Now Christmas, with his wassail-bowl,

Laughs at the wind, and frost and snow,
And creeps for warmth, where bright eyes roll,

Beneath the merry misletoe ;

For he is old, and wants good cheer

At this bleak season of the year.

LONG dark nights, and cold cheerless days, with loud winds, snow, sleet, and rain, tell us that Winter is already come. We hear him growling in the chimney, or holding rough parley with the doors and window-shutters: like a practised assailer, he seeks out every weak point,-not a crevice escapes him, and in spite of all our watchfulness he finds an entrance. The birds sit shivering all alone upon the naked hedges, and seem cold in spite of their feathery cloaks; the ground appears black

and barren, or it may be that the sad colour of a thick melancholy sky diffuses its gloominess over the earth. We hear not the glad shouts of children upon the hills, among the lanes, or in the valleys. The woods are bare and desolate; or if a leaf or two remain upon the topmost boughs, they hang like mournful remembrances, like undestroyed captives exhibited in triumph. The flowers are all gone we saw them decay one by one, from the flush of summer to the straggling ranks of autumn; while a few stood solitary, and braved the increasing winds, until their rich colours were pale with watching, and they also vanished. Earth, air, and water but a little while since teemed with life; there was a dashing in the rivers, a rustling among the green branches and the long grass, and a sound of mingled voices, filling the fragrant air with harmony and now all is silent but the turmoil of the elements.

"Though now no more the musing ear
Delights to listen to the breeze

That lingers o'er the greenwood shade,
I love thee, winter! well.

And pleasant to the sober'd soul

The silence of the wintry scene,

When Nature shrouds her in her trance,

In deep tranquillity."

Still there are a few evergreens, which mock the rigour of the season, and preserve their foliage in all the pride of summer greenery, as if refusing to be conquered; and which, although less in fashion than they were formerly, have not altogether disappeared from among the few simple ornaments with which we decorate jolly old Christmas. Among the foremost of these are the holly and ivy, which have long borne the name of "Christmas," and are looked upon by the boys as almost the only tangible part of this festive season, excepting the plumpudding. Among the Harleian manuscripts is an ancient

carol, chanted as early as the reign of Henry the Sixth, in praise of Holly's superiority over Ivy. We would fain present it in the old costume; but lest our readers should be puzzled, a few words are modernised. Here is the carol:

but first, as old Izaak Walton says, "the burden."

'Nay, Ivy ! nay, it shall not be, I wis :*

Let Holly have the mastery, as the manner is.

Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:

Ivy stands without the door-she is full sore a-cold.
Nay, Ivy ! &c.

Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing :
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.

Nay, Ivy ! &c.

Ivy hath a life! she liveth with the cold;
So may they all have that with Ivy hold.

Nay, Ivy! &c.

Holly hath berries as red as any rose ;

The foresters and hunters keep them from the does.

Nay, Ivy ! &c.

Ivy hath berries as black as any sloes;

There comes the owl and eats them as she goes.

Nay, Ivy! &c.

Holly hath birds a full fair flock,—

The nightingale, the poppinjay, the gentle laverock.

Nay, Ivy! &c.

Good Ivy! say, what birds hast thou?

Oh, none, but the howlet, that cries, 'How, how!'

Nay, Ivy ! &c.

Nay, Ivy nay, it shall not be, I wis:

Let Holly have the mastery, as the manner is."

The rosemary we have already spoken of in a former part

* Wis, to know, to think, &c.

of the work, as well as of the custom of stirring the wassailbowl with a sprig of this plant. And who can forget what sweet Ophelia says?

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance,

Pray you, love, remember!"

The laurel was also in use at this season,-one of the oldest emblems of peace and festivity, which wreathed the brow of the victor, and was watched with fearful anxiety by the maiden, when she tried her love on its curling leaves in the fire, and sought for omen in the sounds it made:

"When laurel spirts i' th' fire, and when the hearth
Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth."

HERRICK.

Gay, in his "

Trivia," thus alludes to the evergreens :—

"When rosemary and bays, the poet's crown,

Are bawl'd in frequent cries through all the town;

Then judge the festival of Christmas near,—
Christmas, the joyous period of the year !

Now with bright holly all the temples strow;
With laurel green, and sacred misletoe."

But of all the green things that bring summer to the sunshine of our hearths at this season, there are none so dearly prized as the misletoe-bough ;—" the hanging branch,” as an old writer says, "that looks down from the roof upon the gentle thieves beneath, and catches a kiss upon every leaf as it comes smacking upward on the wings of either a sigh or a blush."

It seems but as yesterday when we were assembled in the old large parlour to keep up merry Christmas. The knot of everlasting flowers were removed from the large hook in the centre of the ceiling, and in their place glittered a green misletoe-bough, whose berries we could as soon number as

we could tell all the kisses given under them. What sweet faces the fire flashed upon that night! what eyes,

saving when they glanced upward upon the mysterious branch, and seemed to search for a charm secreted among the leaves ! Even now they throng before us, glancing upon the flickering flames that gild the wall, for it is twilight. There are dark locks mingling with the shadows, and swanlike necks moving in the pale pillars of light,

And eyes as fair

As star-beams among twilight trees."

We can almost hear the music of their voices, whispering like the low wind, or the long tongues of flame that are now murmuring a melody to the barry grate, as if talking of the old festivals and beautiful faces they have looked upon together; or likest the sound of gentle kisses, smothered in their own soft words, which were driven back to reply to the heart,—or a bee singing itself to sleep in a flower. But love and beauty, and friendship and happiness and dear old friends, and kindhearted relatives, and playfellows, and schoolboy-days, and those who are dead-or are living we know not where, so long a time has elapsed since we last saw them,—these are not the only things conjured up by the remembrance of the misletoe. We turn to the darker ages-to the gloomy groves of the Druids, to groups of England's early daughters kneeling beneath the sacred oaks with eyes fixed on the long-bearded priest, who, with the golden sickle glittering in his palsied hand, cut down the holy-boughs.

Polydore Virgil says, "Trimming of the temples with hangings, flowers, boughs, and garlands, was taken from the heathen people, who decked their idols and houses with such array." And Chandler throws both beauty and poetry around the superstitions of the ancient Celts in thus of adorning their houses and temples.

accounting for the origin. "They were decked," he