The Stagyrite discovered that our nature delights in imitation, and
perhaps in nothing more than in representing personages different from
ourselves in mockery of them; in fact, there is a passion for masquerade
in human nature. Children discover this propensity; and the populace,
who are the children of society, through all ages have been humoured by
their governors with festivals and recreations, which are made up of
this malicious transformation of persons and things; and the humble
orders of society have been privileged by the higher, to please
themselves by burlesquing and ridiculing the great, at short seasons, as
some consolation for the rest of the year.
The Saturnalia of the Romans is a remarkable instance of this
characteristic of mankind. Macrobius could not trace the origin of this
institution, and seems to derive it from the Grecians; so that it might
have arisen in some rude period of antiquity, and among another people.
This conjecture seems supported by a passage in Gibbon's
Miscellanies,[127] who discovers traces of this institution among the
more ancient nations; and Huet imagined that he saw in the jubilee of
the Hebrews some similar usages. It is to be regretted, that Gibbon does
not afford us any new light on the cause in which originated the
institution itself. The jubilee of the Hebrews was the solemn festival
of an agricultural people, but bears none of the ludicrous
characteristics of the Roman Saturnalia.
It would have been satisfactory to have discovered the occasion of the
inconceivable licentiousness which was thus sanctioned by the
legislator,--this overturning of the principles of society, and this
public ridicule of its laws, its customs, and its feelings. We are told,
these festivals, dedicated to Saturn, were designed to represent the
natural equality which prevailed in his golden age; and for this purpose
the slaves were allowed to change places with the masters. This was,
however, giving the people a false notion of the equality of men; for,
while the slave was converted into the master, the pretended equality
was as much violated as in the usual situation of the parties. The
political misconception of this term of natural equality seems, however,
to have been carried on through all ages; and the political Saturnalia
had lately nearly thrown Europe into a state of that worse than slavery,
where slaves are masters.
The Roman Saturnalia were latterly prolonged to a week's debauchery and
folly; and a diary of that week's words and deeds would have furnished a
copious chronicle of _Facetiæ_. Some notions we acquire from the laws of
the Saturnalia of Lucian, an Epistle of Seneca's,[128] and from Horace,
who from his love of quiet, retired from the city during this noisy
season.
It was towards the close of December, that all the town was in an
unusual motion, and the children everywhere invoking Saturn; nothing now
to be seen but tables spread out for feasting, and nothing heard but
shouts of merriment: all business was dismissed, and none at work but
cooks and confectioners; no account of expenses was to be kept, and it
appears that one-tenth part of a man's income was to be appropriated to
this jollity. All exertion of mind and body was forbidden, except for
the purposes of recreation; nothing to be read or recited which did not
provoke mirth, adapted to the season and the place. The slaves were
allowed the utmost freedom of raillery and truth, with their
masters;[129] sitting with them at the table, dressed in their clothes,
playing all sorts of tricks, telling them of their faults to their
faces, while they smutted them. The slaves were imaginary kings, as
indeed a lottery determined their rank; and as their masters attended
them, whenever it happened that these performed their offices clumsily,
doubtless with some recollections of their own similar misdemeanors, the
slave made the master leap into the water head-foremost. No one was
allowed to be angry, and he who was played on, if he loved his own
comfort, would be the first to laugh. Glasses of all sizes were to be
ready, and all were to drink when and what they chose; none but the most
skilful musicians and tumblers were allowed to perform, for those people
are worth nothing unless exquisite, as the Saturnalian laws decreed.
Dancing, singing, and shouting, and carrying a female musician thrice
round on their shoulders, accompanied by every grotesque humour they
imagined, were indulged in that short week, which was to repay the many
in which the masters had their revenge for the reign of this pretended
equality. Another custom prevailed at this season: the priests performed
their sacrifices to Saturn bare-headed, which Pitiscus explains in the
spirit of this extraordinary institution, as designed to show that time
discovers, or, as in the present case of the bare-headed priests,
uncovers, all things.
Such was the Roman Saturnalia, the favourite popular recreations of
Paganism; and as the sports and games of the people outlast the date of
their empires, and are carried with them, however they may change their
name and their place on the globe, the grosser pleasures of the
Saturnalia were too well adapted to their tastes to be forgotten. The
Saturnalia, therefore, long generated the most extraordinary
institutions among the nations of modern Europe; and what seems more
extraordinary than the unknown origin of the parent absurdity itself,
the Saturnalia crept into the services and offices of the Christian
church. Strange it is to observe at the altar the rites of religion
burlesqued, and all its offices performed with the utmost buffoonery. It
is only by tracing them to the Roman Saturnalia that we can at all
account for these grotesque sports--that extraordinary mixture of
libertinism and profaneness, so long continued under Christianity.
Such were the feasts of the ass, the feast of fools or madmen, _fête des
fous_--the feast of the bull--of the Innocents--and that of the
_soudiacres_, which, perhaps, in its original term, meant only
sub-deacons, but their conduct was expressed by the conversion of a pun
into _saoudiacres_ or _diacres saouls_, drunken deacons. Institutions of
this nature, even more numerous than the historian has usually recorded,
and varied in their mode, seem to surpass each other in their utter
extravagance.[130]
These profane festivals were universally practised in the middle ages,
and, as I shall show, comparatively even in modern times. The ignorant
and the careless clergy then imagined it was the securest means to
retain the populace, who were always inclined to these pagan revelries.
These grotesque festivals have sometimes amused the pens of foreign and
domestic antiquaries: for our own country has participated as keenly in
these irreligious fooleries. In the feast of asses, an ass covered with
sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the choir, where service was
performed before the ass, and a hymn chanted in as discordant a manner
as they could contrive; the office was a medley of all that had been
sung in the course of the year; pails of water were flung at the head of
the chanters; the ass was supplied with drink and provender at every
division of the service; and the asinines were drinking, dancing, and
braying for two days. The hymn to the ass has been preserved; each
stanza ends with the burthen "Hez! Sire Ane, hez!" "Huzza! Seignior Ass,
Huzza!" On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes to fume in the
censers; ran about the church, leaping, singing, and dancing obscenely;
scattering ordure among the audience; playing at dice upon the altar!
while a _boy-bishop_, or a _pope of fools_, burlesqued the divine
service. Sometimes they disguised themselves in the skins of animals,
and pretending to be transformed into the animal they represented, it
became dangerous, or worse, to meet these abandoned fools. There was a
_precentor of fools_, who was shaved in public, during which he
entertained the populace with all the balderdash his genius could
invent. We had in Leicester, in 1415, what was called a _glutton-mass_,
during the five days of the festival of the Virgin Mary. The people rose
early to mass, during which they practised eating and drinking with the
most zealous velocity, and, as in France, drew from the corners of the
altar the rich puddings placed there.
So late as in 1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master, what he
himself witnessed at Aix on the feast of the Innocents, says, "I have
seen, in some monasteries in this province, extravagances solemnised,
which the pagans would not have practised. Neither the clergy, nor the
guardians, indeed, go to the choir on this day, but all is given up to
the lay brethren, the cabbage-cutters, the errand-boys, the cooks and
scullions, the gardeners; in a word, all the menials fill their places
in the church, and insist that they perform the offices proper for the
day. They dress themselves with all the sacerdotal ornaments, but torn
to rags, or wear them inside out; they hold in their hands the books
reversed or sideways, which they pretend to read with large spectacles
without glasses, and to which they fix the shells of scooped oranges,
which renders them so hideous, that one must have seen these madmen to
form a notion of their appearance; particularly while dangling the
censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly
about their heads and faces one against the other. In this equipage they
neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor masses; but mumble a certain
gibberish, as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to
market. The nonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:--
Hæc est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
Hæc est festa dies, festarum festa dierum.[131]
These are scenes which equal any which the humour of the Italian
burlesque poets have invented, and which might have entered with effect
into the "Malmantile racquistato" of Lippi; but that they should have
been endured amidst the solemn offices of religion, and have been
performed in cathedrals, while it excites our astonishment, can only be
accounted for by perceiving that they were, in truth, the Saturnalia of
the Romans. Mr. Turner observes, without perhaps having a precise notion
that they were copied from the Saturnalia, that "It could be only by
rivalling the pagan revelries, that the Christian ceremonies could gain
the ascendancy." Our historian further observes, that these "licentious
festivities were called the _December liberties_, and seem to have begun
at one of the most solemn seasons of the Christian year, and to have
lasted through the chief part of January." This very term, as well as
the time, agrees with that of the ancient Saturnalia:--
Age, _libertate Decembri_,
Quando ita majores voluerunt, utere: narra.
HOR. lib. ii. sat. 7.
The Roman Saturnalia, thus transplanted into Christian churches, had
for its singular principle, that of inferiors, whimsically and in
mockery, personifying their superiors, with a licensed licentiousness.
This forms a distinct characteristic from those other popular customs
and pastimes which the learned have also traced to the Roman, and even
more ancient nations. Our present inquiry is, to illustrate that
proneness in man, of delighting to reverse the order of society, and
ridiculing its decencies.
Here we had our _boy-bishop_, a legitimate descendant of this family of
foolery. On St. Nicholas's day, a saint who was the patron of children,
the boy-bishop with his _mitra parva_ and a long crosier, attended by
his school-mates as his diminutive prebendaries, assumed the title and
state of a bishop. The child-bishop preached a sermon, and afterwards,
accompanied by his attendants, went about singing and collecting his
pence: to such theatrical processions in collegiate bodies, Warton
attributes the custom, still existing at Eton, of going _ad
montem_.[132] But this was a tame mummery, compared with the grossness
elsewhere allowed in burlesquing religious ceremonies. The English, more
particularly after the Reformation, seem not to have polluted the
churches with such abuses. The relish for the Saturnalia was not,
however, less lively here than on the Continent; but it took a more
innocent direction, and was allowed to turn itself into civil life: and
since the people would be gratified by mock dignities, and claimed the
privilege of ridiculing their masters, it was allowed them by our kings
and nobles; and a troop of grotesque characters, frolicsome great men,
delighting in merry mischief, are recorded in our domestic annals.
The most learned Selden, with parsimonious phrase and copious sense, has
thus compressed the result of an historical dissertation: he derives our
ancient Christmas sports at once from the true, though remote, source.
"Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same number of
holy-days; then the master waited upon the servant, like the _lord of
misrule_."[133] Such is the title of a facetious potentate, who, in this
notice of Selden's, is not further indicated, for this personage was
familiar in his day, but of whom the accounts are so scattered, that
his offices and his glory are now equally obscure. The race of this
nobility of drollery, and this legitimate king of all hoaxing and
quizzing, like mightier dynasties, has ceased to exist.
In England our festivities at Christmas appear to have been more
entertaining than in other countries. We were once famed for merry
Christmases and their pies; witness the Italian proverb, "_Ha piu di
fare che i forni di Natale in Inghilterra_:" "He has more business than
English ovens at Christmas." Wherever the king resided, there was
created for that merry season a Christmas prince, usually called "the
_Lord of Misrule_;" and whom the Scotch once knew under the significant
title of "the _Abbot of Unreason_." His office, according to Stowe, was
"to make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholder." Every nobleman,
and every great family, surrendered their houses, during this season, to
the Christmas prince, who found rivals or usurpers in almost every
parish; and more particularly, as we shall see, among the grave students
in our inns of court.
The Italian Polydore Vergil, who, residing here, had clearer notions of
this facetious personage, considered the Christmas Prince as peculiar to
our country. Without venturing to ascend in his genealogy, we must admit
his relationship to that ancient family of foolery we have noticed,
whether he be legitimate or not. If this whimsical personage, at his
creation, was designed to regulate "misrule," his lordship, invested
with plenary power, came himself, at length, to delight too much in his
"merry disports." Stubbes, a morose puritan in the days of Elizabeth,
denominates him "a grand captaine of mischiefe," and has preserved a
minute description of all his wild doings in the country; but as Strutt
has anticipated me in this amusing extract, I must refer to his "Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England," p. 254.[134] I prepare another
scene of unparalleled Saturnalia, among the grave judges and serjeants
of the law, where the Lord of Misrule is viewed amidst his frolicsome
courtiers, with the humour of hunting the fox and the cat with ten
couple of hounds round their great hall, among the other merry disports
of those joyous days when sages could play like boys.
For those who can throw themselves back amidst the grotesque humours and
clumsy pastimes of our ancestors, who, without what we think to be
taste, had whim and merriment--there has been fortunately preserved a
curious history of the manner in which "A grand Christmas" was kept at
our Inns of Court, by the grave and learned Dugdale, in his "Origines
Juridicales:" it is a complete festival of foolery, acted by the
students and law-officers. They held for that season everything in
mockery: they had a mock parliament, a Prince of _Sophie_, or Wisdom, an
honourable order of Pegasus, a high constable, a marshal, a master of
the game, a ranger of the forest, lieutenant of the Tower, which was a
temporary prison for Christmas delinquents, all the paraphernalia of a
court, burlesqued by these youthful sages before the boyish judges.
The characters personified were in the costume of their assumed offices.
On Christmas-day, the constable-marshal, accoutred with a complete
gilded "harness," showed that everything was to be chivalrously ordered;
while the lieutenant of the Tower, in "a fair white armour," attended
with his troop of halberdiers; and the Tower was then placed beneath the
fire. After this opening followed the costly feasting; and then, nothing
less than a hunt with a pack of hounds in their hall!
The master of the game dressed in green velvet, and the ranger of the
forest in green satin, bearing a green bow and arrows, each with a
hunting horn about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery
(or hunting), they pace round about the fire three times. The master of
the game kneels to be admitted into the service of the high-constable. A
huntsman comes into the hall, with nine or ten couple of hounds,
bearing on the end of his staff a pursenet, which holds a fox and a cat:
these were let loose and hunted by the hounds, and killed beneath the
fire.
These extraordinary amusements took place after their repast; for these
grotesque Saturnalia appeared after that graver part of their grand
Christmas. Supper ended, the constable-marshal presented himself with
drums playing, mounted on a stage borne by four men, and carried round;
at length he cries out, "a lord! a lord!" &c., and then calls his mock
court every one by name.
Sir Francis Flatterer, of Fowlshurt.
Sir Randall Rackabite, of Rascal-hall, in the county of Rakehell.
Sir Morgan Mumchance, of Much Monkery, in the county of Mad Mopery.
Sir Bartholomew Bald-breech, of Buttock-bury, in the county of
Break-neck.[135]
They had also their mock arraignments. The king's-serjeant, after dinner
or supper, "oratour-like," complained that the constable-marshal had
suffered great disorders to prevail; the complaint was answered by the
common-serjeant, who was to show his talent at defending the cause. The
king's-serjeant replies; they rejoin, &c.: till one at length is
committed to the Tower, for being found most deficient. If any offender
contrived to escape from the lieutenant of the Tower into the buttery
and brought into the hall a manchet (or small loaf) upon the point of a
knife, he was pardoned; for the buttery in this jovial season was
considered as a sanctuary. Then began the _revels_. Blount derives this
term from the French _reveiller_, to awake from sleep. These were sports
of dancing, masking comedies, &c. (for some were called solemn revels,)
used in great houses, and were so denominated because they were
performed by night; and these various pastimes were regulated by a
master of the revels.
Amidst "the grand Christmass," a personage of no small importance was
"the Lord of Misrule." His lordship was abroad early in the morning, and
if he lacked any of his officers, he entered their chambers to drag
forth the loiterers; but after breakfast his lordship's power ended, and
it was in suspense till night, when his personal presence was paramount,
or, as Dugdale expresses it, "and then his power is most potent."
Such were then the pastimes of the whole learned bench; and when once it
happened that the under-barristers did not dance on Candlemas day,
according to the ancient order of the society, when the judges were
present, the whole bar was offended, and at Lincoln's-Inn were by
decimation put out of commons, for example sake; and should the same
omission be repeated, they were to be fined or disbarred; for these
dancings were thought necessary, "as much conducing to the making of
gentlemen more fit for their books at other times," I cannot furnish a
detailed notice of these pastimes; for Dugdale, whenever he indicates
them, spares his gravity from recording the evanescent frolics, by a
provoking _&c. &c. &c._
The dance "round about the coal-fire" is taken off in the _Rehearsal_.
These revels have also been ridiculed by Donne in his Satires, Prior in
his Alma, and Pope in his Dunciad. "The judge to dance, his brother
serjeants calls."[136]
"The Lord of Misrule," in the inns of court, latterly did not conduct
himself with any recollection of "_Medio tutissimus ibis_," being
unreasonable; but the "sparks of the Temple," as a contemporary calls
them, had gradually, in the early part of Charles the First's reign,
yielded themselves up to excessive disorders. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his
MS. diary in 1620, has noticed their choice of a lieutenant, or lord of
misrule, who seems to have practised all the mischief he invented; and
the festival days, when "a standing table was kept," were accompanied by
dicing, and much gaming, oaths, execrations, and quarrels: being of a
serious turn of mind, he regrets this, for he adds, "the sport, of
itself, I conceive to be lawful."
I suspect that the last memorable act of a Lord of Misrule of the inns
of court occurred in 1627, when the Christmas game became serious. The
Lord of Misrule then issued an edict to his officers to go out at
Twelfth-night to collect his rents in the neighbourhood of the Temple,
at the rate of five shillings a house; and on those who were in their
beds, or would not pay, he levied a distress. An unexpected resistance
at length occurred in a memorable battle with the Lord Mayor in
person:--and I shall tell how the Lord of Misrule for some time stood
victor, with his gunner, and his trumpeter, and his martial array: and
how heavily and fearfully stood my Lord Mayor amidst his "watch and
ward:" and how their lordships agreed to meet half way, each to preserve
his independent dignity, till one knocked down the other: and how the
long halberds clashed with the short swords: how my Lord Mayor
valorously took the Lord of Misrule prisoner with his own civic hand:
and how the Christmas prince was immured in the Counter; and how the
learned Templars insisted on their privilege, and the unlearned of
Ram's-alley and Fleet-street asserted their right of saving their
crown-pieces: and finally how this combat of mockery and earnestness was
settled, not without the introduction of "a god," as Horace allows on
great occasions, in the interposition of the king and the
attorney-general--altogether the tale had been well told in some comic
epic; but the wits of that day let it pass out of their hands.
I find this event, which seems to record the last desperate effort of a
"Lord of Misrule," in a manuscript letter of the learned Mede to Sir
Martin Stuteville; and some particulars are collected from Hammond
L'Estrange's Life of Charles the First.
"_Jan._ 12, 1627-8.
"On Saturday the Templars chose one Mr. Palmer their Lord of Misrule,
who, on Twelfth-eve, late in the night, sent out to gather up his rents
at five shillings a house in Ram-alley and Fleet-street. At every door
they came they winded the Temple-horn, and if at the second blast or
summons they within opened not the door, then the Lord of Misrule cried
out, 'Give fire, gunner!' His gunner was a robustious Vulcan, and the
gun or petard itself was a huge overgrown smith's hammer. This being
complained of to my Lord Mayor, he said he would be with them about
eleven o'clock on Sunday night last; willing that all that ward should
attend him with their halberds, and that himself, besides those that
came out of his house, should bring the Watches along with him. His
lordship, thus attended, advanced as high as Ram-alley in martial
equipage; when forth came the Lord of Misrule, attended by his gallants,
out of the Temple-gate, with their swords, all armed _in cuerpo_. A
halberdier bade the Lord of Misrule come to my Lord Mayor. He answered,
No! let the Lord Mayor come to me! At length they agreed to meet half
way; and, as the interview of rival princes is never without danger of
some ill accident, so it happened in this: for first, Mr. Palmer being
quarrelled with for not pulling off his hat to my Lord Mayor, and giving
cross answers, the halberds began to fly about his ears, and he and his
company to brandish their swords. At last being beaten to the ground,
and the Lord of Misrule sore wounded, they were fain to yield to the
longer and more numerous weapon. My Lord Mayor taking Mr. Palmer by the
shoulder, led him to the Compter, and thrust him in at the prison-gate
with a kind of indignation; and so, notwithstanding his hurts, he was
forced to lie among the common prisoners for two nights. On Tuesday the
king's attorney became a suitor to my Lord Mayor for their liberty;
which his lordship granted, upon condition that they should repay the
gathered rents, and do reparations upon broken doors. Thus the game
ended. Mr. Attorney-General, being of the same house, fetched them in
his own coach, and carried them to the court, where the King himself
reconciled my Lord Mayor and them together with joining all hands; the
gentlemen of the Temple being this Shrovetide to present a Mask to their
majesties, over and besides the king's own great Mask, to be performed
at the Banqueting-house by an hundred actors."
Thus it appears, that although the grave citizens did well and rightly
protect themselves, yet, by the attorney-general taking the Lord of
Misrule in his coach, and the king giving his royal interference between
the parties, that they considered that this Lord of Foolery had certain
ancient privileges; and it was, perhaps, a doubt with them, whether this
interference of the Lord Mayor might not be considered as severe and
unseasonable. It is probable, however, that the arm of the civil power
brought all future Lords of Misrule to their senses. Perhaps this
dynasty in the empire of foolery closed with this Christmas prince, who
fell a victim to the arbitrary taxation he levied. I find after this
orders made for the Inner Temple, for "preventing of that general
scandal and obloquie, which the House hath heretofore incurred in time
of Christmas:" and that "there be not any going abroad out of the gates
of this House, by any _lord_ or others, to break open any house, or take
anything in the name of rent or a distress."
These "Lords of Misrule," and their mock court and royalty, appear to
have been only extinguished with the English sovereignty itself, at the
time of our republican government. Edmund Gayton tells a story, to show
the strange impressions of strong fancies: as his work is of great
rarity, I shall transcribe the story in his own words, both to give a
conclusion to this inquiry, and a specimen of his style of narrating
this sort of little things. "A gentleman was importuned, at a fire-night
in the public-hall, to accept the high and mighty place of a
mock-emperor, which was duly conferred upon him by seven mock-electors.
At the same time, with much wit and ceremony, the emperor accepted his
chair of state, which was placed in the highest table in the hall; and
at his instalment all pomp, reverence, and signs of homage were used by
the whole company; insomuch that our emperor, having a spice of
self-conceit before, was soundly peppered now, for he was instantly
metamorphosed into the stateliest, gravest, and commanding soul that
ever eye beheld. Taylor acting Arbaces, or Swanston D'Amboise, were
shadows to him: his pace, his look, his voice, and all his garb, was
altered. Alexander upon his elephant, nay, upon the castle upon that
elephant, was not so high; and so close did this imaginary honour stick
to his fancy, that for many years he could not shake off this one
night's assumed deportments, until the times came that drove all
monarchical imaginations not only out of his head, but every
one's."[137] This mock "emperor" was unquestionably one of these "Lords
of Misrule," or "a Christmas Prince." The "public hall" was that of the
Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn.[138] And it was natural
enough, when the levelling equality of our theatrical and practical
commonwealths-men were come into vogue, that even the shadowy regality
of mockery startled them by reviving the recollections of ceremonies and
titles, which some might incline, as they afterwards did, seriously to
restore. The "Prince of Christmas" did not, however, attend the
Restoration of Charles the Second.
The Saturnalian spirit has not been extinct even in our days. The Mayor
of Garrat, with the mock addresses and burlesque election, was an image
of such satirical exhibitions of their superiors, so delightful to the
people.[139] France, at the close of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, first
saw her imaginary "Regiment de la Calotte," which was the terror of the
sinners of the day, and the blockheads of all times. This "regiment of
the skull-caps" originated in an officer and a wit, who, suffering from
violent headaches, was recommended the use of a skull-cap of lead; and
his companions, as great wits, formed themselves into a regiment, to be
composed only of persons distinguished by their extravagances in words
or in deeds. They elected a general, they had their arms blazoned, and
struck medals, and issued "brevets," and "lettres patentes," and granted
pensions to certain individuals, stating their claims to be enrolled in
the regiment for some egregious extravagance. The wits versified these
army commissions; and the idlers, like pioneers, were busied in clearing
their way, by picking up the omissions and commissions of the most noted
characters. Those who were favoured with its "brevets" intrigued against
the regiment; but at length they found it easier to wear their
"calotte," and say nothing. This society began in raillery and
playfulness, seasoned by a spice of malice. It produced a great number
of ingenious and satirical little things. That the privileges of the
"calotte" were afterwards abused, and calumny too often took the place
of poignant satire, is the history of human nature as well as of "the
calotins."[140]
Another society in the same spirit has been discovered in one of the
lordships of Poland. It was called "The Republic of Baboonery." The
society was a burlesque model of their own government: a king,
chancellor, councillors, archbishops, judges, &c. If a member would
engross the conversation, he was immediately appointed orator of the
republic. If he spoke with impropriety, the absurdity of his
conversation usually led to some suitable office created to perpetuate
his folly. A man talking too much of dogs, would be made a master of the
buck-hounds; or vaunting his courage, perhaps a field-marshal; and if
bigoted on disputable matters and speculative opinions in religion, he
was considered to be nothing less than an inquisitor. This was a
pleasant and useful project to reform the manners of the Polish youth;
and one of the Polish kings good-humourdly observed, that he considered
himself "as much King of Baboonery as King of Poland." We have had in
our own country some attempts at similar Saturnalia; but their success
has been so equivocal that they hardly afford materials for our domestic
history.