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There cities are, where boyes and gyrles, together still do runne,
About the streete with like, as soone as night beginnes to come,
And bring abrode their wassel bowles, who well rewarded bee,
With cakes and cheese, and great good cheare, and money plenteouslee.
Queen Elizabeth’s Progresses by Mr. Nichols, contain an entertainment to her at Sudley, wherein were Melibæus, the King of the Bean, and Nisa, the queen of the Pea.
“Mel. Cut the cake: who hath the beane, shall be King; and where the peaze is, she shall be Queene.
“Nis. I have the peaze, and must be Queene.
“Mel. I have the beane, and King; I must commande.”
Pinkerton’s “Ancient Scotish Poems,” contain a letter from sir Thomas Randolph, queen Elizabeth’s chamberlain of the Exchequer, to Dudley lord Leicester, dated from Edinburgh on the 15th January, 1563, wherein he mentions, that Lady Flemyng was “Queen of the Beene” on Twelfth-day in that year: and in Ben Jonson’s Masque of Christmas, Baby-cake, one of the characters, is attended by “an Usher, bearing a great cake with a bean, and a pease.” Herrick, the poet of our festivals, has several allusions to the celebration of this day by our ancestors: the poem here subjoined, recognises its customs with strict adherence to truth, and in pleasant strains of joyousness.
Twelfe-night, or King and Queene.
Now, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where beane’s the king of the sport here,
Beside, we must know,
The pea also
Must revell, as queene in the court here.
Begin then to chuse,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfe-day queene for the night here.