84 Ancient Wiltshire Customs. 
Resort, and to repeat our merry rhyme, 
For remember, good sirs, this is Christmas time.” 
Prince George says :— 
“JT am Prince George, a Champion brave and bold, 
For with my spear I’ve won three crowns of gold: 
"Twas I that brought the Dragon to the slaughter, 
And I that gained the Egyptian monarch’s daughter.” 
And Alexander says {inter alia)— 
“Tis I that will hash thee, and slash thee, as small as flies, 
And send thee to Satan to make mince pies.” 
[Prince GrorGE and ALEXANDER fight, and Prince Grorce Sails. | 
The King of Egypt says :— 
“Ts there never a doctor to he found, 
That can cure my son of his deadly wound ?” 
The Doctor says :— 
“Yes there is a Doctor to be found 
That can cure your son of his deadly wound.” 
All the other verses are quite different from those of the Wilt- 
shire Mumming, but the almost identical phrases in these appear 
to shew that both must have had one common origin. 
In the Penny Magazine, (vol. vi. p. 339,) published in 1837, by 
Mr. Charles Knight, to whom we are greatly indebted for the pre- 
servation of much Antiquarian lore, the verses of the Mummers 
are given; but in that version of them, the character of the Saracen 
Knight does not occur, and it is Mince Pie who fights with, and is 
vanquished by S¢. George; but the drama is in substance identically 
the same as that enacted in Wiltshire. 
Sir Walter Scott (in the notes to the 6th Canto of Marmion,) gives 
the characters in one of the Masques of Ben Jonson for the Court 
and their Costumes. The characters are Christmas and his ten 
children ; one of whom is Minced Pie, but the other characters are 
wholly unlike those in the Mummings which I have referred to, 
