and manners, founded, as they profess, on the Decalogue. They denounce idolaters, and all who favour such. Swearers are to be fined or pilloried, according to their degree. Blasphemers are to be thrice set in the stocks, with a paper crown expressing their offence, and, if incorrigible, are to be banished. The Lord's day is to be strictly observed. Slander, foul language, and all sorts of uncleanness are to be severely punished. Adulterers are to be carted and banished-the session regretting that it cannot inflict on them the Mosaic punishment of death, "for that the princes have not received the law of God in that part." Obedience to bailies is deduced from the fifth commandment; and the eighth is the warrant for an ordinance against vagrants'.

In 1568 the kirk session made a resolution that the members should not divulge such matters as might come before them. But the whole tone of the records indicates any thing but a close and secret tribunal. The session met weekly in the chapterhouse of St. Nicolas, and it became at once the holy inquisition and the mart for scandal of Aberdeen. A curious variety of matters came under its cognizance. Very often its proceedings remind us of a police-court rather than of any other modern thing; and not unfrequently the evidence goes far beyond the point at which the modern police-reporter, veiling with expanded notebook his downcast and blushing countenance, pronounces "the details totally unfit for publication."

The change which had taken place rendered many things criminal which before were highly meritorious; and, although the dogmas of the Reformation were pretty generally accepted or allowed, it was found that the practices of the earlier times were not to be at once rooted out. Many persons-not, perhaps, the most religious-still clung to the celebration of abolished holidays; and the suppression of certain pageants, which had before been celebrated with great pomp for the honour of the town and the edification of the inhabitants, excited a spirit on the part of Young Aberdeen which would have intensely delighted the heart of Lord John Manners.

These pageants, indeed, were in the earlier time no unimportant matters. Thus, in the Burgh Records we meet with frequent orders by the magistrates for the celebration of Candlemas-day by the various crafts of the town. Their places in the procession are appointed, and it is settled what personages each craft shall furnish for the mystery performed on the occasion. The weavers and fullers were to contribute Symeon; the smiths, the three Kings of Cologne; the dyers, the Emperor; the masons, the three

1 Eccl. Rec. 4-12.

VOL. VII.—NO, XIV.--JUNE, 1847.

2 Ibid. 13.

ке

Knights; the tailors, our Lady, St. Bride, and St. Elene; the skinners, the twa Bishops', and so forth. Corpus Christi and the feast of the patron saint were also high days of procession and display; the election of the "boy bishop" forming a part of the ceremonies on St. Nicolas-day.

Much, too, is said of certain dignitaries who answered to the English Abbots of Unreason, and were styled, from the motto of the Aberdeen town arms, Abbot and Prior of Bon Accord'. Frequent grants are made towards the expenses of those elected to these offices; and when it was found that a succession of abbots had striven each to outdo his predecessor in cost and splendour, sumptuary laws were enacted for the purpose of restraining such extravagances. The abbot and prior were chosen from the young men of the principal families; all persons who were able were bound to " pass through the town" with them on the days of their display; mystery plays were performed under their superintendence, and banquets given at their expense; to disturb their procession was a highly-punishable offence; and, if the abbots and their companions were themselves now and then disorderly, the institution would probably not be on that account the less popular with the multitude.

Observances of this kind were suppressed by the legislature in 1555, some years before the Reformation reached the town of Bon Accord. But the taste for amusements was not to be so easily put down. In 1562, "John Kelo, bellman," was charged with convoking the inhabitants by the sound of his bell" to pass to the wood, to bring in summer, upon the first Sunday of May." He and two of his accomplices denied that they had done any wrong, and pleaded ancient custom in their behalf; the council, however, sentenced them to do penance by owning their offence, and asking pardon on their knees, after the sermon, on the following Sunday'.

Mr. Kelo's next appearance in the Register exhibits him as ringing his bell in May, 1565, and proclaiming, by order of the provost and bailies,

"to all burgessmen, craftsmen, and all others, inhabitants and indwellers of the said town, that nane of them tak upon hand to mak ony convention, with tabor-playing, or pipe, or fiddle, or have ensigns, to convene the Queen's lieges, in choosing of Robin Hood, Little John, Abbot of Reason, or Queen of May."

But it appears from a subsequent entry, that, notwithstanding the

3 Burgh Reg. 431.

4 Ibid. xxv.

5 About 1508 these names were for a time changed to Robin Hood and Little John. Burgh Reg. 440.

Burgh Reg. p. 14.

7 Ibid. 344.

8 Ibid. 459.

monitions of the reclaimed bellman, six persons "came through the town on [the following] Sunday afternoon, with ane minstrel playing before them."

The kirk session had, of course, no indulgence for persons guilty of such offences. In 1574, fourteen women were brought before them for "playing, dancing, and singing of filthie carols on Yule-day at even, and on Sunday at even thereafter"." The following year, a woman was fined for dressing in male attire at a wake, and three others were threatened with exclusion "from all benefit of the kirk" if they should relapse into the practices of disguising themselves and dancing'. All craftsmen were strictly and repeatedly commanded to observe no other day but the Lord's day; and, by a provision which must have gone far to enlist the sympathies of the rising generation on the side of the proscribed religion, schoolmasters were ordered to allow no "play" at festival seasons, but to keep the children closely to their lessons".

But, in spite of all that could be done by yearly warnings beforehand and punishments after, it is found that people will persist in being merry at Christmas and New Year. The gravity of the town is disturbed at such times by pipes and fiddles, songs which are stigmatized as filthy and idolatrous, carols, dancing, and masking. The suppression of pie-baking on Yule-day defies the most earnest and repeated efforts. Whole crafts are obstinately idle, Christmas after Christmas. The ecclesiastical powers cannot prevail on millers to work as they ought to do; when very closely questioned, they profess themselves not unwilling, but allege that their mills will somehow always get out of order precisely at these critical times. The unfortunate kirk session hardly knows whether to be more afflicted at the desecration of the Sabbath, or at the consecration of Christmas; and, curiously enough, some things, such as the sale of pies and performances of music about the streets, are held alike to desecrate the one and to consecrate the other.

The attachment to the old festivals appears down to the latest period of which these volumes treat. Quaint old Spalding, the tutelary genius of the Club, tells us how the Young Old-Aberdeen of 1642 behaved :—

"This year Yule-day fell upon Sunday. Our ministers preached against all merriness, play, and pastime; and the night before, throughout Aberdeen, the townsmen were commanded to keep themselves sober, and flee all superstitious keeping of days. Upon Monday the bell went through the Old Town, commanding all manner of men to open their booth-doors and go to work; but the students fell upon the

Eccl. Rec. 18. 2 Ibid. 16.

1 Ibid. 22.
3 Ibid. 138.

bellman, and took the bell from him, for giving such an unusual charge. So the people made good cheer and banqueting, according to their estates, and passed their times, Monday and Tuesday both, for all thi [these] threatenings *."

66

In the following year,

upon Candlemas-day, the bairns of the Old Town grammar-school came up the gate, with candles lighted in their hands, crying and rejoicing, glad enough; and thus came up to the cross, and round about goes divers times, climbs to the head thereof, and set on a burning torch thereupon. They went down from the cross, convoying John Keith, brother to the Earl Marischall, who was their king, to his lodging in the chanonry, with lighted candles "."

And at the end of the

66

year:

Upon good Yule-day, no work wrought in Old Aberdeen, nor yet upon St. James's [John's?] day, nor St. Stephen's day, for all the thundering of the ministers could do against it. And upon the 27th of December, the Old Town collegianers got eight days' play, whether the masters would or not "."

In 1649, the very "kirk-officer" of a country parish is "delated for singing of New-Year songs on New-Year's even, through sundry houses and towns of the parish';" and in 1656, there was sad trouble with millers, "baxters," and others at Aberdeen. One woman was charged with saying that Mr. Cant, in speaking against Yule, "spak like ane old fool." She got off by making oath that she had called Yule-day an old-fool day.

In 1608, a number of persons were brought before the kirk session on a charge of having kindled bonfires on Midsummereve. The first of the accused, Gilbert Keith, of the Earl Marischal's family, a wild young man whose irregularities found much work for the session, confessed himself guilty; but after him appeared a company of grave burghers-among them no less a personage than the provost himself each charged with having superstitiously kindled, or caused to be kindled, a fire on the causeway in front of his house. It proved that the fires had, in all these cases, been made without the knowledge of the accused. In short, Keith, or some one else, had played off a practical joke on them, which would probably have told equally well, whether the particular victim were a rigid enemy of "superstition," or a person suspected of inclination to it.

♦ P. 318, ed. 1829. The "History of the Troubles" is about to appear in an improved edition, under the care of a very skilful editor, Mr. Joseph Robertson. 7 Strathb. Pref. xiii. 9 Ibid. 61.

Ibid. 322.

8 Eccl. Rec. 138.

6 Ibid. 365,

ART. VII.-1. Some Remarks on a Letter addressed by the Rev. Dr. Hook to the Lord Bishop of St. David's, "On the Means of rendering more efficient the Education of the People." By One of the Clergy of the Manufacturing District" and Parish of Manchester. London: Rivingtons. Manchester: T. Sowler. 1847.

2. Letters to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell on State Education. By EDWARD BAINES, Jun., Author of the "History of the Cotton Manufacture." Eighth edition. Published, with the permission of the Author, by the Committee appointed in London to superintend its cheap circulation, at the price of Sixpence. London: Ward and Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1847. 3. The School in its Relations to the State, the Church, and the Congregation. Being an Explanation of the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, in August and December, 1846. Third thousand. London: John Murray. 1847. 4. Narrative of the Proceedings and Resolutions of the United Wesleyan Committees of Privileges and Education, in reference to the recent Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council on Education, with the Correspondence between the United Committees and the Committee of Council on Education, in March and April, 1847. London: John Mason. 1847.

5. The Congregational Year Book for 1846, containing the Proceedings of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and its Confederated Societies, for that Year; together with Supplementary Information respecting the Churches, Associations, Colleges, Ministers, and Publications of the Congregational Body throughout the United Kingdom. London: Jackson and Walford.

6. Letter to Lord Lyndhurst, from Lord BROUGHAM, on Criminal Police and National Education. Second edition, with a Postscript. London: James Ridgway. 1847.

7. A Letter to the Most Noble the Marquis of Lansdowne, Presi