The adoration of the Magi was a favourite subject in the early mysteries. The celebrated Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, wrote one on it as well as on the Nativity, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Flight into Egypt, which were all published in 1547, in the collection of her works, called ‘Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, très-illustre Reyne de Navarre.’ There are said indeed to have been representations in the French churches of the Three Magi as early as the fifth century; and there are French mysteries relating to them in the eleventh century, and also a Latin one mentioned by Lebeuf, wherein Virgil accompanies the kings on their journey; and at the end of the Adoration joins them very piously in the benedicamus. The first feast of the Three Kings was celebrated at Milan in 1336, by the friar preachers, and was called the Feast of the Star. A golden star was exhibited, as if in the sky, preceding them; the Three Kings appeared on horseback, crowned and richly clad, with a large retinue, and bearing golden cups filled with myrrh, frankincense, and gold. They asked Herod where Christ should be born, and having been answered in Bethlehem, proceeded to the church of St. Eustorgius, preceded by trumpets, horns, apes, baboons, &c. In the church, on one side of the altar, was the representation of a manger, with an ox and an ass; and the infant Saviour in the arms of his mother, to whom the kings then made their offerings. It forms a favourite subject in our early English Mysteries, which were suppressed early in the time of James the First; but it was introduced as a puppet-show at Bartholomew fair as late as the time of Queen Anne. In ‘Dives and Pauper,’ 1496, it is stated, “For to represente in playnge at Crystmasse Herodes and the Thre Kynges and other processes of the gospelles both than and at Ester, and other times also, it is lefull and com̄endable.” Several provincial French collections of Carols, published within these few years, contain a Mystery or Scripture play of the Adoration. The Feast of the Star, just mentioned, was retained to some extent in Germany up to the end of the last century; and Hoffman, in his ‘Horæ Belgicæ,’ contains the Star-song used on the occasion, as old perhaps as the fifteenth century, of which a nearly literal translation is given hereafter. The history of these kings was a favourite subject for tapestry and illuminations for books, of which numerous examples might be given; also for paintings on church and monastic walls, as Barclay, in his Egloges, says, “. . the Thre Kinges, with all their company, Their crownes glistning bright and oriently, With their presentes and giftes misticall. All this behelde I in picture on the wall.”