The rural life of England (The Development of industrial society series)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... 192 CHAPTER VI. CHRISTMAS. The next and last of these popular festivities that I shall notice at any length, is jolly old Christmas,--the festival of the fireside; the most domestic and heartfelt carnival of the year. It has changed its features with the change of national manners and notions, but still it is a time of gladness, of home re-union and rejoicing; a precious time, and one so thoroughly suited to the grave yet cheerful spirit of Englishmen, that it will not soon lose its hold on our affections. Its old usages are so well known; they have been so repeatedly of late years brought to our notice by Washington Irving, Walter Scott, Leigh Hunt in his most graphic and cordial-spirited Months, Indicator, and London Journal, and by many other lovers of the olden time, that I shall not now particularly describe them. We have already seen how, in all our religious festivals, the most ancient customs and rites have been interwoven with Catholicism. Who does not recognize, in the decoration of our houses and churches with ivy, holly, and other evergreens, the decorations of the altars of Greece and Rome with laurels and bays as the symbols of the renewal of the year and the immortality of Nature? In our mistletoe branches the practice of Druidical times i Who does not see in the Abbot of Unreason, and his jolly crew, the Saturnalia of ancient times? Those who do not, may find in Brand's Antiquities, the various volumes of Times' Telescope, collected by my worthy friend John Millard, and in Hone's Every-day, Table, and Year Books, matter on these subjects, and on the Christmas pageants, rites, and processions of Rome, that would of itself fill a large volume. In old times it was from Christmas to Candlemas a period of general jollification; for the first twelve da...