Some of the poets of this period have dealt playfully with the festivities of Christmastide, as, for example, Laman Blanchard (1845) in the following effusion:—

is the time of Robert Browning's beautiful poem of "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," in which the poet sings the song of man's immortality, proclaiming, as Easter Day breaks and Christ rises, that

And, in his beautiful poem of "In Memoriam," Lord Tennyson associates some of his finest verses with the ringing of

As the poet Longfellow stood on the lofty tower of Bruges Cathedral the belfry chimes set him musing, and of those chimes he says:

were first circulated in England in 1846. That year not more than a thousand copies were printed, and that was considered a large sale. The numbers distributed annually soon increased to tens and hundreds of thousands, and now there are millions of them. Mr. J. C. Horsley, a member of the Royal Academy, designed this first card which was sent out in 1846. It represents a family party of three generations—grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, and little children—and all are supposed to be joining in the sentiment, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you." The card was issued from the office of one of the periodicals of the time, Felix Summerley's Home Treasury. It was first lithographed, and then it was coloured by hand.

Christmas and New Year Cards became very popular in the decade 1870-1880. But then, however, simple cards alone did not suffice. Like many other things, they felt the influence of the latter-day renaissance of art, and by a sort of evolutionary process developed cards monochrome and coloured, "Christmas Bell" cards, palettes, scrolls, circular and oval panels, stars, fans, crescents, and other shaped novelties; embossed cards, the iridescent series, the rustic and frosted cards, the folding series, the jewel cards, the crayons, and private cards on which the sender's name and sentiments are printed in gold, silver, or colours; hand-painted cards with landscapes, seascapes, and floral decorations; paintings on porcelain; satin cards, fringed silk, plush, Broché, and other artistically made-up novelties; "art-gem" panels; elaborate booklets, and other elegant souvenirs of the festive season. Many of the Christmas booklets are beautifully illustrated editions of popular poems and carols.

"Quartette" cards, "Snap" cards, and other cards of games for the diversion of social gatherings are also extensively used at Christmastide.

In compliance with a wish expressed by the Lady Londesborough, a Masque, entitled, "Recollections of Old Christmas," was performed at Grimston at Christmas, 1850, the following prologue being contributed by Barry Cornwall:—

A printed copy of the Masque, which bears date, "Tuesday, XXIV December, MDCCCL.," is preserved in the British Museum.

Charles Mackay, LL.D.

The author of this beautiful poem (Dr. Charles Mackay) was born at Perth in 1814, and died on Christmas Eve, 1889, at his residence, Longridge Road, Earl's Court, Brompton.

Everybody knows that Christmas is the time for ghost stories, and that Charles Dickens and other writers have supplied us with tales of the true blood-curdling type. Thomas Hood's "Haunted House," S. T. Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," and some other weird works of poetry have also been found serviceable in producing that strange chill of the blood, that creeping kind of feeling all over you, which is one of the enjoyments of Christmastide. Coleridge (says the late Mr. George Dawson)[88] "holds the first place amongst English poets in this objective teaching of the vague, the mystic, the dreamy, and the imaginative. I defy any man of imagination or sensibility to have 'The Ancient Mariner' read to him, by the flickering firelight on Christmas night, by a master mind possessed by the mystic spirit of the poem, and not find himself taken away from the good regions of 'ability to account for,' and taken into some far-off dreamland, and made even to start at his own footfall, and almost to shudder at his own shadow. You shall sit round the fire at Christmas time, good men and true every one of you; you shall come there armed with your patent philosophy; that creak you have heard, it is only the door—the list is not carefully put round the door, and it is the wintry wind that whistles through the crevices. Ghosts and spectres belong to the olden times; science has waved its wand and laid them all. We have no superstition about us; we walk enlightened nineteenth-century men; it is quite beneath us to be superstitious. By and bye, one begins to tell tales of ghosts and spirits; and another begins, and it goes all round; and there comes over you a curious feeling—a very unphilosophical feeling, in fact, because the pulsations of air from the tongue of the storyteller ought not to bring over you that peculiar feeling. You have only heard words, tales—confessedly by the storyteller himself only tales, such as may figure in the next monthly magazine for pure entertainment and amusement. But why do you feel so, then? If you say that these things are mere hallucinations, vague air-beating or tale-telling, why, good philosopher, do you feel so curious, so all-overish, as it were? Again, you are a man without the least terror in you, as brave and bold a man as ever stepped: living man cannot frighten you, and verily the dead rise not with you. But you are brought, towards midnight, to the stile over which is gained a view of the village churchyard, where sleep the dead in quietness. Your manhood begins just to ooze away a little; you are caught occasionally whistling to keep your courage up; you do not expect to see a ghost, but you are ready to see one, or to make one." At such a moment, think of the scene depicted by Coleridge:—

With this weird tale in his mind in the mystic stillness of midnight would an imaginative man be likely to deny the reality of the spirit world? The chances are that he would be spellbound; or, if he had breath enough, would cry out—

"In the year 1421, the widow of Ralph Cranbourne, of Dipmore End, in the parish of Sandhurst, Berks, was one midnight alarmed by a noise in her bedchamber, and, looking up, she saw at her bedfoot the appearance of a skeleton (which she verily believed was her husband) nodding and talking to her upon its fingers, or finger bones, after the manner of a dumb person. Whereupon she was so terrified, that after striving to scream aloud, which she could not, for her tongue clave to her mouth, she fell backward as in a swoon; yet not so insensible withal but she could see that at this the figure became greatly agitated and distressed, and would have clasped her, but upon her appearance of loathing it desisted, only moving its jaw upward and downward, as if it would cry for help but could not for want of its parts of speech. At length, she growing more and more faint, and likely to die of fear, the spectre suddenly, as if at a thought, began to swing round its hand, which was loose at the wrist, with a brisk motion, and the finger bones being long and hard, and striking sharply against each other, made a loud noise like to the springing of a watchman's rattle. At which alarm, the neighbours running in, stoutly armed, as against thieves or murderers, the spectre suddenly departed."[89]

December 21, 1850.

Writing on this subject, in the Antiquary, March, 1895, Mr. Harry Hems, of Exeter, introduces the reduced copy of an illustration which appears on the following page, and which he states was published in the Illustrated London News, January 11, 1851.

The picture (says Mr. Hems) "presents, as will be seen, a frosty, moonlight night, with a brilliantly-lit old farmhouse in the background. In the fore are leafless fruit-trees, and three men firing guns at them, whilst the jovial farmer and another man drink success to the year's crop from glasses evidently filled from a jug of cider, which the latter also holds a-high. A crowd of peasants—men, women and children—are gathered around, and the following description is appended:—

"'Amongst the scenes of jocund hospitality in this holiday season, that are handed down to us, is one which not only presents an enlivening picture, but offers proof of the superstition that still prevails in the Western counties. On Twelfth-even, in Devonshire, it is customary for the farmer to leave his warm fireside, accompanied by a band of rustics, with guns, blunderbusses, &c., presenting an appearance which at other times would be somewhat alarming. Thus armed, the band proceeds to an adjoining orchard, where is selected one of the most fruitful and aged of the apple-trees, grouping round which they stand and offer up their invocations in the following quaint doggerel rhyme:—

The cider-jug is then passed round, and, with many a hearty shout, the party fire off their guns, charged with powder only, amidst the branches, sometimes frightening the owl from its midnight haunt. With confident hopes they return to the farmhouse, and are refused admittance, in spite of all weather, till some lucky wight guesses aright the peculiar roast the maidens are preparing for their comfort. This done, all enter, and soon right merrily the jovial glass goes round, that man who gained admittance receiving the honour of King for the evening, and till a late hour he reigns, amidst laughter, fun, and jollity. The origin of this custom is not known, but it is supposed to be one of great antiquity.

"'The illustration is from a sketch by Mr. Colebrooke, Stockdale.'"

We may add that, in the seventeenth century, a similar custom seems to have been observed in some places on Christmas Eve, for in Herrick's Hesperides the wassailing of fruit trees is among the Christmas Eve ceremonies:—

Writing from Exeter, in 1852, a correspondent says "the custom of welcoming this season of holy joy with 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs' lingers in the cathedral city of Exeter; where, during Christmas Eve, the parish choirs perambulate the streets singing anthems, with instrumental accompaniments. The singing is protracted through the night, when the celebration often assumes a more secular character than is strictly in accordance with the festival. A more sacred commemoration is, however, at hand.

"At a quarter-past seven o'clock on Christmas morning the assemblage of persons in the nave of Exeter Cathedral is usually very numerous: there are the remnants of the previous vigil, with unwashed faces and sleepy eyes; but a large number are early risers, who have left their beds for better purposes than a revel. There is a great muster of the choir, and the fine Old Hundredth Psalm is sung from the gallery to a full organ, whose billows of sound roll through the vaulted edifice. The scene is strikingly picturesque: all is dim and shadowy; the red light from the flaring candles falling upon upturned faces, and here and there falling upon a piece of grave sculpture, whilst the grey light of day begins to stream through the antique windows, adding to the solemnity of the scene. As the last verse of the psalm peals forth, the crowd begins to move, and the spacious cathedral is soon left to the more devout few who remain to attend the morning service in the Lady-chapel."

From the "Christmas Chronicles of Llanfairpwllycrochon," by R. P. Hampton Roberts, in Notes and Queries, December 21, 1878, we quote the following:

"Now Thomas Thomas, and Mary Jones, and all their neighbours, had great veneration for Christmas, and enjoyed much pleasure in looking forward to the annual recurrence of the feast. Not that they looked upon it as a feast in any ecclesiastical sense, for Llanfairpwllycrochon was decidedly Calvinistically Methodist, and rejected all such things as mere popish superstition.

"The Christmas goose was a great institution at Llanfairpwllycrochon. The annual goose club had no existence there, it is true, but the annual goose had nevertheless. Thomas Thomas, after his memorable visit to London, came home imbued with one English idea which startled the villagers more than anything had done since the famous bonfire on the outlying hill when the heir came of age, and it was a long time before they recovered from their surprise. It was nothing less than a proposition to substitute beef for the Christmas dinner instead of a goose. Here was a sad falling off from the ways of Llanfairpwllycrochon! And Thomas Thomas was a man who persisted in an idea once it entered his mind—an event of rare occurrence, it is true, and consequently all the more stubborn whenever it did occur. Thomas Thomas had, however, sufficient respect for the opinion of his neighbours to make him compromise matters by providing for himself alone a small beefsteak as an adjunct to the time-honoured goose.

"Another Christmas institution at Llanfairpwllycrochon was the universal pudding, mixed as is wont by every member of the family. Then there was the bun-loaf, or barabrith, one of the grand institutions of Llanfairpwllycrochon. Many were the pains taken over this huge loaf—made large enough to last a week or fortnight, according to the appetites of the juvenile partakers—and the combined "Christmas-boxes" of the grocer and baker went to make up the appetising whole, with much more in addition.

"Christmas Eve was a day of exceeding joy at Llanfairpwllycrochon. The manufacture of paper ornaments and 'kissing bushes,' radiant with oranges, apples, paper roses, and such like fanciful additions as might suit the taste or means of the house-holder, occupied most of the day. And then they had to be put up, and the house in its Christmas decorations looked more resplendent than the imagination of the most advanced villager—at present at school, and of the mature age of five and a half years, the rising hope of the schoolmaster, and a Lord Chancellor in embryo in fine—could have pictured. As a reward for the day's toil came the night's sweet task of making cyflath, i.e., toffee. Thomas Thomas, and those who spoke the Saxon tongue among the villagers, called it 'taffy.' Once had Thomas Thomas been corrected in his pronunciation, but the hardy Saxon who ventured on the bold proceeding was silenced when he heard that he was not to think he was going to persuade a reasonable man into mutilating the English tongue. 'Taffy it iss, and taffy I says,' and there was an end of the matter. Without taffy the inhabitants of Llanfairpwllycrochon, it was firmly believed by the vicar, would not have known the difference between Christmas and another time, and it is not therefore matter for surprise that they should so tenaciously cling to its annual making. At midnight, when the syrupy stuff was sufficiently boiled, it would be poured into a pan and put into the open air to cool. Here was an opportunity for the beaux of the village which could not be missed. They would steal, if possible, the whole, pan and all, and entail a second making on the unfortunate victims of their practical joke.

"Sometimes the Christmas Eve proceedings would be varied by holding a large evening party, continued all night, the principal amusement of which would be the boiling of toffee, one arm taking, when another was tired, the large wooden spoon, and turning the boiling mass of sugar and treacle, this process being continued for many hours, until nothing would be left to partake of but a black, burnt sort of crisp, sugary cinder. Sometimes the long boiling would only result in a soft mass, disagreeable to the taste and awkward to the hand, the combined efforts of each member of the party failing to secure consistency or strength in the mixed ingredients.

"And then there were the carols at midnight, and many more were the Christmas customs at Llanfairpwllycrochon."

Under this title, Mr. T. M. Fallow, M.A., F.S.A., writing in the Antiquary, May, 1895, gives an account of rustic performances which were witnessed at Christmastide in the neighbourhood of Leeds about fifteen years earlier, and he illustrates the subject with a series of pictures from photographs taken at the time, which are here reproduced. The play depicted is that of the "Seven Champions of Christendom," and in the picture on the preceding page "St. George" is shown engaged in combat with "St. Peter," while "St. Andrew" and "St. Denys" are each kneeling on one knee, a sign of their having been vanquished.

"It may be well to point out," says Mr. Fallow, "that in the West Riding, or at any rate in the neighbourhood of Leeds, the sword-actors were quite distinct from the 'mummers.' They generally numbered nine or ten lads, who, disguised by false beards as men, were dressed in costume as appropriate to the occasion as their knowledge and finances would permit, and who acted, with more or less skill, a short play, which, as a rule, was either the 'Peace Egg' or the 'Seven Champions of Christendom.' The following illustration shows two of the 'champions,' as photographed at the time stated:—

"There was a little indefiniteness," says Mr. Fallow, "as to the characters represented in the play, but usually they were the King of Egypt, his daughter, a fool or jester, St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. David, St. Denys, St. James, and a St. Thewhs, who represented a Northern nation—Russia, or sometimes Denmark—and whose exact identity seems obscure. The seven champions occasionally included St. Peter of Rome, as in the group whose photograph is given. St. George engaged in mortal combat with each champion in succession, fighting for the hand of the King of Egypt's daughter. When at length each of the six was slain, St. George, having vanquished them all, won the fair lady, amid the applause of the bystanders. Then, at the conclusion, after a general clashing and crossing of swords, the fool or jester stepped forward, and wound up the performance with an appeal for pecuniary recognition."

In a Christmas article, published in 1869, Dr. Rimbault mentions the performance of "St. George and the Dragon" in the extreme western and northern parts of the country. The following five characters are given: Father Christmas, Turkish Knight, King of Egypt, St. George, Doctor. Other writers mention similar plays, with variations of characters, as seen in the rural parts of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire, and the present writer has himself seen such plays at Madeley, in Shropshire.

S. Arnott, of Turnham Green, writing in Notes and Queries, December 21, 1878, says: "When I was living at Hollington, near Hastings, in the year 1869, the village boys were in the habit of visiting the houses of the gentry at Christmas time to perform a play, which had been handed down by tradition." The description of the play which then followed shows that it was another variation of the well-known Christmas play, and included the "Turkish Knight," the "Bold Slasher," and other familiar characters.

Writing on "Mid-winter Customs in the North," Mr. Edward Garrett says "it is not easy to write of 'Christmas customs in the North,' because many of them, even though connected with the Christmas festival, do not take place till January 6th, that being Christmas Day, Old Style, while most of them are associated with the New Year, either Old or New Style, one of the most striking celebrations coming off on January 11th, regarded as 'New Year's Eve.'

"Christmas itself has never been a national Scottish festival since the Reformation. On its purely festive side, it has become somewhat of a 'fashion' of late years, but its ancient customs have only lingered on in those districts where Episcopacy has taken deep root. Such a district is 'Buchan'—a track of country in the north-east of Aberdeenshire—a place which cannot be better described than in the words of one of its own gifted sons, Dr. Walter Smith:—

The inherent Scandinavianism of the Shetlander, which leads him to repudiate the appellation of Scotchman, and to cherish in secret the old customs and superstitions of his ancestors, asserts itself yearly in the high jinks with which he continues to honour the old holy days of Yule. Until within the last two or three years, he pertinaciously adhered to the old style in his observance of these festivities. On Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and Uphelya—the twenty-fourth day after Yule, and that on which the holy or holidays are supposed to be "up"—the youths of Lerwick, attired in fantastic dresses, go "guising" about the town in bands, visiting their friends and acquaintances and reproducing in miniature the carnival of more southern climes. On one or other of these occasions a torchlight procession forms part of the revelry. Formerly blazing tar barrels were dragged about the town, and afterwards, with the first break of morning, dashed over the Knab into the sea. But this ancient and dangerous custom has very properly been discontinued. The dresses of the guisers are often of the most expensive and fanciful description. Highlanders, Spanish cavaliers, negro minstrels, soldiers in the peaked caps, kerseymere breeches, and scarlet coats turned up with buff, of the reign of George II., Robin Hoods, and Maid Marians were found in the motley throng. Some, with a boldness worthy of Aristophanes himself, caricature the dress, the walk, or some other eccentricity of leading personages in the town; others—for the spirit of "the Happy Land" has reached these hyperborean regions—make pleasant game of well-known political characters. Each band of guisers has its fiddler, who walks before it, playing "Scalloway Lasses," or "The Foula Reel," or "The Nippin' Grund," or some other archaic tune. Thus conducted, and blowing a horn to give notice of their approach, the maskers enter the doors of all houses which they find open, dance a measure with the inmates, partake of and offer refreshment, and then depart to repeat the same courtesies elsewhere. At daylight the horn of the Most Worthy Grand Guiser, a mysterious personage, whose personality and functions are enveloped in the deepest concealment, is heard summoning all the bands to end their revels, and when, in the cold grey dawn of the winter morning, the worthy citizens of Lerwick awake to pursue their wonted avocations, not a trace remains of the saturnalia of the night before.—Sheriff Rampini, in Good Words.

Now, passing from the islands to the sea itself, it is pleasant to note that in recent years Christian hearts have carried

Through the "Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen" twelve thousand brave and hardy fishermen have been cheered at Christmastide, for to their fleets the Mission's vessels now take medical and surgical aid, books and magazines, woollen garments and tobacco, which, as adjuncts to higher religious aid, are turning the once wild and desperate ocean roughs into clean-living sailors and good husbands and fathers—therefore are these days on the North Sea better far than those that are gone. Thousands of these brave men turn at Christmas to the M.D.S.F. flag as to the one bright link which binds them to friendly hearts ashore, assuring them that in England's Christmas festivities they and their like have a real part, and are no longer forgotten.

Some facts recorded by the Rev. John Sinclair[91] illustrate the dangers of the wild winter sea, and also set forth some