1641, the fanatics attempted to abolish any commemoration of the Nativity of our Saviour: in 1647, the parish officers of St. Margaret's, Westminster, were fined for allowing preaching in their church, and dressing it with rosemary and bays on Christmas Day; and the pious John Evelyn and his wife had to keep their Christmas in secrecy at home. After the Restoration the observance of Christmas was resumed; though Charles II. seems to have cared for little but gambling at the groom-porter's. Pepys describes a flagon of ale and apples drank out of a wood cup as a parting Christmas draught; and Teonge, the ship-chaplain, thus describes a celebration on board his vessel, in 1675 :

Crismas Day we keep thus:-At four in the morning our trumpeters all doe flate their trumpetts, and begin at our Captain's cabin, and thence to all the officers' and gentlemen's cabins; playing a levite at each cabine door, and bidding good morrow, wishing merry Crismas. After they goe to their station, viz. on the poope, and sound three levitts in honour of the morning. At ten we goe to prayers and sermon; text, Zacc. ix. 9. Our captain had all his officers and gentlemen to dinner with him, where we had excellent good fayre: a ribbe of beefe, plumb-puddings, minct pyes, &c., and plenty of good wines of severall sorts.

From this time the Court observances of Christmas declined; but its hospitalities became more generally diffused among the people.

We part from this picture of the Royal Christmas of centuries since as from one of Time's stately pageants, which bring the picturesqueness of the past into vivid contrast with the hospitalities of the present, when

Distance lends enchantment to the view;

reminding us that although Westminster Hall may be void and gloomy on the coming Christmas Day, greater enjoyment than was yielded by the prodigal heaps of luxury once consumed within those walls, is now, with each returning festival, scattered through the length and breadth of the land, and the rational wealth of Christmas is thus brought home to every Englishman's fireside.*

For the celebrations at Colleges and Inns of Court, the Great Halls were specially adapted. In 1561, the Christmas revels at the Inner Temple were very splendid: brawn, mustard, and malinsey were served for breakfast, and the dinner in the Hall was a grand affair; between the two courses, first came the master of the game, then the ranger of the forests; and having blown three blasts of the hunting-horn, they paced three times round the fire, then in the middle of the Hall. Certain courtesies followed, nine or ten couple of hounds were brought in, with a fox and cat, both which were set upon by the dogs, amid blowing of horns, and killed beneath the fire. At the close of the second course, the oldest of the masters of the revels sang a song: after some repose and further revels, supper was served, which being over, the marshal was borne in by four men, on a sort of scaffold, three times round the fire, crying, “A lord," &c., after which he came down, and went to dance. The Lord of Misrule then addressed himself to the banquet, which ended with minstrelsy, mirth, and dancing. The Christmas masque at Gray's Inn, in 1594, was very magnificent. In 1592, the heads of colleges at Cambridge acted a Latin comedy at Christmas before Queen Elizabeth; and in 1607, there was a celebrated exhibition of the Christmas Prince at St. John's College, Oxford.

Christmas Customs.

Mysteries and Mummers.-Sir Walter Scott has well conveyed an idea of the antiquity of this custom in the couplet—

Who lists may in their mumming see

Traces of ancient mystery.

We derive Mumming from the Roman Saturnalia; and its name from the Danish mumme, or Dutch momme, disguise in a mask. Stow tells us that"in the feast of Christmas there was in the King's house, or wheresoever he lodged, a lord of Misrule, or master of merry disports, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. The Mayor of London and either of the sheriffs, had their several lords of misrule." In some great families, and also sometimes at court, this officer was called the Abbot of Misrule; in Scotland he was termed the Abbot of Unreason,

John Evelyn tells us that his good old brother, at Wotton, "more veterum kept a Christmas in which we had not fewer than 300 bumpkins every holiday."

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and prohibited there in 1565, by the Parliament. In the after-dinner gambols of Christmas Day,

Hobby-horse midst loud applause,

Came prancing on his hinder paws,

Then, too, came "the merry maskers in."

Some of these customs remain. In Staffordshire, Cornwall, and Devon, the old spirit of Christmas is kept up more earnestly than in most other counties. In Cornwall they exhibit the old dance of St. George and the Dragon; and in the Staffordshire halls, a band of bedizened actors perform the whole of the ancient drama.

The old religious play of Christmas is thus described;-After the Te Deum, a stable was prepared behind the altar, and the image of the Blessed Virgin placed upon it. A boy from above, before the choir, in the likeness of an angel, announced the Nativity to certain canons and vicars, who entered as shepherds, through the great door of the choir, clothed in tunics and "amesses." Many of the boys in the vaults of the church, like angels, then began the Gloria in Excelsis. The shepherds hearing this, advanced to the stable, singing Peace, goodwill, &c. As soon as they entered it, two priests in dalmatics, who were stationed at the stable, said, "Whom seek you?" The shepherds answered, "Our Saviour Christ." The two priests then opening the curtain exhibited the boy, saying, "The little one is here, as the prophet Isaiah said." Then they showed the mother, saying," Behold the Virgin," &c. Upon these salutations, they bowed, and worshipped the boy, and saluted his mother, and then returned to the choir and sang Aleluia.

Miss Baker describes the Mummers as young men, generally six or eight, who, during the Christmas holidays, commencing on St. Thomas's Eve, go about in the rural districts of Northamptonshire, disguised, personating different characters, and performing a burlesque tragedy at such houses as they think will recompense them for their entertainment. Miss Baker then quotes a mock play, the representation of which she witnessed at the seat of the late Michael Woodhall, Esq., of Thenford; the performers were eight mummers, masked:-Beelzebub, Activity, Age on the Stage, Doctor, Doctor's Horse, Jem Jacks, the Doctor's Man, Fool, and Treasurer. Jack's part is the most descriptive :

In comes I, little Jem Jack,

With my wife and family at my back;
Although my substance is but small,
I'll do my best to please you all.
Roast beef, plum pie-

Who likes it better than I?

I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year,
A pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer.

Christmas Cheer.-First is the Boar's Head, "the rarest dish in all the lande." Till towards the middle of the seventeenth century, it was customary to bring up to gentlemen's tables on Christmas Day, a Boar's Head, with a lemon in its mouth; and although the custom has grown obsolete among the gentry, a relic of it is still observable at the tables of the yeomanry, particularly of the northern parts of the kingdom, to which a pig's head is rarely brought without having its jaws distended by either a lemon or apple. A pageant relic of this custom likewise lingers in one

of the noblest colleges of Oxford. Every Christmas Day, the refectory of Queen's witnesses the bringing up a Boar's Head in great state to the table. Aubrey, in one of his MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum, describes the ceremony in his time:-"The Boar's Head being boiled or roasted, is laid in a great charger, covered with a garland of bay or laurel. When the first course is served up in the refectory, on Christmas Day, the manciple brings the said boar's head from the kitchen up to the high table, accompanied by one of the tabarders, who lays his hand on the charger. The tabardert sings the following song, and, when he comes to the chorus, all the scholars in the refectory join together, and sing

The Boar's Head in hand bear I,
Bedecked with bays and rosemary;
And I pray you masters merry be,
Quotquot estis in convivio.

Chorus. Caput Apri defero,

Reddens laudes Domino.

The Boar's Head, as I understand,
Is the bravest dish in the land,
Being thus bedecked with a gay garland,
Let us servire cantico,

Caput Apri, &c.

Our steward has provided this,

In honour of the King of bliss,

Which on this day to be served is
In Reginensi Atrio.
Caput Apri, &c."

Tradition represents the usage of Queen's as a commemoration of an act of valour ludicrously performed by a student of the College, who, while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover, and reading Aristotle, was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open-mouthed upon the youth, who, however, very courageously, and with a happy presence of mind, is said to have "rammed in the volume, and cried Græcum est," fairly choking the savage with the sage. The Turkey has graced the Christmas table from the date of its introduction into England, about 1524. Tusser mentions this bird as forming part of the Christmas fare of the farmer in 1578. The Wild Turkey of America is of most delicious flavour, similar to that of the English pheasant; and it occasionally makes its appearance in the Christmas Day dinner in England. We read, in a Liverpool journal, of a couple of wild turkeys, shot on the 4th December, in Canada West, full 180 miles beyond Toronto, to which town they were brought and were here purchased by a gentleman, who started the same after

* Manciples, the purveyors general of colleges, were formerly men of so much consequence that, in order to check their ambition, it was expressly ordered by statute, that no manciple should be Principal of a Hall.

† Tabarders were so named from a part of their former dress, called a taberdum, or tabard, a short gown, without sleeves, open at both sides, with a square collar winged at the shoulders.