the royal stores of "pigs' heads and gammons of bacon," for a Christmas largesse to the poor, at which we get glimpses, in the existing records of the not over-hospitable reign of King John,the profuse expenditure and stately ceremonial by which the season was illustrated in the reign of the vain and selfish Elizabeth —and the lordly wassailings and antic mummings, whose universal prevalence, at this period of the year, furnished subjects of such holy horror to the puritans, in the time of the first Charles, -have gradually disappeared, before the philosophic pretensions and chilling pedantry of these sage and self-seeking days. The picturesque effects of society-its strong lights and deep shadows -are rapidly passing away; as the inequalities of surface from which they were projected, are smoothed and polished down. From a period of high ceremonial and public celebration, which it long continued to be in England, the Christmas-tide has tamed away into a period of domestic union and social festivity;—and the ancient observances which covered it all over with sparkling points, are now rather perceived-faintly, and distantly, and imperfectly, by the light of the still surviving spirit of the season, than contribute anything to that spirit, or throw, as of old, any light over that season, from themselves.

Of the various causes which contribute to the mingled festival of the Christmas-tide, there are some which have their origin in feelings, and are the remains of observances, that existed previously to that event from which the season, now, derives its name. After the establishment of Christianity, its earliest teachers, feeling the impossibility of replacing, at once, those pagan commemorations which had taken long and deep root in the constitution of society, and become identified with the feelings of nations,-endeavored rather to purify them from their uncleanness, and adapt them to the uses of the new religion. By this arrangement, many an object of pagan veneration became an object of veneration to the early Christians; and the polytheism of papal Rome (promoted in part by this very compromise, working in the stronghold of the ancient superstition) became engrafted upon the polytheism of the heathens. At a later period, too, the Protestant reformers of that corrupted worship found themselves, from a similar impossibility, under a similar necessity of retaining a

variety of Catholic observances :—and thus it is that festival customs still exist amongst us, which are the direct descendants of customs connected with the classic or druidical superstitions, and sports which may be traced to the celebrations observed, of old, in honor of Saturn, or of Bacchus.

Amongst those celebrations which have, thus, survived the decay of the religions with which they were connected, by being made subservient to the new faith, or purified forms, which replaced them, that which takes place at the period of the new year-placed as that epoch is in the neighborhood of the winter solstice-stands conspicuous. Bequeathed, as this ancient commemoration has been (with many of its forms of rejoicing), by the pagan to the Christian world,—it has been, by the latter, thrown into close association with their own festival observances in honor of the first great event in the history of their revelation ; and, while the old observances, and the feelings in which they originated, have thus been preserved to swell the tide of Christian triumph, their pedigree has been overlooked, amid the far higher interest of the observances by whose side they stand, and their ancient titles merged in that of the high family into which they have been adopted.

In most nations, of ancient or modern times, the period of what is popularly called the winter solstice appears to have been recognized as a season of rejoicing. The deepening gloom and increasing sterility which have followed the downward progress of the sun's place in heaven, would generally dispose the minds of men to congratulation at the arrival of that period when, as experience had taught them, he had reached his lowest point of influence with reference to them; and the prospects of renewed light, and warmth, and vegetation, offered by what was considered as his returning march, would naturally be hailed by the signs of thanksgiving, and the voice of mirth. The Roman Saturnalia, which fell at this period, were, accordingly, a season of high festivity,-honored by many privileges and many exemptions from ill. The spirit of universal mirth and unbounded licence was abroad, and had a free charter. Friends feasted together, and the quarrels of foes were suspended. No war was declared, and no capital executions were permitted to take place, during this

season of general good-will; and the very slave, beneath its genial influence, regained for a moment the moral attitude of a man, and had a right to use the tongue which God had given him, for its original purpose of expressing his thoughts. Not only in the spirit of the time, but in many of the forms which it took, may a resemblance be traced to the Christmas rejoicings of later days. The hymns in honor of Saturn were the Roman representatives of the modern carol; and presents passed from friend to friend, as Christmas gifts do in our day. (It may be observed here, that the interchange of gifts, and the offering of donations to the poor, appear to have been, at all periods of rejoicing or delivery, from the earliest times, one of the modes by which the heart manifested its thankfulness; and our readers may be referred for a single example, where examples abound, to the directions recorded in the Book of Esther, as given by Mordecai, to the Jews in Shushan, for celebrating their escape from the conspiracy of Haman :—that on the anniversaries of "the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day; they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.") But a more striking resemblance still,-between the forms observed during the days of the Saturnalia, and those by which the Christmas festival was long illustrated, may be noticed in the ruler, or king, who was appointed, with considerable prerogatives, to preside over the sports of the former. He is the probable ancestor of that high potentate who, under the title of Christmas Prince, Lord of Misrule, or Abbot of Unreason, exercised a similar sway over the Christmas games of more recent times; and whose last descendant, the Twelfth-night King, still rules, with a diminished glory, over the lingering revelries of a single night.

In the northern nations of ancient Europe, the same period of the year was celebrated by a festival, in honor of the God Thor; and which, like the Roman Saturnalia, and the festival of our own times, was illustrated by the song, the dance, and the feast,executed after their barbarous fashion, and mingled with the savage rites of their own religion. The name of this celebration, Yule, Jule, Iul, or Iol, has given rise to many disputes amongst

antiquaries, as to its derivation ;—whose arguments, however, we need not report for the benefit of our readers, till judgment shall have been finally pronounced. When that time shall arrive, we undertake to publish a new edition of the present work, for the purpose of giving our readers an abstract of the pleadings, and acquainting them with the ultimate decision. In the meantime, we will let Sir Walter Scott inform them how

"The savage Dane,

At Iol, more deep the mead did drain;
High on the beach his galleys drew,
And feasted all his pirate-crew;
Then, in his low and pine-built hall,
Where shields and axes decked the wall,
They gorged upon the half-dressed steer,
Caroused in sea of sable-beer,-

While round, in brutal jest, were thrown,
The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone;
Or listened all, in grim delight,

While Scalds yelled out the joys of fight.
Then forth in frenzy would they hie,
While wildly loose their red locks fly,

And, dancing round the blazing pile,

They made such barbarous mirth the while,
As best might to the mind recall

The boisterous joys of Odin's hall."

Amongst other traces of the northern observances which have descended to our times, and of which we shall have occasion, hereafter, to speak, the name of the festival itself has come down, and is still retained by our Scottish brethren, as well as in some parts of England.

The Christian festival of the Nativity, with which these ancient celebrations have been incorporated, appears to have been appointed at a very early period after the establishment of the new religion. Its first positive footsteps are met with in the second century, during the reign of the Emperor Concordius; but the decretal epistles furnish us with traces of it more remote. At whatever period, however, its formal institution is to be placed, there can be no doubt that an event so striking in its manner and so important in itself, would be annually commemorated amongst

Christians, from the days of the first apostles, who survived our Lord's resurrection. As to the actual year of the birth of Christ, -as well as the period of the year at which it took place,-great uncertainty seems to exist, and many controversies have been maintained. One of the theories on the subject, held to be amongst the most probable, places that event upwards of five years earlier than the vulgar era; which latter, however,-both as regards the year and season of the year,—was a tradition of the primitive church. In the first ages of that church, and up till the Council of Nice, the celebration of the Nativity, and that of the Epiphany, were united on the 25th of December, from a belief that the birth of Christ was simultaneous with the appearance of the star in the east which revealed it to the Gentiles. The time of the year at which the Nativity fell has been placed, by contending opinions, at the period of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, at that of the Passover, and again, at that of the Feast of the Expiation, whose date corresponds with the close of our September. Clemens Alexandrinus informs us that it was kept by many Christians in April; and by others in the Egyptian month Pachon-which answers to our May. Amongst the arguments which have been produced against the theory that places its occurrence in the depth of winter, one has been gathered from that passage in the sacred history of the event which states that "there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." It is an argument, however, which does not seem very conclusive in a pastoral country, and eastern climate. Besides the employment which this question has afforded to the learned, it has, in times of religious excitement, been debated with much puritanical virulence and sectarian rancor. For the purposes of commemoration, however, it is unimportant whether the celebration shall fall, or not, at the precise anniversary period of the event commemorated; and the arrangement which assigns to it its place in our calendar, fixes it at a season when men have leisure for a lengthened festivity, and when their minds are otherwise wholesomely acted upon by many touching thoughts and solemn considerations.

From the first introduction of Christianity into these islands, the period of the Nativity seems to have been kept as a season of festival, and its observance recognized as a matter of state.