Lawn, as white as driven snow; Cypress, black as e’er was crow; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses Masks for faces, and for noses; Bugle bracelet, necklace-amber, Perfume for a lady’s chamber; Golden quoifs, and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears; Pins, and poking-sticks of steel, What maids lack from head to heel: Come, buy of me, come: come buy, come buy; Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry, Come, buy, &c. Dr. Drake says, that though Elizabeth made returns to the new year’s gifts, in plate and other articles, yet she took sufficient care that the balance should be in her own favour. No. 4982, in the Catalogue for 1824, of Mr. Rodd, of Great Newport-street, is a roll of vellum, ten feet long, containing the new year’s gifts from king James I. to the persons whose names are therein mentioned on the 1st of January 1605, with the new year’s gifts that his majesty received the same day; the roll is signed by James himself and certain officers of his household. In a “Banquet of Jests, 1634,” 12mo. there is a pleasant story of Archee, the king’s jester, who, having fooled many, was fooled himself. Coming to a nobleman, upon new year’s day, to bid him good-morrow, Archee received twenty pieces of gold; but, covetously desiring more, he shook them in his hand, and said they were too light. The donor answered: “I prithee, Archee, let me see them again, for there is one amongst them I would be loth to part with:” Archee, expecting the sum to be increased, returned the pieces to his lordship; who put them in his pocket with this remark, “I once gave money into a fool’s hand, who had not the wit to keep it.” Pins were acceptable new year’s gifts to the ladies, instead of the wooden skewers which they used till the end of the fifteenth century. Sometimes they received a composition in money: and hence allowances for their separate use is still denominated “pin-money.” Gloves were customary new year’s gifts. They were more expensive than in our times, and occasionally a money present was tendered instead: this was called “glove-money.” Sir Thomas More, as lord chancellor, decreed in favour of a Mrs. Croaker against the lord Arundel. On the following new year’s day, in token of her gratitude, she presented sir Thomas with a pair of gloves, containing forty angels. “It would be against good manners,” said the chancellor, “to forsake a gentlewoman’s new year’s gift, and I accept the gloves; their _lining_ you will be pleased otherwise to bestow.”