mummeries or disguises were known here as early as the time of Henry II., if not sooner. They were not confined to the diversions of the king and his nobles; but a ruder class was in vogue among the inferior orders, where, no doubt, abuses were occasionally introduced in consequence. Even now, our country geese or guise dancers are a remnant of the same custom; and in some places a horse's head still accompanies these mummers.'

A more rational phase of mumming was the ludi, or plays, exhibited at court in the Christmas holidays, to be traced back as far as the reign of Edward III., though they are thought to be much older. The dresses appropriated in 1348 to one of these plays show that they were mummeries, and not theatrical divertissements. The king then kept his Christmas at his castle at Guildford, the picturesque keep of which remains to this day. The dresses consisted of 80 tunics of buckram of various colours; 42 vizors—-14 faces of women, 14 of men, and 14 heads of angels, made with silver; 28 crests; 14 mantles, embroidered with heads of dragons; 14 white tunics wrought with the heads and wings of peacocks, 14 with the heads and wings of swans; 14 tunics painted with the eyes of peacocks; 14 tunics of English linen, painted; and 14 other tunics embroidered with stars of gold. The magnificent pageants and disguisings frequently exhibited at Court in the succeeding reigns, and especially in the reign of Henry VIII., were mummeries destitute of character and humour, their chief aim being to surprise the spectators 'by the ridiculous

and exaggerated oddity of the vizors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses: everything was out of nature and propriety.' Such a strange scene will be remembered in Mr. Charles Kean's getting up of Shakspeare's 'Henry VIII.' at the Princess' Theatre, upon which much research was expended.

In a beautiful manuscript in the Bodleian Library, written and illuminated in the reign of Edward III., are some spirited figures of mummers wearing the heads of animals, among which the stag, with branching horns, is most prominent. Some of the heads are very grotesque, and remind one of the strange head-masks worn in the opening of pantomimes in the present day. The olden performance seems to have consisted chiefly in dancing, and the mummers were usually attended by the minstrels playing upon different kinds of musical instruments.

Stow describes a remarkable mummery in 1377, made by the citizens of London for the disport of the young Prince Richard, son to the Black Prince. They rode disguised and well horsed-130 in number-with minstrels and torchlights of wax to Kennington, beside Lambeth, where the young Prince remained with his mother. These maskers alighted, entered the palace-hall, and set to the Prince and his mother and lords cups and rings of gold, which they won at a cast, after which they feasted, and the Prince and lords danced with the mummers; which jollitie being ended, they were made to drink,' etc. Henry IV., in the second year of his reign, kept his Christmas at Eltham,

whither twelve aldermen of London and their sonnes rode a-mumming, and had great thanks.'

The Cornish miracle-plays, which were not performed in churches, but in an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, continued to be exhibited long after the abolition of the miracles and moralities in other parts of the kingdom. Accordingly, we find them lingering in Cornwall to our time; and in Cornwall, Devon, and Staffordshire, the old spirit of Christmas is kept up more earnestly than in most other counties. In Cornwall they exhibit the old dance of St. George and the Dragon; and in the Staffordshire halls a band of bedizened actors perform the whole of the ancient drama. This famous mummery is imagined to refer to the time of the Crusades, and to have been invented by the warriors of the Cross on their return from Palestine. Mr. Sandys gives this Christmas play as represented in the West of England.' Hone, in his Every-Day Book, gives an extended version of 'St. George,' under the title of 'Alexander and the King of Egypt, a Mock Play, as it is acted by the Mummers every Christmas: Whitehaven.' In a scarce work, written in 1737, we find this record of 'St. George:'

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'England's Heroe-Saint George for England.-At Christmas are (or at least very lately were) fellows wont to go about from house to house, in Exeter, a-mumming; one of whom, in a (borrow'd) Holland shirt, more gorgeously beribboned over his waistcoat, etc., flourishing a faulchion. very valiantly, entertains the admiring spectators thus:

'Oh! here comes I, Saint George, a man of courage bold,

And with my spear I winn'd three crowns of gold.

I slew the Dragon, and brought him to the slaughter,

And by that very means I married Sabra, the beauteous King
of Egypt's daughter.'

All the versions have evidently sprung from one original. The Worcestershire mumming is played by boys. The Valiant Soldier wore a real soldier's coat; Old Father Christmas carried holly; the Turkish Knight had a turban; and all of them were decked out with ribbons and scarves, and had their faces painted. Little Devil Doubt had a black face, and carried a money-box, a basin, and a bladder; with the bladder he thwacked the performer whose turn it was to speak. Beelzebub is identical with Old Father Christmas, who sings:

'In comes I, old Father Beelzebub;
And on my shoulder I carry a club,
And in my hand I carry a can,

Don't you think I'm jolly old man?

As jolly as I am, Christmas comes but once a-year;

Now's the time for roast beef, plum-pudding, mince-pies, and
strong beer.'

Miss Baker, in her Glossary, published in 1854, describes the mummers as young men, generally six or eight, who during the Christmas holidays, commencing on St. Thomas's Eve, go about in the rural districts of Northamptonshire, disguised, personating different characters, and performing a burlesque tragedy at such houses as they think will recompense them for their entertainment. Brackley is the only market-town where Miss Baker heard of the

custom being observed. Some years since she witnessed the representation of a mock play by eight mummers, all masked, at the seat of Michael Woodhull, Esq., Thenford. The characters were Beelzebub, Activity, Age on the Stage, Doctor, Doctor's Horse, Jem Jacks, the Doctor's Man, Fool, and Treasurer, who carried a box for contributions. The fight is between Age and Activity; the Doctor is called in to assist Activity; the finale is the Fool playing the hurdy-gurdy, and knocking them all down; and the whole concludes with a general scuffle on the floor. The mummers are most frequently disguised with discolorations of red, white, and black on their faces, and any grotesque attire they can procure.

Mr. Joseph Nash, in his splendid work, Mansions of England in the Olden Times, has given us a splendid illustration of how Christmas was kept by our ancestors-when the lord of misrule was let loose-where morris-dancers, the hobby-horse, the dragon, the giant, the salvage-man, etc. are enjoying their Christmas festivities. He has chosen for his scene the banqueting-hall of Haddon, near Bakewell, in Derbyshire, so well known from its picturesque situation in a country celebrated for its enchanting scenery. This is probably the most perfect of the ancient mansions remaining, and is certainly better calculated than any other to convey an idea of the large establishment and extensive hospitality of the old English baron. It has been untenanted. more than a century, but has escaped the fate which under such circumstances usually befalls the residences of the old

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