9

It was

"I never talked much with her, before to-day, , to do her justice, always spoke the truth, was obliged uncle."

to say that she had been in the shrubbery part of the “ I am afraid, Grace, from the little I heard of your time, with Miss Grace Stanley; and so, by little and conversation, that Rose can have got no good by being little, it all came out, ending with what Mr. Henry had in your company; you have done her no kindness.” said, when he sent her home. Mrs. Martin was glad to

"I did not mean to be unkind, uncle Henry." find by his words, as repeated by Rose, that he did not

“ You did not mean any thing, I suppose, but to seem to think her grand-daughter much to blame; amuse yourself with idle gossip; a very bad habit for nevertheless she talked to her for some time very seriously either you or Rose to indulge in ; but you have behaved of the mischief she might do herself, and other people, ill to more than Rose; don't you feel that you have, by getting into idle gossiping ways, and to be fond of Grace ?”

what Mrs. Martin called tittle-tattle; it would make Miss Grace could only sob in reply.

everybody afraid of being in her company, or having " I hope you are not sulky, Grace,” said Mr. Henry, anything to do with her. If Miss Grace Stanley did looking under her bonnet.

the same, it was no excuse ; no doubt, when she grew “No, uncle,--indeed—but I am so sorry.”

older, she would know better; and, in the mean time, with difficulty that Miss Grace could get out these words, Rose should bear in mind, that Miss Grace, poor dear, for she was very fond of her uncle, as has been before had no mamma living to look after her, and be very said, and felt extremely unhappy at the idea of having careful not to encourage her in anything that was not offended him, and of his ceasing perhaps to care about her. quite proper. She hoped Rose, for the time to come,

“Well, Grace, as you have done wrong, I must hope would never make too free, but just give a civil answer that you are sorry. I hope, too, your sorrow is of the when spoken to, and go about her own business ; above sort to produce amendment; it will not do that, if you all, never pry into matters that did not concern her; are only concerned at having your faults brought to light.” | to be a busy-body in that sense, was, Mrs. Martin con

“I can't help, uncle Henry, being sorry that you tinued, clear against Scripture—“ and not only idle, but should know how ill I have behaved ; but I don't want tattlers also, and busy-bodies. Those are the words of to deny my faults. I have been very prying and curious, the Bible, Rose ; and with them agrees the old saying, and I had no business to talk about your concerns to that I marked in my sampler, when I was a girl of your Rose. If I had not done that, she would never have agc-Idleness is the root of all evil.'” Rose listened begun talking to me. It was all my fault. I am very to her grandmother with attention, and then said, sorry, uncle Henry." Here Miss Grace's voice quite she should like to work the same words in her sampler, failed her, but as her uncle made no answer, she pre- when she had one. " I know the marking stitch, grandsently continued, " I beg your pardon, uncle Henry.” mother, and if I finish off father's shirt well, button

“ And you shall have it, my dear little niece. We will holes and all, mother says I shall have a bit of fine try, too, if between us we cannot get some good out of canvas, and some coloured silks, for to work a sampler.” these troubles.” As he spoke, Mr. Henry Stanley took his Just then Mrs. Martin came down stairs, dressed for niece kindly by the hand. “ Not by trying to forget them church, and began to set out the tea things. Whilst the immediately; on the contrary, I think you should do kettle is boiling, and Rose gone to put on her other something, Grace, to make yourself remember what has frock, we will return to the Great House. Mr. and Mrs. happened to-day."

Anstey and their little children had arrived, bringing ** What, uncle? I deserve to be punished, to be sure, with them the young lady, whom Miss Grace had and I will submit to anything you order."

spoken of as aunt Eliza. She was Mr. Stanley's “Well

, I shall not be severe this time, nor will we youngest daughter, who now came home, after a visit of make this glad season one of penance ; but I will tell some weeks to her married sister. After dinner they you, Grace, what you shall do; this evening you shall all walked to the church, which was not far from the yourself open the parcel that I hold in my hand.” Great House, and Grace, who had never before attended

“ Oh, indeed, indeed, uncle, I do not now wish to the Evening Service at so late an hour, was quite struck open it; I would much rather not."

with the appearance of the church. It was made suffi“ But it may help to make you remember, Grace; and ciently light with candles, and decorated with shining though I do not insist, I advise you to consent.” branches of holly, and other evergreens. Grace thought

“ And there will be uncle and aunt Anstey, and it looked beautiful. Nearly the whole parish was asaunt Eliza here; oh, what shall I do ?”

seinbled, and Grace soon perceived the gardener's “ I shall say nothing to them before hand, and you family. There was old Mrs. Martin, in the scarlet cloak, may do as you please, or as you think best, in regard to bordered with black fur, given her ten years ago, at telling any of them afterwards.”

least, by Miss Grace's papa, but looking nearly as “ Well," said Grace, with a sigh,“ I think I shall tell handsome as ever; and next to her, Rose, who kept her aunt Eliza."

eyes fixed on her Prayer-book, and took particular care By this time they had reached the house, and Mr. not to turn them towards Mr. Stanley's pew. Henry Stanley, stooping down to kiss his niece, said, By the time tea was over at the Great House, it was “ Now run up stairs, and wash away those tears; your getting on for nine o'clock, the hour at which Miss uncle and aunts will soon be here, and we are to dine Grace usually went to bed, and she began to look rather earlier than usual to-day, in order to be in time for anxiously towards her uncle Henry. He returned her church."

look with a smile, at the same time taking from his • For church, uncle?"

pocket the well-remembered parcel. “ Yes, this is Christmas eve, you know, and there will Now, Grace, it is time to open this; and should be evening service at half past six.”.

you approve of the contents, we will go together to-morFor the present, we must leave Miss Grace, and see a row morning, and give it to the person for whom I made little after Rose Martin.

the purchase.” Old Mrs. Martin, feeling herself better, had come “ Selina Thompson, unele ?" down stairs, and was sitting by the fire when Rose got Well, Selina Thompson, if you choose ; it shall be as home, with her Bible, in which she had been reading, you please, Grace ; Selina Thompson it shall be, if you open on her knees. She called Rose to her, asking where think the present will be a suitable one." she had been, and what she had done with herself all Miss Grace said no more, but broke the seal, and the afternoon. Rose told how she had gone to get a unfolded the paper, which done, she exclaimed, “ Dear siide on the ice, at the bottom of Rush-mead; but when me! I do believe it is nothing but a pair of spectacles her grandmother went on to ask her whether she had after all !" teen sliding ever since dinner-time, and where she was Very true, Grace, nothing but a pair of spectacles-when Mr. Stanley and Miss Grace called in, Rose, who, I a Christmas-box for old Mrs. Martin, and that is all.”

OLD AND POPULAR CUSTOMS.

POPULAR YEAR BOOK.

We have never been witness, says Dr. Johnson in his December 25.--Christmas Day.

Life of Butler, of animosities excited by the use of

minced pies and plum-porridge, nor seen with what The celebration of this most ancient and joyful fes- abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times tival of the Church is most probably of apostolic origin of the year, would shrink from them in December. St. Clement, whose name occurs in the New Testament, exhorts the primitive Christians to keep diligently dów, which the bakers used to present to their customers,

We must not omit to mention here the yule dough, or feast days, and truly, in the first place, the day of in the same way that the chandlers gave Christmas Christ's birth.” A prelate in the second century re- candles. It was a kind of baby, or little image, in paste, cognises the 25th of December as the anniversary of probably intended for a figure of the infant Jesus; and the Nativity; and, so early as the fourth age, its festive the word is still used in the north for a little cake, observance had become so excessive, that another saintly though it properly means, “a mass of flour tempered bishop saw reason to exhort the faithful to celebrate it with water, salt, and yeast, and kneaded fit for baking." less immoderately. “ It is a popular article of belief,"

In the middle ages (to cite a recent journalist) the says Sir Walter Scott, " that those who are born on kings and leading lords, together with the colleges and Christmas and Good Friday, have the power of seeing inns of court, " held their Christmas,” as the phrase spirits, and even of commanding them. The Spaniards went, on a scale which might be called stupendous, as imputed the haggard and downcast looks of their far as meat and drink were concerned, and attended Philip II. to the disagreeable visions to which this pri- with revels, plays, and diversions, not ceasing, in many vilege subjected him.”

instances, till Twelfth Night. These revels, &c. were placed under the direction of a personage who took the

lead in every kind of extravagant sport and merriment “ Christmas comes but once a year,

which the wit of man could devise, and his election and Therefore let's be jolly!”

functions were perhaps the most singular part of the was the jovial motto of our ancestors, and well did they festival. carry out in practice the spirit of its exhortation. The

« The cake was cut at hallow e'en ; holy Christmas morn was melodiously ushered in by

And he whose lot contained the bean bands of carollers, whose sacred ditties deserve an article

Was hailed the sovereign of misrule, to themselves. Immediately after Matin service, the

And leader of the sports of Yule.” “fine old English gentleman” stood at his own gate, and superintended the distribution of alms to the aged

“In the feast of Christmas,” says Stowe, “there was and destitute. At dawn, all his tenants were welcomed in the king's house, or wheresoever he lodged, a lord to his holly-decorated hall; the strong beer was

of misrule, or master of merry disports, and the like had broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good with “ toast, sugar, nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese.” | London and either of the sheriff's had their several lords

worship, were he spiritual or temporal. The mayor of “The servants," writes an old author, “were then running here and there, with merry hearts and jolly coun

of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, tenances ; every one was busy in welcoming of guests, beholders. These lords beginning their rule at All

who should make the rarest pastime to delight the and looked as snug as new-licked puppies. ... Peg would scuttle about to make a toast for John, while hallows Eve, continued the same till the morrow after Tom ran harum-scarum to draw a jug of ale for Mar- the feast of the Purification ; in which space there were gery;”, At dinner the first dish was generally a soused fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries.” boar's head,

A very interesting account of the lord of misrule, as he

flourished in 1585, is given by the sour precisian, Philip “ Crested with bays and rosemary,"

Stubs. It is, however, too long for insertion here. In which was carried up the principal table with great state

some great families, and also sometimes at court, this and solemnity. For this ceremony there was an appro- officer was called the abbot of misrule. In Scotland he priate carol. Dugdale, speaking of the Christmas-day was termed the abbot of unreason, and prohibited there observances in the Middle Temple, says, "At the first in 1565 by the parliament. Many of the characters of course is served in a fair and large boar's head upon a

whom we have elsewhere spoken as figuring in the May silver platter, with minstrelsy." of the date when this games, took their share in the after-dinner gambols of practice was introduced into Ěngland, we have no certain Christmas Day : information, but we learn from Holinshed that it was an

“Hobby-horse midst loud applause, old-established custom here, as early as the reign of

Came prancing on liis hinder paws," Henry II. The other viands peculiar to Christmas, Then, too, came the “merry maskers in,” were the hackin, (a large sausage which the cook was required to boil before day-break under the penalty of

“A strange and motley cavalcade, being taken by the arms by two young men, and so

St. George in arms, a prancing nag on,

Attacks a flaming scaly dragon ; hurried round the market-place till she was ashamed of

Fair Sabra is preserved from death, her laziness), brawn, turkey, goose, capon, sirloin of

And the grim monster yields his breath. beef, plum-porridge, and minced or shred pie. The two last, being compounded of spices, fruit, &c. were in token

The mumming o'er, the dancing ceased, of the offerings of the Eastern Magi. The minced pie

They share the pleasures of the feast ; was shaped in imitation of the cratch or manger of our

And joyously the night prolong infant LORD. Misson, in his Travels in England,

With mirthful glee, and jest, and song." observes, “Every family against Christmas makes a Such is a faint outline of the manner of the festive cele famous pie, which they call Christmas pie. It is a great bration of the great holiday of the Nativity in the olden nostrum; the composition of this pastry is a most time. Some of the customs above described yet remain. learned mixture of neats' tongues, chicken, eggs, sugar, Minced pies, for example, notwithstanding puritanical raisins, &c.” The Puritans were bitterly averse to opposition, “ still maintain a savoury remembrance in minced pies and plum-porridge in connexion with the our mouths.” Plum-porridge has become “solidified," season. "Needham, in his History of the Rebellion, under the name of pudding; and in Yorkshire, at least, sings :

it was the custom as recently as 1790 for the grocers to

send to each of those who dealt with them, a pound or “ All plums the prophet's sons deny, And broths are too hot;

half-pound of currants and raisins for the concoction of spice Treason's in a December pie,

this delicacy. The boar's head has long ceased to crown And death within the pot.”

the Christmas board, but a relic of it is still observable

a

139

6

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES.

at the tables of the yeomanty, particularly of the The churches, as now, were decked with laurels; holly, northern parts of the kingdom ; and at Queen's College, yew, and other evergreens. The mistletoe, however, Oxford, it is retained in all its pristine dignity. In as a heathen and profane plant, appertaining to the Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cornwall, and Devon, “the rites of Druidism, was never admitted into the sacred old spirit of Christmas," says a popular author, “seems edifices, but was hung up in kitchens, subjecting every to be kept up more earnestly than in most other coun- female who passed under it to a salute from any young ties. In Cornwall they still exhibit the old dance of man who was present. Christmas Day continues to be St. George and the dragon. A young friend of ours hap-religiously celebrated in the Church of England. The pening to be at Calden-low, in the Staffordshire hills, at streets of cities, and the thousand pathways of the Christmas, in came the band of bedizened actors, and country, are crowded, on its morn, by rich and poor, performed the whole ancient drama, personating St. young and old, coming in on all sides, gathering from all George, the King of Egypt, the fair Saba, the king's quarters, to hear the “glad tidings of great joy to all daughter, the doctor, and other characters, with great people;" and each stately minster and lowly village energy and in rude verse. In reference to the modern church sends up a voice to join the mighty chorus, secular observance of Christmas Day, the same writer whose glad burthen.is, “Glory to God in the highest; observes : “In large houses are large parties, music and and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” feasting, dancing and cards. Beautiful faces and noble forms, the most fair and accomplished of England's sons and daughters, beautify the ample firesides of aristocratic halls. Senators and judges, lawyers and cler

ON NATIONAL HOLIDAYS. gymen, poets and philosophers, there meet in cheerful, and even sportive ease, amid the elegancies of polished

Tar English are unquestionably a grave nation; there life. In more old-fashioned, but substantial country is no denying it; it is ridiculous to expect them to frisk abodes, old-fashioned hilarity prevails. In the farm- and frolic like the Italian or the Portuguese, neither is house hearty spirits are met. Here are dancing and it at all to be desired. But, if this national distinction feasting too"; and often blind-man's buff, turn-trencher, be urged against a plea for national holidays, we venture and some of the simple games of the last age, remain.

to ask, is it usually considered good educational philosoIn all families, except the families of the poor, who seem phy, to exaggerate accidental peculiarities of character too much forgotten at this as at other times in this re- by systematic training? If a child or a nation is somefined age, there are visits paid and received; parties what grave, or gravish, or inclined to gravity, is it theregoing out or coming in; and everywhere abound, as

fore to have its tendencies designedly encouraged, and indispensable to the season, mince-pies, and wishes for to be grown into a monster of gravity, like a monstrously a merry Christmas and a happy new year.'

fat ox, or an enormously large turnip? We might as well say that spirits naturally too buoyant and excitable,

are therefore not to be sobered. Surely it is the proAlbeit the religious observances of the high festival vince of education rather to counteract excessive ienof Christmas receive but a small share of attention from dencies, than to be always adding fire to fire, and water old writers, they were solemnized by our “ Christian to water. The Frenchman is scandalized at our severity sires" with great pomp and devotion. It appears from and dulness; and we, in return, despise his vivacity. the following extract from the Popish Kingdom, that, Providence intends that each should learn from the as at the present time in foreign countries, they partook other, and give and take of their redundancies. The of a dramatic character.

English are capable of lighter employments than weav“ Three masses every priest doth sing upon that solemn day,

ing and ploughing, and, as it is sufficiently clear from With offerings unto every one, that so the more may play.

the example of the wealthier classes, can occasionally be This done, a wooden child in clouts is on the altar set,

relieved from drudgery, without rushing into licentiousAbout the which both boys and girls do dance and trimly jet, And carols sing in praise of Christ; and for to help them here, “Your holidays will be spent at the public-house.” The organs answer every verse with sweet and solemn cheer ; | This cannot be the true and only answer. The labourThe priests do roar aloud ; and round about the parents stand, | ing portion of the community are not so irremediably To see the sport, and with their voice do help them and their and hopelessly bad, so incomparably worse than their hand."

betters,” as to be utterly incapable of spending a few Fosbroke states, that after the Te Deum a stable was days of leisure like Christians and reasonable beings. prepared behind the altar, and the image of the Blessed True, they are helpless and aimless enough. It is, we Virgin placed upon it. A boy, from above, before the grant, the most lamentable and the most self-condemnachoir, in the likeness of an angel, announced the Nati- tory feature of servitude, that it renders men, to some vity to certain canons or vicars, who entered, as shep-extent, incapable of liberty. Freedom becomes only herds, through the great door of the choir, clothed in another name for rebellion or riot. People, who never tunics and “amesses.” Many boys in the vaults of the have to choose for themselves what they are next to do, church, like angels, then began the Gloria in E.ccelsis. will be at a loss when the choice is offered to them. The shepherds, hearing this, advanced to the stable, They will be like the animal released from the yoke or singing, Peace, goodwill, &c. As soon as they entered the shafts, and which proceeds to wander, it knows not it, two priests in dalmatics, who were stationed at the whither. But if the poor know not how to spend their stable, said, “Whom seek ye?” The shepherds an- time, whose fault is it? Who claim to be the directors swered, “Our Saviour Christ.” The two priests then of public morals and taste ? those very persons who opening the curtain, exhibited the boy, saying, “The make this complaint of the poor. Every man who says little one is here, as the prophet Isaiah said." Then they the operative has no resource but the public-house, in showed the mother, saying, “ Behold the Virgin,” &c. the first place, says not true; and, in the second place, Upon these exhibitions they bowed and worshipped the is bound to do all that in him lies, to the best of his boy, and saluted his mother. The office ended by their light and power, to implant higher tastes, and provide returning to the choir and singing Alleluia.

material for their exercise and satisfaction. Men should

act as well as talk; and every man who talks, professes (1) Tradition, however, represents this usage of Queen's as a thereby his power of action ; but the worst and most commemoration of an act of valour performed by a student of the unprofitable of all talks, is that which spends itself in college, who, while walking in the neighbouring forest of Shotover, and reading Aristotle, was suddenly attacked by a wild boar. The mere general censures and indefinite complaints. furious beast came open-mouthed upon the youth, who, however, There are many foundations for the distribution of very courageously, and with a happy presence of mind, is said to have “rammed in the volume, and cried, Græcum est," fairly chok

small sums at Christmas and other seasons. Some time ing the savage with the sage.

since, a member got up in the House of Commons, and

ness.

: