increased, returned the pieces to his lordship, who put them into his pocket with the remark, "I once gave money into a fool's hands who had not the wit to keep it."']

Dr. Moresin tells us that in Scotland it was in his time the custom to send New Year's Gifts on New Year's Eve, but that on New Year's Day they wished each other a happy day, and asked a New Year's Gift. I believe it is still usual in Northumberland for persons to ask for a New Year's Gift on that day.

[On New Year's Day they have a superstition in Lincoln and its neighbourhood, that it is unlucky to take anything out of the house before they have brought something in: hence you will see, on the morning of that day, the individual members of a family taking a small piece of coal, or any inconsiderable thing in fact, into the house, for the purpose of preventing the misfortunes which would otherwise attach to them; and the rustics have a rhyme in which this belief is expressed: "Take out, then take in,

Bad luck will begin ;
Take in, then take out.

Good luck comes about."]

It appears from a curious MS. in the British Museum, of the date of 1560, that the boys of Eton school used, on the day of the Circumcision, at that time, to play for little New Year's Gifts before and after supper; and that the boys had a custom that day, for good luck's sake, of making verses, and sending them to the provost, masters, &c., as also of presenting them to each other.2

'[In a curious manuscript, lettered on the back, "Publick Revenue, anno quinto regni Edwardi Sexti," I find, "Rewards given on New Year's Day, that is to say, to the King's officers and servants of ordinary, 155l. 5s., and to their servants that present the King's Matie with New Year's Gifts." The custom, however, is in part of a date considerably older than the time of Edward the Sixth. Henry the Third, according to Matthew Paris, appears to have extorted New Year's Gifts from his subjects-" Rex autem regalis magnificentiæ terminos impudenter transgrediens, à civibus Londinensibus quos novit ditiores, die Circumcisionis Dominicæ, à quolibet exegit singulatim primitiva, quæ vulgares Nova Dona Novi Anni superstitiosè solent appellare."-Matt. Paris, an. 1249, p. 757, ed. Watts, fol. 1641.]

2" In die Circumcisionis luditur et ante et post cœnam pro Strenulis. Pueri autem pro consuetudine ipso Calendarum Januariarum die, velut ominis boni gratia, carmina componunt, eaque vel Præposito vel Præcep.

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his Characters, speaking of "a Timist," says, that " his New Yeare's Gifts are ready at Alhalomas, and the sute he meant to meditate before them.”1

The title-page of a most rare tract in my library, entitled "Motives grounded upon the word of God, and upon honour, profit, and pleasure, for the present founding an University in the Metropolis, London; with Answers to such Objections as might be made by any (in their incogitancy) against the same," 1647, runs thus: "Humbly presented (instead of heathenish and superstitious New Yeare's Gifts) to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the right worshipfull the Aldermen, his brethren, and to those faithful and prudent citizens which were lately chosen by the said city to be of the Common Counsell thereof for this yeare insueng, viz. 1647; by a true Lover of his Nation, and especially of the said city."

In another rare tract, of an earlier date, entitled " Vox Graculi," 4to, 1623, p. 49, is the following, under " January:"

"This month drink you no wine commixt with dregs:
Eate capons, and fat hens, with dumpling legs."

"The first day of January being raw, colde, and comfortlesse to such as have lost their money at dice at one of the Temples over night, strange apparitions are like to be seene: Marchpanes marching betwixt Leaden-hall and the little Conduit in Cheape, in such aboundance that an hundred good

tori et Magistris vel inter se ultro citroque communiter mittunt."-Status Scholæ Etonensis, A.D. 1560. MS. Brit. Mus. Donat. 4843, fol. 423. The very ingenious Scottish writer, Buchanan, presented to the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots one of the above poetical kind of New Year's gifts. History is silent concerning the manner in which her Majesty received it : Ad Mariam Scotia Reginam.

Do quod adest: opto quod abest tibi, dona darentur
Aurea, sors animo si foret æqua meo.

Hoc leve si credis, paribus me ulciscere donis :

Et quod abest opta tu mihi: da quod adest.

1 "Gevying of New Yeare's Giftes had its original there likewyse (in old Rome), for Suetonius Tranquillus reporteth that the Knights of Rome gave yerely, on the calendes of January, a present to Augustus Cæsar, although he were absent. Whiche custom remayneth in England, for the subjects sende to their superiours, and the noble personages geve to the Kynge some great gyftes, and he to gratifye their kyndnesse doeth liberally rewarde them with some thyng again."-Langley's Polydore Virgil, fol. 102.

fellows may sooner starve than catch a corner or a comfit to sweeten their mouthes.

"It is also to be feared that through frailty, if a slip be made on the messenger's default that carries them, for non-delivery at the place appointed; that unlesse the said messenger be not the more inward with his mistris, his master will give him ribrost for his New Yeare's Gift the next morning.

"This day shall be given many more gifts than shall be asked for, and apples, egges, and oranges, shall be lifted to a lofty rate; when a pome-water, bestucke with a few rotten cloves, shall be more worth than the honesty of an hypocrite; and halfe a dozen of egges of more estimation than the vowes of a strumpet. Poets this day shall get mightily by their pamphlets; for an hundred of elaborate lines shall be lesse esteemed in London, than an hundred of Walfleet oysters at Cambridge."

In the Monthly Miscellany for December, 1692, there is an Essay on New Year's Gifts, which states, that the Romans were great observers of the custom of New Year's Gifts, even when their year consisted only of ten months, of thirty-six days each, and began in March; also, when January and February were added by Numa to the ten others, the calends or first of January were the time on which they made presents; and even Romulus and Tatius made an order that every year vervine should be offered to them with other gifts, as tokens of good fortune for the New Year. Tacitus makes mention of an order of Tiberius, forbidding the giving or demanding of New Year's Gifts, unless it were on the calends of January; at which time as well the senators as the knights and other great men brought gifts to the emperor, and, in his absence, to the Capitol. The ancient Druids, with great ceremonies, used to scrape off from the outside of oaks the misleden, which they consecrated to their great Tutates, and then distributed it to the people through the Gauls, on account of the great virtues which they attributed to it; from whence New Year's Gifts are still called in some parts of France, Guy-l'an-neuf. Our English nobility, every New Year's tide, still send to the King a purse with gold in it. Reason may be joined to custom to justify the practice; for, as passages are drawn from the first things which are met on the beginning of a day, week, or year, none can be more pleasing than of those things that are given

us.

We rejoice with our friends after having escaped the dangers that attend every year, and congratulate each other for the future by presents and wishes for the happy continuance of that course which the ancients called Strenarum Commercium. And as, formerly, men used to renew their hospitalities by presents, called Xenia, a name proper enough for our New Year's Gifts, they may be said to serve to renew friendship, which is one of the greatest gifts imparted by Heaven to men and they who have always assigned some day to those things which they thought good, have also judged it proper to solemnize the Festival of Gifts, and, to show how much they esteemed it, in token of happiness, made it begin the year. The value of the thing given, or, if it is a thing of small worth, its novelty, or the excellency of the work, and the place where it is given, makes it the more acceptable, but above all, the time of giving it, which makes some presents pass for a mark of civility on the beginning of the year, that would appear unsuitable in another season.

Prynne, in his Histrio-Mastix, p. 755, has the following most severe invective against the Rites of New Year's Day.

"If we now parallel our grand disorderly Christmasses with these Roman Saturnals and heathen festivals, or our New Yeare's Day (a chiefe part of Christmas) with their festivity of Janus, which was spent in mummeries, stageplayes, dancing, and such like enterludes, wherein fidlers and others acted lascivious effeminate parts, and went about their towns and cities in women's apparel; whence the whole Catholicke Church (as Alchuvinus with others write) appointed a solemn publike faste upon this our New Yeare's Day (which fast it seems is now forgotten), to bewaile those heathenish enterludes, sports, and lewd idolatrous practices which had been used on it: prohibiting all Christians, under pain of excommunication, from observing the calends, or first of January (which wee now call New Yeare's Day), as holy, and from sending abroad New Yeare's Gifts upon it (a custome now too frequent), it being a meere relique of paganisme and idolatry, derived from the heathen Romans' feast of two-faced Janus, and a practise so execrable unto Christians, that not onely the whole Catholicke Church, but even the four famous Councels of," &c. (here he makes a great parade of authorities) "have positively prohibited the solemnization of New Yeare's Day, and the sending

abroad of New Yeare's Gifts, under an anathema and excommunication."

In the Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vii. 488, Parishes of Cross, Burness, &c. county of Orkney,-New Year's Gifts occur, under the title of "Christmas Presents," and as given to servant-maids by their masters. In the same

work, p. 489, we read, "There is a large stone, about nine or ten feet high, and four broad, placed upright in a plain, in the Isle of North Ronaldshay; but no tradition is preserved concerning it, whether erected in memory of any signal event, or for the purpose of administering justice, or for religious worship. The writer of this (the parish priest) has seen fifty of the inhabitants assembled there, on the first day of the year, and dancing with moonlight, with no other music than their own singing." And again, in the same publication, 1795, xv. 201, the minister of Tillicoultry, in the county of Clackmannan, under the head of Diseases, says, "It is worth mentioning that one William Hunter, a collier, was cured in the year 1758 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm or yest. The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of Handsel Monday, as it is called, (i. e. the first Monday of the New Year, O.S.), some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale as it passed round the company, and, in the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was, that he had the use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint." And again, in vol. v. p. 66, the minister of Moulin, in Perthshire, informs us, that "beside the stated fees, the master (of the parochial school there) receives some small gratuity, generally two-pence or three-pence, from each scholar, on Handsel Monday or Shrove-Tuesday."

Upon the Circumcision, or New Year's Day, the early Christians ran about masked, in imitation of the superstitions of the Gentiles. Against this practice Saint Maximus and Peter Chrysologus declaimed; whence in some of the very ancient missals we find written in the Mass for this day,