"Diet the chief!"—by which we are to understand that this promising muster-roll merely includes the names of some of the principal viands,—the high-commissioned dishes of the feast,—leaving the subalterns, and the entire rank and file which complete the goodly array, unmentioned. It must have been a very ingenious or a very strong-minded mouse which could contrive to be starved under such circumstances. The ballad is long, and we can only afford to give our readers "tastings" of its good things. It is everywhere full of most gracious promise:—

"The cooks shall be busied, by day and by night,
In roasting and boiling, for taste and delight,
Their senses in liquor that's nappy they'll steep,
Though they be afforded to have little sleep;
They still are employed for to dress us, in brief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"Although the cold weather doth hunger provoke,
'T is a comfort to see how the chimneys do smoke;
Provision is making for beer, ale, and wine,
For all that are willing or ready to dine:
Then haste to the kitchen for diet the chief,
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef.
"All travellers, as they do pass on their way,
At gentlemen's halls are invited to stay,
Themselves to refresh and their horses to rest,
Since that he must be old Christmas's guest;
Nay, the poor shall not want, but have for relief
Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast beef."

And so on, through a variety of joyous and substantial anticipations, from which the writer draws an inference, which we think is most satisfactorily made out:—

"Then well may we welcome old Christmas to town,
Who brings us good cheer, and good liquor so brown;
To pass the cold winter away with delight,
We feast it all day, and we frolick all night."

In Ellis's edition of Brand's "Popular Antiquities" an old Christmas song is quoted from "Poor Robin's Almanack" for 1695, which gives a similar enumeration of Christmas dainties, but throws them into a form calculated for more rapid enunciation, as if with a due regard to the value of those moments at which it was probably usual to sing it. The measure is not such a mouthful as that of the former one which we have quoted. It comes trippingly off the tongue; and it is not impossible that, in those days of skilful gastronomy, it might have been sung eating. We will quote a couple of the verses, though they include the same commissariat truths as that from which we have already extracted; and our readers will observe, from the ill-omened wish which concludes the second of these stanzas, in what horror the mere idea of fasting had come to be held, since it is the heaviest curse which suggested itself to be launched against those who refused to do homage to the spirit of the times:—

"Now thrice welcome Christmas,
Which brings us good cheer,
Minc'd pies and plumb-porridge,
Good ale and strong beer;
With pig, goose, and capon,
The best that may be,
So well doth the weather
And our stomachs agree.
"Observe how the chimneys
Do smoak all about,
The cooks are providing
For dinner no doubt;
But those on whose tables
No victuals appear,
O may they keep Lent
All the rest of the year!"

The same author quotes, from a manuscript in the British Museum, an Anglo-Norman carol of the early date of the thirteenth century, and appends to it a translation by the late Mr. Douce, the following verse of which translation informs us (what, at any rate, might well be supposed, namely) that so much good eating on the part of the ancient gentleman, Christmas, would naturally suggest the propriety of good drinking, too:—

"Lordings, Christmas loves good drinking,
Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou,
English ale, that drives out thinking,
Prince of liquors old or new.
Every neighbor shares the bowl,
Drinks of the spicy liquor deep,
Drinks his fill without controul,
Till he drowns his care in sleep."

In a "Christmas Carroll," printed at the end of Wither's "Juvenilia," a graphic account is given of some of the humors of Christmas, among which the labors of the kitchen are introduced in the first verse, with a due regard to their right of precedency, and in words which, if few, are full of suggestion:—

"Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast!
Let every man be jolly.
Each roome with yvie leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Now, all our neighbour's chimneys smoke,
And Christmas Blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with bak't-meats choke,
And all their spits are turning."