vening the merriments of the Christmas celebrity: and not fuch religious fongs as are current at this day with the common people under the fame title, and which were fubftituted by thofe enemies of innocent and ufeful mirth the puritans. The boar's head foufed, was antiently the firft difh on Christmas day, and was carried up to the principal table in the Hall with great ftate and folemnity. Hollinthead fays, that in the year 1170, upon the day of the young prince's coronation, king Henry the first "ferved his fonne at the table as fewer, bringing up the BORES "HEAD with trumpets before it according to the manner ". For this indifpenfable ceremony, as alfo for others of that season, there was a Carol, which Wynkyn de Worde has given us in the miscellany just mentioned, as it was fung in his time, with the title, "A CAROL bryngyng in the bores head."

This carol, yet with many innovations, is retained at Queen's college in Oxford. Other antient Christmas carols occur with Latin Burthens or Latin intermixtures. As thus,

Puer nobis natus eft de Virgine Maria.
Be glad lordynges, be the more or leffe,
I brynge you tydynges of gladneffe ".

The Latin scraps were banished from these jocund hymns, when the Reformation had established an English liturgy. At length appeared, "Certaine of David's Pfalmes intended for Christmas "Carolls fitted to the most follempne tunes every where fami"liarlie ufed, by William Slatyer, printed by Robert Yong 1630'."

It was impoffible that the Reformation of religion could escape without its rhyming libels. Accordingly, among others, we have, “An Answer to a papyftical exhortation, pretending "to avoyd falfe doctrine, under that colour to mayntayne the "fame," printed in 1548, and beginning,

Every pilde pedlar

Will be a medlar.

In the year 1533, a proclamation was promulged, prohibiting evil-difpofed perfons to preach, either in public or private, "After their own braine, and by playing of enterludes, and "printing of false fond bookes, ballades, rhymes, and other "lewd treatyfes in the English tongue, concerning doctrines in "matters now in queftion and controverfie, &c "." But this popular mode of attack, which all understood, and in which the idle and unlearned could join, appears to have been more powerful than royal interdictions and parliamentary cenfures. In the year 1540, Thomas lord Cromwell, during the short

interval which Henry's hafty paffion for Catharine Howard permitted between his commitment and execution, was infulted in a ballad written by a defender of the declining caufe of popery, who certainly fhewed more zeal than courage, in reproaching a difgraced minifter and a dying man. This fatire, however unfeemly, gave rife to a religious controverfy in verfe, which is preserved in the archives of the antiquarian fociety.

I find a poem of thirty octave stanzas, printed in 1546, called the DOWFAL OF ANTICHRISTES MAS, or Mafs, in which the nameless satirist is unjustly fevere on the distresses of that ingenious class of mechanics who got their living by writing and ornamenting service-books for the old papistic worship, now growing into decay and disuse; infinuating at the fame time, in a -ftrain of triumph, the great blow their craft had received, by the diminution of the number of churches in the diffolution of the monafteries ". It is, however, certain, that this bufy and lucrative occupation was otherwife much injured by the invention and propagation of typography, as feveral catholic rituals. were printed in England: yet ftill they continued to employ

In a roll of John Morys, warden of Winchefter college, an. xx Ric. ii. A. D. 1397, are large articles of disbursement for grails, legends, and other fervice-books for the choir of the chapel, then juft founded. It appears that they bought the parchment; and hired perfons to do the bufinefs of writing, illuminating, noting, and binding, within the walls of the college. As thus. "Item in xi doseyn iiij pellibus "emptis pro i legenda integra, que inci

pit folio fecundo Quia dixerunt, conti"nente xxxiiij quaterniones, (pret. dofeyn

iiij s. vid. pret. pellis iiijd. ob.) lis. "Item in fcriptura ejufdem Legende, "lxxijs. Et in illuminacione et ligacione "ejufdem, xxx S. Item in vj dofeyn de "velym emptis pro factura vj Proceffiona"lium, quorum quilibet continet xv qua"terniones, (pret. dofeyn iiij s. vid) "xxvij s. Et in fcriptura, notacione, il"luminacione, et ligacione corundem,

"xxxiij s." The higheft coft of one of thefe books is, 71. 138. Vellum, for this purpose, made an article of faurum or ftore. As," Item in vj dofeyn de velym "emptis in ftaurum pro aliis libris inde "faciendis, xxxiiij s. xjd" The books were covered with deer-fkin. As, "Item "in vj pellibus cervinis emptis pro libris "predictis cooperiendis, xiij s. iiij d." In another roll (xix Ric. ii. A. D. 1396.) of warden John Morys abovementioned, difbursements of diet for SCRIPTORES enter into the quarterly account of that article. "EXPENSE extraneorum fupervenien"cium, iij SCRIPTORUM, viij ferviencium,

66

et x choriftarum, ix l. iiijs. xd." The whole diet-expences this year, for ftrangers, writers, fervants, and chorifters, amount to 20l. 19s. 10d. In another roll of 1399, (Rot. Comp. Burff. 22 Ric. ii.) writers are in commons weekly with the regular members of the fociety.

writers and illuminators for this purpose. The finest and the lateft fpecimen of this fort I have feen, is Cardinal Wolfey's LECTIONARY, now preferved at Chrift-church in Oxford, a prodigious folio on vellum, written and embellished with great fplendor and beauty by the most elegant artists, either for the ufe of his own private chapel, or for the magnificent chapel which he had projected for his college, and peculiarly characteristic of that prelate's predominant ideas of ecclefiaftic pomp. Wynkyn de Worde printed a TRETISE OF MERLYN, or his prophefies in verfe, in 1529. Another appeared by John Hawkyns, in 1533. Metrical and profaic prophefies attributed to the magician Merlin, all originating from Geoffrey of Monmouth's historical romance, and of oriental growth, are numerous and various. Merlin's predictions were fucceffively accommodated by the minstrel-poets to the politics of their own times. There are many among the Cotton manuscripts, both in French and English, and in other libraries *. Laurence Minot above-cited, who wrote about 1360, and in the northern dialect, has applied fome of them to the numerous victories of Edward the third '. As thus.

Men may rede in Romance z ryght,

с

Of a grete clerke that MERLIN hight:
Ful many bokes er of him wreten,
Als thir clerkes wele may witten *;
And zit in many prive nokes "
May men find of Merlin bokes.
Merlin faid thus with his his mouth,
Out of the North into the Sowth,

* See Geoffr. Monm. vii. 3. And Rob. Glouc. p. 132. 133. feq. 254. 256. Of the authority of Merlin's Prophefies in England in 1216, See Wykes's CHRON. fub ann. Merlin's Prophefies were printed in French at Paris, in 1498. And MERLINI VITE ET PROPHETI, at Venice, 1554.

MS. GALB. E. ix. ut fupr.

z In another place Minot calls the book on which his narrative is founded, the ROMANCE.

How Edward, als the Romence faies,
Held his fege before Calais.

a As fcholars well know.

b And yet.

• Privy nooks.

Suld