"A circular

The John Bull newspaper of Jan. 1, 1837, says, from the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was received at the different embassies on Saturday, requesting their excellencies and chargés d'affaires to discontinue the customary Christmas-boxes to the messengers of the Foreign Department, domestic servants of Viscount Palmerston, foreign postmen, &c., much to the chagrin of the latter."

HECA

BLIGTH

THE LORD OF MISRULE.1

WARTON,2 in his History of English Poetry, tells us, that in an original draught of the Statutes of Trinity College at Cambridge, founded in 1546, one of the chapters is entitled, "De Præfecto Ludorum qui Imperator dicitur," under whose direction and authority Latin comedies and tragedies were to be exhibited in the Hall at Christmas; as also Sex Spectacula, or as many dialogues. With regard to the peculiar business and office of the Imperator, it is ordered, that one of the Masters of Arts shall be placed over the juniors every Christmas, for ecclesiasticarum scriptores et Conciliorum Observatores. Nam Concil. Constantinopolitanum, vi. Can. 79, inter alia, hæc habet: 'Quando aliqui post Diem Natalis Christi Dei nostri reperiuntur coquentes similam ut se hac mutuo donantes prætextu scil. honoris secundinarum impollutæ Virginis Matris, statuimus ut deinceps nihil tale fiat a fidelibus.' Simila ergo mutuum fuit donum natalitium in recordationem (sic enim colligo ex dicto canone) nati Messiæ, et honorem beatæ Matris Virginis; cui dono postmodum alia sine discrimine fuerunt addita, retento eodem fine ac respectu." 1 [In former editions of this work a passage from the Taming of the Shrew has been inserted here, as if it had reference to the Lord of Misrule; but, in reality, it is merely the exclamation of Christopher Sly when he at length bends to his position, and accepts the belief that he is really "a lord, and not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly."]

2 Hist. Eng. Poet. ii. 378. It appears from the Status Scholæ Etonensis, 1560, that the Eton scholars used to act plays in the Christmas holidays. "Decembri mense. Circiter Festum D. Andreæ Ludi Magister eligere solet pro suo arbitrio scænicas fabulas optimas et quam accommodatissimas, quas pueri feriis natalitiis subsequentibus non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante, publice aliquando peragant. Histrionum levis ars est: ad actionem tamen oratorum et gestum motumve corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglicis sermone contextas fabulas quas habeant acumen et leporem."

the regulation of their games and diversions at that season of festivity. His sovereignty is to last during the twelve days of Christmas; and he is to exercise the same power on Candlemas Day. His fee is forty shillings.

İn an audit-book of Trinity College in Oxford, for the year 1559, Warton found a disbursement "pro prandio Principis Natalicii." A Christmas Prince, or Lord of Misrule, he adds, corresponding to the Imperator at Cambridge, was a common temporary magistrate in the colleges at Oxford. Wood, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, ii. 239, speaking of a manuscript which, among other things, contains the Description of the Christmas Prince of St. John's College, whom the juniors have annually for the most part elected from the first foundation of the college, says: "The custom was not only observed in that college, but in several other houses, particularly in Merton College, where, from the first foundation, the fellows annually elected, about St. Edmund's Day, in November, a Christmas Lord, or Lord of Misrule, styled in the registers Rex Fabarum and Rex Regni Fabarum; which custom continued till the reformation of religion, and then, that producing Puritanism, and Puritanism Presbytery, the profession of it looked upon such laudable and ingenious customs as Popish, diabolical, and antichristian." Thus far Wood, who gives us also the titles (ludicrous enough) assumed by Thomas Tooker when he was elected Prince, which will not be thought foreign to our purpose. "The most magnificent and renowned Thomas, by the favour of Fortune, Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord of St. John's, High Regent of the Hall, Duke of St. Giles's, Marquis of Magdalen's, Landgrave of the Grove, Count Palatine of the Cloysters, Chief Bailiff of Beaumont, High Ruler of Rome, (Rome is a piece of land, so called, near to the end of the walk called Non Ultra, on the North side of Oxon), Master of the Manor of Walton, Governor of Gloucester Green, sole Commander of all Titles, Tournaments, and Triumphs, Superintendant in all Solemnities whatever." I fear the humour with which this bombast is so parsimoniously seasoned can only be relished by an Oxonian, well acquainted with the topography of that place and it senvirons. See similar titles in the Gesta Greyorum.

When the Societies of the Law," says Warton, "performed these shows within their own respective refectories, at Christ

mas, or any other festival, a Christmas Prince or Revel Master was constantly appointed. At a Christmas celebrated in the Hall of the Middle Temple in the year 1635, the jurisdiction, privileges, and parade of this mock monarch are thus circumstantially described. He was attended by his lord keeper, lord treasurer, with eight white staves, a captain of his band of pensioners, and of his guard; and with two chaplains, who were so seriously impressed with an idea of his regal dignity, that when they preached before him on the preceding Sunday in the Temple Church, on ascending the pulpit they saluted him with three low bows. He dined both in the Hall and in his privy chamber, under a cloth of estate. The poleaxes for his gentlemen pensioners were borrowed of Lord Salisbury. Lord Holland, his temporary justice in eyre, supplied him with venison, on demand; and the Lord Mayor and sheriffs of London, with wine. On Twelfth Day, at going to church, he received many petitions, which he gave to his master of requests and, like other kings, he had a favourite, whom with others, gentlemen of high quality, he knighted at returning from church. His expenses, all from his own purse, amounted to two thousand pounds." After he was deposed, the king knighted him at Whitehall.

George Ferrers of Lincoln's Inn was Lord of Misrule or the merry Disports for twelve days, when King Edward VI. kept his Christmas with open house at Greenwich, 1553, to his Majesty's great delight in the diversion. See Stow's Chron. by Howes, 1631, p. 608, and Holinsh. Chr. iii. 1067.

Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, p. 156, speaking of the fooleries of the Lord of Misrule in the Inner Temple on St. Stephen's Day, says: "Supper ended, the constable-marshal presented himself with drums afore him, mounted upon a scaffold borne by four men, and goeth three times round about the harthe, crying out aloud, A lord, a lord,' &c. Then he descendeth, and goeth to dance, &c.; and after he calleth his court, every one by name, e. g. Sir Randle Raçkabite, of Raskall Hall, in the county of Rake-Hell, &c. &c. This done, the Lord of Misrule addresseth himself to the banquet; which ended with some minstralsye, mirth, and dancing, every man departeth to rest."

In the feast of Christmas, says Stow, in his Survey, there was in the king's house, 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.2 The Mayor of London and either of the sheriffs had their several Lords of Misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastime to delight the beholders. These Lords, beginning their rule at Allhallond Eve, continued the same till the morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas Day: in which space there were fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters, nayles, and points, in every house, more for pastimes than for gaine.

The following curious passage is from Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More, p. 3: "He was, by his father's procurement, received into the house of the right reverend, wise, and learned prelate Cardinall Mourton, where, thoughe hee was yonge of yeares, yet would he at Christmas tyd sodenly sometymes stepp in among the players, and never studinge for the matter, make a parte of his owne there presently amonge them, which made the lookers-on more sport than all the players besid. In whose witt and towardnesse the cardinall much delightinge, would often say of him unto the nobles that divers tymes dyned with him, 'This child here wayting at the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man.'

Langley's Translation of Polydore Vergil, f. 102, mentions "the Christemass Lordes, that be commonly made at the nativitee of our Lord, to whom all the householde and familie, with the master himself, must be obedient, began of the equabilitie that the servauntes had with their masters in Saturnus feastes that were called Saturnalia: wherin the servauntes have like autorité with their masters duryng the tyme of the sayd feastes." Hinde, in his Life of John Bruen, an eminent Puritan, born about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign,

' In a Royal Household Account, communicated by Craven Ord, Esq., of the Exchequer, I find the following article: "From 16 to 18 Nov., 8 Hen. VII. Item, to Walter Alwyn for the revells at Christenmes, xiijli. vjs. viijd.” 2 In the Northumberland Household Book, p. 344, we read: "Item, my Lord useth and accustomyth to gyf yerely when his Lordship is home, ed hath an Abbot of Miserewll in Christynmas in his Lordschippis hous won New-yers-day in rewarde-xxs." See also the Notes to the same work, p. 441.

and who died in 1625, p. 86, censures those gentlemen "who had much rather spend much of their estate in maintaining idle and base persons to serve their own lustes and satisfie the humour of a rude and profane people, as many do their hors riders, falkeners, huntsmen, Lords of Misrule, pipers and minstrels, rather to lead them and their followers (both in their publike assemblies and private families) a dance about the calfe, than such a dance as David danced before the arke, with spiritual rejoicing in God's mercies," &c. Sir Thomas Urquhart, in his most curious work entitled the Discovery of a most exquisite Jewel found in the Kennel of Worcester streets, the day after the fight, 1651, p. 238, says, "They may be said to use their king as about Christmas we use to do the King of Misrule; whom we invest with that title to no other end but to countenance the Bacchanalian rites and preposterous disorders of the family where he is installed."

Christmas, says Selden, in his Table Talk, succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time, the same number of holy days: then the master waited upon the servant like the Lord of Misrule. In Stow's Chronicle, by Howes, 1631, p. 608, we read that Serjeant Vawce was Lord of Misrule to John Mainard, one of the Sheriffs of London in 1553.

The keeping a fool in a family to entertain them with his several pleasantries was anciently very common. Brand shows, in his History of Newcastle, that the Mayor of that town used to keep his fool. The following passage occurs in Lodge's Wits Miserie, 1596, p. 73: "He is like Captain Cloux, Foole of Lyons, that would needs die of the sullens, because his master would entertaine a new foole besides himself."

The following is too curious an account of the Lord of Misrule to be omitted here: it is extracted from a most rare book, entitled the Anatomie of Abuses, by Phillip Stubs, 1585, f. 92. Our author has been already noticed in the account of May customs as a rigid Puritan.- "Firste, all the wilde heades of the parishe, conventynge together, chuse them a grand capitaine (of mischeef) whom they innoble with the title of my Lorde of Misserule, and hym they crown with great solemnitie, and adopt for their kyng. This kyng anoynted,

'Dugdale, in the Account of the grand Christmasses held in Lincolne's Inn, in his Orig. Juridic. p. 347, mentions the choosing" a king on Christmas Day."