ancient custom of pledging each other out of the same cup had now given place to the more elegant practice of each person having his cup, and that, "When the steward came in at the doore with the Wassel, he was to crie three tymes, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel; and then the chappell (the chaplain) was to answere with a songe." Under "Twelfth Day," an account will be found of the wassailing ceremonies peculiar to that season. At these times the fare, in other respects, was better than usual, and, in particular, a finer kind of bread was provided, which was, on that account, called Wassel-bread. Lowth, in his Life of William of Wykeham, derives this name from the Westellum or Vessel in which he supposes the bread to have been made. See Milner, ut supra, p. 421. [The earliest instance in which mention is made of Wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry III., whence it appears to have been fine white bread, well baked. See Halliwell's Dictionary, p. 918.]

The subsequent Wassailers' song, on New Year's Eve, as still sung in Gloucestershire, was communicated by Samuel Lysons, Esq. [and has since been given in Dixon's Ancient Poems, 8vo. 1846, p. 199.] The Wassailers bring with them a great bowl, dressed up with garlands and ribbons.

"Wassail! Wassail! all over the town,

Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown:
Our bowl it is made of a maplin tree,
We be good fellows all; I drink to thee.
Here's to our horse, and to his right ear,
God send our maister a happy New Year;
A happy New Year as e'er he did see-
With my Wassailing Bowl I drink to thee.
Here's to our mare, and to her right eye,
God send our mistress a good Christmas pye;
A good Christmas pye as e'er I did see-
With my Wassailing Bowl I drink to thee.
Here's to Fillpail1 and to her long tail,
God send our measter us never may fail
Of a cup of good beer: I pray you draw near,
And our jolly Wassail it's then you shall hear.
Be here any maids? I suppose there be some

Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold stone;
Sing hey O maids, come trole back the pin,
And the fairest maid in the house let us all in.

1 The name of a cow.

Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best :
I hope your soul in heaven will rest:

But if you do bring us a bowl of the small,
Then down fall butler, bowl, and all.'

Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, i. 570, speaking of the parish of Muncaster, under the head of "Ancient Custom," informs us : "On the eve of the New Year the children go from house to house, singing a ditty which craves the bounty they were wont to have in old King Edward's days.' There is no tradition whence this custom rose; the donation is twopence, or a pye at every house. We have to lament that so negligent are the people of the morals of youth, that great part of this annual salutation is obscene, and offensive to chaste ears. It certainly has been derived from the vile orgies of heathens."

SINGEN-EEN, Dr. Jamieson tells us, is the appellation given in the county of Fife to the last night of the year. The designation seems to have originated from the Carols sung on this evening. He adds, "Some of the vulgar believe that the bees may be heard to sing in their hives on Christmas Eve."

Dr. Johnson tells us, in his Journey to the Western Islands, that a gentleman informed him of an odd game. At New Year's Eve, in the hall or castle of the Laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be supposed a very numerous company, one man dresses himself in a cow's hide, upon which other men beat with sticks. He runs with all this noise round the house, which all the company quits in a counterfeited fright; the door is then shut. At New Year's Eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the Hebrides. They are sure soon to recover from their terror enough to solicit for readmission which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are knowing and provident take care to be furnished. The learned traveller tells us that they who played at this odd game gave no account of the origin of it, and that he described it as it might perhaps be used in other places, where the reason of it is not yet forgotten. It is probably a vestige of the Festival of Fools. The "vestiuntur pellibus Pecudum" of Du Cange, and "a man's dressing himself in a cow's hide," both, too, on the 1st of January, are such circumstances as leave no

room for doubt, but that, allowing for the mutilations of time, they are one and the same custom.

[It was formerly the custom in Orkney for large bands of the common class of people to assemble on this eve, and pay a round of visits, singing a song, which commenced as follows: "This night it is guid New'r E'een's night, We're a' here Queen Mary's men ;

And we're come here to crave our right,
And that's before our Lady!"]

In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1794, xii. 458, the minister of Kirkmichael, in the county of Banff, under the head of Superstitions, &c., says: "On the first night of January, they observe, with anxious attention, the disposition of the atmosphere. As it is calm or boisterous; as the wind blows from the south or the north-from the east or the west, they prognosticate the nature of the weather till the conclusion of the year. The first night of the new year, when the wind blows from the west, they call dàr-na-coille, the night of the fecundation of the trees; and from this circumstance has been derived the name of that night in the Gaelic language. Their faith in the above signs is couched in verses, thus translated: "The wind of the south will be productive of heat and fertility; the wind of the west, of milk and fish; the wind from the north, of cold and storm; the wind from the east, of fruit on the trees."

In the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, printed by Richard Pynson, in 1493, among the superstitions then in use at the beginning of the year, the following is mentioned : "Alle that take hede to dysmal dayes, or use nyce observaunces in the newe moone, or in the new yere, as setting of mete or drynke, by nighte on the benche, to fede Alholde or Gobelyn."

[APPLE-HOWLING.-A custom in some counties, on New Year's Eve, of wassailing the orchards, alluded to by Herrick, and not forgotten in Sussex, Devon, and elsewhere. A troop of boys visit the different orchards, and, encircling the appletrees, they repeat the following words :

They then shout in chorus, one of the boys accompanying them on the cow's-horn. During this ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks.

The following indications from the wind, on New Year's Eve, are said to be still observed and believed in the highlands of Scotland:

"If New Year's Eve night-wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;

If west, much milk, and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and storms there will be;

If east, the trees will bear much fruit;

If north-east, flee it man and brute."]

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Froze January, leader of the year,

Minced pies in van, and calf's head in the rear.'

CHURCHILL.

As the vulgar, says Bourne, are always very careful to end the old year well, so they are no less solicitous of making a good beginning of the new one. The old one is ended with a hearty compotation. The new one is opened with the custom of sending presents, which are termed New Year's Gifts, to friends and acquaintance. He resolves both customs into superstitions, as being observed that the succeeding year ought to be prosperous and successful. I find the New Year's Gift thus described in a poem cited in Poole's English Parnassus, in v. January:

"The king of light, father of aged Time,

Hath brought about the day which is the prime
To the slow gliding months, when every eye
Wears symptoms of a sober jollity;

And every hand is ready to present

Some service in a real compliment.

Alluding to an annual insult offered on the 30th of January to the

memory of the unfortunate Charles I.

Whilst some in golden letters write their love,
Some speak affection by a ring or glove,
Or pins and points (for ev'n the peasant may
After his ruder fashion, be as gay

As the brisk courtly Sir), and thinks that he
Cannot, without gross absurdity,

Be this day frugal, and not spare his friend
Some gift, to shew his love finds not an end
With the deceased year."

From the subsequent passage in Bishop Hall's Satires, 1598, it should seem that the usual New Year's Gift of tenantry in the country to their landlords was a capon.

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

With crammed capons every New Yeare's morne,
Or with greene cheeses when his sheepe are shorne,
Or many maunds-full of his mellow fruite," &c.

So, in A Lecture to the People, by Abraham Cowley, 4to, Lond. 1678:

"Ye used in the former days to fall

Prostrate to your landlord in his hall,

When with low legs, and in an humble guise,
Ye offer'd up a capon-sacrifice

Unto his worship, at a New Year's tide."

"He

An orange, stuck with cloves, appears to have been a New Year's Gift. So, Ben Jonson, in his Christmas Masque : has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it." A gilt nutmeg is mentioned in the same piece, and on the same occasion. The use, however, of the orange, stuck with cloves, may be ascertained from the Seconde Booke of Notable Things, by Thomas Lupton, "Wyne wyll be pleasant in taste and savour, if an orenge or a lymon (stickt round about with cloaves) be hanged within the vessel that it touch not the wyne and so the wyne wyll be preserved from foystiness and evyll savor."-Reed's edition of Shakspeare, Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2., The quarto edition of that play, 1598, reads, "A gift nutmeg."

66

In a volume of Miscellanies, in the British Museum library, without title, printed in Queen Anne's time, p. 65, among Merry Observations upon every month and every remarkable day throughout the whole year," under January it is said, "On the first day of this month will be given many