menu_book Chapter 45

recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Curiosities of Literature, Volume 2 by Isaac Disraeli. Ancient and Modern Saturnalia. The Staggerite discovered that our nature delights in imitation and perhaps in nothing more than in representing personages different from ourselves in mockery of them. In fact, there is a passion for masquerade in human nature. Children discover this propensity, and the populace who are the

children of society through all ages have been humored by their governors with festivals and recreations which are made up of this malicious transformation of persons and things, and the humble orders of society have been privileged by the higher to please themselves by burlesquing and ridiculing the great at short seasons as some consolation for the rest of the year. The Saturnalia of the Romans is a remarkable instance of this characteristic of mankind.

Macrobius could not trace the origin of this institution and seems to derive it from the Grecians so that it might have arisen in some rude period of antiquity and among another people. This conjecture seems supported by a passage in Gibbon's Miscellanies, who discovers traces of this institution among the more ancient nations, and Hewitt imagined that he saw in the Jubilee of the Hebrews some similar usages. It is to be regretted that Gibbon does not afford us any new light on the cause in which originated the institution itself. The jubilee of the Hebrews was the solemn festival of an agricultural people, but bears none of the ludicrous characteristics of the Roman Saturnalia.

It would have been satisfactory to have discovered the occasion of the inconceivable licentiousness which was thus sanctioned by the legislator. this overturning of the principles of society and this public ridicule of its laws, its customs, and its feelings. We are told these festivals dedicated to Saturn were designed to represent the natural equality which prevailed in his golden age, and for this purpose the slaves were allowed to change places with the masters. This was, however, giving the people a false

notion of the equality of men, for while the slave was converted into the master, the pretended equality was as much violated as in the usual situation of the parties. The political misconception of this term of natural equality seems, however, to have been carried on through all ages, and the political Saturnalia had lately nearly thrown Europe into a state of that worse than slavery, where slaves are masters. The Roman Saturnalia were

latterly prolonged to a week's debauchery and folly, and a diary of that week's words and deeds would have furnished a copious chronicle of facetiae. Some notions we acquire from the laws of the Saturnalia of Lucian, an epistle of Seneca's, and from Horace, who from his love of quiet retired from the city during this noisy season. It was towards the close of December that all the town was in an unusual motion, and the children everywhere invoking Saturn.

nothing now to be seen but tables spread out for feasting and nothing heard but shouts of merriment all business was dismissed and none at work but cooks and confectioners no account of expenses was to be kept and it appears that one-tenth part of a man's income was to be appropriated to this jollity all exertion of mind and body was forbidden except for the purposes of recreation nothing to be read or recited which did not provoke mirth adapted to the season and the place

the slaves were allowed the utmost freedom of raillery and truth with their masters footnote horace in his dialogue with his slave davis exhibits a lively picture of this circumstance book two satire seven end of footnote sitting with them at the table dressed in their clothes playing all sorts of tricks, telling them of their faults to their faces, while they smutted them. The slaves were imaginary kings, as indeed a lottery determined their rank, and as their

masters attended them, whenever it happened that these performed their offices clumsily, doubtless with some recollections of their own similar misdemeanors, the slave made the master leap into the water head foremost. No one was allowed to be angry, and he who was played on, if he loved his own comfort, would be the first to laugh. Glasses of all sizes were to be ready, and all were to drink when and what they chose. None but the most skillful musicians and tumblers

were allowed to perform, for those people are worth nothing unless exquisite, as the Saturnalian laws decreed. Dancing, singing, and shouting, and carrying a female musician thrice round on their shoulders, accompanied by every grotesque humor they imagined, were indulged in that short week, which was to repay the many in which the masters had their revenge for the reign of this pretended equality. Another custom prevailed at this season. The priests performed their sacrifices to Saturn,

bareheaded, which Pitiscus explains in the spirit of this extraordinary institution, as designed to show that time discovers, or as in the present case of the bareheaded priests, uncovers all things. Such was the Roman Saturnalia, the favorite popular recreations of paganism, and as the sports and games of the people outlast the date of their empires and are carried with them, however they may change their name and their place on the globe, the grosser pleasures

of the Saturnalia were too well adapted to their taste to be forgotten. The Saturnalia, therefore, long generated the most extraordinary institutions among the nations of modern Europe, and what seems more extraordinary than the unknown origin of the parent absurdity itself, the Saturnalia crept into the services and offices of the Christian Church. Strange it is to observe at the altar the rites of religion burlesqued and all its offices performed with the utmost buffoonery. It is only

by tracing them to the Roman Saturnale that we can at all account for these grotesque sports, that extraordinary mixture of libertinism and profaneness so long continued under Christianity. Such were the feasts of the ass, the feast of fools or madmen, fet de fou, the feast of the bull of the innocents and that of the sou de acra, which perhaps in its original term meant only subdeacons, but their conduct was expressed by the conversion of a pun into suat deacres or

deacres sauls, drunken deacons. Institutions of this nature even more numerous than the historian has usually recorded and buried in their mode seem to surpass each other in their utter extravagance. Footnote. A large volume might be composed on these grotesque, profane, and licentious feasts. Du Cange notices several under different terms in his glossary, Festim Asenorum, Calou Dai Servula. A curious collection had been made by the Abbe Artigny in the fourth and seventh volumes of his Memoir d'Histoire, etc.

Du Radier in his Recreation Historique, volume 1, page 109, has noticed several writers on the subject and preserves one on the hunting of a man called Adam from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday, and treating him with a good supper at night, peculiar to a town in Saxony. See Ancien's Mélange Critique, etc., 139, where the passage from Raphael de Volterra is found at length. In my learned friend Mr. Turner's second volume of his History of England, page 367,

will be found a copious and curious note on this subject. End of footnote. These profane festivals were universally practiced in the Middle Ages, and as I shall show, comparatively even in modern times. The ignorant and the careless clergy then imagined it was the securest means to retain the populace who were always inclined to these pagan revelries.

These grotesque festivals have sometimes amused the pens of foreign and domestic antiquaries, for our own country has participated as keenly in these irreligious fooleries. In the Feast of Asses, an ass covered with sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the choir, where service was performed before the ass, and a hymn chanted in as discordant a manner as they could contrive. The office was a medley of all that had been sung in the course of the year.

Pails of water were flung at the head of the chanters. The ass was supplied with drink and provender at every division of the service, and the asinines were drinking, dancing, and braying for two days. The hymn to the ass has been preserved. Each stanza ends with the burthen, hez sa'ane, hez huza, senor ass huza. On other occasions they put burnt old shoes to fume in the censers, ran about the church leaping, singing, and dancing obscenely, scattering orger among the

audience playing at dice upon the altar, while a boy bishop or a pope of fools burlesqued the divine service. Sometimes they disguised themselves in the skins of animals, and pretending to be transformed into the animal they represented, it became dangerous or worse to meet these abandoned fools. There was a precentor of fools who were shaved in public, during which he entertained the populace with all the balderdash his genius could invent. We had in Leicester in 1415 what

was called a glutton mass during the five days of the festival of the Virgin Mary. The people rose early to mass, during which they practiced eating and drinking with the most zealous velocity, and as in France drew from the corners of the altar the rich puddings placed there. so late as in 1645 a pupil of gesendi writing to his master what he himself witnessed at aix on the feast of the innocents says i have seen in some monasteries in this province extravagances

solemnized which the pagans would not have practiced neither the clergy nor the guardians indeed go to the choir on this day but all is given up to the lay brethren the cabbage cutters the errand boys, the cooks and scullions, the gardeners. In a word, all the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that they perform the offices proper for the day. They dress themselves with all the sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out. They hold

in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend to read with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the shells of scooped oranges, which renders them so hideous that one must have seen these madmen to form a notion of their appearance. Particularly while dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage, they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor

masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous. Heic est clara dies clararum clara dierum. Heic est festa dies festarum festa dierum. Footnote. Tier, trade des jeux, page 449. The fete d'ir in the city of Aix, established by the famous René d'Anjou, the troubadour king, was remarkable for the absurd mixture of the sacred and profane. There is a curious little volume

devoted to an explanation of those grotesque ceremonies with engravings. It was printed at Aix in 1777. End of footnote. These are scenes which equal any which the humor of the Italian burlesque poets have invented, and which might have entered with effect into the Marmantia Requestato of Lippi, but that they should have been endured amidst the solemn offices of religion and have been performed in cathedrals, while it excites our astonishment,

can only be accounted for by perceiving that they were in truth the Saturnalia of the Romans. Mr. Turner observes, without perhaps having a precise notion that they were copied from the Saturnalia, that it could be only by rivaling the pagan revelries that the Christian ceremonies could gain the ascendancy. Our historian further observes that these licentious festivities were called the December liberties, and seem to have begun at one of the most solemn seasons of the

Christian year, and to have lasted through the chief part of January. This very term, as well as the time, agrees with that of the ancient Saturnalia. Age libertate decembri, quando ita Maiores, Wallueront, Etuere, Nara. Horace, Book 2, Satire 7. The Roman Saturnale, thus transplanted into Christian churches, had for its singular principle that of inferiors, whimsically and in mockery, personifying their superiors with a licensed licentiousness. This forms a distinct

characteristic from those other popular customs and pastimes which the learned have also traced to the Roman and even more ancient nations. Our present inquiry is to illustrate that proneness in man of delighting to reverse the order of society and ridiculing its decencies. Here we had our boy bishop, a legitimate descendant of this family of foolery. On St. Nicholas's Day, a saint who was the patron of children, the boy bishop with his

Mitra Parwa, and a long crozier, attended by his schoolmates as his diminutive prebendaries, assumed the title and state of a bishop. The child bishop preached a sermon and afterwards, accompanied by his attendants, went about singing and collecting his pence. To such theatrical processions in collegiate bodies, Wharton attributes the custom still existing at Eton of going ad montum. Footnote. The custom is now abolished. End of footnote. But this was a tame

mummery compared with the grossness elsewhere allowed in burlesquing religious ceremonies. The English, more particularly after the Reformation, seemed not to have polluted the churches with such abuses. The relish for the Saturnalia was not, however, less lively here than on the continent, but it took a more innocent direction and was allowed to turn itself into civil life, and since the people would be gratified by mock dignities and claim the privilege of

ridiculing their masters, it was allowed them by our kings and nobles, and a troop of grotesque characters, frolicsome great men, delighting in merry mischief, are recorded in our domestic annals. The most learned seldom, with parsimonious phrase and copious sense, has thus compressed the result of an historical dissertation. He derives our ancient Christmas sports at once from the true the remote source. Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia, the same time the same number of holy days.

Then the master waited upon the servant like the lord of misrule. Such is the title of a facetious potentate, who in this notice of Seldon's is not further indicated, for this personage was familiar in his day, but of whom the accounts are so scattered, that his offices and his glory are now equally obscure. The race of this nobility of drollery and this legitimate king of all hoaxing and quizzing, like mightier dynasties, has ceased to exist. In England, our festivities at Christmas

appear to have been more entertaining than in other countries. We were once famed for Merry Christmases and their pies. Witness the Italian proverb, ha, piu di fare, che e forni di Natale in Eglaterra. He has more business than English ovens at Christmas. Wherever the king resided, there was created for that merry season a Christmas prince, usually called the lord of misrule, and whom the Scotch once knew under the significant title of the abbot of unreason.

His office, according to Stowe, was to make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholder. Every nobleman and every great family surrendered their houses during this season to the Christmas Prince, who found rivals or usurpers in almost every parish, and more particularly, as we shall see, among the grave students in our inns of court. The Italian Polydor Virgil, who, residing here, had clearer notions of this facetious personage, considered

the Christmas Prince as peculiar to our country. Without venturing to ascend in his genealogy, we must admit his relationship to that ancient family of foolery we have noticed, whether he be legitimate or not. If this whimsical personage at his creation was designed to regulate misrule, his lordship invested with plenary power came himself at length to delight too much in his married disports. Stubbs, a morose Puritan in the days of Elizabeth, denominates him a grand

captain of mischief, and has preserved a minute description of all his wild doings in the country. But as Strutt has anticipated me in this amusing extract, I must refer to his Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, page 254. Footnote. It may save the trouble of a reference to give here a condensation of Stubb's narrative. He says that the Lord of Misrule, on being selected, takes twenty to sixty others like himself to act as his guard, who are decorated with ribbons, scarfs, and bells on their legs.

Thus all things set in order. They have their hobby horses, their dragons, and other antiques, together with their gaudy pipers and thundering drummers to strike up the devil's dance withal. So they march to the church, invading it, even though service be performing, with such a confused noise that no man can hear his own voice.

Then they adjourn to the churchyard, where booths are set up, and the rest of the day spent in dancing and drinking. The followers of my lord go about to collect money for this, giving in return badges and cognizances to wear in the hat, and do not scruple to insult or even duck, such as will not contribute. But, adds Stubbs, another sort of fantastical fools are well pleased to bring all sorts of food and drink to furnish out the feast. End of footnote.

I prepare another scene of unparalleled Saturnale among the grave judges and sergeants of the law, where the lord of misrule is viewed amidst his frolicsome courtiers with the humor of hunting the fox and the cat with ten couple of hounds round their great hall, among the other merry disports of those joyous days when sages could play like boys. For those who can throw themselves back amidst the grotesque humors and clumsy pastimes of our ancestors, who, without what

we think to be taste had whim and merriment, there has been fortunately preserved a curious history of the manner in which a grand Christmas was kept at our ends of court by the grave and learned Dugdale and his Origines Juridicalis. It is a complete festival of foolery acted by the students and law officers. They held for that season everything in mockery. They had a mock parliament, a prince of Sophie, or wisdom, an honorable order of Pegasus, a high constable, a marshal,

a master of the game, a ranger of the force, lieutenant of the tower, which was a temporary prison for Christmas delinquents, and all the paraphernalia of a court, burlesqued by these youthful sages before the boyish judges. The characters personified were in the costume of their assumed offices. On Christmas Day, the constable marshal, accoutred with a complete gilded harness, showed that everything was to be chivalrously ordered, while the lieutenant of the

tower in a fair white armor, attended with his troop of halberdiers, and the tower was then placed beneath the fire. After this opening followed the costly feasting, and then nothing less than a hunt with a pack of hounds in their hall. The master of the game, dressed in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest in green satin, bearing a green bow and arrows, each with a hunting horn about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery, or hunting, they pace

round about the fire three times. The master of the game kneels to be admitted into the service of the high constable. A huntsman comes into the hall with nine or ten couple of hounds bearing on the end of his staff a purse net which holds a fox and a cat. These were let loose and hunted by the hounds and killed beneath the fire. These extraordinary amusements took place after their repast, for these grotesque Saturnalia appeared after that graver part of their grand Christmas,

supper ended the constable marshal presented himself with drums playing mounted on a stage borne by four men and carried round at length he cries out a lord a lord c and then calls his mock court every one by name sir francis flatterer of fowles hurt sir randall raccabite of rascal hall in the county of wrake hell sir morgan mumchance of much monkery in the county of mad mopery sir bartholomew bald breech of buttockberry in the county of breakneck footnote a rare quarto tract seems to give an authentic narrative of one of these grand christmas keepings exhibiting all their whimsicality and burlesque humour it is entitled gestum greorum or the history of the high and mighty prince henry prince of purpool archduke of stapulia and bernardia staples and bernard's inns duke of high and nether hall born marquis of st giles and tottenham count palatine of bloomsbury and clerkenwell great lord of the cantons of islington kentishtown etc knight and sovereign of the most hierarchical order of the helmet who reigned and died a d fifteen ninety four

it is full of burlesque speeches and addresses as it was printed in sixteen eighty eight i suppose it was from some manuscript of the times the preface gives no information hone in his year-book has reprinted this tract which abounds with curious details of the mock dignity assumed by this pseudo potentate who was ultimately invited with all his followers to the court of queen elizabeth and treated by her as nobly as if he had been a real sovereign end of footnote they had also their mock arraignments the king's sergeant after dinner or supper or tour alike complained that the constable marshal had suffered great disorders to prevail the complaint was answered by the common sergeant who was to show his talent at defending the cause the king's sergeant replies they rejoin etc till one at length is committed to the tower for being found most deficient if any offender contrived to escape from the lieutenant of the tower into the buttery and brought into the hall a manchant or small loaf upon the point of a knife he was pardoned for the buttery in this jovial season was considered as a sanctuary then began the revels blunt derives this term from the french

to awake from sleep these were sports of dancing masking comedies etc for some were called solemn revels used in great houses and were so denominated because they were performed by night and these various pastimes were regulated by a master of the revels amidst the grand christmas a personage of no small importance was the lord of misrule his lordship was abroad early in the morning and if he lacked any of his officers he entered their chambers to drag forth the loiterers but after his breakfast his lordship's power ended and it was in suspense till night when his personal presence was paramount or as dugdale expresses it and then his power is most potent such were then the pastimes of the whole learned bench and when once it happened that the under-barristers did not dance on candlemas day according to the ancient order of the society when the judges were present the whole bar was offended and at lincoln's inn were by decimation put out of commons for example's sake and should the same omission be repeated they were to be fined or disbarred for these dancings were thought necessary as much conducing to the making of gentlemen

more fit for their books at other times i cannot furnish a detailed notice of these pastimes for dugdale whenever he indicates them spares his gravity from recording the evanescent frolics by a provoking etc etc etc the dance round about the coal fire is taken off in the rehearsal these revels have also been ridiculed by donne in his satires prior in his alma and pope in his dunciad the judge to dance his brother sergeants calls the lord of misrule in the inns of court latterly did not conduct himself with any recollection of mediotutissimus ibis being unreasonable but the sparks of the temple as a contemporary calls them had gradually in the early part of charles i's reign yielded themselves up to excessive disorders sir simon's dues in his manuscript diary in sixteen twenty has noticed their choice of a lieutenant or lord of misrule who seems to have practised all the mischief he invented and the festival days when a standing table was kept were accompanied by dicing and much gaming oaths execrations and quarrels being of a serious turn of mind he regrets this for he adds the sport of itself i conceive to be lawful

I suspect that the last memorable act of a Lord of Misrule of the Inns of Court occurred in 1627, when the Christmas game became serious. The Lord of Misrule then issued an edict to his officers to go out at twelfth night to collect his rents in the neighborhood of the temple, at the rate of five shillings a house, and on those who were in their beds or would not pay he levied a distress. An unexpected resistance at length occurred in a memorable battle with the Lord Mayor in person,

And I shall tell how the lord of misrule for some time stood victor with his gunner and his trumpeter and his marshal array, and how heavily and fearfully stood my lord mayor amidst his watch and ward, and how their lordships agreed to meet halfway, each to preserve his independent dignity till one knocked down the other, and how the long halberds clashed with the short swords, how my lord mayor valorously took the lord of misrule prisoner with his own civic hand, and how the Christmas prince was immured in the counter, and how the learned Templars insisted on their privilege, and the unlearned of Ramsalli and Fleet Street asserted their right of saving their crown pieces, and finally how this combat of mockery and earnestness was settled, not without the introduction of a god, as Horace allows on great occasions in the interposition of the king and the attorney general.

Altogether the tale had been well told in some comic epic, but the wits of that day let it pass out of their hands. I find this event, which seems to record the last desperate effort of a lord of misrule, in a manuscript letter of the learned Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, and some particulars are collected from Hammond Lestrange's Life of Charles I. January 12, 1627-8. On Saturday the Templars chose one Mr. Palmer, their lord of misrule,

who on twelfth eve late in the night sent out to gather up his rents at five shillings a house in ram alley and fleet street at every door they came they winded the temple horn and if at the second blast or summons they within opened not the door then the lord of misrule cried out give fire gunner his gunner was a robustious vulcan and the gun or petard itself was a huge overgrown smith's hammer This being complained of to my Lord Mayor, he said he would be with them about eleven o'clock

on Sunday night last, willing that all that ward should attend him with their halberds, and that himself, besides those that came out of his house, should bring the watches along with him. His lordship thus attended advanced as high as Ram Alley in martial equipage, when forth came the Lord of Misrule, attended by his gallants, out of the temple gate with their swords, all armed in Querpo. A halberdier bade the lord of Misrule come to my lord mayor. He answered, No, let the lord

mayor come to me. At length they agreed to meet halfway, and as the interview of rival princes is never without danger of some ill accident, so it happened in this. For first, Mr. Palmer, being quarrelled with for not pulling off his hat to my lord mayor, and giving cross answers, the halberds began to fly about his ears, and he and his company to brandish their swords. At last, being beaten to the ground, and the lord of misrule sore wounded,

they were fain to yield to the longer and more numerous weapon. My lord mayor, taking Mr. Palmer by the shoulder, led him to the compter, and thrust him in at the prison gate with a kind of indignation, and so, notwithstanding his hurts, he was forced to lie among the common prisoners for two nights. On Tuesday the king's attorney became a suitor to my lord mayor for their liberty,

which his lordship granted upon condition that they should repay the gathered rents, and do reparations upon broken doors. Thus the game ended. Mr. Attorney-General, being of the same house, fetched them in his own coach, and carried them to the court, where the king himself reconciled my lord mayor and them together with joining all hands. The gentlemen of the temple, being this, shrove tied to present a mask to their majesties, over and besides the king's

own great mask to be performed at the banqueting house by a hundred actors. Thus it appears that although the grave citizens did well and rightly protect themselves, yet by the attorney general taking the lord of misrule in his coach and the king giving his royal interference between the parties, that they considered that this lord of foolery had certain ancient privileges, and it was perhaps a doubt with them whether this interference of the lord mayor might not be

considered as severe and unseasonable. It is probable, however, that the arm of the civil power brought all future lords of misrule to their senses. Perhaps this dynasty in the empire of foolery closed with this Christmas prince, who fell a victim to the arbitrary taxation he levied. I find after this orders made for the inner temple, for preventing of that general scandal an obloquy which the house hath heretofore incurred in time of Christmas, and that there

be not any going abroad out of the gates of this house by any lord or others to break open any house or take anything in the name of rent or a distress. These lords of misrule and their mock court and royalty appear to have been only extinguished with the English sovereignty itself at the time of our republican government. Edmund Gaten tells a story to show the strange impressions of strong fancies. As his work is of great rarity, I shall transcribe the story in his own words,

both to give a conclusion to this inquiry and a specimen of his style of narrating this sort of little things. A gentleman was importuned at a fire night in the public hall to accept the high and mighty place of a mock emperor, which was duly conferred upon him by seven mock electors. At the same time, with much wit and ceremony, the emperor accepted his chair of state, which was placed in the highest table in the hall, and at his installment all pomp, reverence, and signs of homage were used by the whole company, insomuch that our emperor, having a spice of self-conceit before, was soundly peppered now, for he was instantly metamorphosed into the stateliest, gravest, and commanding soul that ever I beheld. tailor acting our bases or swanston domois were shadows to him his pace his look his voice and all

his garb was altered alexander upon his elephant nay upon the castle upon that elephant was not so high and so close did this imaginary honor stick to his fancy that for many years he could not shake off this one night's assumed deportments until the times came that drove all monarchical imaginations not only out of his head, but everyone's. This mock emperor was unquestionably one of these lords of misrule, or a Christmas prince. The public hall was that of the temple,

or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn. Footnote. The universities indulged in similar festivities. An account of the Christmas prince elected by the University of Oxford in 1607 was published in 1816 from a manuscript preserved in St. John's College, where his court was held. His rule commenced by the issuing of an act for taxes and subsidies toward the defrayment of expenses and the appointment of a staff of officers. After this, the revels opened with a banquet and a play.

The whole of his brief reign was conducted in right royal style. His mandates were constructed in the manner of a king. He was entitled Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord of St. John's, Duke of St. Giles, Marquess of Magdalen's, etc., etc., and his affairs were similarly dignified with burlesque honors. His privy chamber was provided and furnished with a chair of state, placed upon a carpet with a cloth of state hanged over it, newly made for the same purpose. At banquetings and all

public occasions he was attended by his whole court. The whole of the sports occupied from the 21st of December until Shrove Tuesday, when the entertainments closed with a play, being one of eight performed at stated times during the festivities, which were paid for by the contributions of the collegians and heads of the house. And it was natural enough when the leveling equality of our theatrical and practical commonwealth's men were come into vogue, that even

the shadowy regality of mockery startled them by reviving the recollections of ceremonies and titles, which some might incline, as they afterwards did, seriously to restore. The Prince of Christmas did not, however, attend the restoration of Charles II. The Saturnalian spirit has not been extinct even in our days, the mayor of Garrett, with the mock addresses and burlesque election, was an image of such satirical exhibitions of their superiors so delightful to the people.

Footnote. Foot's amusing farce has immortalized this popular piece of folly, but those who desire to know more of the peculiarities and eccentricities of the election will find an excellent account in Holmes' everyday book, volume two, with some engravings illustrative of the same, drawn by an artist who attended the great mock election of 1781. End of footnote. France, at the close of Louis XIV's reign, first saw her imaginary

Régiment de la Calotte, which was the terror of the sinners of the day and the blockheads of all times. This regiment of the skull caps originated in an officer and a wit, who, suffering from violent headaches was recommended the use of a skull-cap of lead and his companions as great wits formed themselves into a regiment to be composed only of persons distinguished by their extravagances in words or in deeds they elected a general they had their arms blazoned and struck medals and issued brevets and lettre patent and granted pensions to certain individuals stating their claims to be enrolled in the regiment for some egregious extravagance the wits versified these army commissions and the idlers like pioneers were busied in clearing their way by picking up the omissions and commissions of the most noted characters those who were favored with its brevets intrigued against the regiment but at length they found it easier to wear their calut and say nothing

this society began in raillery and playfulness seasoned by a spice of malice it produced a great number of ingenious and satirical little things that the privileges of the collot were afterwards abused and calumny too often took the place of poignant satire is the history of human nature as well as of the footnote there brevets etc are collected in a little volume recuil des pièces de régiment de la colette a paris chez jacques colombat un premier privilege du régiment l'un des leurs calotins from the date we infer that the true calotine is as old as the creation Another society in the same spirit has been discovered in one of the lordships of Poland. It was called the Republic of Baboonery.

The society was a burlesque model of their own government, a king, chancellor, counselors, archbishops, judges, etc. If a member would engross the conversation, he was immediately appointed orator of the republic. If he spoke with impropriety, the absurdity of his conversation usually led to some suitable office created to perpetuate his folly. A man talking too much of dogs would be made a master of the buckhounds, or, vaunting his courage, perhaps a field marshal, and if bigoted on disputable matters and speculative opinions in religion, he was considered to be nothing less than an inquisitor. This was a pleasant and useful project to reform the manners of the Polish youth, and one of the Polish kings good-humoredly observed that he considered himself as much king of baboonery as king of Poland.

We have had in our own country some attempts at similar Saturnalia, but their success has been so equivocal that they hardly afford materials for our domestic history. End of section 45