The "gossips' feast" (or sponsors' feast) held in honor of those who were associated in the christening, was an ancient English custom often mentioned by dramatists and other writers of the Elizabethan age. In the _Comedy of Errors_ (v. 1. 405) the Abbess, when she finds that the twin brothers Antipholus are her long-lost sons, says to the company present:-- "Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons; and till this present hour My heavy burthen ne'er delivered.-- The duke, my husband, and my children both, And you the calendars of their nativity, Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me; After so long grief, such nativity!" And the Duke replies, "With all my heart I'll gossip at this feast." In the _Bachelor's Banquet_ (1603) we find an allusion to these feasts: "What cost and trouble will it be to have all things fine against the Christening Day; what store of sugar, biscuits, comfets, and caraways, marmalet, and marchpane, with all kinds of sweet-suckers and superfluous banqueting stuff, with a hundred other odd and needless trifles, which at that time must fill the pockets of dainty dames." It would appear from this that the women at the feast not only ate what they pleased, but carried off some of the good things in their pockets. A writer in 1666, alluding to this and the falling-off in the custom of giving presents at christenings, says:-- "Especially since gossips now Eat more at christenings than bestow. Formerly when they used to trowl Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl-- Two spoons at least; an use ill kept: 'T is well now if our own be left." He insinuates that some of the guests were as likely to steal spoons from the table as to give gilt bowls or "apostle spoons" to the infant. The boy Shakespeare must have often seen this ceremony of christening. His sister Joan was baptized when he was five years old; his sister Anna when he was eight; his brother Richard when he was ten; and Edmund when he was sixteen. SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH BIRTH AND BAPTISM. In the time of Shakespeare babies were supposed to be exposed to other risks and dangers than the infantile disorders to which they are subject. Mary Shakespeare, as she watched the cradle of the infant William, may have been troubled by fears and anxieties that never occur to a fond mother now. Witches and fairies were supposed to be given to stealing beautiful and promising children, and substituting their own ugly and mischievous offspring. Shakespeare alludes to these "changelings," as they were called, in the _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ (ii. 1. 23), where Puck says that Oberon is angry with Titania "Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling." This "changeling boy" is alluded to several times afterwards in the play.