_Waites_, or _waits_, formerly _wayghtes_ is derived from the latter noun, and originally signified _hautbois_, (or hautbois, as we have it in English,) of which it is not unworthy remark, there is no singular number. From the instrument its signification was, after a time, transferred to the performers themselves; concerning whom, it is well known,.the appellation is now applied to all who follow the practice above adverted to, especially those who, at the approach of. Christmas, salute us with their nightly concerts. The _wayghtes_ of ancient times were, as some historians say, so called, because they attended or _waited_ on potentates, judges, magistrates, and bodies corporate, pomp and processions, &c.; they were also sometimes appointed to keep a sort of Watch at night, and were then generally decorated with superb dresses, splendid cloaks, &c. In Rymers' _Fardera_ there is an account of such an establishment, of the minstrels and _waites_ who were in the service of the court of Edward IV., wherein is mentioned "a _waite_ that nighteleye, from Michaelmas to Shrove Thorsday, pipeth the watch within this court;" "i. fewer times, in the somere nightes iij. times." Todd derives the term waits from _wahts_, (Goth.) nocturnal itinerant musicians, (Beaumont and Fletcher;) Bayley, on account of their waiting on magistrates, &c.; or of _guet_, a watch; or from the French _guetter_, to watch, because anciently they kept a sort of watch a night. From what I have narrated, then, it appears that the persons formerly called waites, or waits, were _musical_ watchmen, the word implying _obees_. They were, in fact, minstrels, at first annexed to the king's court, who sounded the watch every night; and in towns paraded the streets during winter, to prevent theft, &c. At Exeter they were set up, with a regular salary, in 1400; and although suppressed by the Puritans, were reinstated in 1660. M.A. Boyer, in his _French and English Dictionary_, Rivington. 1747, under the word _waits_, s. has the following: "in the French, _sorte de hautbois_, (ho-boy,) corresponding with the signification of the term waits, as itinerant or wandering (music or) musicians. These nocturnal perambulators, it seems, were anciently called, as they now are, waits; and persons, bearing the same name, still go about our streets during the month of December, (previous to the 25th.) Whatsoever may be the reasons or the motives of those (maunderers) who _now_ call _themselves waits_, I must leave for the consideration of such as are favoured with their visits. I am of opinion it can have neither allusion nor similitude to the Christmas carol as some have suggested, which was an imitation, however humble, of 'The glory to God on high,' &c., as sung by the angels who hovered over the fields of Bethlehem on the morning of our Saviour's nativity." It is true, indeed, that our modern angels, _the waits_ of 1897, have _hovered about_, and _they may_ (without a pun)