Mr. Brand relates from a curious MS. in the British Museum, of the date of 1560, that the boys of Eton school used on this day to play for little new year’s gifts before and after supper; and also to make verses, which they presented to the provost and masters, and to each other: new year’s gifts of verses, however, were not peculiar to schoolboys. A poet, the beauties of whose poetry are justly remarked to be “of a kind which time has a tendency rather to hallow than to injure,” Robert Herrick, presents us, in his Hesperides, with “a New Year’s Gift sent to Sir Simon Steward.” He commences it merrily, and goes on to call it ------------------------------- a jolly Verse, crown’d with ivy and with holly; That tells of winter’s tales and mirth, That milk-maids make about the hearth; Of Christmas’ sports, the wassail bowl, That tost-up after fox-i’ th’ hole; Of blind-man-buff, and of the care That young men have to shoe the mare; Of twelfth-tide cakes, of pease and beans, Wherewith ye make those merry scenes: Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds A plenteous harvest to your grounds Of those, and such like things, for shift, We send, _instead of New Year’s Gift_. Read then, and when your faces shine With buxom meat and cap’ring wine Remember us in cups full crown’d And let our city-health go round. Then, as ye sit about your embers, Call not to mind the fled Decembers But think on these, that are t’appear As daughters to the instant year; And to the bagpipes all address Till sleep take place of weariness. And thus throughout, with Christmas plays, Frolick the full twelve holidays. Mr. Ellis, in a note on Brand, introduces a poetical new year’s gift in Latin, from the stern Buchanan to the unhappy Mary of Scotland.