Of you, my sons; and till this present hour
My heavy burthen ne'er delivered.—
The duke, my husband, and my children both,
And you the calendars of their nativity,
Go to a gossip's feast, and go with me;
After so long grief, such nativity!"
And the Duke replies, "With all my heart I'll gossip at this feast."
In the Bachelor's Banquet (1603) we find an allusion to these feasts: "What cost and trouble will it be to have all things fine against the Christening Day; what store of sugar, biscuits, comfets, and caraways, marmalet, and marchpane, with all kinds of sweet-suckers and superfluous banqueting stuff, with a hundred other odd and needless trifles, which at that time must fill the pockets of dainty dames." It would appear from this that the women at the feast not only ate what they pleased, but carried off some of the good things in their pockets.
A writer in 1666, alluding to this and the falling-off in the custom of giving presents at christenings, says:—
"Especially since gossips now