on one occasion the Lady Elizabeth gave him a cambric shirt of her own working. In the present day it would probably have been a couvrette, or an embroidered smoking cap, though he was rather young for that. His times were innocent of this strange fashion, though they had quite sufficient eccentricities of their own to answer for. It is a pity that the recent act, compelling chimneys to consume their own smoke, does not extend to smokers; it is almost worth while mooting the point, whether it does or not. The nobility kept the feast in manner similar to the court, making allowance for difference of station. They had their lord of Misrule, or master of the revels, and their minstrels, their players, with their interludes and disguisings; the chaplain being frequently the maker of the interludes; and most minute rules were laid down to regulate the different payments and gifts. The Earl of Northumberland, whose household book has been so often quoted in illustration of the manners and customs of this age, used to give, when he was at home, to those of his chapel, if they played the play of the Nativity on Christmas Day, 20_s._; and to his master of the revels, 20_s._; to the king’s servant, bringing a New Year’s gift, he gave £5, or if a special friend of his own, £6 13_s._ 4_d._; to the queen’s servant, £3 6_s._ 8_d._; but to the servant (probably a domestic), bringing one from Lord Percy, only 12_d._; to his three minstrels, on New Year’s Day, for playing at the chamber doors of the different members of the family £1 3_s._ 4_d._; to his six trumpets, 20_s._; to his officer of arms, for crying largess, 20_s._; to the grooms of his chamber, to put in their box, 20_s._; to the abbot of Misrule, 20_s._; to his chaplain for making an interlude, the price seems to be 13_s._ 4_d._, rather moderate when compared with the other gifts. Different presents also to various sets of players; also 20_s._ each to the barne-bishops (boy-bishops) of Beverley and York, showing that the custom still existed. Traces of the boy-bishop may be found as far back as the Constantinopolitan synod in 867, and as early as Edward the First’s reign, one of them was permitted to sing vespers before him at Heton, near Newcastle, in 1299, when on his way to Scotland, and received forty shillings for himself and the boys who sang with him. In the time of Edward the Second payments were made to this personage; and Dean Colet, in his regulations for St. Paul’s School, 1512, directs the scholars to go every Childermas Day to St. Paul’s to hear the child-bishop’s sermon, and each to offer him a penny. Henry the Eighth, however, put down the custom, which was revived by Queen Mary, but finally abolished by Elizabeth.