The usual course, of choosing by the bean, was to insert it in the cake, though sometimes a piece of money was put in instead. The cake was then cut up, and the person to whom the piece with the bean fell was the king for the evening. Sometimes pieces were allotted to our Saviour, and the Virgin Mary, and the Three Kings, which were given to the poor; and if the bean should be in either of these portions, the king was chosen by pulling straws. Baby-cake, in the mask of ‘Christmas,’ was attended by an usher, bearing a great cake, with a bean and pea. The king elect chose his queen, or occasionally a pea was inserted in the cake for the purpose, and they chose their officers; and in France, when either of them drank, the company were to cry out, on pain of forfeit, “Le Roi (ou la Reine) boit.” Louis the Fourteenth, on one occasion, in his youth, was king of the bean, but would not undertake the office, handing it over to his governor, De Souvre. Herrick, in the seventeenth century, refers to the practice of choosing by the bean and pea:— “Now, now the mirth comes, With the cake full of plums, Where beane’s the king of the sport here; Beside we must know, The pea also Must revell as queene in the court here. Begin then to chuse, This night as ye use, Who shall for the present delight here; Be a king by the lot, And who shall not Be Twelfth-Day queene for the night heere.“ The French twelfth-cake is still plain in appearance, containing a bean: it was composed, about 250 years since, of flour, honey, ginger and pepper; what it is made of now, Monsieur Verey can no doubt tell, if he will; they are however far exceeded in appearance by the rich frosted, almond-pasted, festooned, bedizened, and carefully-ornamented cakes of the English pattern, gladdening the eyes of joyful holiday young people, and through them the hearts of their parents. The eager grouping of passers-by, to see the shop-windows crowded with these elegant productions of confectionary science, causes stoppages in our highways and thoroughfares, with reiterated “Move-ons” from our policemen. About twenty-five years ago there was one exhibited, said to weigh one ton, but it might have weighed any given number, being simply several large wedges of cake, all plastered together, at the top and sides, with one uniform coat of sugar-frost. Speaking from memory, and with a taste somewhat blunted to these enjoyments, the flavour was somewhat below the average, and curiosity was rewarded by ascertaining—to use a bad pun, which it is hoped may be excused—that it really was [Greek: mega hkakon] (mega cakon).