The three persons honoured by this service, and called kings, were the three wise men who, in catholic works, are usually denominated the _Three Kings of Cologne_. Cressy tells us, that the empress Helena, who died about the year 328, brought their bodies from the east to Constantinople; from whence they were transferred to Milan, and afterwards, in 1164, on Milan being taken by the emperor Frederick, presented by him to the archbishop of Cologne, who put them in the principal church of that city, “in which place,” says Cressy, “they are to this day celebrated with great veneration.” Patrick quotes a prayer to them from the Romish service, beginning “O, king Jaspar, king Melchior, king Balthasar;” and he says that the Salisbury Missal states their offerings to have been disposed of in this way:--“Joseph kept of the gold as much as him needed, to pay his tribute to the emperor, and also to keep our lady with while she lay in childbed, and the rest he gave to the poor. The incense he burnt to take off the stench of the stable there as she lay in; and with the myrrh, our lady anointed her child, to keep him from worms and disease.” Patrick makes several observations on the service to these three kings of Cologne, and as to the credibility of their story; and he inquires what good this prayer will do to Jaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, when another tradition says their names were Apellius, Amerus, and Damascus; a third, that they were Magalath, Galgalath, and Sarasin; and a fourth, Ator, Sator, and Peratoras; which last, Patrick says, he should choose in this uncertainty to call them by, as having the more kingly sound, if it had not been that Casaubon represents these three, “together with Misael, Achael, Cyriacus, and Stephanus, (the names of the four shepherds that came to visit our Lord in Bethlehem,) had been used (and he tells how) for a charm to cure the biting of serpents and other venomous beasts.” Patrick gives other prayers to these three kings, one of them from the “Hours of the Virgin,” and also quotes this miraculous anecdote; that one John Aprilius, when he was hanged, implored the patronage of the three kings of Cologne; the consequence of which seems to have been, that after he had been hung three days and was cut down, he was found alive; whereupon he came to Cologne half naked, with his halter about his neck, and returned thanks to his deliverers. [Illustration: TWELFTH-DAY.] Such are the scenes, that, at the front and side Of the Twelfth-cake-shops, scatter wild dismay; As up the slipp’ry curb, or pavement wide, We seek the pastrycooks, to keep Twelfth-day; While ladies stand aghast, in speechless trance, Look round--dare not go back--and yet dare not advance.