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drawing for characters, and would probably ensure the election of the person best calculated to promote the wit and enjoyment of the evening, instead of taking the chance of the least adapted, or who may be called the " slowest" of the party drawing the lucky card. Even now, however, occasionally an election is made, and the fortunate elect then chooses his court for the evening.
In the last century, the Twelfth Night cards represented ministers, maids of honour, and other attendants of a court, and the characters were to be supported throughout the night. At present they are in general grotesque, and seldom possess much wit or humour. Many early notices may be met with of the antiquity of the custom. In " Les Crieries de Paris," of the thirteenth century, the "Gastel a feve orroiz" is mentioned, which is described as a cake, with a bean for the " Fete de Rois," and we shall find a present given to the court minstrels on the Epiphany, in the name of the king of the bean, in the time of Edward the Third. Down to the time of the civil wars, the feast was observed with great splendour, not only at court, but at the Inns of Court, and the universities (where it was an old custom to choose the king by the bean in a cake), and in private mansions and houses.
The lord mayor and aldermen, and the crafts of London also, used to go to St. Paul's on Twelfth Day, to hear a sermon, which is mentioned as an old custom, in the early part of Elizabeth's reign.
The usual course, of choosing by the bean, was to insert it in the cake, though sometimes a piece of money was put in instead. The cake was then cut up, and the person to whom the piece with the bean fell was the king for the evening. Sometimes pieces were allotted to our Saviour, and the Virgin |
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