Cambridge, it was solemnly debated betwixt the Heads to debarre young schollers of that liberty allowed them in Christmas, as inconsistent with the Discipline of Students. But some grave Governors mentioned the good use thereof, because thereby, in twelve days, they more discover the dispositions of Scholars than in twelve moneths before."

"If we compare," says Prynne in the Histrio-Mastix, "our Bacchanalian Christmasses and New Years Tides with these Saturnalia and Feasts of Janus, we shall finde such near affinitye betweene them both in regard of time (they being both in the end of December and on the first of January) and in their manner of solemnizing (both of them being spent in revelling, epicurisme, wantonesse, idlenesse, dancing, drinking, Stage-plaies, Masques, and carnall Pompe and Jollity), that wee must needes conclude the one to be but the very ape or issue of the other. Hence Polydor Virgil affirmes in expresse tearmes that our Christmas Lords of Misrule (which custom, saith he, is chiefly observed in England), together with dancing, Masques, Mummeries, Stage-playes, and such other Christmas disorders now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian Festivals; which (concludes he) should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them."

In Scotland, where the Reformation took a more severe and gloomy turn than in England, the Abbot of Unreason, as he was called, and other festive characters, were thought worthy of suppression by the Legislature as early as 1555.* This Abbot of Misrule, or Unreason, seems to have borne much resemblance to the Abbas Stultorum, who presided over the Feast of Fools in France. At Rodez, the capital of the Province of Rovergne in France, they had an Abbé de la Malgouverné, corresponding exactly with our Abbot of Misrule.

A note in Warton's History of English Poetry recites that in the French towns there was L'Abbe de Liesse, who in many towns was elected from the burgesses by the Magistrates, and was the director of all their public shows. Among his numerous mock officers were a herald, and a Maitre d'Hotel. In the city of Auxerre he was especially concerned to superintend the play which was annually acted on Quinquagesima Sunday.

In a very rare tract entitled The Vindication of Christmas, or his Twelve yeares Observations upon the Times (1653), Old Christmas is introduced as describing the former annual festivities of the season thus: "After dinner we arose from the Boord and sate by the Fire, where the Harth was imbrodered all over with roasted Apples, piping hot, expecting a Bole of Ale for a cooler, which immediately was transformed into Lamb-wool. After which we discoursed merily, without either prophaness or obscenity; some went to Cards; others sang Carols and pleasant Songs (suitable to the times); then the poor labouring Hinds and Maid-servants, with the Plow-boys, went nimbly

Jamieson says the prohibition does not appear to have been the effect of the Protestant Doctrine, for as yet the Reformation was strenuously opposed by the Court. He thinks it was most probably owing to the disorders carried on, both in town and country, under the pretence of innocent recreation.

to dancing; the poor toyling wretches being glad of my Company, because they had little or no sport at all till I came amongst them; and therefore they skipped and leaped for joy, singing a Carol to the tune of Hey

'Let's dance and sing, and make good cheer,

For Christmass comes but once a year.'

"Thus at active Games and Gambols of Hot-cockles, Shooing the Wild Mare, and the like harmless sports, some part of the tedious Night was spent, and early in the morning I took my leave of them, promising they should have my presence again the next 25th of December."

We have another account of the Christmas Gambols in Batt upon Batt (1694)

"O mortal Man! is eating all you do

At Christ-Tide? or the making Sing-Songs? No:
Our Batt can dance, play at high finks with Dice,
At any primitive, orthodoxal Vice.

Shooing the wild Mare, tumbling the young Wenches,
Drinking all Night, and sleeping on the Benches.
Shew me a man can shuffle fair and cut,
Yet always have three Trays in hand at Putt:
Shew me a man can turn up Noddy still,
And deal himself three Fives too when he will:
Conclude with one and thirty, and a Pair,
Never fail Ten in stock, and yet play fair,
If Batt be not that Wight, I lose my aim."

Another enumeration of the festive sports of this season occurs in a poem entitled Christmas

"Young Men and Maidens, now

At Feed the Dove (with laurel leaf in mouth)
Or Blindman's Buff, or Hunt the Slipper play,
Replete with glee. Some, haply, Cards adopt;
Or if to Forfeits they the Sport confine,
The happy Folk, adjacent to the fire,
Their Stations take; excepting one alone
(Sometimes the social Mistress of the house)
Who sits within the centre of the room,
To cry the pawns; much is the laughter, now,
Of such as can't the Christmas Catch repeat,
And who, perchance, are sentenc'd to salute
The jetty beauties of the chimney-back,
Or Lady's shoe: others, more lucky far,
By hap or favour, meet a sweeter doom,
And on each fair-one's lovely lips imprint
The ardent kiss."

Among the Garrick Plays in the British Museum is The Christmas Ordinary, a private Show; wherein is expressed the jovial Freedom of that Festival: as it was acted at a Gentelman's House among other Revels. By W. R., Master of Arts, 4to. Lond. 1682.

In Niobe, or Age of Teares (1611), Stafforde refers to some deluded men as making him "call to mind an old Christmas Gambole, contrived with a Thred, which being fastned to some Beame, hath at the nether end of it a sticke, at the one end of which is tied a Candle, and at the other end an Apple; so that when a Man comes to bite at the Apple, the Candle burnes his nose. The Application is as easy as the Trick common."

FOOL PLOUGH AND SWORD DANCE.

In Dives and Pauper (1493), among superstitions censured at the beginning of the year we find "ledyng of the PLOUGHE aboute the Fire as for gode begynnyng of the yere that they shulde fare the better alle the yere followyng."

And in Bale's Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe (1542), the author, enumerating "auncyent Rytes & lawdable Ceremonyes of Holy Churche" then apparently laid aside, protests "than ought my Lorde (Bonner) to suffre the same selfe ponnyshment for not sensing the PLOWGHESS, upon Plowgh Mondaye."

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St Margaret's, Westminster, under the year 1494, is the following

"

"Item of the Brotherhood of Rynsyvale for the Plow-gere £.0 4s. od ‚” And in those of Heybridge near Malden, Essex, in 1522, occurs: "Item receyved of the gadryng of the White Plowe Lo. Is. 3d. To which this note is affixed: "Q. does this mean Plough Monday; on which the Country People come and dance and make a gathering as on May-Day?"

So, among the extracts from the Churchwardens' Accounts of Wigtoft, Lincolnshire, 1575, we have

od."

Receid of Wyll Clarke & John Waytt, of ye plougadrin £.1. os.

With this note: “Plow-gathering; but why this was applied to the use of the Church, I cannot say. There is a custom in this neighbourhood of the ploughmen parading on Plow-Monday; but what little they collect is applied wholly to feasting themselves. They put themselves in grotesque habits, with ribbands," &c., &c.

In Stukely's Itinerary is the following Article from "A Boake of the Stuffe in the Cheyrche of Holbeche sowlde by Chyrche Wardyns of the same according to the Injunctyons of the Kynges Majyste "Item, to Wm. Davy the Sygne whereon the Plowghe did stond xvjd."

"

According to Blomefield, in many churches in Norfolk they used to have a light before some image, called the PLOW-LIGHT, maintained by old and young husbandmen; who on Plough Monday had a feast and went about with a plough and some dancers to support it.

In the North of England there is a custom used at or about this time, which, as will be seen, was anciently observed also in the beginning of Lent. The FOOL PLOUGH goes about: a pageant consisting of a number of sword dancers dragging a plough, with music; one, sometimes two, in very strange attire; the Bessy, in the grotesque habit of an old woman, and the Fool, almost covered with skins, a hairy cap on, and the tail of some animal hanging from his back.

S

The office of one of these characters, in which he is very assiduous, is to go about rattling a box amongst the spectators of the dance, in which he receives their little donations.

This pageant, or dance as used at present, seems a composition made up of the gleaning of several obsolete customs, followed anciently, here and elsewhere, on this and the like festive occasions.

It is also called the fond [or fool] Plough, otherwise the white Plough, so denominated because the gallant young men that compose it appear to be dressed in their shirts (without coat or waistcoat) upon which great numbers of ribbands folded into roses are loosely stitched on. It appears to be a very airy habit at this cold season, but they have on warm waistcoats under it. Hutchinson in his History of Northumberland, speaking of the dress of the sword-dancers at Christmas, adds: Others, in the same kind of gay attire, draw about a Plough, called the Stot Plough, and when they receive the gift, make the exclamation Largess! But, if not requited at any house for their appearance, they draw the Plough through the Pavement and raise the ground of the front in furrows. I have seen twenty men in the yoke of one Plough." He concludes thus: "The Stotplough has been conceived by some to have no other derivation than a mere rural triumph, the plough having ceased from its labour."

The Fool-Plough upon the Continent appears to have been used after the solemn service of Ash Wednesday was over. Hospinian gives a very particular account of it from Naogeorgus, and explains the origin of its name.

In the British Apollo (1710), to the inquiry why the first Monday after Twelfth Day is called Plough Monday, answer is given: "Plough Monday is a country phrase, and only used by peasants, because they generally used to meet together at some neighbourhood over a cup of ale, and feast themselves, as well to wish themselves a plentiful Harvest from the great Corn sown (as they call Wheat and Rye) as also to wish a God-speed to the Plough as soon as they begin to break the ground to sow Barley and other Corn, which they at that time make a Holiday to themselves as a finishing stroke after Christmas, which is their Master's holyday time, as Prentices in places make it the same, appropriated by consent to revel amongst themselves."

many

Pegge (Gentleman's Magazine for December 1762) informs us that Plough-Monday, the Monday after Twelfth Day, is when the labour of the Plough and the other rustic toils begin. "On this day the young men yoke themselves and araw a PLOUGH about with Musick, and one or two persons, in antic dresses, like Jack-Puddings, go, from house to house, to gather money to drink. If you refuse them they plough up your dunghill. We call them here [in Derbyshire?] the Plough Bullocks."

Macaulay says: "On Plow-Monday I have taken notice of an

A stot signifies a young bullock or steer. Words.

See Ray's North Country

annual display of MORRIS-DANCERS at Claybrook, who come from the neighbouring villages of Sapcote and Sharnford."

In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the Account of the Ploughman's Feast-Days are the following lines

"PLOUGH MUNDAY.

"Plough Munday, next after that Twelf-tide is past,
Bids out with the Plough, the worst Husband is last :

If Plowman get hatchet, or whip to the skreene,
Maids loseth their Cocke, if no water be seen;"

which are thus explained in Tusser Redivivus: "After Christmas which, formerly during the Twelve Days was a time of very little work), every Gentleman feasted the Farmers, and every Farmer their Servants and Task Men. Plough Monday puts them in mind of their business. In the morning the Men and Maid-servants strive who shall shew their diligence in rising earliest. If the Ploughman can get his Whip, his Plough-staff, Hatchet, or any thing that he wants in the Field, by the Fire-side, before the Maid hath got her Kettle on, then the Maid loseth her Shrove-tide Cock, and it wholly belongs to the Men. Thus did our Forefathers strive to allure youth to their duty, and provided them innocent_mirth as well as labour. On this Plough Monday they have a good Supper and some strong Drink."

The Monday after Twelfth Day, according to Coles, was anciently called Plough Monday, when our Northern ploughmen begged plough-money to drink. He adds: "In some places if the Ploughman (after that day's work) come with his Whip to the Kitchen Hatch and cry "Cock in Pot" before the Maid cry 66 Cock on the dunghill," he gains a Cock for Shrove Tuesday. Coles tells us also of an old custom, in some places, of farmers giving sharping corn to their smiths at Christmas, for sharping plough irons, &c.

In a marginal note to A Briefe Relation of the Gleanings of the Idiotismes and Absurdities of Miles Corbet Esquire, Councellor at Law, Recorder and Burgesse for Great Yarmouth: by Antho. Roiley (1646), we are told that the Monday after Twelfth Day is called "Plowlick Monday by the Husbandmen in Norfolk, because on that day they doe first begin to plough."

Among the ancients (we read in Sheridan's Persius) the Compitalia were feasts instituted, some say, by Tarquinius Priscus in the month of January, and celebrated by servants alone, when their ploughing was over.

Christie, in his Inquiry into the ancient Greek Game, supposed to have been invented by Palamedes (1801), says: "The new year of the Persians was opened with agricultural ceremonies (as is also the case with the Chinese at the present day)."

Again: "The Athenians (says Plutarch) celebrate three sacred ploughings." "The Chinese ploughing took place on the first day of their (solar) new year, (the same ceremony is practised in Tunquin, Cochin-China, and Siam), which, however, happened at an earlier season than with the Greeks, viz., when the sun entered the 15th degree of Aquarius; but the difference of season need not be objected to, since we have observed that similar rites were adopted by the