makes the following observations on Christmas pies: "Every family against Christmass makes a famous pye, which they call Christmass pye. It is a great nostrum, the composition of this pasty: it is a most learned mixture of neats' tongues, chicken, eggs, sugar, raisins, lemon and orange peel, various kinds of spicery, &c. They also make a sort of soup with plums, which is not at all inferior to the pye, which is in their language call'd plum-porridge."

Among the ceremonies of Christmas Eve, in Herrick's Hesperides, I find the following (p. 278):

"Come guard this night the Christmas-pie,
That the thiefe, though ne'r so slie,
With his flesh hooks dont come nie

To catch it:

From him, who all alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his eare,
And a deale of nightly feare

To watch it."

In the Gentleman's Magazine for Dec. 1733, p. 652, is an essay on Christmas pye, in which the author tells us : "That this dish is most in vogue at this time of year, some think is owing to the barrenness of the season, and the scarcity of fruit and milk to make tarts, custards, and other desserts; this being a compound that furnishes a dessert itself. But I rather think it bears a religious kind of relation to the festivity from whence it takes its name. Our tables are always set out with this dish just at the time, and probably for the same reason that our windows are adorned with ivy. I am the more confirmed in this opinion from the zealous opposition it meets with from the Quakers, who distinguish their feasts by an heretical sort of pudding, known by their name, and inveigh against Christmas pye as an invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon, an hodge-podge of superstition, Popery, the devil, and all his works. The famous Bickerstaff rose up against such as would cut out the clergy from having any share in it. The Christmass pye,' says he, 'is in its own nature a kind of consecrated cake, and a badge of distinction, and yet 'tis often forbidden to the Druid of the family. Strange! that a sirloin of beef, whether boiled or roasted, when entire, is exposed to his utmost depredations and incisions: but if minced into

small pieces, and tossed up with plumbs and sugar, changes its property, and forsooth is meat for his master.' Thus with a becoming zeal he defends the chaplains of noblemen in particular, and the clergy in general, who it seems were debarred, under pretence that a sweet tooth and liquorish palate are inconsistent with the sanctity of their character."

In the north of England, a goose is always the chief ingredient in the composition of a Christmas pie. Allan Ramsay, in his Poems, 1721, p. 31 (Elegy on Lucky Wood), tells us that, among other baits by which the good alewife drew customers to her house, she never failed to tempt them at Christmas with a goose-pye.

Both plum-porridge and Christmas pies are noticed in the following passage in Nedham's History of the Rebellion, 1661:

“ All plums the prophet's sons defy,

And spice-broths are too hot;
Treason's in a December pye,
And death within the pot.

Christmas, farewell; thy days I fear
And merry days are done:

So they may keep feasts all the year,
Our Saviour shall have none.

Gone are those golden days of yore,

When Christmass was a high day: Whose sports we now shall see no more; 'Tis turn'd into Good Friday."

Memorandum. I dined at the chaplain's table at St. James's on Christmas Day 1801, and partook of the first thing served up and eaten on that festival at that table, i. e. a tureen full of rich luscious plum-porridge. I do not know that the custom is anywhere else retained.

We have never been witnesses, says Dr. Johnson in his Life of Butler, of animosities excited by the use of minced pies and plum-porridge, nor seen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would shrink from them in December.

In the tract entitled Round about our Coal-Fire, I find the following account of the usual diet and drink of this season, with other curious particulars: "An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e. on Christmass Day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (i. e. the cook) by the arms, and run her round the market-place till she is ashamed of her laziness. In Christmass holidays, the tables were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloins of beef, the minced pies, the plum-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plum-puddings, were all brought upon the board: every one eat heartily, and was welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, 'Merry in the hall when beards wag all.'"

Poor Robin, for 1677, notes the festive doings of Christmas as follows:

"Now grocer's trade is in request,

For plums and spices of the best.

Good cheer doth with this month agree,
And dainty chaps must swetened be.

Mirth and gladness doth abound,

And strong beer in each house is found.

Minc'd pies, roast beef, with other cheer,

And feasting doth conclude the year."

They are likewise alluded to in King's Art of Cookery, p. 75 :

"At Christmas time

Then if you wou'd send up the brawner's head,
Sweet rosemary and bays around it spread;
His foaming tusks let some large pippin' grace,
Or, 'midst these thund'ring spears an orange place;
Sauce, like himself, offensive to its foes,

The roguish mustard, dang'rous to the nose.
Sack, and the well-spic'd Hippocras the wine,

Wassail the bowl with antient ribbands fine,

Porridge with plumbs, and turkeys with the chine."

"At Rippon, in Yorkshire, on Christmas Day, the singing boys come into the church with large baskets full of red apples, with a sprig of rosemary stuck in each, which they present to all the congregation, and generally have a return made them of 2d., 4d., or 6d., according to the quality of the lady or gentleman." Gent. Mag. for August, 1790, p. 719,

"Now social friends their social friends invite
To share the feast: and on the table's plac'd
The fam'd sirloin, with puddings nicely bak'd,
Surcharg❜d with plumbs, and from the oven hot;
Nor wanting are minc'd pies, in plenteous heaps,
T'augment the danties of the brave repast."

Luther, in his Colloquia, i. 233, tells us that " "upon the eve of Christmas Day the women run about and strike a swinish hour (pulsant horam suillam): if a great hog grunts, it denotes the future husband to be an old man, if a small one, a young man." I am at a loss to conceive the precise meaning

of this hour. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, v. 48, the minister of Montrose, county of Angus, under the head of Amusements, tells us: 66 At Christmas and the New Year, the opulent burghers begin to feast with their friends, and go a round of visits, which takes up the space of many weeks. Upon such occasions, the gravest is expected to be merry, and to join in a cheerful song."

ST. STEPHEN'S DAY.

DECEMBER 26.

HOSPINIAN quotes a superstitious notion from Naogeorgus, that it is good to gallop horses till they are all over in a sweat, and then bleed them, on St. Stephen's Day, to prevent their having any disorders for the ensuing year; thus translated by Googe, f. 45:

"Duo abusus, qui in festo Stephani et Johannis irrepserunt notemus. Altera superstitio est, quod in Festo S. Stephani equos exerceant, donec

"Then followeth Saint Stephen's Day, whereon doth every man His horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can,

Until they doe extreemely sweate, and than they let them blood,
For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good,
And keepes them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare,
As if that Steven any time tooke charge of horses heare."

The following is from Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1615: "On S. Stevens Day it is the custome for all horses to be let bloud and drench'd. A gentleman being (that morning) demaunded whether it pleased him to have his horse let bloud and drencht, according to the fashion? He answered, No, sirra, my horse is not diseased of the fashions." Aubrey, in the Remains of Gentilisme, MS. Lansd. 226, says: "On St. Stephen's Day the farrier came constantly and blouded all our cart-horses." In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under December, are the following lines:

"Yer Christmas be passed, let horsse be let blood,
For manie a purpose it dooth them much good :
The day of S. Steeven old fathers did use;
If that do mislike thee, some other day chuse."

On which is this note in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 148: "About Christmas is a very proper time to bleed horses in, for then they are commonly at house, then spring comes on, the sun being now coming back from the winter solstice, and there are three or four days of rest, and if it be upon St. Stephen's Day it is not the worse, seeing there are with it three days of rest, or at least two."

toto corpore sudent: postea ad Fabros ducant, qui equis venam pertundant, rati tales equos, anno proximo mori non posse. Quasi vero S. Stephanus equorum unquam curam gesserit. Altera superstitio est, quod in Festo S. Johannis Apostoli sibi invicem benedictionem S. Johannis, vel haustum Johannis mittere solent. Putant nonnulli hunc morem a veteribus ethnicis descendere qui sub initium Januarii, vinum honorarium amicis suis mittere solebant, in honorem bicipitis Jani quem primum vitium satorem putant. Christiani, postea, ex Jano Johannem formarunt. Legitur alias, in vita Johannis, quod poculum vini, veneno mixtum, propinatum ei fuerit, sed Johannes, cum poculum cruce signasset, sine damno ebibit. Hinc adhuc S. Johannis cum calice pingitur, ex quo serpens promicat. Forte hinc nata est superstitio mittendi in Festo Johannis vinum, ut Johannes eidem adhuc benedicat." J. Hildebrandi de Diebus Festis, SS. Antiquitat. Epitome, p. 33.