OR, THE MORROW AFTER TWELFTH DAY.

PARTLY work and partly play

Ye must on St. Distaff's Day;

From the plough soon free your team. Then come home and fother them.

Give St. Distaff all the right,

Then bid Christmas sport good night;

And next morrow, every one

To his own vacation.

CEREMONY FOR CANDLEMAS EVE.

OWN with rosemary and bays,

Down with the mistletoe ;*

Instead of holly, now upraise

The greener box, for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,

Until the dancing Easter-day
Or Easter's eve appear.

Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,

Grown old, surrender must his place

Unto the crispèd yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,

And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,

To honour Whitsuntide.

Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,

With cooler oaken boughs,

Come in for comely ornaments,

To re-adorn the house.

Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed as former things grow old.

This is the first reference to the mistletoe, in its quality of a Christmas evergreen, that

we have met with in the writings of our early poets.

ANOTHER CEREMONY.

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all

Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find

No one least branch there left behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.

CEREMONY FOR CANDLEMAS DAY.

KINDLE the Christmas brand, and then

Till sunset let it burn;

Which quenched, then lay it up again,
Till Christmas next return.

Part must be kept, wherewith to tend
The Christmas log next year;
And where 't is safely kept, the fiend
Can do no mischief there.

In Herrick's time it was customary with the country people to prolong the merriment of the Christmas season until Candlemas Day-a circumstance referred to in the following couplet :—

CANDLEMAS DAY.

END now the white-loaf and the pic,
And let all sports with Christmas die.

CHRISTMAS SONGS AND CAROLS OF THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WARS, THE COMMONWEALTH, AND THE RESTORATION.

HE lively Christmas verses by Wither-
written before his Puritanical zeal had de-
veloped itself that open the present sec-
tion of our work, introduce us to an amusing
picture of the rejoicings of the season, ere
the civil troubles of the reign of Charles I.
had interfered, to throw a damper on the
national hilarity. The holly and the ivy
had not yet come to be regarded as em-
blems of Paganism. The Christmas log still
blazed on the hospitable hearth, and music
and dancing were far from being considered
irrelevant and indecent amusements. The
wassail bowl, too, was still in fashion, and
even mumming was indulged in by both
young men and maidens-

"With twenty other gambols mo,
Because they would be merry."

In the course of a few short years we find that penalties were enforced against parish officers for permitting the decking of churches, and even for allowing divine service to be performed therein on Christmas morning; and, to quote the words of old John Taylor, the water poet,"All the liberty and harmless sports, the merry gambols, dances, and friscols, with which the toiling ploughman and labourer once a year were wont to be recreated, and their spirits and hopes revived for a whole twelvemonth, are now extinct and put out of use, in such a fashion as if they never had been. Thus are the merry lords of bad rule at Westminster; nay more, their madness hath extended itself to the very vegetables; the senseless trees, herbs, and weeds, are in a profane estimation amongst them-holly, ivy, mistletoe, rosemary, bays, are accounted ungodly branches of superstition for your entertainment. And to roast a sirloin of beef, to touch a collar of brawn, to take a pie, to put a plum in the pottage pot, to burn a great candle, or to lay one block the more in the fire for your sake, Master Christmas, is enough to

make a man to be suspected and taken for a Christian, for which he shall be apprehended for committing High Parliament Treason and mighty malignancy against the general Council of the Directorian private Presbyterian Conventicle."*

In another pamphlet, published a few years later, Taylor gives us a further insight into the doings of the Puritanical party. It would appear, however, that their efforts "to keep Christmas day out of England," as he expresses it, were unattended with success, so far as the rural districts were concerned. He brings forward old Father Christmas, who informs us that certain "hot, zealous brethren were of opinion that, from the 24th of December at night, till the 7th of January following, plum pottage was mere Popery, that a collar of brawn was an abomination, that roast beef was anti-christian, that mince pies were relics of the woman of Babylon, and a goose, a turkey, or a capon, were marks of the beast."

After a few words of remonstrance, "Christmas proceeds to describe his visit to a ' grave, fox-furred mammonist," by whom he is received with anything but cordiality; and taking his departure, he makes his way into the country, where he meets with the "best and freest welcome from some kind country farmers: I will describe one," he observes, "for all the rest in Devonshire and Cornwall, where the goodman, with the dame of the house, and every body else, were exceeding glad to see me. and, with all country courtesy and solemnity, I was had into the parlour; there I was placed at the upper end of the table, and my company about me, we had good cheer and free welcome, and we were merry without music. "After dinner we arose from the board and sat by the fire-where the hearth was embroidered all over with roasted apples, piping hot, expecting a bowl of ale for a cooler (which presently was transformed into warm lambswool). Within an hour after we went to church, where a good old minister spoke very reverendly of my Master, Christ, and also he uttered many good speeches concerning me, exciting and exhorting the people to love and unity one with another, and to extend their charities to the needy and distressed.

"After prayers we returned home, where we discoursed merrily, without either profaneness or obscenity; supper being ended, we went to cards; some sung carols and merry songs (suitable to the times); then the poor labouring hinds and the maid-servants, with the ploughboys, went nimbly to dancing, the poor toiling wretches being all glad of my company, because they had little or no sport at all till I came amongst them; and therefore they leaped and skipped for joy, singing a catch to the tune of hey,

"Let's dance and sing, and make good cheer,

For Christmas comes but once a year.'

Thus at active games and gambols of hotcockles, shocing the wild mare, and the like harmless sports, some part of the tedious night was spent ; and early in the morning we took our leaves of them thankfully; and though we had been thirteen days well entertained, yet the poor people The Complaint of Christmas, written after Twelftide, and printed before Candlemas, 1646.