Yu Games, for Christmas gambols; Yule-day for Christmas day; Yule-log, or Yu-log, for a Christmas log, &c. From the same origin may also be derived the Pope, Bishop, King, &c. of Fools, otherwise Yules, or Christmas ; and the Festival of Fools resolves itself into the more rational designation of the Feast of Yules, or Christmas festivity.

The Fool, or Yule Plough is sometimes called the White Plough; because the young men who compose the pageant are dressed in white shirts, with a great number of ribbands, folded into roses and other devices, loosely stitched upon them. These shirts, on account of the coldness of the season, are put on over the waistcoat and jacket. In some places, where the pageant is retained, they plough up the ground before any house where they receive no contribution. This pageant gives name to

WASSAIL BOWL.

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the first Monday after the Epiphany, which is called Plough Monday; and even in places where the pageant is not kept up, the day is considered as the ploughman's holiday, and they collect from their neighbours what is called the plough money, for the purchase of drink.

The wassail bowl, filled with spiced ale, was formerly carried about by young women, on New Year's eve: they went from door to door, in their several parishes, singing a few couplets of homely verses, composed for the purpose, and presented the liquor to the inmates, expecting a small gratuity in return, called the New Year's Gift. The wassail is said to have originated from the words of Rowena, daughter of Hengist, the Saxon, who, presenting a bowl of wine to Vortigern, king of the Britons, said wES HÆL, or Health to you, my

lord the king. Some vestiges of the wassails are still remaining in Cornwall, but the time of their performance is changed to Twelfthday.

MASQUES.

THE magnificent pageants and disguisings, exhibited at court, from the time of Henry IV. and especially during the reign of Henry VIII. appear to have originated from the Ludi, or Mummings, in which the chief aim was to surprise the spectators "by the ridiculous and exaggerated oddity of the vizors, and by the singularity and splendour of the dresses; and frequently the masque was accompanied with an exhibition of gorgeous machinery, resembling the wonders of a modern pantomime."

"In the fifth year of the reign of Henry VIII." says Hall, "his majesty kept his Christ