Christmas: Its Origin and Associations / Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries

by W. F. Dawson

In "A New Year's Gift, sent to Sir Simeon Steward," included in his "Hesperides," Herrick refers to the Christmas sports of the time, and says:—

"No new device or late-found trick - - - - - We send you; but here a jolly Verse crowned with ivy and with holly; That tells of winter's tales and mirth, That milk-maids make about the hearth, Of Christmas sports, the Wassail bowl, That's tossed up after Fox-i'-th'-hole; Of Blind-man's-buff, and of the care That young men have to shoe the Mare; Of Twelfth-tide cake, of peas and beans, Wherewith ye make those merry scenes, When as ye choose your king and queen, And cry out, 'Hey for our town green.' Of ash-heaps in the which ye use Husbands and wives by streaks to choose: Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds A plenteous harvest to your grounds; Of these, and such like things, for shift, We send instead of New-year's gift. Read then, and when your faces shine With bucksome meat and cap'ring wine, Remember us in cups full crowned, And let our city's health go round, Quite through the young maids and the men, To the ninth number, if not ten, Until the firèd chestnuts leap For joy to see the fruits ye reap, From the plump chalice and the cup That tempts till it be tossèd up. Then as ye sit about your embers, Call not to mind those fled Decembers; But think on these, that are t' appear, As daughters to the instant year; Sit crowned with rose-buds and carouse, Till Liber Pater twirls the house About your ears, and lay upon The year, your cares, that's fled and gone. And let the russet swains the plough And harrow hang up resting now; And to the bagpipe all address Till sleep takes place of weariness. And thus, throughout, with Christmas plays, Frolic the full twelve holy-days."

Sir Isaac Newton's Birth, on Christmas Day,

at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, was the most important Christmas event of the memorable year which saw the outbreak of the Civil War (1642). In the year of the Restoration he entered Cambridge, where the teaching of Isaac Barrow quickened his genius for mathematics, and from the time he left College his life became a series of wonderful physical discoveries. As early as 1666, he discovered the law of gravitation, but it was not till the eve of the Revolution that his "Principia" revealed to the world his new theory of the universe.

The Customs of Christmastide in the Seventeenth Century.

"A Christmas Carol," by George Wither, a well-known poet of this period, contains many allusions to the customs of Christmastide:—

So, now is come our joyful'st feast; Let every man be jolly; Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine; Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with baked meats choke, And all their spits are turning. Without the door let sorrow lie; And if for cold it hap to die, We'll bury 't in a Christmas pie, And ever more be merry.

Now every lad is wondrous trim, And no man minds his labour; Our lasses have provided them A bag-pipe and a tabour; Young men and maids, and girls and boys, Give life to one another's joys; And you anon shall by their noise Perceive that they are merry.