List of Illustrations.

DESIGNED AND DRAWN ON WOOD BY BIRKET FOSTER,
AND ENGRAVED BY HENRY VIZETELLY.

Christmas with the Poets.

1

"PHOEBUS waxed old, and huéd like laton;

That in his hot declination

Shone as the burnéd gold, with streams bright,
But now in Capricorn adown doth light
Wherein he shone full pale, I dare well sain.
The bitter frosts with sleet and rain
Destroyed have the green in every yard.
Janus sits by the fire with double beard,
And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine!
Before him stands brawn of the tuskéd swine,
And NOWEL crieth every lusty man."

THE FRANKLIN'S TALE.

DIVISION I.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS, FROM THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD
TO THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.

IVE hundred years ago, Chaucer, who, in his racy verse, has prescrved the exactest descriptions of the manners of the age in which he lived, incidentally sketched the above slight picture of the Christmas season. Unfortunately, it furnishes us with but few points to dwell upon. The wintry sun no longer shining like burnished gold, and throwing out broad rays of light, but of a dull brazen hue; the bitter frosts, that with sleet and rain have destroyed the last vestiges of the garden's green; these, relieved by an incident allegorical of the jovial feasting which never failed to usher in the festival of the Saviour's nativity, comprise not only the whole of this little sketch, but all that the father of English poetry-the "morning star of Song"-has left us connected with our subject. It is not, therefore, by extracts from his works that we shall be enabled to illustrate the customs and festivities of the Christmas season among our forefathers at this early period of our history. The materials for this purpose will have to be culled from more fugitive sources, and will be mainly comprised of poems which were chaunted forth by the minstrels of old, at a time when a scanty measure of devotion furnished the excuse for the most extravagant revelry.

Among the primitive Christians, the festival of the Saviour's nativity was doubtless ushered in by the display of a calm, religious feeling, unmingled with the consideration of mere worldly enjoyments; but in course of time, when this important feast of the Christian

The French word Noel, signifying Christmas.