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THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.

With a new study, stuft full of pamphlets and plays,

And a new chaplain, that swears faster than he prays,

With a new buttery hatch, that opens once in four or five

days,

And a new French cook, to devise fine kickshaws, and toys: Like a young courtier, &c.

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With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,
On a new journey to London straight we all must begone,
And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John,
Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone:
Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new gentleman-usher, whose carriage is complete, With a new coachman, footmen, and pages to carry up the

meat,

With a waiting-gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat, Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat: Like a young courtier, &c.

With new titles of honour bought with his father's old gold,
For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold;
And this is the course most of our new gallants hold,
Which makes that good house-keeping is now grown so cold,
Among the young courtiers of the king,
Or the king's young courtiers.

The custom of Mumming, which appears to have prevailed during the middle ages throughout the Christmas season, had its origin in some similar amusement forming a portion of the revels of the ancient Saturnalia. Several of the old chroniclers have left us descriptions of the most celebrated of these entertainments in which our kings and princes have taken part. The earliest account that has been preserved is of a grand mumming performed by the citizens of London, in 1377, for the entertainment of the young prince Richard, son of the Black Prince. On this occasion, one hundred and thirty citizens disguised as emperors, popes, and cardinals, with knights and their more humble esquires, all wearing vizors and well mounted, and attended by numerous torchbearers, rode to the palace of the young prince at Kennington to the sound of trumpets, sackbuts, and other music. Games at dice were played, followed by feasting and dancing, "which jolitie being ended, the mummers were again made to drink and then departed in order as they came." While the higher classes thus disported themselves, the lower orders were content with an humble imitation of the magnificent pageantry of these entertainments. They went from house to house with their faces blackened with soot and bedaubed with paint-the men frequently attired in female costume, and the women in costume of the other sex-when they made merry amongst their friends and neighbours who provided them with good store of Christmas cheer.

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watt
heil

Drinc beile

The Boar's head and the Wassail bowl* were the two most important accessories to Christmas in the olden time, and there are frequent brief allusions to the latter, in the works of our early English poets. The phrase "Wassail," occurs in the oldest carol that has been handed down to us, and in the extracts already given from Spenser, Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, mention is made of the Wassail bowl, which shows, that in their day it continued to form a necessary portion of the festivities appertaining to the season. New-year's eve and Twelfth-night were the occasions on which the Wassail bowl was chiefly in requisition. In a collection of ordinances for the regulation of the royal household, in the reign of Henry VII., on Twelfth-night the steward was enjoined, when he entered with the spiced and smoking beverage, to cry "Wassail” three times, to which the royal chaplain-jolly priest, as he doubtless was-had to answer with a song. While the wealthier classes were enjoying themselves with copious draughts of "lambs' wool," as the beverage, composed of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs, or apples, with which the bowl was filled, was styled, the poorer sort of people went from house to house with Wassail bowls adorned with ribbons, singing carols, and inviting those whom they visited to drink; in return for which, little presents of money were generally bestowed upon them.

The following Carol is from Ritson's ancient songs. It was taken by Ritson from a scarce, black-letter volume, in the Ashmolean Museum.

The above representation of a Wassail Bowl is from a carving on a chimney-piece of an old mansion formerly existing at Birling, Kent.

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