these gifts, a few will show the variety, the value and taste of some, and the strangeness, according to our ideas, of others. [Illustration: James Stephanoff, del. Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith. QUEEN ELIZABETH’S NEW YEARS GIFTS.] In 1560, she had a pair of silk stockings given her by Mrs. Montagu, her silk-woman, which by some are said to have been the first pair worn in England; however, they became common soon afterwards. It may be mentioned, as an act of kindness, that in this year she gave sixty French crowns, as a New Year’s Gift, to —— Penne, widow, who had been formerly nurse to King Edward. In the following year she received presents in money from £40 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a red silk purse in demy sovereigns, to £4 by Lady Cheeke, in a russet silk purse; also various articles of dress, most of them richly wrought, among which were smocks worked in silk; and standing collars and partelets wrought with gold, silver, and silk; and miscellaneous articles, from handsome pieces of jewellery, down to one pye of quinces, by John Betts, servant of the pastry, who received two gilt spoons in return. In subsequent years the gifts are much of the same nature, and a few only need be particularised. Some may be considered as partaking of a professional character: her doctors generally giving a pot of orange blossoms and a pot of ginger, or something similar; and her apothecary a box of lozenges, or a pot of conserves; while her cook gave a marchpane, made into some kind of device; and her serjeant of the pastry, a quince pie, and sometimes a pie of quinces and wardens gilt. In 1574, the favourite, Earl of Leicester, gave her a splendid fan, that ladies now might envy, being of white feathers, set in a handle of gold; one side of it garnished with two very fair emeralds, one of them especially fine, and garnished with diamonds and rubies; and the other side garnished with diamonds and rubies; and on each side a white bear and two pearls hanging, a lion rampant with a white muzzled bear at his foot. Handsomely wrought smocks are frequently mentioned. This article, as is well known, was different from that in present wear, the ornamental part could be safely exhibited, and gentlemen could present them without breach of decorum; though in our present fastidious days, a New Year’s Gift to a lady of a chemisette, berthe, or gilêt, might be considered as a somewhat eccentric _gage d’amour_.