their views of conquest. For a long time it kept up the spirit of the people, who like the followers of Mahomet, the soldiers of the Crusade, or the fanatics of Cromwell, felt convinced that they were fighting not only their own battles, but the battles of the deity.

Whencesoever derived, these customs gave great offence to the early Fathers of the Church as Christianity became more firmly established and they felt themselves in a position to dictate. But though to make the heathens abandon their Gods was comparatively speaking an easy matter, it seems to have been a very different thing when in the sour and jealous spirit of fanaticism they took up arms against the popular amusements. They then found the people much more zealous for their pleasures than they had been for their deities. They persisted however; denouncing all such observances in their sermons, and prohibiting them by their canons, under penalty of expulsion from the bosom of the Church. With more zeal than discretion they forbade the decorating of houses with laurel,* and made it a capital sin for men to masquerade in female attire, or for women to assume the dress of men. Nay, even the cantilena and the commessationes-the public carolling and feastingwere put under the ban ecclesiastic; and to make their point yet more sure, the zealous fathers ordained the observance of a fast. For the same reason the strenæ, or new-year's gifts, were forbidden by the Council of Auxerre in 614, which stigmatized them as diabolical; but though these prohibitions do not appear to have done much good at the time, yet they have taught us many customs, of which we otherwise should most probably

*"Ex Græcorum Synodis Martinus Bracharen. collect. c. 73, recitat vetitum esse Christianis ea Kalendaru die viridi lauro vel aliis virentibus arboru ramis ornare domos." MARTYROLOGIUM ROMANUM. Kalendis Januarii.

have known little or nothing. Thus the canon which forbids the profane GAME OF FAWN (cervulus or cervula) and the no less wicked CALF-GAME (vetula) punishing the offenders with a three years' penance, conveys a valuable hint to antiquarians, and hence we learn that it was the Roman practice on the ides of January to assume as far as possible the shapes of various animals, and run about the streets in wild imitation of their voice and action,* In this custom, moreover, we trace the evident origin of the hobby and the dragon that used at one time to figure in our own sports at certain seasons.

It does not, however, appear that these efforts of the ancient fathers of the Church, to substitute fasting for feasting, and mortification for merriment, were very generally successful. The old customs were too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people to be eradicated by sermons or synods, and the most they could do was to give something of a Christian colour to things that were still essentially Pagan. We shall have occasion hereafter to observe how much succeeding Popes improved upon this plan.†

* CONCILIUM TOLETANUM IV. Canon 10. Isidore tells us that to put a stop to these amusements the Church ordered a general fast; "Proinde ergo sancti patres, considerantes maximam partem generis humani eodem die hujusmodi sacrilegiis ac luxuriis insidere, statuerunt in universo mundo per omnes ecclesias publicum jejunium." ISIDORI OPERA, De Officiis Eccles., lib. 1., cap. xl.

There is a curious passage to this effect in Hospinian. "Omnes enim illæ superstitiones ethnicæ, quas lib. de Festis Ethnicorum in Calendis Januar. commemoravimus, et olim hoc die sunt observatæ a Christianis, et etiamnum hodie pertinaciter observantur a nobis. Discurrunt namque noctu tam senes quam juvenes promiscui sexus cantantes præ foribus divitum quibus felicem annum cantando precantur et optant. Hoc autem quum noctu fiat nemini dubium esse debet quin sub hoc prætextu multa obscæna et turpia perpetrantur simul. Eade nocte plurimi mensam varii generis epulis parant et ornant, putantes se per totum anni spatium tale ciborum abundantia habituros.

At one time the custom of New Years' gifts prevailed amongst all classes in this country, even the sovereigns both giving and receiving them, though of course their practice was more generally in the latter way. The virgin Queen was more especially noted, like Cassius, for having an itching palm," that loved to be tickled with gold, or gold's worth, come from what quarter it might; and Nichols has given a curious as well as extensive list of them,* from which it may be as well to transcribe a few items only by way of specimen-" Money (sometimes to the amount of twenty pounds) diamonds, pearls, petticoats, smocks, garters, fans, pots of preserves, marchpanes, and sweet waters. The loyal donors of these commodities were archbishops, bishops, peers, peeresses, doctors, cooks, and even dustmen, a gentleman of the last named occupation having presented her Majesty with "two boltes of Cambrick." The practice may be traced back to the time of Henry the Fourth, but the only remains now at court are that "the two chaplains in waiting on New Year's Day have each a crown piece laid under their plates at dinner.Ӡ

In Westmoreland and Cumberland a singular trace of the olden time is yet found to linger. In these counties

Alii poculum plenum aqua vel vino in mensa ponunt, quod, si exundet et ultra margines poculi intumescat, fertilitatem; sin minus caritatem ejus anni ominantur; quam consuetudinem D. Hieronymus, lib. 18 in Isaiam, indicat veterem fuisse idolatriam apud Ethnicos in cunctis urbibus, maximè verò in Egypto et Alexandria. Totus die, per omnes urbes, vicos, et compita, compotationibus, commessationibusque, non solum in publicis, sed etiam privatis ædibus consumiturs non sine choreis saltationibusque impudentissimis." Hospinian De FESTIS CHRISTIANORUM, p. 32; folio; Tiguri. 1612.

* PROGRESSES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, p. XXVI. of Preface. vol. 1, 4to., Lond. 1788.

Idem., p. xxviii.

the first of January is by some odd process converted into a saint, and termed Saint New Year's Day, much, we may suppose, upon the same principle that the journeymen in other places have their Saint Monday. Early in the morning the dregs of the people assemble with stangs, that is, poles,-and baskets, and whatever unlucky inhabitant or stranger chances to cross their way, he is compelled to do homage to their saint, or submit to the penalty which old custom has long sanctioned in all such cases of disobedience. If the recusant be a man, he is mounted astride the pole; if a woman, she is placed in the basket; and either offender is in this state carried upon the shoulders of the merry mob to the nearest public house, where sixpence is exacted as the price of liberty. With laudable impartiality the like penance is inflicted upon all ranks and conditions, the squire or the parson being no more exempted from it than their own servants, and in the same spirit of equality the revellers will allow of no working on their saint's day; the rest of the world must be as idle and as jovial as themselves.*

The uncertainty of the day to which some feasts belong, the date of their celebration having varied probably with time and place, makes it often impossible to assign them an appropriate niche in our calendar for discussion. Such is the case with the FEAST OF FOOLS, a custom of Eastern origin,† and one on no account to be confounded with See a grave, prosy account of this custom in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE-Supplement to the year 1791, vol. lxi. p. 1169.

*

"Videtur sane ex Episcoporum, vel potius clericorum, lascivia a Græcis originem cæpisse." Du CANGE, sub voce Kalendæ. And he goes on to give an extract from the eighth Synod, which certainly seems to prove the correctness of his assertion. He might however have found the fact yet more distinctly stated by Cedrenus, who attributes to Theophylact, Patriarch of Constantinople in the tenth century, the invention if not exactly of the Feast of Fools, at least of

ALL FOOLS' DAY, to which so far as mere sound goes it bears so great a similarity. It was a favourite festival in France at one time, but more particularly in the capital, at Rheims, and at Dijon; and was nothing more than another form of those mummeries and masqueradings, which either grew directly out of the Pagan festivities, or were substituted for them by the Christian Church as the best way of reconciling its followers to the austerities of the new faith.

It is not a little remarkable that the lower orders of the priesthood should have clung to this festival with even more fondness than the laity, in defiance of the efforts of the superior clergy to put it down; and inIdeed it would seem in some measure to have been peculiar to them, for amongst other names it was also called the FEAST OF SUBDEACONS.* Nor was the time of

the similar absurdities from which it sprang. There can be the less doubt of this truth, as the poor patriarch was punished for his ingenuity by being dashed against a wall by his horse which produced hæmorrhage, and in the course of two years occasioned his death. It is amusing to see how craftily Cedrenus insinuates by a side-wind what he was too prudent to state in so many words. After having detailed all the enormities of Theophylact he concludes by saying; “ὅντως δὲ βιοτεύων, καταστρέφει τὸν βίον ἐν τῷ ἀτάκτως ἱππάζεσθαι, ἔν τίνι τείχει των παραθαλασσίων θραυσθεὶς, καὶ αἷμα ἀναγαγὼν διὰ τοῦ στόματος. Επὶ δύο δ ̓ ἔτη νοσηλθυόμενος καὶ ὑδέρω περιπεσὼν ἐτελετησε.” -"Living in this fashion he ended his life by furious riding, being dashed against a certain sea-wall, which caused him to spit blood. After two years sickness anasarca supervened, and he died." HISTORIARUM COMPEND: a Georgio Cedreno, Tom. ii. p. 639.

*This fact is recorded by Du Cange; though it is scarcely possible to agree with him in his notion that it was so called from the deacons being saturi, or saoul, i.e. gorged. His words are " Ejusmodi festivitati FESTI HYPODIACONORUM nomen inditum, non quòd revera soli subdiaconi has scelestas choreas ducerent, sed quòd hac joculari appellatione nostri indicare voluerint festivitatem hanc fuisse ebriorem clericorum seu diaconorum; enim evincit id vox Soudiacres, id est, ad literam, saturi diaconi, quasi diacres saouls." See DUCANGE, sub voce KALENDÆ.