on that day, and this, I think, before a certain hour; but whether this hour is sunrise or church-time, I cannot say. Perhaps the spice which enters into the composition of hot cross-buns, has as much to do with the result as anything, but, experto crede, you may keep them for years without their getting mouldy.”

BRIDE CAKE.

The custom of having bride cakes at marriages among the Christians, derives its origin from the Jews. At the marriage ceremony of the latter, they scatter corn on and about the bride and bridegroom, repeating at the same time the Scripture phrase, crescite et multiplicamini, that is, increase and multiply. The custom is allegorical of an increase both in children and substance. Its first origin was from the Roman custom, called Confarreation.

MINCE PIES.

These pies were formerly made in the shape of a cradle, or a cratch, or a manger, and were first derived from the practice at Rome of presenting the fathers of the Vatican with paste images and sweetmeats. In a tract printed in the time of Queen Elizabeth or James I. they are called minched pies.

CHRISTMAS-BOXES.

The institution of Christmas-boxes has descended to us from the times of the ancient Romans, who at the season of the Saturnalia, practised universally the custom of giving and receiving presents. The fathers of the Church denounced this practice by Christians, on account of its heathen origin. An old writer, John Dunton, in “The Athenian Oracle," gives the Church herself the credit of originating Christmas-boxes, which he says are "as ancient as the word mass, which the Roman priests invented from the Latin word 'mitto,' to send, by putting the people in mind to send gifts, offerings, oblations, to have masses said for everything almost, that no ship goes out to the Indies but the priests have a box in that ship, under the protection of some saint. And for masses, as they cant, to be said for them to that saint, &c., the poor people must put something into the priests' box, which is not to be opened till the ship's return. Thus the mass at that time was 'Christ's-mass,' and the box 'Christ's-mass box,' that masses might be made by the priests to the saints, to forgive the people the debaucheries of that time; and from this, servants had liberty to get box-money, because they might be enabled to pay the priest for masses, because, no penny, no paternoster."

In Scotland, Christmas-boxes are termed handsels,

but they are scarcely ever claimed till after the commencement of the new year.

FISH AND THE RING; STEPNEY CHURCHYARD.

In the wall, just below the great eastern window of Stepney church, on an elegant white marble slab, which has been lately repaired and beautified (adorned with a cherub, urns, volutes, palm branches, and these arms-Paley 6 or, a bend, 3 mullets, Elton, impaling a fish-and in the dexter chief point, annulet, between two bends wavy), is this inscription :-" Here lyeth interred, the body of Dame Rebecca Berry, the wife of Thomas Elton, of Stratford-Bow, Gent., who departed this life, April 26th, 1696, aged 52.

This monument, in all probability, from the circumstance of the arms, has given rise to a tradition, that Dame Berry was the heroine of a popular ballad, called "The Cruel Knight, or the Fortunate Farmer's Daughter;" the story of which is briefly as follows:"A knight passing a cot, hears the cries of a woman in labour. His knowledge in the occult sciences informs him, that the child then born is destined to become his wife; he endeavours to evade the decrees of fate, and to avoid so ignoble an alliance by various attempts to destroy the child, but which are defeated. At length, when grown to woman's estate, he takes her to the sea-side, intending to drown her, but relents; at the same time, throwing a ring into the

sea, he commands her never to see his face again on pain of death, unless she shall produce the ring. She afterwards becomes a cook in a gentleman's family, and finds the ring in a cod-fish, as she is dressing it for dinner. The marriage takes place, of course. This story is devoutly believed in the once suburban, but now crowded, hamlet of Stepney.

GIVING QUARTER.

This custom, so well known in warfare, had its origin in an agreement between the Dutch and Spaniards, that the ransom of an officer or soldier should be the quarter of his year's pay. Hence to beg quarter, was to offer a quarter of their pay for personal safety; and to refuse quarter, was not to accept the offered ransom.

LORD MAYOR'S DAY.

Lord Mayor's day in London was first made annual in the year 1214. Until that period, the chief magistrate was appointed for life.

Before the alteration of the style, in 1752, the Lord Mayors of London came into office on the 29th October, on which account it would seem that, ever since 1800, the Lord Mayor's day ought to have been on the 10th of November instead of the 9th, the difference between the old and new style being 12 days.

LORD MAYOR'S SHOW.

This show, says Hone in his "Ancient Mysteries," is the only state exhibition in the metropolis that remains as a memorial of the great doings in the time of the pageants. In a curious description of the show as it was managed in 1575, it is related, that "to make way in the streetes, certayne men were employed, apparalled like devells and wylde men, with skybbs and certain beadells."

The number of persons who dined at Guildhall was 1,000, all at the charge of the mayor and the two sheriffs. "This feast (the writer continues) costeth £400, whereof the mayor payeth £200 and each of the sheriffs £100. Immediately after dyner they go to the church of St. Paule, the men bearynge stafftorches and targetts, which torches are lighted when it is late, before they come from evenynge prayer." In 1585, there were children in the procession, who personified the city, magnanimity, loyalty, science, the country, and the river Thames; they also represented. a soldier, a sailor, and nymphs with appropriate speeches. The show opened with a Moor on the back of a lynx. On Sir Thomas Middleton's mayoralty, in 1613, the solemnity is described as unparalleled for the cost, art, and magnificence of the shows, pageants, chariots, morning, noon, and night triumphs. In 1616 for the mayoralty of Sir John Leman, of

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