upon an embroidered cushion, which rested upon another of pink satin; this was supposed to be the manger where he was born. Behind the image two paper bulls' heads looked unutterable things. On the right was the virgin Mary, and on the left one of the eastern Magi. Paper clouds, in which the paper heads of numberless cherubs appeared, enveloped the whole; while from a pasteboard cottage stalked a wooden monk, with dogs, and sheep, and camels; goats, lions, and lambs; here walked a maiden upon a stratum of sods and dried earth, and there a shepherd flourishing aloft his pastoral staff. The construction of these august figures was chiefly Dutch: they were intermixed with china images and miserable daubs on paper. In the centre a real fountain, in miniature, squirted forth water to the ineffable delight of crowds of prostrate worshippers."

At Rouen, after the Te Deum, in the nocturnal office or vigil of Christmas, the ecclesiastics celebrated the "office of the shepherds" in the following manner :

The image of the virgin Mary was placed in a stable prepared behind the altar. A boy from above, before the choir, in the likeness of an angel, announced the nativity to certain canons or vicars who entered as shepherds, through the great door of the choir, clothed in tunicks and amesses. Many boys in the vaults of the church, like angels, then began the

“

"gloria in excelsis." The shepherds, hearing this, advanced to the stable, singing peace, good will," &c. As soon as they entered it, two priests in dalmaticks, as if women (quasi obstetrices) who were stationed at the stable, said "Whom seek ye?" The shepherds answered, according to the angelic annunciation, "Our Saviour Christ." The women then opening the curtain exhibited the boy, saying, "The little one is here as the prophet Isaiah said." They then showed the mother, saying, "Behold the Virgin," &c. Upon these exhibitions, they bowed and worshipped the boy, and saluted his mother. The office ended by their returning to the choir, and singing, Alleluia, &c.*

In catholic times, at Christmas, people presented loaves to the priest on the authority of the direction in Leviticus xxii. "You shall offer two loaves to the priest," &c. At feasts a whole boar (whence brawn at this season) was put upon the table, sometimes it was richly gilded.t The custom of bringing in the boar's head is well known, and to 'this day it is practised with much ceremony at Queen's College, Oxford. The following extract from the "Oxford Sausage" may be relished.

Fosbroke's British Monachism. + Ibid.

Derry down, down, down, derry down.

Derry down, &c.

Derry down, &c.

[To Mr. Hone.]

The following is a brief extract concerning the festivities formerly observed on Christmas day at the Inner Temple. Service in the church being ended, the gentlemen presently repaired into the hall and breakfasted on brawn, mustard, and Malmsey. At the first course, at dinner, was served up a fair and large boreshead upon a silver platter, with minstralsye.* This custom is still observed at Queen's College Oxford, and tradition represents this usage as a commemoration of an act of valor performed by a student of the college who while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover and reading Aristotle was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open mouthed upon the youth, who, however, very courageously, and with a happy presence of mind, is said to have rammed in the volume,' and cried Græcum est, fairly choking the savage with the sage.t

While king Richard I. lay before Acre, he was attacked by an ague so grievous that none of the leeches could effect its cure; when owing to the prayers of his loyal army he became convalescent, his first symptom of recovery was a violent

* This paragraph is in the Every-Day Book, but it could hardly have been omitted here without the narration appearing incomplete. J. F. R. 128.

Wade's Walks in Oxford, vol. i. p.

Derry down, &c.

Derry down, &c.

longing for swine's flesh. None could be obtained; the cook therefore at the bidding of an old knight

"Takes a Saracen, young, and fat,
And sodden full hastily
With powdeer and with spicery,
And with saffron of good colour."

and made a dainty dish for the royal invalid, who "eat the flesh and gnawed the bone," and when he had satisfied his longing.

"His chamberlain him wrapped warm, He lay and slept, and swet a stound, And became whole and sound." Presently after Richard hearing with astonishment and indignation the cries of the enemy who seemed making their way to his tent, he flung himself on his steed, and rushing among the Paynims, felled every opponent with his fearful battle-ax. Saladin retreated with loss, and the king returned triumphantly to his camp, and when he had rested awhile, he craved his soupere" even "the head of that ilke swine," which he "of ate." Quoth the cook, " that head I ne have." Then said the king,

"So God me save. But I see the head of that swine,

Forsooth, thou shalt lessen thine!"
The cook saw none other might be,
He fetch'd the head, and let him see;
He fell on knees, and made a cry,
"Lo here the head! my lord, mercy!"

The swarte vis

when the king seeth His black beard, and white teeth, How his lippes grinned wide,t "What devil is this?" The king cried, And gan to laugh as he were wode. "What! is Saracen's flesh thus good? That, never erst, I nought wist! By Godes death, and his up-rist, Shall we never die for default, While we may in any assault, Slee Saracens, the flesh may take,

And seethen, and rostem, and do hem bake,
Gnawen her flesh to the bones!
Now I have it proved once,

For hunger ere I be wo,

I and my folk shall eat mo!"

This "right pleasaunt history" may be found at full in " Webers's Metrical Romances, vol. ii. p. 119, and abridged in Ellis's Specimens of early English Romances, vol. ii. p. 233;" the which books be chieffly read by antiquaries and poets. J. F. R.

*Black face.

† See the comic picture of a boars-head in the Every-Day Book.

TEMPLE REVELS.

In the fourth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, a magnificent Christmas was kept at the Inner Temple in which the lord Robert Dudley, afterwards earl of Leicester, was chief, under the title of Palaphitos, Prince of Sophie, High Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars, and Patron of the honourable order of Pegasus. Christopher Hatton, afterwards lord chancellor of England, was master of the game, with four masters of the revels, besides other officers to conduct the burlesque, and fourscore persons forming a guard. Gerard Leigh, who was present, and created a knight of Pegasus, describes, in his "Accidence of Armorie," the mock solemnity within the hall, and the public firing of double cannons, "in so great a number and so

terrible that it darkened the whole air."

There belonged to the office of the constable marshal a suit of gilt armour with a nest of feathers in the helm, and a fair pole-axe to bear in his hand. Dugdale sets forth the orders for making a Lord of Misrule, with feasting and dancing "round about the coal fire," and hunting in the hall with nine or ten couples of hounds a fox and a cat, both tied at the end of the pole, until they

were killed beneath the fire.

In the ninth year of King Charles I. the four inns of court provided a Christmas mask, which cost £2400, and the king invited a hundred and twenty gentlemen of the four inns to a mask at Whitehall on Shrove Teusday following.

He died December 25, 1825, aged seventy four, "respected, and lamented by all who knew him." After his decease, the following biographic morceau was found folded in an old song book, in his combdrawer, and many of his quondam friends hope it may obtain a place in the Year Book.

[Copy.]

"TO HIM to whom these presents shall come Greeting. KNOW YE that JOHN JACKLIN, alias THE MAJOR, though no pugilist, had every day a brush and set-to, and was frequently in the suds; for he entered great men's houses, and sans ceremonie took them by the nose, and cut off more of their hairs than any disease, or entail. Bees never harmed him, though he handled the comb. He was a staunch Tory, and brought many a Wig to the block though a Sexaquarian, he was always daily at sweet "Sixteen," and although he sometimes met with great men, he was always acknowledged as "THE MAJOR.

"Uncle thought to do a favor,
Put me 'prentice to a shaver;
And from that hour I never yet
Could shave without a little wet.
Wet my soap, and wet my brush, I
'Gan to think about the lushy!
Soap and self I often wetted,
Danc'd and sung, but never fretted :
Wet, I found, that all things suited,
Wet, and self, often saluted.
Fix'd at Cambridge 'mongst my betters,
Dunces, dandies, men of letters!
Here I found them thin and lusty,
Priests and laymen often thirsty.
Soon I found them quick as razor,
And quickly I was dubb'd The Major!
The tables I set in a roar,

When I entered "four times four."
Snuff'd the candles neat and pretty,
Smok'd my pipe, and sang my ditty-
'Bout the Granchester, old miller'-
'The Ghost,' and rusty sword to kill her!'
Home brew'd ale both bright and gaily,
Was my joy and comfort daily!
Than drink bad ale, I had rather,
Quench'd my thirst in my own lather!
In social friendship-what a shiner!
The Major never was The Minor!

A better creature never was, I'll bet a wager (Although I say it) than was "Camb. 1824." THE MAJOR." Another Barber-ROBERT FORSTER, the "Cambridge Flying Barber," died at the end of the year 1799. During many years he was hair-dresser to Clare Hall, and an eccentric but honest fellow. He was allowed to be so dexterous in his profession, and trimmed his friends so well, that some

years before his death, the gentlemen of the University, by subscription, bought him a silver bason; and he was so famous, that it was no light honor which enabled a stranger to say, he had been shaved out of "Forster's bason." A striking likeness was etched of him in full trim without his hat; for, having lost the only one he possessed, many years before he died,. he never wore one afterwards. The etchings are become scarce, or one would have accompanied the likeness of "The Major."

Sir,

PUFF! PUFF!! PUFF!!! [To Mr. Hone.]

NEMO.

Going the other evening into a hairdresser's shop to have my "cranium operated upon," or in plain speaking to have my hair cropped, I espied the enclosed printed bill, or whatever else you may call it, which I herewith send for the amusement and edification of those "cognoscenti who will give their time to peruse such a curious specimen of Bombastic Rodomontade.-I have great variety of puffs, literary puffs, lottery puffs, and quack's puffs; but this puff is of a very different description.It is the puff sublime.

seen

a

"From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step."

"

[Copy.]

"THE GRAND STIMULI to the performance of heroic achievements in the art of war are the distinguished honors conferred by a grateful country, and the hopes of imThus the Romans of old mortality. decreed the glory of a triumph while living to their illustrious warriors, and post mortem a place among the gods. The AMOR PATRIE is the noblest impulse of our nature, and, in this happy land of OLD ENGLAND, the highest honors a beloved monarch can bestow are accessible to the lowest of her citizens, and the man of science who, in his particular profession, astonishes the world by the splendor of his genius, is stamped by an admiring people as a star of the first magnitude. The preliminaries apply to that singular professor of his art,

GILLINGWATER,

THE

INIMITABLE HAIR CUTTER,

AND

PATENT PERRUQUIER,

85,

LONG LANE, SMITHFIELD. Who, by a tact peculiarly his own, has