worship as against several other practices to which we have alluded, on the express ground of its resemblance to one of the customs of the pagan celebration.

The custom of celebrating the festivities of the season, by the singing of carols, in these islands, appears to have mingled with the Christmas observances, from the earliest period. We have specimens of the carols themselves, of a remote date; and have already given an extract from one, the manuscript of which, in the British Museum, is dated as far back as the thirteenth century. There are evidences of the universality of the practice in the fifteenth century; and the great popularity of these songs, about this time, is proved by the fact of a collection thereof having been printed in the early part of the following century, by Wynkyn de Worde. It is to the puritans that we appear to have been indebted for the introduction of the religious carol. Those enemies of all mirth,-even in its most innocent or valuable forms,-finding the practice of carol-singing, at this festive time, too general and rooted to be dealt with by interdiction, appear to have endeavored to effect their objects, by directing it into a channel of their own; and,-probably retaining the ancient airs, -to have adapted them to the strange religious ballads, of which we must give our readers a few specimens. The entire version of the Psalms of David, made by Sternhold and Hopkins, was published about the middle of the sixteenth century; and, some time before the middle of the seventeenth, a duodecimo volume appeared, under the title of "Psalmes or Songs of Zion, turned into the language, and set to the tunes of a strange land, by W. S. (William Slatyr), intended for Christmas Carols, and fitted to divers of the most noted and common but solemne tunes, everywhere in this land familiarly used and knowne."

Of these old ballads-of both kinds,—many (and snatches of more) have survived to the present day; and may be heardparticularly in the northern counties of England,—ringing through the frosty air of the long winter nights, in the shrill voices of children, for several weeks before Christmas-probably, too, to the old traditional tunes. They are, however, as might be expected of compositions which have no more substantial

depositary than the memories of the humble classes of the young, -full of corruptions, which render some of them nearly unintelligible. The difficulty of restoring these old carols, in their original forms, is becoming yearly greater, in consequence of the modern carols, which are fast replacing them, by a sort of authority. In country places, many of the more polished carols, of modern composition, find their way into the church services of this season; and amongst the singers who practise this manner of appealing to the charities of the season, with most success, are the children of the Sunday-schools and the choristers of the village church. These, with their often sweet voices, bring to our doors the more select hymns, and the musical training, which they have gathered for more sacred places;-some such beautiful anthem as that beginning "Hark! the herald angels sing," rather than the strange, rambling, old Christmas songs, which we well remember, when we were boys. These latter, however, occasionally, are not without a wild beauty of their own. We quote a fragment of one of them from memory. We think it begins—

"The moon shines bright, and the stars give light,

A little before the day;'

and wanders on, somewhat after the following unconnected fashion :

"Awake! awake! good people all !

Awake, and you shall hear,

How Christ, our Lord, died on the cross

For those he loved so dear.

O fair! O fair, Jerusalem!

When shall I come to thee?

When shall my griefs be at an end,
That I thy tents may see!

The fields were green as green could be,
When, from his glorious seat,

The Lord our God he watered us

With his heavenly good and sweet.

And for the saving of our souls,
Christ died upon the cross,

We never shall do for Jesus Christ
What he has done for us!

The life of man is but a span,

And cut down in its flower;
We're here to day, and gone to-morrow,
We're all dead in an hour.

O! teach well your children, men!
The while that you are here,
It will be better for your souls,
When your corpse lies on the bier.

To-day, you may be alive, dear man!
With many a thousand pound;
To-morrow, you may be a dead man,
And your corpse laid under ground.

With a turf at your head, dear man!
And another at your feet,

Your good deeds and your bad ones
They will together meet.

My song is done, and I must begone,

I can stay no longer here;

God bless you all, both great and small,
And send you a happy new year."

Our Lancashire readers know that a similar wish to that expressed in the two last lines is generally delivered, in recitative, at the close of each carol,—or before the singers abandon our doors; which wish, however, we have heard finally changed into a less quotable ejaculation, in cases where the carolists had been allowed to sing unregarded.

The gradual decay into which these ancient religious ballads are rapidly falling, was, in some measure, repaired by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in 1823-who published a collection, containing upwards of twenty carols, in a restored state,—with the tunes to which it was usual to sing them, in the west of England. Of Welsh carols various collections are mentioned, both by Hone and by Sandys :—and in that country, the practice is in better preservation than even in England. In reland too, it exists to the present day, although we have not met with any collection of Irish carols; and in France,-where there are numerous collections under the title of Noëls,-the custom is universal. In Scotland, however, it was extinguished, with the other Christmas

practices, by the thunders of John Knox and his precisians,—and, we believe, has never been in any degree restored. We should add that there are numerous carols, for the Christmas season, scattered through the writings of our old poets,-amongst whom Herrick may be mentioned as conspicuous.

But the most ample and curious published collection of Christmas carols with which we have met is that by Mr. Sandys,—to which we have so often alluded:-and from the text of this collection, we will give our readers one or two specimens of the quaint beauties which occasionally mingle in the curious texture of these old anthems. Mr. Sandys's collection is divided into two parts; the first of which consists of ancient carols and Christmas songs, from the early part of the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. We wish that, in cases where the authorship belongs to so conspicuous a name as Herrick, and, indeed, in all cases where it is ascertained,-the names of the authors had been prefixed. The second part comprises a selection from carols which the Editor states to be still used, in the west of England. We can inform him that many of these we have, ourselves, heard only some dozen years ago, screamed through the sharp evening air of Lancashire,-at the top pitch of voices that could, clearly, never have been given for any such purposes, "making night hideous," or, occasionally, filled the calm watches with the far lulling sounds of wild, sweet harmony. The practice, however, is, under any circumstances, full of fine meanings, that redeem the rudeness of performance,—and, for ourselves, we like the music, at its best and worst.

Of the festive songs we have already given occasional examples, in the progress of this work,—and shall just now confine ourselves to extracts from those of a more religious character. From the old part of the collections before us, we will give a verse of a short carol, which,-while it will exhibit, in a very modified degree, the familiar tone in which the writers of these ancient songs dealt with the incidents of the sacred story,—is full of a tenderness arising out of that very manner of treatment. We give it, in the literal form in which we find it in this collection-with the exception of extending an occasional cypher. It begins with a burthen :—

Some of these ancient carols run over the principal incidents in the scheme of man's fall and redemption; and we are sorry that our limits will not permit us to give such lengthened specimens as we should desire. We will, however, copy a few verses from one of a different kind-in which, beneath its ancient dress, our readers will see that there is much rude beauty. It begins :