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DIVISION III.

POEMS BY HERRICK RELATING TO THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL.

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MONG all our English poets, the one, who has left us by far the most complete contemporary picture of the Christmas season, was a country clergyman of the reign of Charles I., who held a small living in a remote part of Devonshire. Robert Herrick, for it is of him we speak, was born in London, and received his early education, it is supposed, at Westminster School, from whence he removed to Cambridge, and after taking his degree, spent some few years in London, in familiar intercourse with the chief wits, and writers of the age. Herrick had for his early intimates Ben Jonson, Selden, William Lawes the eminent composer, and Endymion Porter, groom of the chamber to the King, besides many others of equal note, and it was with regret that he resigned the enjoyment of their society, to enter upon the duties connected with the living of Dean-Prior's, to which he was presented in 1629. For near twenty years, until he was ejected from his cure by the committee appointed by the Long Parliament, on account of his Royalist opinions, he led the retired life of a country priest; and, during this period, it would appear that most of his poems were written descriptive of the ceremonies, superstitions, and festivities of the Christmas season. On leaving Dean-Prior's, deeply regretted by his parishioners, who styled him their "ancient and famous poet,"-and Herrick was then fifty-seven years of age he removed to London, where he settled down at his "beloved Westminster." The hand of death, during his twenty years' absence, had been laid upon most of his old companions. Jonson had died, just as the troubles with which the reign of Charles was so thickly beset had commenced in earnest. Lawes had fallen at the siege of Chester, mourned for by his King. Endymion Porter had died abroad. Selden alone survived in the enjoyment of a green old age. Herrick, however, found new friends in Charles Cotton, and Sir John Denham, the bard of Cooper's Hill, but deprived of his income he lived a life of penury, and dependence, until the restoration of Charles II., when he was again inducted to the living from which he had been expelled, and died in 1674, at the advanced age of eighty-three.

The Christmas poems of Herrick form quite a series of themselves, and for this reason they are comprised in a distinct section of this work. instead of being mixed up with contemporary productions by other hands. The first poem is descriptive of the ceremony attending the bringing in the Christmas or Yule log, a custom of very ancient date; yet, nevertheless, this is the first occasion that we find allusion to it in the writings of our earlier poets.

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CHRISTMAS EVE.

COME, guard this night the Christmas pie,
That the thief, though ne'er so sly,

With his flesh-hooks, don't come nigh

To catch it,

From him, who all alone sits there,

Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of nightly fear,

To watch it.

In Herrick's time, the Watchman and Bellman were one and the same. The latter appellation arose, we expect, from its being the practice of these ancient guardians of the night to carry with them a large bell, either for the purpose of summoning assistance when required, or else to enable them the more effectually to disturb the slumbers of those who, snug asleep, cared very little to know how the hours happened to be progressing. Now-a-days the Bellman is quite a Christmas character. The office is generally usurped by the beadle or parish constable, who constitutes himself Bellman for one day in the year, viz., Boxing Day, in the hope that, by the presentation of some miserable doggerel rhymes to his "worthy masters," the inhabitants of the parish, of which he is so important an officer, he may reap a rich and unmerited reward.

THE BELL-MAN.

FROM noise of scare-fires rest ye free,

From murders Benedicite!

From all mischances that may fright

Your pleasing slumbers in the night;
Mercy secure ye all, and keep
The goblin from ye, while ye sleep.

Past one o'clock, and almost two,

My masters all, "Good day to you."

• Alarms of fire.

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SUNG TO THE KING IN THE PRESENCE AT WHITEHALL.

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