Peter Parley's Annual, 1855: A Christmas and New Year's Present for Young People

PETER PARLEY’s ANNUAL.
A Christmas and New Year’s Present FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
NEW YORK: EVANS AND DICKERSON, 697, BROADWAY.
MDCCCLV.
Holiday faces! Aye, they are bright, shining, and beautiful as dewdrops glistening in the morning’s splendour—stars sparkling in a clear midnight sky—flowers lit up by the summer’s sun. It makes the heart of poor old Peter Parley glad when he sees them—whether they belong to young or old, to rich or to poor, it is one of my chief delights. I do assure you, my young friends, that a good deal of my parleying has to do with Holiday Faces. I see them again and again, year after year, and they make me feel young again; and, like the old rustic of the Suffolk poet, Bloomfield, I am often ready to jump with joy when I see the cabs and coaches, post-chaises and omnibuses, crowded, inside and outside, with school children, going home for the Holidays. Old as I am growing, I still feel that I belong to the order of light hearts and merry looks—to the heraldry of smiling faces—and my escutcheon is charged with “nods and becks, and wreathed smiles.”
Hurrah, then, for the Holidays, say I! Be cheerful, my young friends—not more for the sake of being merry, than for the sake of being serious again at the proper time. Unbend the bow and loosen the string, that both string and bow may have more force when again brought into action! Make the air ring then, I say, with the Holiday Cheer of Merry Christmas time! Sing, and skip, and dance, and play, like “lambkins by the hill side,” and let love reign in all your hearts, a perpetual sunshine, from year to year, and from youth to age, until you are as old as your ever sincere
And Affectionate Friend,
Among the many celebrated ruins of Abbeys in Ireland, is that of Foune, or Fowne, in the county of Westmeath, Leinster. This Abbey is situated on the north-side of the hill or rising ground, which interposes between it and Lough Larne. It was a Priory of Canons, built by St. Fechin, about the year 630. For although the oldest and most authentic Irish records were written between the tenth and twelfth centuries, yet some of them go back, with some consistency, as far as the Christian era; but there is no evidence that the Irish had the use of letters before the middle of the fifth century, when Christianity and Christian literature were introduced by St. Patrick. The new faith did not flourish till a century later, when St. Columba erected monasteries. The Abbey presents a large pile of simple, unadorned masonry. The chapel is still in a tolerable state of preservation, so is also the chapel tower. The valley in which this Abbey is placed must, in the time of its prosperity, have been a delightful retreat. The outline is still good, and nothing is wanting but a little more wood to render it an attractive spot in modern days.