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Lea<leuhall. Plays were also exhibited at court, but they only con- 
sisted of pantomime and bufioonery, until the reign of Edward III. 
The clergy in the reign of Edward II. possessed the exclusive right of 
getting up Christmas plays from scripture subjects; . and in that 
reign a petition was presented to the crown by the scholars of St. 
Paul’s, complaining that secular actors infringed on this right. Cards 
were forbidden to apprentices in London, except at Christmas; and 
at that season the servant-girls and others danced every evening before 
their masters’ doors. Honest Stow laments the decay of the manner 
of keeping festivities in his time, which seems to have become un warlike 
and effeminate. “ Oh,” says he, “ what a wonderful change is this ! 
Our wrestling at arms is turned into wallowing in ladies’ laps, our 
courage to cowardice, our running into royot, ourbowes into bowles, 
and our darts into dishes.” 
The English, according to Polydore Virgil, ** celebrated the feast 
of Christmas with plays, masks, and magnificent spectacles, toge- 
ther with games and dancing, not common with other nations.” Cam- 
den saySj that “ few men played at cards in England, but at Christmas.” 
But it is to the country at present, that we must look for what remains 
of the customs practised by our ancestors at that season. The relics of 
old and ridiculous observances, deprived of all their objectionable 
parts by the improving spirit of successive years, are hallowed in our 
memories, and always recall the vernal season of life, and its regretted 
pleasures. In the north they have yet their “ fools’ plough,” and in 
Cornwall their goose-dancers. The latter still exhibit an old hunch- 
backed man, called the “ King of Christmas,” and sometimes the 
“ Father like customs may be traced in other counties. The yule- 
log still blazes in the chimney of the rustic at Christraas-eve, under 
the different appellations of Christmas-stock, log-block, &c. The 
wassail was regularly carried from door to door in Cornwall forty or 
fifty years ago ; and even now a measure of flip, ale, porter, and sugar, 
or some beverage, is handed round while the yule-log is burning, — or 
stock, as denominated in the western counties. The wassail bowl is 
of Saxon origin, and merits notice on an historical account. Vorti- 
gern, prince of the Silures, fell in love with Rowena, the niece of 
Hengist, the Saxon warrior. She presented the prince with a bowl of 
spiced wine, saying in Saxon, “ Waes Heal Hlaford Cyning,^ which 
signified/* Be of health, lord king.” Vortigern married her, and thus 
his kingdom fell to the Saxons. Robert of Gloucester notices this 
incident:-— 
“ Kuteshire and sitte hire adoune, and glad drink hire heil, 
And that was in this land the Verst, ‘ Was hail,’ 
As in the language of Saxyone that w'e might evere i’wite. 
And so well he paieth the foie about, that he is not Yet vorgute.” 
Waes-heil thus became the name of the drinking cup of the Anglo- 
Saxons ; and those cups were afterw'ards constantly used at public 
entertainments. 
in parts of the country remote from the metropolis, the singing of 
Christmas carols yet ushers in the mornings. — After breakfast the 
busy housewife prepares her plum-puddings, mince-pies, and confec- 
tionary, which she decorates with the emblems of the time : — a scratch 
