To play! to play! said blessed Mary,
To play, then get you gone;

And see there be no complaint of you
At night when you come home.
Sweet Jesus, he ran unto yonder town,
As far as the holy well;

And there he saw three as fine children

As ever eyes beheld.

He said, "God bless you every one,
And sweet may your sleep be;

And now, little children, I'll play with you,

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Nay, nay, we are lords' and ladies' sons-
Thou art meaner than us all;

Thou art but a silly fair maid's child,

Born in an oxen's stall."

Sweet Jesus he turned himself about,

Neither laughed, nor smiled, nor spoke,

But the tears trickled down from his pretty little eyes, Like waters from the rock.

Sweet Jesus he ran to his mother dear,

As fast as he could run

Oh mother, I saw three as fine children

As ever were eyes set on.

I said "God bless you every one,

And sweet may your sleep be—

And now,

little children, I'll play with you,

And you shall play with me.”

"Nay," said they, "we 're lords' and ladies' sons,

Thou'rt meaner than us all;

For thou art but a poor fair maid's child,

Born in an oxen's stall."

Then the tears trickled down from his pretty little eyes

As fast as they could fall.

"Then," said she, "go down to yonder town,

As far as the holy well,

And there take up those infants' souls,

And dip them deep in hell."

"Oh no! oh no!" sweet Jesus then said,

"Oh no! that never can be ;

For there are many of those infants' souls

Crying out for the help of me!"

I must not close this article either without recalling to the recollection of some of my readers that quaint old carol, which was sung by bands of little children at Christmas, and which brings fairly before us the paintings of the old masters, where Joseph is always represented as so old a man, and Mary sits in the "oxen's stall" with her crown on her head.

Joseph was an old man, and an old man was he,

And he married Mary, the Queen of Galilee.

It goes on to describe how they went into the garden, and Queen Mary asked Joseph to gather her some cherries, on which he turned very crabbed, made Mary weep, and then all the cherry-trees made their

obeisance;

And bowed down to Mary's knee

And she gathered cherries by one, two, and three.

These are in the spirit of the legend which relates that Jesus, when a boy, was playing with other boys, when they made sparrows of clay, and he made a sparrow too, but his sparrow became instantly alive, and flew away.

Simple were the times when such rude rhymes as these were framed, to be sung before the doors and by the blazing yule-clogs of gentle and simple. They are not calculated to stand the test of these days; the schoolmaster will root them all out: but it is to be hoped that he will leave untouched the cordial spirit of piety and affection so fitted to make happy this desolate period of the year.

In Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cornwall, and Devon, the old spirit of Christmas seems to be kept up more earnestly than in most other counties. In Cornwall,

they still exhibit the old dance of St. George and the
Dragon. A young friend of ours happening to be at
Calden-Low in the Staffordshire hills at Christmas, in
came the band of bedizened actors, and performed the
whole ancient drama, personating St. George, the King
of Egypt, the fair Saba, the King's daughter, the Doc-
tor, and other characters, with great energy and in
rude verse.
In Devon they still bless the orchards on
Christmas-eve, according to the old verses :—

Wassail the trees, that they may beare
You many a plum, and many a peare:
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailing.

In some places, they walk in procession to the principal orchards in the parish. In each orchard one tree is selected as the representative of the rest; and is saluted with a certain form of words. They then either sprinkle the tree with cider, or dash a bowl of cider against it. In other places, only the farmer and his servants assemble on the occasion, and after immersing cakes in cider, hang them on the apple-trees. They then sprinkle the trees with cider; pronounce their incantation; dance about the tree, and then go home to feast.

In Mr. Grant Stewart's "Popular Superstitions of the Highlands," may be found an account of the Highland mode of celebrating Christmas; and here we say a hearty good-bye to Jolly Old Christmas.

We have now made a hasty sketch of those old festivals which still retain more or less of their ancient influence. We have endeavoured to show what is the present state of custom and feeling in these particulars

by contrasting it with the past. New-Year's-Day is yet a day of salutations; Valentine's-Day has yet some sportive observance amongst the young; and PloughMonday, here and there, in the thoroughly agricultural districts, sends out its motley team. This consists of the farm-servants and labourers. They are dressed in harlequin guise, with wooden swords, plenty of ribbons, faces daubed with white-lead, red ochre, and lamp-black. One is always dressed in woman's clothes and armed with a besom, a sort of burlesque mixture of Witch and Columbine. Another drives the team of men-horses with a long wand, at the end of which is tied a bladder instead of a lash; so that blows are given without pain, but with plenty of noise. The insolence of these Plough-bullocks, as they are called, which might accord with ancient license, but does not at all suit modern habits, has contributed, more than anything else, to put them down. They visited every house of any account, and solicited a contribution in no very humble terms. If it was refused, their practice was to plough up the garden walk, or do some other mischief. One band ploughed up the palisades of a widow lady of our acquaintance, and having to appear before a magistrate for it, and to pay damages, never afterwards visited that neighbourhood. In some places I have known them enter houses, whence they could only be ejected by the main power of the collected neighbours; for they extended their excursions often to the distance of ten miles or more, and where they were the most unknown, there practised the most insolence. Nobody regrets the discontinuance of this usage.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE FAIRY SUPERSTITIONS.

THE Fairies, which gave in old times one of the most interesting and poetical features to the country, have all vanished clean away. Of those supernatural and airy beings who used to haunt the wood-lands, hamlets, and solitary houses of Old England, they were the first to depart. "They were of the old profession”— true Catholics; and with catholicism they departed; and have only left their interest in the pages of our poets, who still cling with fondness to the fairy mythology. Bogards, barguests, ghosts, and hobgoblins, still in many an obscure hamlet, and the more primitive parts of the country, maintain much of their ancient power, and continue to quicken the steps of the clown in lonely places, of the school-boy past the churchyard, and to add a fearful interest to the winter fire-side stories in cottages and farms. Witchcraft, spite of what Sir Walter Scott asserted in his Demonology, is far from having ceased to have stanch believers in numerous places. Are not many of the Methodists firmly persuaded of demoniacal possession? It is not long ago that Mr. Heaton, one of their ministers,