From this extract it is evident that in 1786 the custom was ancient, and had somewhat fallen into desuetude. Hone’s _Year-Book_ contains a very complete account of the ceremony, with full particulars of the mode in which the ‘swearing-in’ was then performed in the ‘Fox under the Hill.’ Hone does not throw any light on the origin of the practice, nor does he seem to have been aware of its comparative antiquity. He treated the ceremony as a piece of modern foolery, got up by some landlord for ‘the good of the house,’ and adopted from the same interested motive by others of the tribe. A subsequent correspondent of Mr. Hone, however, points out the antiquity of the custom, and shows that it could be traced back long before the year 1782, when it was introduced into a pantomime called _Harlequin Teague_; _or_, _the Giant’s Causeway_, which was performed at the Haymarket on Saturday, August 17, 1782. One of the scenes was Highgate, where, in the ‘parlour’ of a public house, the ceremony was performed. Mr. Hone’s correspondent sends a copy of the old initiation song, which varies considerably from our version, supplied to us in 1851 by a very old man (an ostler) at Highgate. The reciter said that the _copy of verses_ was not often used now, as there was no landlord who could sing, and gentlemen preferred the speech. He said, moreover, ‘that the verses were not always alike—some said one way, and some another—some made them long, and some _cut ’em short_.’ Grose was in error when he supposed that the ceremony was confined to the inferior classes, for even in his day such was not the case. In subsequent times the oath has been frequently taken by people of rank, and also by several persons of the highest literary and political celebrity. An inspection of any one of the register-books will show that the jurors have belonged to all sorts of classes, and that amongst them the Harrovians have always made a conspicuous figure. When the stage-coaches ceased to pass through the village in consequence of the opening of railways, the custom declined, and was kept up only at three houses, which were called the ‘original house,’ the ‘old original,’ and the ‘real old original.’ Two of the above houses have latterly ceased to hold courts, and the custom is now confined to the ‘Fox under the Hill,’ where the rite is celebrated with every attention to ancient forms and costume, and for a fee which, in deference to modern notions of economy, is only one shilling. Byron, in the first canto of _Childe Harold_, alludes to the custom of Highgate:—