Of New Year's gifts, which are the distinguishing feature of this day, we have already said enough, in pointing out the distinction betwixt them and Christmas-boxes. They still pass generally from friend to friend, and between the different members of a family; and are in such cases, very pleasant remembrancers; but the practice in ancient times had some very objectionable features. It was formerly customary for the nobles and those about the court to make presents on this day to the sovereign; who, if he were a prince with anything like a princely mind, took care that the returns which he made in kind should at least balance the cost to the subject. The custom, however, became a serious tax when the nobles had to do with a sovereign of another character; and in Elizabeth's day it was an affair of no trifling expense to maintain ground as a courtier. The lists of the kind of gifts which she exacted from all who approached her (for the necessity of giving, the consequences of not giving, amounted to an exaction), and the accounts of the childish eagerness with which she turned over the wardrobe finery, furnished in great abundance as the sort of gift most suited to her capacity of appreciation, furnish admirable illustrations of her mind. She is said to have taken good care that her returns should leave a very substantial balance in her own favor. The practice is stated to have been extinguished in the reign of George III.
A worse custom still, however, was that of presenting gifts to the Chancellor by suitors in his court, for the purpose of influencing his judgments. The abuses of the New-Year's-gift practice have, however, been cleared away, and have left it what it now is,—a beautiful form for the interchanges of affection and the expression of friendship.
In Paris, where this day is called the "Jour d'Etrennes," the practice is of still more universal observance than with us, and the streets are brilliant with the displays made in every window of the articles which are to furnish these tokens of kindness, and with the gay equipages and well-dressed pedestrians passing in all directions, to be the bearers of them, and offer the compliments which are appropriate to the season. The thousand bells of the city are pealing from its hundred belfries, filling the air with an indescribable sense of festival, and would alone set the whole capital in motion if they were a people that ever sat still. This singing of a thousand bells is likewise a striking feature of the day in London; and no one who has not heard the mingling voices of these high choristers in a metropolis, can form any notion of the wild and stirring effects produced by the racing and crossing and mingling of their myriad notes. It is as if the glad voices of the earth had a chorus of echoes in the sky; as if the spirit of its rejoicing were caught up by "airy tongues," and flung in a cloud of incense-like music to the gates of heaven.
We need scarcely mention that most of the other forms in which the mirth of the season exhibits itself, are in demand for this occasion; and that among the merry evenings of the Christmas-tide, not the least merry is that which closes New Year's Day. To the youngsters of society, that day and eve have probably been the most trying of all; and the strong excitements of a happy spirit drive the weary head to an earlier pillow than the young heart of this season at all approves. But his is the weariness that the sweet sleep of youth so surely recruits; and to-morrow shall see him early afoot, once more engaged in those winter amusements which are to form his resource till the novelties of Twelfth-day arrive.
"There will come an eve to a longer day,
That will find thee tired—but not of play;
And thou wilt lean as thou leanest now,
With drooping limbs and an aching brow;
And wish the shadows would faster creep,
And long to go to thy quiet sleep!—
Well were it then if thine aching brow
Were as free from sin and shame as now!"
Let not a man be seen here,
Who unurged will not drink
To the base from the brink,
A health to the King!
Herrick.