A CHRISTMAS CAROLS. BY LIEUT.-COL. HUNTER-DUVAR, ALBERTON, P. E. ISLAND. God save you, merrie gentlemen, And send you Christmas cheere. MONG the antique institutions that are fast dying out in England, and have not been imported into America, are the celebrations of May-day and Christmas. The literature of the latter is very quaint and curious. Lyric Poetry is commensurate with the feelings and emotions of man. Poetry and song (for the terms are synonymous) are as natural to the human race as to the birds on the bough. The untutored savage, roaming his native wilds, has a poetic shade in his nature that outlines for itself myths of much beauty, such as have been crystallized by the poet of Hiawatha. The desertdweller sings the inspiration of his heart, all fragrant of the rose, as leaving behind him. the flowery oasis he plods along the sands with the slow-moving caravan. The inhabitants of "the northern regions cold" are full of poetic fire; their weird mythology has a statuesque grandeur that is almost awe-inspiring; while their love-chants and pastorals are redolent of the soft, sweet summer that leaves them all too soon. In the earlier stages of civilization it is natural that the language of the lyric should directly embody the feelings, untrammelled, as well as unadorned, by the artificial fetters of refinement. Hence, the more intense the emotion, the more quaint the thought and familiar the words that embody it. Not only is the lyric the expression of pastoral, amitory, or warlike feeling, but in a larger degree it is the handmaid of religion, and the vehicle for conveying the cravings of the soul. The fervid worshipper sees nothing irreverent in the interchange of words of endearment between the Human and the Divine. The vulgar mind is at once superstitious and eminently realistic. As a consequence, the language of the untutored can only be increased in intensity by pressing into it the more ardent phrases of human affection. From this point of view the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages cease to be absurd. The sanctity of religion satisfied the stirrings of superstition; faith accepted the realistic, and as the common mind, thus filled, discerned in them no touch of profanity, the educated intellect of to-day can regard them as respectable, if not venerable. The august event of the Nativity is the basis of the Christian belief. Apart from its vital import, it contains all the splendour of poetry. Its incidents appeal to human affections. The SAVIOUR was a man of like passions with ourselves. All the incidents of His incarnation are sympathetic with human experience. The circumstances of His birth are full of domestic sentiment. In His advent are combined the bases of pity and the gladness awakened by the coming of the first-born. And as in this world the joys outweigh the sorrows, the feeling of gladness preponderated, and the Nativity came to be popularly regarded and celebrated as a joyous event-a consummation of exceeding joy. A devotional mind drinks in its details and is permeated with their sublimity. But, as the sublime is beyond the reach of most, the popular intelligence. striving to rise to the occasion could only reach the pleasant and affectionate. And such is the character of the literature of Christmas. The majestic grandeur of the event, as narrated in the unadorned simplicity of Scripture, has drawn around it an accumulation of legend that brings it more within the grasp of the uneducated. In like manner as the principle of evil has among all rude peoples been personified and been given the material elements of an embodied terror, material accessories have clustered around the Holy Childhood to bring it within popular comprehension as an embodied joy. The ideal Nativity is too spiritual for the multitude. By being materialized it became a pleasing entity, and within the grasp of an appreciative faith. From the initial ages of the Church the anniversary of the "dayspring from on high" was doubtless held in regard. Without doubt the disciples celebrated its recurrence with "psalms, songs, and spiritual hymns." From the catacombs must have ascended the voice of praise. In the general recognition of Christianity, and its subsequent ever-increasing corruption of form, the Christmas celebration would primarily share. The taste that authorized the Carni val would sanction an outburst of genial licence at Christmastide. Naturally the cele bration would in time separate itself into the Or of date about Henry VI's time devotional exercises of the altar and the quasi-religious festivals of the people. At what time this distinction widened so as to have become recognizable is not clear, but it must have been at a very early date. The records of all Christendom show that the people universally gave vent to their geniality in Christmas carols or familiar songs. The Troubadours, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were famous for their Christmas lays, and in Provence at the present day are current many such compositions both old and new. Several interesting collections of such lyrics have been published both in France and England, the earliest known in English having been printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1521. We have at present to do with those of England only. The natural events of the Holy Nativity, as recorded in the Gospels, were few and, but for the accompanying miracles, simple. A child was born and cradled in a manger, and wise men from the East came to offer gifts to the babe, they being guided to his resting place by the light of, to them, an unknown star. In the popular carols these events are related in a descriptive manner, more or less graphically, and (as we have said) more or less augmented by legendary accessories. Where the custom of carol singing still lingers in the more secluded parts of England, the church bells are chimed to usher in the happy morn. Then sally forth the singers who itinerate the village, carrolling their quaint and olden lays to the sprightliest of tunes. The custom is pleasant, the voices often being trained, though in a rude way; still it must be confessed that sad work is often made with the Latin choruses : "Gesu the Son that here be born, To save mankind that was forlorn." The above, however, are only vaguely devotional, and not sufficiently circumstantial -a fault that cannot be asserted of the class of descriptive carols of which the following is the type : "A shepherd upon a hill he satt, He had on him his tabard and hatt, Chorus-Can I not sing but hoy! For in hys pype he made much joy. "The shepherd upon a hille was layd, He had not slept but a lytelle brayd, Lying on the hill with his hand under his 'Jhesu! I offer to Thee my pype, My skyrte, my tarbox, and my scrype, later in the life of the Child, is a favourite subject, affording as it does scope for the in Other events, real or supposed, of the Saviour's infancy are likewise embodied in the carols. The offerings of the Magians-vention of romantic adventures. In place a favourite subject, from which originates the custom of Christmas gifts-is quaintly related in a carol of a date older than the liscovery of America : "There came iij kings from Galilee To seek Him that should ever be Kyng, lord, and knyght-a! "As they came forth with their offeryng They met with Herod that bloodie kyng And this to them he said-a: 'O whence be ye, you kyngs iij?' Magi. Of the East as ye may see, To seek for Him that ever should be Kyng, lord, and knyght-a !" It is somewhat typical that in several of the English and Dutch carols the kings come by sea; although indeed some commentators would make out that their "three ships" indicate the Trinity, an allegory too deep for the vulgar mind. A ship figures frequently in the imagery of the dwellers alongshore : "As I sat on a sunny bank, A sunny bank, a sunny bank, As I sat on a sunny bank, On Christmas Day in the morning, "I spied three ships come sailing by, On Christmas Day in the morning. "O he did whistle and she did sing, Sometimes these water-poets soar out of the "Saint Michael was the steersman, Saint John was in the horn, Many other monastic legends have been engrafted on the scriptural account, and are set forth in various rhymes of lesser or greater antiquity. The Flight into Egypt, although of multiplying extracts we prefer giving a more modern rhyme, now published for the first time, wherein are set forth the various legendary incidents, all on the authority of the old painters. The rhymed story of Zingarella [gipsy woman] and the Bambino [little boy] is well known to students of mediæval literature: |