Wither, who belongs to the first-half of the seventeenth century, describes with hilarious animation the mode of keeping Christmas in the poet's day:

'So now is come our joyfulst feast;
Let every man be jolly;

Each room with ivy leaves is drest,

And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine;
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,

And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meat choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lye;
And if for cold it hap to die,
We'll bury 't in a Christmas-pie,
And evermore be merry.

Now every lad is wond'rous trim,

And no man minds his labour; Our lasses have provided them

A bagpipe and a tabor;

Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another's joys;
And you anon shall by their noise

Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun;

Their hall of music soundeth;

And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things then aboundeth.
The country-folks, themselves advance,
With crowdy-muttons out of France;
And Jack shall pipe and Jyll shall dance,
And all the town be merry.

Ned Squash hath fetcht his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel;

Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn

With dropping of the barrel.

And those that hardly all the year
Had bread to eat, or rags to wear,
Will have both clothes and dainty fare,
And all the day be merry.

Now poor men to the justices

With capons make their errants; And if they hap to fail of these,

They plague them with their warrants: But now they feed them with good cheer, And what they want, they take in beer, For Christmas comes but once a year, And then they shall be merry.

Good farmers in the country nurse

The poor, that else were undone ; Some landlords spend their money worse, On lust and pride at London. There the roysters they do play, Drab and dice their lands away, Which may be ours another day,

And therefore let's be merry.

The client now his suit forbears,

The prisoner's heart is eased; The debtor drinks away his cares,

And for the time is pleased. Though others' purses be more fat, Why should we pine or grieve at that? Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,

And therefore let's be merry.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS.

Hark! now the wags abroad do call,
Each other forth to rambling;
Anon you'll see them in the hall,

For nuts and apples scrambling.
Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound,
Anon they'll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar's depth have found,
And there they will be merry.

The wenches with their wassel-bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls,
The wild mare in it bringing,
Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box,
And to the dealing of the ox,
Our honest neighbours come by flocks,
And here they will be merry.

Now kings and queens poor sheepcotes have,
And mate with every body;

The honest now may play the knave,
And wise men play the noddy.

Some youths will now a mumming go,
Some others play at Rowland-bo,
And twenty other game boys mo,
Because they will be merry.

Then, wherefore in these merry daies,
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelayes,

To make our mirth the fuller. And, while thus inspired we sing, Let all the streets with echoes ring; Woods and hills and every thing,

Bear witness we are merry.'

At present, Christmas-day, if somewhat shorn of its ancient glories, and unmarked by that boisterous jollity and exuberance of animal spirits which distinguished it in the time of our ancestors, is, nevertheless, still the holiday in which of all others throughout the year, all classes of English society most generally participate. Partaking of a religious character, the forenoon of the day is usually passed in church, and in the evening the re-united members of the family assemble round the joyous Christmas-board. Separated as many of these are during the rest of the year, they all make an effort to meet together round the Christmashearth. The hallowed feelings of domestic love and attachment, the pleasing remembrance of the past, and the joyous anticipation of the future, alĺ cluster round these family-gatherings, and in the sacred associations with which they are intertwined, and the active deeds of kindness and benevolence which they tend to call forth, a realisation may almost be found of the angelic message to the shepherds of Bethlehem-Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.'

Christmas Carols.

Amid so many popular customs at Christmas, full of so much sweet and simple poetry, there is perhaps none more charming than that of the Christmas carols, which celebrate in joyous and yet devout strains the Nativity of the Saviour. The term is believed to be derived from the Latin cantare (to sing), and rola! an interjection expressive of joy. The practice appears to be as ancient as the celebration of Christmas itself, and we are informed that in the early ages of the church, the bishops were accustomed to sing carols on Christmas-day among

their clergy. The quaint and inestimable Jeremy Taylor, referring in his Great Exemplar to the Gloria in Excelsis, or hymn sung by the angels on the plains of Bethlehem, says: As soon as these blessed choristers had sung their Christmas Carol, and taught the Church a hymn to put into her offices for ever in the anniversary of this festivity, the angels returned into heaven' Milton also, in the twelfth book of Paradise Lost, thus alludes to what may be regarded as the first Christmas carol: 'His place of birth a solemn angel tells To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night; They gladly thither haste, and by a quire

Of squadron'd angels hear his carol sung.' In process of time, these Christmas hymns became

CHRISTMAS CAROLE

very much secularised, and latterly, were frequently nothing more than festal chants, sung during the revelries of the Christmas season. The earlies specimen which we possess of the medieval card belongs to this class, and is preserved in a mant script in the British Museum. It is composed Norman-French, and belongs to the thirteenth century. The same convivial quality characterises a 'sett of carols,' the earliest printed edition of these Christmas chants, published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1521. The 'Boar's Head' song, quoted in a subsequent article, occurs with others of a similar class in the collection referred to.

As with the generality of our popular ballads, we find the earlier specimens of Christmas carols often extremely rugged and unadorned in point of

CHRISTMAS CAROLS.

attached to the village-church, make their rounds to the principal houses throughout the parish, and sing some of those simple and touching hymn The airs to which they are sung are frequently no less plaintive and melodious than the words, and are often accompanied by instruments. The writer retains a vivid recollection of a carol which he heard sung, some years ago, on Christmas Eve by a detach ment of the village choir, in front of a country-house

in Devonshire, where he was at the time a visitor. The sweet and pathetic melody, which was both remarkably well sung and played, the picturesqueness of the group of singers, whose persons were only rendered visible, in the darkness of the night, by the light of one or two lanterns which they

carried, and the novelty and general interest of the scene, all produced an impression which was never to be forgotten. These Christmas-eve carols are very general in Devonshire, and the usual custom for the singers is to club the money which they receive on such occasions, and expend it in a social merry-making on Twelfth Day, a fortnight afterwards.

One or two poets of note have essayed carolwriting, among whom may be mentioned Bishop Hall and Robert Herrick, both belonging to the earlier half of the seventeenth century. And here, though we have already quoted so largely, we cannot refrain from introducing the following singularly beautiful effusion of Herrick, forming the first part of a poem, entitled the Star Song, written as a hymn for the Epiphany, but of which the first three stanzas, as here presented, are fully as applicable to Christmas. It glows with an imagery truly oriental:

"A flourish of music: then follows the Song.
Tell us, thou clear and heavenly tongue,
Where is the Babe that lately sprung?
Lies he the lily-banks among?

Or say, if this new Birth of ours
Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers,
Spangled with dew-light; thou canst clear
All doubts, and manifest the where.

Declare to us, bright star, if we shall seek
Him in the morning's blushing cheek,
Or search the beds of spices through,
To find him out?'

These charming verses are introduced in a very beautiful Book of Christmas Carols, published in 1846, adorned with splendid illuminations from manuscripts preserved in the British Museum. The typography of the lyric in question is literally

bedded among a most lovely and characteristic group of fruits and flowers.

We find scarcely any traces of the singing of Christmas carols in Scotland, though from time immemorial it has been so universally prevalent, not only in England, but in France, Italy, and other countries of the continent. In England, at one time, it was customary on Christmas-day, more especially at the afternoon-service, to sing carols in churches, instead of the regular psalms and hymns. We are, moreover, informed that at the end of the service it was the usage on such occasions for the clerk in a loud voice to wish all the congregation A Merry Christmas and a Happy New-Year.

The Three Magi.

In connection with the birth of the Saviour, and as a pendant to the notice under Twelfth Day, or the Epiphany of the observances commemorative of the visit of the Wise Men of the East to Bethlehem (see vol. i. p. 61), we shall here introduce some further particulars of the ideas current in medieval times on the subject of these celebrated personages.

The legend of the Wise Men of the East, or, as they are styled in the original Greek of St Matthew's gospel, Mayo (the Magi), who visited the infant Saviour with precious offerings, became, under

monkish influence, one of the most popular during the middle ages, and was told with increased and elaborated perspicuity as time advanced. The Scripture nowhere informs us that these individuals were kings, or their number restricted to three. The legend converts the Magi into kings, gives their names, and minute account of their stature and the nature of their gifts. Melchior (we are thus told) was king of Nubia, the smallest man of the triad, and

a

THE THREE MAGI.

The barbaric pomp involved in this legend made it a favourite with artists during the middle ages. Our engraving is a copy from a circular plate of silver, chased in high-relief, and partly gilt, which is supposed to have formed the centre of a morse, or large brooch, used to fasten the decorated cope of an ecclesiastic in the latter part of the fourteenth century. The subject has been frequently depicted by the artists subsequent to this period. Van Eyck, Durer, and the German schools were particularly fond of the theme-the latest and most striking work being that by Rubens, who revelled in such pompous displays. The artists of the Low Countries were, probably, also biassed by the fact, that the cathedral of Cologne held the shrine in which the bodies of the Magi were said to be deposited, and to which the faithful made many pilgrimages, greatly to the emolument of the city, a result which induced the worthy burghers to distinguish their shield of arms by three crowns only, and to designate the Magi as the three kings of Cologne.'

It was to the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, that the religious world was indebted for the discovery of the place of burial of these kings in the far east. She removed their bodies to Constantinople, where they remained in the church of St Sophia, until the reign of the Emperor

he gave the Saviour a gift of gold. Balthazar was king of Chaldea, and he offered incense; he was a man of ordinary stature. But the third, Jasper, king of Tarshish, was of high stature, 'a black Ethiope,' and he gave myrrh. All came with many rich ornaments belonging to king's array, and also with mules, camels, and horses loaded with great treasure, and with multitude of people,' to do homage to the Saviour, then a little childe of xiii dayes olde.'

Emanuel, who allowed Eustorgius, bishop of Milan, to transfer them to his cathedral. In 1164, when the Emperor Frederick conquered Milan, he gave these treasured relics to Raynuldus, archbishop of Cologne, who removed them to the latter city. His successor, Philip von Heinsberg, placed them in a magnificent reliquary, enriched with gems and enamels, still remaining in its marble shrine in the cathedral, one of the chief wonders of the noble pile, and the principal 'sight' in Cologne. A heavy fee is ex

acted for opening the doors of the chapel, which is then lighted with lamps, producing a dazzling effect on the mass of gilded and jewelled sculpture, in the centre of which may be seen the three skulls, reputed to be those of the Magi. These relics are enveloped in velvet, and decorated with embroidery and jewels, so that the upper part of each skull only is seen, and the hollow eyes which, as the faithful believe, once rested on the

Saviour.