Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend, will have little to fear from his enemies; but he that has made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends.'-(Colton's Lacon, p. 260.)

25.-CHRISTMAS DAY.

The feast of our Saviour's nativity was undoubtedly celebrated in the early ages of Christianity; for we are told that, under the persecution of Maximinus, that emperor burnt a church at Nicomedia, which was filled with Christians assembled to keep this fes-: tival. St. Gregory terms it the festival of festivals; and St. Chrysostom, the chief of all festivals. It is named Christmas-day, from the Latin Christi Missa, the Mass of Christ, and thence the Roman Catholic Liturgy is termed their Missal or Mass Book. About the year 500, the observation of this day became general in the Catholic church.

The evergreens, with which the churches are usually ornamented at Christmas, are a proper emblem of that time, when, as God says, by the prophet ISAIAH, I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree, to-, gether. xli, 19. The glory of Lebanon shall come, unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. Ix, 13. See also li, 3; lv, 12, 13; and Nehemiah viii, 15, 16.

Of the Fête des Asnes, antiently celebrated at this season, we have the following account in the first of a series of very ingenious and amusing essays on the Burlesque Festivals of the former Ages, given in the Gentleman's Mag., vol. xci, part ii, p. 100:-'It was instituted in honour of our Saviour and his Virgin Mother, but with reference to what event in Scripture is by no means clear. The ceremony was conducted by the Bishop and Clergy of Beauvais, who,

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manner, were without doubt actuated by igion. They selected a fair young damsel, through the streets, mounted on a palfrey, ith superb housings, and bearing an infant as; the Prelate following with his crosier, Ecclesiastics with tapers, till they reached dral, where the Virgin was placed in the

Mass was then performed with the ac - solemnity; at the conclusion of which, s thrice imitated the braying of an ass, exHinham, instead of the usual Ite, missa est. ant as this spectacle was, it united a splench excited the admiration of the people, with y which awakened real piety. That it was ebrated in England,, does not appear. The yot mentions one particular instance of it vais, in the year 1223.

Feast of the Ass bears no resemblance whathe Fête des Asnes: the circumstances of this parody turned on the story of the prophet whose representation rode in a motley proon the wooden figure of an ass, inclosing a : like his prototype, he was impeded by an hom he affected not to perceive, till the inion of the suffering animal opened his eyes. his supposed miracle, the beast was led in , accompanied by a cavalcade, consisting of 7s, and as many Gentiles, among which latter e poet Virgil. The band chaunted prayers y arrived at the church, where mass was per, and the characteristic Hinham sung in chorus end of each stanza. Such was the outline of om more honoured in the breach than in the ance,' and which is of no further interest s it illustrates the gross manners of the age, e ignorance of its performers.'-See T. T. for p. 218, for some further particulars of the Fête

ne.

There is not, perhaps, any part of Great Britain in which Christmas is kept so splendidly, as in Yorkshire. The din of preparation commences for some weeks before, and its sports and festivities continue beyond the first month of the new year. The first intimation of Christmas, in Yorkshire, is by what are there called the vessel-cup singers, generally poor old women, who, about three weeks before Christmas, go from house to house with a waxen or› wooden doll, fantastically dressed, and sometimes adorned with an orange, or a fine rosy-tinged apple. With this in their hands, they sing or chaunt an old carol, of which the following homely stanza forms a part:

God bless the master of this house,

The mistress also,

And all the little children

That round the table go.

The image of the child is, no doubt, intended to represent the infant Saviour; and the vessel-cup is, most probably, the remains of the wassail bowl, which, antiently, formed a part of the festivities of this season of the year. See pp. 1, 2.

Another custom, which commences at the same time as the vessel-cup singing, is that of the poor of the parish visiting all the neighbouring farmers to beg corn, which is invariably given to them, in the quantity of a full pint, at least, to each. This is called mumping, as is the custom which exists in Bedfordshire, of the poor begging the broken victuals the day after Christmas-day.

Christmas-eve is, in Yorkshire, celebrated in a peculiar manner: at eight o'clock in the evening, the bells greet old father Christmas' with a merry peal, the children parade the streets with drums, trumpets, bells, or perhaps, in their absence, with the poker and shovel taken from their humble cottare fire

High on the cheerful fire

Is blazing seen th' enormous Christmas brand.

r is served, of which one dish, from the ansion to the humblest shed, is, invariably, '; yule cake, one of which is always made individual in the family, and other more ial viands are also added. Poor Robin, in manack for the year 1676 (speaking of the uarter), says, and lastly, who would but t, because of Christmas, when good cheer abound, as if all the world were made of pies, plum-pudding, and furmety?' And says, on the night of this eve, our ancestors vont to light candles of an enormous size, Christmas candles.'

enumerate all the good cheer which is preat this festival, is by no means necessary. In hire, the Christmas pie is still a constant dish, regularly served to the higher class of visitants, the more humble ones are tendered yule cake, ad and cheese, in every house they enter during elve days of Christmas. The Christmas pie is the good old dishes still retained at a York table; it is not of modern invention. Allan ay, in his poems, tells us, that among other by which the good ale wife drew customers to ouse, that there never failed to tempt them—

Ay at yule whene'er they came,

A bra' goose-pye.

d the intelligent and close observer of our cus, Misson, in his travels in England, says, 'Dans es les familles on fait à noel un fameux pâté n appelle le pâté de noel. C'est un grande science la composition de ce pâté; c'est un docte hachis

Farmety, from frumentum, wheat. - It is made of creed wheat,' heat which, after being beaten some time with a wooden mallet, En boiled, and eaten with milk, sugar, nutmeg, &c. kamalak

de langue de bœuf, de blanc de volaille, d'œufs, de sucre, des raisins de Corinthe, d'ecorce de citron et d'orange, de diverses sortes d'epiceries, &c. &c.' The Christmas pie of the present day is, however, more like that described by Allan Ramsay, and generally consists of a goose, sometimes two, and that with the addition of half-a-dozen fowls. Such is the existing celebration of Christmas in

we believe, in some other parts of Yorkshire1, and,

but these venerable customs are becoming every year less common: the sending of presents also, from friends in the country to friends in town at this once cheerful season, is, in a great measure, obsolete: nothing is to be had for nothing' now; and, without the customary bribe of a barrel of oysters, or a basket of fish, we may look in vain for arrivals by the York Fly, or the Norwich Expedition:

Few presents now to friends are sent,
Few hours in merry-making spent;
Old-fashioned folks there are, indeed,
Whose hogs and pigs at CHRISTMAS bleed;
Whose honest hearts no modes refine,
They send their puddings and their chine,
No Norfolk turkeys load the waggon,

Which once the horses scarce could drag on;
And, to increase the weight with these,
Came their attendant sausages.

Should we not then, as men of taste,

Revive old customs gone and past?

And (fie for shame!) without reproach,
Stuff, as we ought, the Bury Coach?

With strange old kindness send up presents

Of partridges and dainty pheasants.

Of the Christmas p antiently performed at this season, some remai still exist in the west of England, particularly in Cornwall; but the representation of these dramatic exhibition is almost wholly confined to children, or very yo persons. ith The actors are fantastically dressed, decorated

1 See some excellent remarks by Dr. Drake on the celebration-of