Volume 1

The every-day book, or, The guide to the year : relating the popular amusements, sports, ceremonies, manner, customs, and events, incident to the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times : being a series of five thousand anecdotes and facts : forming a perpetual key to the almanac... / by William Hone.

  • Hone, William, 1780-1842.
Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The every-day book, or, The guide to the year : relating the popular amusements, sports, ceremonies, manner, customs, and events, incident to the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times : being a series of five thousand anecdotes and facts : forming a perpetual key to the almanac... / by William Hone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    new year’s gifts from king James I. to the persons whose names are therein mention- ed on the 1st of January 1605, with the new year’s gifts that his majesty received the same day ; the roll is signed by James himself and certain officers of his house- hold. In a “Banquet of Jests, 1634,” 12mo. mere is a pleasant story of Archee, the King’s jester, who, having fooled many, was fooled himself. Coming to a noble- man, upon new year’s day, to bid him good-morrow, Archee received twenty pieces of gold ; but, covetously desiring more, he shook them in his hand, and said they were too light. The donor answered: “ I prithee, Archee, let me see them again, for there is one amongst them I would be loth to part with;” Archee, expecting the sum to be increased, returned the pieces to his lordship; who put them in his pocket with this remark, “ I once gave money into a fool’s hand, who had not the wit to keep it.” Pins were acceptable new year’s gifts to the ladies, instead of the wooden skew- ers which they used till the end of the fifteenth century. Sometimes they re- ceived a composition in money: and hence allowances for their separate use is still denominated “ pin-money.” Gloves were customary new year’s gifts. They were more expensive than in our times, and occasionally a money present was tendered instead : this was called “ glove-money.” Sir Thomas More, as lord chancellor, decreed in favour of a Mrs. Croaker against the lord Arundel. On the following new year’s day, in token of her gratitude, she presented sir Thomas with a pair of gloves, containing forty angels. “ It would be against good manners,” said the chancellor, to forsake a gentlew'oman’s new year’s gift, and I accept the gloves; their Ibiing you will be pleased otherwise to bestow.” 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 re- marked to be “ of a kind which time has & tendency rather to hallow than to in- fure,” Robert Herrick, presents us, in his Ilesperides, with “ a Nevr Year’s Gift sent to Sir Simon Steward.” He com- mences it merrily, and goes on to call ;t j a jolly Verse, crown’d with ivy and wi*h 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’ appea; As daughters to the instant year; And to the bagpipes all address Till sleep take place of weariness. And thus throughout, with Christmas p.ays, Frolick the full twelve holidays. Mr. Ellis, in a note on Brand, intro- duces a poetical new year’s gift in Latin, from the stern Buchanan to the unhappy Mary of Scotland. “ New year’s gifts,” says Dr. Drake, “ were given and received, with the mutual expression of good wishes, and particularly that of a happy new year. The compli- ment was sometimes paid at each other’s doors in the form of a song; but more ge- nerally, especially in the north of Eng- land and in Scotland, the house was en- tered very early in the morning, by some young men and maidens selected for the purpose, who presented the spiced bowl, and hailed you with the gratulations of the season.” To this may be added, that it was formerly the custom in Scotland to send new year’s gifts on new year’s eve; and on new year’s day to wish each other a happy new year, and ask for a new year’s gift. There is a citation in Brand, from the “ Statistical Account of Scotland,” concerning new year’s gifts to servant maids by their masters; and it mentions that “ there is a large stone, about nine or ten feet high, and four broad, placed upright in a plain, in the (Orkney) isle of North Ronaldshay ; but no tradition is preserved concerning it, whether erected in memory of any signal event, or for the purpose of administering justice, or for religious worship. Hie