This was done by a party of singers, who went about, from house to house, on Christmas eve, singing their songs in honor of the Virgin Mary and the nativity of Christ. They were generally welcomed by the people, and often received a loaf of brown bread, a pot of beer, and some few silver pennies. Sometimes, late at night, by the chill rays of the moon you would see an old man and the a boy carolling beneath the windows, hoping to be compensated for their harsh and grating music.
Many other of the Christmas ceremonies of England, which were in vogue two centuries ago, have passed away, and the occasion is more quietly and more properly noticed by religious services, acts of charity to the poor, a meeting of friends, and a general diffusion of cheerfulness and festivity.
Tasso’s Wish.—Tasso being told that he had an opportunity of taking advantage of a very bitter enemy, “I wish not to plunder him,” said he; “but there are things which I wish to take from him; not his honor, his wealth, nor his life—but his ill will.”
“I do not admire a man,” says Pascal, “who possesses one virtue in all its perfection, if he does not at the same time evince the opposite virtue in an equal degree, such as was Epaminondas, who to extreme valor joined the utmost kindness and benignity.”