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real quality was a secret confided only to his guards. The guizars, as they are named, who go at Christmas from house to house, in all the towns of Scotland, are supposed to be a slight remainder of the custom we are describing. The body-guards of the Abbot of Unreason were all arrayed in gaudy colours, bedecked with gold or silver lace; with embroidery and silken scarfs, the fringed ends of which floated in the winds. They wore chains of gold, or baser metal gilded, and glittering with mock jewels. Their legs were adorned and rendered voluble by links of shining metal, hung with many bells of the same material, twining from the ancle of their buskins to their silken garters; and each flourished in his hand a rich silk handkerchief brocaded over with flowers. This was the garb of fifty or more youths who encircled the person of the leader. They were surrounded by ranks, six or more in depth, consisting of tall, brawny, fierce-visaged men, covered with crimson or purple velvet bonnets, and nodding plumes of the eagle, the hawk, or branches of pine, yew, oak, fern, boxwood, or flowering heath. Their jerkins were always of a hue that might attract the eye of ladies in the bower, or serving-damsels at the washing-green; they had breeches of immense capacity, so padded or stuffed as to make each man occupy the space of five, in their natural propor-