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of impurities were committed, even at the holy altar. A hymn was sung, commencing—

      Orientis partibus

       Adventavit asinus;

       Pulcher et fortissimus,

       Sarcinis aptissimus.

       Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez;

       Belle bouche rechignez;

       Vous aurez du foin assez.

       Et de l’avoine à planter.

       Lentus erat pedibus,

       Nisi foret baculus,

       Et cum in clunibus

       Pungeret aeuleus.

      and after several verses in this strain, finishing with—

      Hez va! hez va! hez va, hez!

       Bialx Sire Asnes car allez;

       Belle bouche car chantez.

      On the mock mass being completed, the officiating priest turned to the people and said, “Ite missa est,” and brayed three times, to which they responded by crying or braying out, Hinham, Hinham, Hinham. This festival is said to have been in commemoration of the flight to Egypt; but there was one kept at Rouen in honour of Balaam’s ass, where the performers, if they may be so called, walked in procession on Christmas Day, representing the prophets and others, as David, Moses, Balaam, Virgil, &c., just as General Wolfe may now be seen as a party in the Christmas play of St. George and the Dragon. Many attempts were made from the twelfth to the end of the sixteenth century to suppress these licentious abuses of sacred things; and although by that time they were abolished in the churches, yet they were continued by the laity, and our modern mummers probably have their origin from them. A pupil of Gassandi, writing to him as late as 1645, mentions having seen in the church at Aix, the Feast of Innocents (which was of a similar nature) kept by the lay brethren and servants in the church, dressed in ragged sacerdotal ornaments, with books reversed, having large spectacles, with rinds of scooped oranges instead of glasses. Louis the Twelfth, in the early part of the sixteenth century, ordered the representation of the gambol of the ‘Prince des Sots’ and the ‘Mère sotte,’ in which, according to a note to Rabelais, liv. i, c. 2, ed. 1823, Julius the Second and the Court of Rome were represented. This was about the time probably when the principality of Chauny wishing to have some swans (cignes) for the waters ornamenting their town, unluckily wrote to Paris for some cinges (singe being then written with a c), and in due time received a wagonful of apes. They could, therefore, have readily proffered their scribe as the prince des sots, excepting that it takes a wise man to make a good fool. At Angers, there was an old custom called Aquilanneuf, or Guilanleu, where young persons went round to churches and houses on the first of the year, to collect contributions, nominally to purchase wax in honour of the Virgin, or the patron of the church, crying out, Au gui menez Rollet Follet, tiri liri mainte du blanc et point du bis; they had a chief called Roi Follet, and spent their money in feasting and debauchery. An order was made by the synod there, in 1595, which stopped the practice in the churches, but another, in 1668, was necessary to modify and restrain it altogether.

      Feasts of this description were not much in vogue in England, though they were introduced, as we find them prohibited at Lincoln, by Bishop Grosthead, in the time of Henry the Third; but towards the end of the following century they were probably abolished. There are traces of the fool’s dance, where the dancers were clad in fool’s habits, in the reign of Edward the Third. A full account of these strange observances may be found in Ducange, and in Du Tilliot’s Mémoires de la Fête des Foux.

      Christianity was introduced among the Britons at a very early period, but there are no records, that can be considered authentic, of their mode of keeping the feast of the Nativity, though it was doubtless observed as one of their highest festivals. Some of the druidical ceremonies might have been embodied, and even the use of the mysterious misletoe then adopted, the aid of the bards called in, and ale and mead quaffed in abundance. The great and veritable King Arthur, according to the ballad of the “Marriage of Sir Gawaine,”—

      “......a royale Christmasse kept,

       With mirth and princelye cheare;

       To him repaired many a knighte,

       That came both farre and neare.”

      This, though ancient, is certainly of a date long subsequent to the far-famed hero; but it ought to be taken as authority, for, according to the modern progress of antiquarianism, the farther off we live from any given time or history, the more we know about it; the old Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and Mediævals, knowing nothing respecting themselves and their next door neighbours, while we are as familiar as if we had been born and bred with them. By the same rule of remoteness, the modern chronicler, Whistlecraft (Frere), should be taken as authority, for the particulars of the ancient Christmas feast, on which he humorously thus dilates:—

      “They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars,

       By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores,

       Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard,

       Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine,

       Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard,

       Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and, in fine,

       Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies, and custard,

       And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine,

       With mead, and ale, and cider of our own,

       For porter, punch, and negus were not known.”

      After the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, were kept as solemn festivals; the kings living at those times in great state, wearing their crowns, receiving company on a large scale, and treating them with great hospitality. The Wittenagemots were also then held, and important affairs of church and state discussed. Knowing the affection of the early Saxons for their ale and mead, and that quaffing these from the skulls of their enemies, while feasting from the great boar Scrymer, was—notwithstanding the apparent sameness of the amusement—one of their anticipated joys in a future state, we can readily imagine that excesses frequently took place at these festivals. The wassail bowl, of which the skull of an enemy would thus appear to have formed their beau idéal, is said to have been introduced by them. Rowena, the fair daughter of Hengist, presenting the British king, Vortigern, with a bowl of wine, and saluting him with “Lord King Wass-heil;” to which he answered, as he was directed, “Drinc heile,” and saluted her then after his fashion, being much smitten with her charms. The purpose of father and daughter was obtained; the king married the fair cup-bearer, and the Saxons obtained what they required of him. This is said to have been the first wassail in this land; but, as it is evident that the form of salutation was previously known, the custom must have been much older among the Saxons; and, indeed, in one of the histories, a knight, who acts as a sort of interpreter between Rowena and the king, explains it to be an old custom among them. By some accounts, however, the Britons are said themselves to have had their wassail bowl, or lamb’s wool—La Mas Ubhal, or day of apple fruit—as far back as the third century, made of ale, sugar (whatever their sugar was), toast and roasted crabbs, hissing in the bowl; to which, in later times, nutmeg was added. The followers of Odin and Thor drank largely in honour of their pagan deities; and, when converted, still continued their potations, but in honour of the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and Saints; and the early missionaries were obliged to submit to this substitution, being unable to abolish the practice, which afterwards degenerated into drinking healths of other people, to the great detriment of our own. Strange! that even from the earliest ages, the cup-bearer should be one of the principal officers in the royal presence, and that some of the high families take their name from a similar office.

      The feast of Christmas was kept in the same state on the Continent, and the bishops were accustomed to send their eulogies—Visitationis Scripta—on the Nativity, to kings, queens, and others of the blood royal. But it is foreign to the purpose of this work to refer to the customs abroad, unless it may be necessary to do so slightly, for the purpose of illustration. It may be mentioned, however, that at this festival,

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