Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-01-01


nor any solemnity used or exercised in churches
upon that day in respect thereof" After this and
especially during the prevalence Of tho Protector
power, the rites and ceremonies of the holydays
were discountenanced if not actually suppressed nor
were they restored" in full vigor by the Resto-
ration Of Charles III. 1t is thus that Cavalier
poet lamcnts the abolition of Yue doughs, Christ
mas pies, plum porridge, the boar's head and the
new years wassail bowl:
All plums the Prophets sons defy
And spice-broths are too hot
Treasons in q December pye,
And death within the pot
Christmas, farewell thy days, / fear
Thy merry days are done
So they may keep feasts all the year,
Our Saviour shall have
Our own space and the readers patience would
fail us in any thing like an attempt to relate all the
old customs and superstitions connected with the
observance of the Christmas holydays from the Ma
tvity to Twelfth Day; how the boys and girls used
to go Goodng" and keep up the "Hagmena"
on the three Thursday nights preceding the APP
preaching anniversary of the day
When Cryst born of Mary fire.
In Bedem, in that fayre cyte,
leaving at the houses where they called sprigs Of
evergreens, knocking at doors, singing Christmas
CAROLS and wishing happy new year, (in return
for which they expected pears, apples, nuts, or
pence , or how they sometimes "went Mumming'
in masks and DISCUSSES visiting from house to house
in search for Christmas cheer; or how on Christmas
Eve our ancestors were won't to light up the tall
candles and kindle the Yule clog sswith the last
years brand J" or how during the midnight hours
the "wakeful waits" startled from their slumbers
the DOING housewives with hoarse melody CON-
posed of "hautboys organs, violins, and flutes J"
or how at the Christmas dinner with song and
dance, they bore in the Brawner's Head" decked
with garlands gay and rosemary = or how during
"Englands twelve daye's madness" when, as the
old rhymester says,
Apollo viii be frolick yeare,
the feasters rose from the good cheer trip through
br now me boys, with their Christmas boxes in
hand, made their annual round to levy contribu.
tons from ~ ncles dear and kind old aunts !" or
how, under the lead Of their Abbot of Unreason"
they played "hot-cockles" and "shod the wild
mare" or how on New Years Day they celebrated
the pageant of the " fool plough and sword dancco
in harlequin costume and antique gambols; or how
each house and church was decked, as old Polydore
Vergil says, "with languages houres, boughes, and
garlandes;" or how on New Years Eve young wo-
men bore about the wassail bowl of spiced ale
adorned with ribbons, and golden apple swimming
in its "slabby stuff, as Selden calls it. All these,
and many more of such like usages we must pass
by with this running reference We may say, how
ever In this connexion that some of the observances
once peculiar to st. Nicholas's Day we're subse-
luenty transferred to the Christmas holydays and,
indeed, have been perpetuated until the present
time. Of these Nasgeorgus thus sings in his
Regnum Papisticum," as translated by the faith
full Googe:
Nicholas money 70 give 70 msydcns sccre..
Who that he still may his nberalitie
The mothers all their children do cause fat
And when they every night secpe are cast
Both Apples Nutes and Pea they bring things beside
Az and shoes and petticotes which secretly they hide
And in the morning found they say brought
Thus tender mnss worship Saints and wicked things taught
From Hildebrands "Lbius," or Treatise on
the Festival Days Of the Church." we learn that
our venerable grandparents we're sometimes addict.
cd to the following method Of imparting to their
nascent posterity a useful admonition-a custom
which, we believe, has not even vet become obso-
iete among those who still cherish the old tradition
OF hanging up the stocking" in the chimney cor
ner. I'm Christmas Eve, says Hildebrand, "pa-
rents give their children various little presents such
toys, boxes, new clothes, miniature wagons. an
PIES nuts, &c, to which oftentimes spttch i add.
cd, m metu cdstgationis go fucilius reyaatur." At
quite an early period, therefore, it would seem that
an observance originally instituted in celebration Of
st. Nicholas and his Day, the sixth of December
had been incorporated among the rites and ceremo-
mics Of Christmas week. If any Of our young read
are-solicitous to know why st. Nicholas should
have been mmemorally selected as the patron saint
Of children, the old " Book of English Festivals at
once answers the query:
It's said Of his fader, hight Epiphanus and his mo-
der Joanna that when he born they made him Chris
tin, and called him NICHOLAS, which names name
but he kepeth the Of the child for he chose TO
kcpe verues meknes, and smpenes: he tasted wednes-
day and Friday from his brittle these dayes he would
souke but once Of the day and therwyh held him peed
Thus he lyved ali his yf in yertues with this chdes
name and therefore children do him worship before all
other saints"
Such early piety, il must be admitted, was not
only enough to entitlc him Of yore to place in the
Golden Legend but, in that he "held himself
plesed" with such abstemious lactation he is still
most edfying example to be set for the imitation Of
all "crying babies, who sometimes inspire us with
a reverence for the memory Of Herod, rather than
of their patron, st. Nicholas
The three gilded balls which are recognised AZ en-
bems Of the pswnbrokers shops all the world over have
their origin n legend Of St Nicholas (Vd. Mrs Jane
sons Sacred Legendary Art