NEW YEAR FESTIVAL.

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day before the calends the whole city was in a fever of expectation, and as the evening advanced a jubilee prevailed among all classes, the forum being crowded with people. Presents too of all kinds might be seen passing to and fro in every quarter of the city, some for ornament, and others for the table; some from the rich to the poor, and others from the poor to the rich; some amongst the wealthy classes, and others in like manner among those who had little to give, but who loved the old custom too well to let it pass by unhonoured.

But this merry-making by day would seem to have been little more than a prologue, though a very jovial one, to the revel that followed sunset. Deep in the night all was song and dance, laugh and jest, both in the streets and at home; no one thought of sleeping: or, if any drowsy folks were so inclined to offend against the laws of good fellowship, they were quickly taught that the liberty of rest and quiet was the only liberty not allowed at such a season. The obstreperous revellers would knock long and loudly at their doors; and, the more angry they were, the greater was the delight of their tormentors as well as of the casual passers-by, who thought the joke much too good to be interrupted.

It is probable that these previous, or introductory, festivities were not capable of much augmentation, yet still it was with day-break that the real business of the season may be said to have commenced. The columns and porches of the houses were wreathed with laurel or other green branches, and troops of gay companions might be seen, clad for the most part in purple, and bearing small torches, who accompanied with acclamations some rich man horseback to the shrines and temples. Servants followed and scattered gold amongst the people, so that a constant scramble was kept up, to the great amusement of all parties.

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Having performed the usual sacrifices to the gods, they then went round to the magistrates, and bestowed New Year's gifts upon their servants. But this was all done openly, the money passing through the hands of those in office to their subordinates, and the former kissing the person to whom he presented the intended gift. Others

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imitated this example; gold flowed about freely on all sides; and the revelry in consequence soon reached its height, for at a time like this there were few hoarders amongst any class. So ended the first day.

On the second day the festival assumed another character. There was now no more exchanging of gifts, people for the most part remaining at home, while masters and servants played promiscuously at dice and cockal, all ranks being levelled for the season; and, what perhaps the latter valued as a higher privilege, they might be drunk or lazy without the slightest fear of punishment.

On the third day were the chariot-races, which produced an agreeable variety not only by the courses themselves, but by the disputes to which they gave rise. The hippodrome was crowded, and in it, for the greater convenience of the people, were baths and dice-tables, so that night as well as day was passed in riot.

The fourth day somewhat diminished the excesses of the festival, though even the fifth did not quite put an end to them; people still continued lingering about the flesh-pots of Egypt, and it was only slowly and reluctantly that they at length returned to their usual occupation.

This is the substance of what has been recorded by Libanius; and it is useful to be borne in mind, the New Year festival of the Romans being unquestionably the origin of the same festival among the early Christians. That it was imported into Britain with the new religion seems highly probable; but at the same time we must not forget that the Mithraic worship of the Hindoos had a kindred ceremony in the huli, though at a different season, and that there was an undeniable connection between Druidism and the creed of Mithra. It is possible, therefore, that at least a part of these festal customs may have existed in Britain, together with Druidism, long before the introduction of Christianity among us, though it would be put down by the Romans to the utmost of their power upon their invasion of the island. From political motives they sought to extirpate the Druids, and abolish everything that could serve to keep the people in mind of them; for in the ruling religion they found the most determined obstacle to all their views of conquest.

NEW YEAR'S GIFTS.

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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 cantilenæ and the commessationes-the public carolling and feasting-were 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 stigmatised 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 have known little or nothing.

At one time the custom of New Year's 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. Nichols has given a curious as well as extensive list of gifts presented to Queen Elizabeth, 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."

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

On the eve of Twelfth Day, at the approach of evening, the farmers, their friends, servants, etc., all assemble, and near six o'clock all walk together to a field where wheat is growing. The highest part of the ground is always chosen, where twelve small fires and one large one are lighted up. The attendants, headed by the master of the family, pledge the company in old cider, which circulates freely on these occasions. A circle is formed round the large fire, when a general shout and hallooing takes place, which you hear answered from all the villages and fields near; I have myself counted fifty or sixty fires burning at the same time, which are generally placed on some eminence. This being finished, the company all return to the house, where the goodwife and her maids are preparing supper, which on this occasion is very plentiful. A large cake is always provided, with a hole in the middle. After supper the company all attend the bailiff (or head of the oxen) to the wain-house, where the following ceremonial is ob

served: the master, at the head of his friends, fills the cup (generally strong ale), and stands opposite the first or finest of the oxen (fourteen of which I have often seen tied up in their stalls together), he then pledges him in a curious toast, and the company follow his example with all the other oxen, addressing each by his name. This being over, the large cake is produced with much ceremony, and put on the horn of the first ox, through the hole in the cake; he is then tickled to make him toss his head: if he throws the cake behind, it is the mistress's perquisite; if before (in what is termed the boosy *) the bailiff claims the prize. This ended, the company all return to the house, the doors of which are in the meantime locked, and not opened till some joyous songs are sung. On entering, a scene of mirth and jollity commences, and reigns through the house till a late, or rather an early, hour the next morning. Cards are introduced, and the merry tale goes round.

This in Herefordshire is called wassailing; and the fires, as I shall have occasion to show hereafter, are nothing else than the ancient emblematic worship of the sun, the custom remaining long after the object of it has been very generally forgotten. In the same way the pledging of the animals in ale or cider with strange toasts, and the emptying the cups to each other, are plainly enough borrowed from the libations of the ancients to their rural deities; and we find the same custom at one time prevailed among the Danes.

The apple-trees also come in for their share of honour, as might naturally be expected in a county where cider was in so much request. In some parts of Devonshire it is the custom for the people "to go after supper into the orchard, with a large milk-pail full of cider having roasted apples pressed into it. Out of this each person in company takes what is called a clayen cup-i.e., an earthenware cup, full of liquor, and standing under each of the more fruitful apple

* Boosy,-derived from the Anglo-Saxon Bosg, Bosig, or Bosih,-properly speaking signifies a stall for cows or oxen; but in the northern counties, to which the use of the word is now confined, it is more generally applied to the upper part of the stall where the fodder lies. Such is its limited meaning in the text above, where it is spelt in a somewhat uncommon fashion; I have generally found it written and pronounced, boose.