Lo, now is e our joyfulst feast!
Let every man be jolly.
Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Now all our neighbours eys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with bakt meats choke
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie,
And if, for cold, it hap to die,
Weel bury t in a Christmas pye,
And evermore be merry.
WITHERS, Jnveilia.
I HAD ?nished my toilet, and was l with Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwag sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dihe squire kept up old s in kit as well as hall, and the rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summohe servants to carry in the meats.
Just in this nick the cook knockd thrice,
And all the waiters in a trice
His summons did obey;
Each serving-man, with dish in hand,
Marchd boldly up, like our train-band,
Presented and away.*
* Sir John Sug.
The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the squire always held his Christmas ba. A blazing crag ?re of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the ?ame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed ey.
The great picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the occasion, and holly and ivy had like-wise beehed round the helmet and ons on the opposite wall, which I uood were the arms of the same warrior. I must own, by the by, I had strong doubts about the authenticity of the painting and armor as having beloo the crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more ret days; but I was told that the painting had been so sidered time out of mind; and that as to the armor, it had been found in a lumber-room and elevated to its present situation by the squire, who at oermi to be the armor of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such subjects in his own household, the matter had passed into current acceptation. A sideboard was set out just uhis chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with Belshazzars parade of the vessels of the temple: "?agons, s, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers," the geous utensils of good panionship that had gradually accumulated through many geions of jovial housekeepers. Before these stood the two Yule dles, beaming like two stars of the ?rst magnitude; hts were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered like a ?rmament of silver.
We were ushered into this baing se with the sound of minstrelsy, the old harper beied on a stool beside the ?replad twanging, his instrument with a vast deal more power than melody. Never did Christmas board display a moodly and gracious assemblage of tehose who were not handsome were at least happy, and happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favored visage. I always sider an old English family as well worth studying as a colle of Holbeins portraits or Albert Durers prints. There is much antiquarian lore to be acquired, muowledge of the physiognomies of former times. Perhaps it may be from having tinually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits, with which the mansions of this try are stocked; certain it is that the quaiures of antiquity are often most faithfully perpetuated in these a lines, and I have traced an old family hrough a whole picture-gallery, leg