present season. I allude to the waits, who visit us in the month of
December, with instrumental music, going from house to house.

_Waites_, or _waits_, formerly _wayghtes_ is derived from
the latter noun, and originally signified _hautbois_, (or hautbois,
as we have it in English,) of which it is not unworthy remark, there is
no singular number. From the instrument its signification was, after a
time, transferred to the performers themselves; concerning whom, it is
well known,.the appellation is now applied to all who follow the
practice above adverted to, especially those who, at the approach of.
Christmas, salute us with their nightly concerts.

The _wayghtes_ of ancient times were, as some historians say, so
called, because they attended or _waited_ on potentates, judges,
magistrates, and bodies corporate, pomp and processions, &c.; they were
also sometimes appointed to keep a sort of Watch at night, and were then
generally decorated with superb dresses, splendid cloaks, &c. In Rymers'
_Fardera_ there is an account of such an establishment, of the
minstrels and _waites_ who were in the service of the court of
Edward IV., wherein is mentioned "a _waite_ that nighteleye, from
Michaelmas to Shrove Thorsday, pipeth the watch within this court;" "i.
fewer times, in the somere nightes iij. times." Todd derives the term
waits from _wahts_, (Goth.) nocturnal itinerant musicians,
(Beaumont and Fletcher;) Bayley, on account of their waiting on
magistrates, &c.; or of _guet_, a watch; or from the French
_guetter_, to watch, because anciently they kept a sort of watch a
night. From what I have narrated, then, it appears that the persons
formerly called waites, or waits, were _musical_ watchmen, the word
implying _obees_. They were, in fact, minstrels, at first annexed
to the king's court, who sounded the watch every night; and in towns