illustrate our joy like the Hindoos
do their geography, with rivers and seas of liquid amber, clarified
butter, milk, curds, and intoxicating liquors. No arch in antiquity,
not even that of Constantine, delights us like the arch of a baron of
beef, with its soft-flowing sea of gravy, whose silence is only broken
by the silver oar announcing that another guest is made happy. Then
the pudding, with all its Johnsonian associations of "the golden grain
drinking the dews of the morning--milk pressed by the gentle hand of
the beauteous milk-maid--egg, that miracle of nature, which Burnett
has compared to creation--and salt, the image of intellectual
excellence, which contributes to the foundation of a pudding." As long
as the times spare us these luxuries, we leave Hortensius to his
peacocks; Heliogabalus to his dishes of cocks-combs; and Domitian to
his deliberations in what vase he may boil his huge turbot. We have
epicures as well as had our ancestors; and the wonted fires of
Apicius and Sardanapalus may still live in St. James's-street and
Waterloo-place; but commend us to the board, where each guest, like
a true feeler, brings half the entertainment along with him. This
brings us to notice _Christmas_, a Poem, by Edward Moxon, full of
ingenuousness and good feeling, in _Crabbe-like_ measure; but,
captious reader, suspect not a pun on the poet of England's
hearth--for a more unfortunate name than Crabbe we do not recollect.

Mr. Moxon's is a modest little octavo, of 76 pages, which may be read
between the first and last arrival of a Christmas party. As a
specimen, we subjoin the following:--

Hail, Christmas! holy, joyous time,
The boast of many an age gone by,
And yet methinks unsung in rhyme,
Though dear to bards of chivalry;
Nor less of old to Church and State,
As authors erudite relate.
If so, my harp, thou friend to me,
Thy chords I'll touch right merrily--

Then a fire-side picture of Christmas in the country:--

The doughty host has gather'd round
Those most for wit and mirth renown'd,
And soon each neighbouring Squire will be
With all the world in charity--
Its cares and troubles all forgetting,
Good-humour'd joke alone abetting.
'Tis good and cheering to the soul
To see the ancient wassail bowl
No longer lying on its face,
Or dusty in its hiding place.
It brings to mind a day gone by,
Our fathers and their chivalry--
It speaks of courtly Knight and Squi