the present age does not abound in fine subjects for portraiture. If we look back to Shakspeare's time, or the nearer day of Milton, we shall find that there is a decided superiority in the appearance of the portraits of that time. They were such as we shall not find in the ride on Sundays; nor at the levee at St. James's; nor on one of Sir Thomas Lawrence's canvasses. Female beauty we have in as great perfection as ever; but manly, intellectual, and expressive faces, in the male sex, are rare. There is a great absurdity in introducing any thing which is defective, or that gives pain, in a portrait. There is an amusing anecdote of Dr. Johnson on this subject. Reynolds, in his celebrated portrait, had painted him closely applying his eyes to a book, as was his manner in reading; but the surly Doctor remonstrated against having his personal defects exposed in so evident a manner: to soothe him, it was told that Sir Joshua, in a portrait of himself, had introduced the ear-trumpet, which he was from another infirmity in the habit of using; but this would not satisfy the fretted Colossus of learning: "He might, if he liked it, be called Deaf Reynolds, but no one should call him Blinking Sam." The Doctor was in the right.

We have thus laid down some principles of taste, and have shown what is affected in portraiture: these may be of a flimsy structure, but they are our own; for we confess, without racking, that we have never read Mr. Alison on Taste, nor do we intend it till we have done with taste: we have preferred to fabricate a new code (we should prefer to say coat) of our own, though of coarse and rude materials, to using that gentleman's at second-hand. And now we cannot take leave better than by remarking, in the manner of Lord Chesterfield,-that it is much easier to pick a hole in a man's coat than to sew a button on it. C. B.

SONG. FROM THE ITALIAN.

In yonder grove of myrtle straying,

I saw a damsel and a child,

Joy on his frolic brow was playing,

Her cheeks were pale, her looks were wild;
Oft as he cull'd the dewy flowers,

His playful gambols she forbid,

And if he roved to distant bowers,

His steps controll'd, his wand'rings chid.

Time pass'd away on airy pinion,
When lo! I met the nymph alone,
The child had fled her harsh dominion,
And hopeless she was left to moan:
To learn the damsel's name I strove,
And his who shunn'd her prying eye,
The truant child I found was LOVE,
The weeping mourner JEALOUSY.

CHRISTMAS-KEEPING.

"Now Hospitality, to cheer the gloom
Of winter, invitation sends abroad:

The rural housewife lays the annual block
Of Christmas on the hearth; and bids a blaze

Of tenfold brightness glad its sable spot;

Then sprucely decks the windows with fresh sprigs

Of ever-greens, triumphant o'er the storms

Of fading time, while ever social mirth

And rival kindness load the smoking board;

And boisterous sport and heavy dance resound."—The Year.

AMIDST the wintry desolation of the present month, the remembrance of a season once anticipated in joyous hope by all ranks of people, recurs to the lovers of " Auld lang syne❞—to those who remember with what pleasure they once welcomed its chill atmosphere and snow storms with the vivid rapture of youth. Even in this huge city, the memory of its festivities is not yet wholly extinguished. But in the remote parts of the island it is still hailed as the period of enjoyment-it is still marked by genial appearances; and round the social hearth on Christmas-eve, the less artificial inhabitants of the country will be found as Burns describes them : The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat,

More braw than when they're fine;
Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin:
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs,
Gar lasses hearts gang startin,
Whiles fast at night.

Christmas is supposed by some to be founded on the Saturnalia* of the Romans, and was distinguished a century or two ago by its "festival of fools." The mummeries practised at that season were performed in disguises made with the skins of animals; and the lower orders, who could not afford masques and dresses, daubed their faces with soot, the sexes changing clothes. The Saturnalia were celebrated in a similar manner. Such a resemblance, and the obvious policy of transmuting the heathen festivities into rejoicings of some kind, after the introduction of Christianity, that the people might not be deprived of their customary pleasures, gives a plausible ground for supposing that the early Christians availed themselves of the opportunity to establish a fête in honour of the birth of their founder. But this can only be conjecture, like a thousand other opinions we read of the same nature, and must for ever remain so. The decision of the question, indeed, might gratify curiosity, but could be of no utility to the interests of mankind. It is a more pleasing occupation to dwell on the celebration of Christmas at later periods among ourselves, to go over ground that is interesting from its proximity to our own, and to realize the agreeable feeling always excited in the human bosom at the contemplation of

See New Month. Mag. vol. i. p. 105, on the origin of the celebration of Christmas.

every thing, however insignificant, which is tinged with the grey melancholy of age.

In London, as in all great cities, particularly in those which are commercial, where strangers continually arrive, and new customs are daily introduced, observances of a nature similar to those formerly kept at Christmas must soon be lost. That season is accordingly marked here by a few of the pleasantries and simple enjoyments with which it is even now characterized in the country. The merchant and shop-keeper are absorbed in traffic and the closing up of their accounts; and but a short space is devoted to that drunkenness and gluttony among the lower orders, which are the besetting sins of the time. The genuine cockney, however, though on the verge of bankruptcy, considers it a moral duty to spend his creditors' guinea for a fat turkey on Christmas-day; which, with a plenary potation of some kind of liquor, a minute fraction within the quantity necessary to produce ebriety, among the more sober citizens, and a fraction beyond it, among those less concerned as to outward deportment, completes the annual memorial of the time. The canaille may be seen, as usual when rejoicing, in all the sty-grovelling stupidity of the most inexcusable sensuality, reeling from lamp-post to lamp-post. The gin-shops overflow with ragged visitants and the bloated porter-drinkers, saturating themselves with doses of coculus indicus, and divers adulterating narcotics which muddle the brain and clog the circulation, fill every pot-house. Intoxicated draymen, dustmen, and butchers' attendants, hie to the suburbs to fight their dogs; and, finally, to fight among themselves. St. Giles's vomits forth its mass of vice and contamination, mingled with the filth and vociferations of drunken Irish barrow-women and wretches squalid and hectic from dramdrinking.

Such is a London Christmas-keeping.-Among viands once common there at this season plum-puddings and mince-pies are still found, and most probably will long remain, on the score of their intrinsic value to gastronomists. Pantomimic representations are proffered at that time in theatrical entertainments, to attract such little children and their parents as can afford to laugh at them but once a-year. In London, no yule-log now blazes in the contracted chimneys as in days of yore on its once ample hearths, no yulesongs are sung, and the wassail-bowl, as in most parts of the country, is quite forgotten. The hearty, but natural and simple merriment of the rustic, has no parallel in such overgrown congregations of men; and the festive activity of the Christmas hall-dance.

where

Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,

once abounded, has taken its flight, and left nothing half so heartcheering behind. Thus mortal customs perish like those who were observers of them, but only with a little less rapidity.

But the celebration of Christmas in London was formerly marked

with

pomp and feast, and revelry,

With masque and antique pageantry.

The Lord of Misrule, a personage whose origin is lost in the obscurity of years, superintended the sports in every nobleman's and gentleman's house. Each parish had also a ruler of sports with the same title. The Lord Mayor of London and the Sheriffs were not behind-hand in these jocularities, and, besides a fool, they had each a sovereign of mummeries on their establishments. His reign began on All-hallows eve. Even royal authority afterwards sanctioned the use of these officers, whose post always continued until the eve of the Purification. During the entire period of his sway, Stow says, there were "fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries." King Edward the Sixth appointed one George Ferrers to hold the office. This man was a "poet, lawyer, and historian," and was the first styled "Lord of the Pastimes." Even the grave lawyers of Lin'coln's Inn doffed their sober habits at Christmas; they, too, had a King of Christmas-day with his attendants, who presided in their hall; and so earnest were they in these matters, that on Childermass-day they elected another officer, who presided with attendants in a similar manner, and was styled "King of the Cockneys."* The gentlemen of the gown thus kept a carnival in the very court of gravity itself. How edifying would it now be for the augmented number of students in the profession, to witness the bewigged judges and benchers relaxing from that stiff solemnity of physiognomy, which so often passes current in the profession for wisdom; to see sheep-tails and periwigs filling the atmosphere of the legal arena with showers of perfumed dust-dissipating the labours of Danby and other eminent wig-architects, by the shaking of their curls at the mummeries of the Zany and his followers decked with fools' caps and bells, and the keeper of the king's conscience himself holding both his sides" at the sight of Robin Goodfellow and the bear's-skin man, formerly called a Wodehouse, forgetting even chancery suits and fees, for a moment, in the indulgence of unrestrainable laughter.

The Middle Temple lawyers, not to be outdone by their "learned brethren" of Lincoln's Inn, elected a Prince of Christmas so late as the year 1635. This personage dined with them in their hall, having eight attendants. He was seated under a cloth of state, and served with great attention. To complete the climax of foolery, this Zany was afterwards introduced at court, and actually knighted at Whitehall, and was most probably not the first of his character who received that honour, as the present generation can testify he was not the last.

But, as later periods have also shown, the lawyers were far outdone by the clergy in matters appertaining to feasting and revelry. The former soon relapsed into their wonted habits, the departure from which had been but momentary; for very few chancellors besides Sir Thomas More would have admitted, even in ancient days, that they were good throwers at cocks, though even Sir Thomas does not say he practised it after he came to the Lord Chancellorship. The clergy, however, seem to have had no scruples, and to

* See Strutt's Sports.

have shared largely in Christmas sports, and revels of all sorts. Even at the universities they elected a King of the Bean on Christmas-day. In cathedral churches there was an Archbishop or Bishop of Fools elected, and in Catholic times a Pope of Fools. The office of "King of Fools" (Rex Stultorum) was abolished in 1391, perhaps as being derogatory to the dignity of kingship. These mummers attended divine service in pantomimical dresses, and were followed by crowds of the laity in masks of different forms. Abroad some assumed the habit of females, and displayed the most wanton gestures. One ceremony consisted in shaving a "Precentor of Fools" before the church-door, in presence of the populace, who were amused by a vulgar sermon. In England a Boy-Bishop was regularly elected in the churches at Christmas, who mimicked the service and office of bishop; and the clergy even enjoined the children of St. Paul's school to attend at the cathedral, and give the boy-bishop a penny each!

This mockery was abolished at the Reformation, in the thirtythird year of Henry VIII.; and though revived by Mary, it ceased entirely at her death.

The exercise of quintaing was anciently much practised in London at Christmas: a quintain was set up at that season in Cornhill near Leadenhall. Plays were also exhibited at court; but they only consisted of pantomime and buffoonery until the reign of Edward III. The clergy in the reign of Richard II. possessed the exclusive right of getting up Christmas plays from Scripture subjects; and in that reign a petition was presented to the crown by the scholars of Saint Paul's, complaining that secular actors infringed on this right. Cards were forbidden to apprentices in London except at Christmas; and at that season the servant-girls and others danced every evening before their masters' doors. Honest Stow laments the decay of the manner of keeping festivities in his time, which seems to have become unwarlike and effeminate. "Oh," says he, "what a wonderful change is this! Our wrestling at arms is turned into wallowing in ladies' laps; our courage to cowardice, our running into royot; our bowes into bowles, and our darts into dishes."

The English, according to Polydore Virgil, "celebrated the feast of Christmas with playes, masques, and magnificent spectacles, together with games and dancing, not common with other nations." Camden says, "that few men plaied at cards in England, but at

† Philip de Blois, 1444.

Bourne's Antiq. Vulg. c. 17. "Whereas heretofore dyvers and many superstitious and chyldish observances have been used, and yet to this day are observed and kept in many and sundry places of this realm, upon St. Nicholas, St. Catherine's, St. Clement's, and Holy Innocents, and suchliek holy daies; children be strangelie decked and apparayled to counterfeit priests, bishops, and women, and so ledde with songs and dances from house to house, blessing the people and gathering of money, and boyes do singe masse and preache in the pulpits, with such other unfittinge and inconvenient usages, which tend rather to derysyon than enie true glorie to God or honor of his sayntes."

§ The quintain was a species of jousting at a figure of a man, or at a ring, used for practice in arms.