No victuals appear,
O may they keep Lent
All the rest of the year!

With holly and ivy
So green and so gay;
We deck up our houses
As fresh as the day,
With bays and rosemary,
And laurel compleat,
And every one now
Is a king in conceit.

* * * * *

But as for curmudgeons,
Who will not be free,
I wish they may die
On the three-legged tree."

At Christmastide, 1696, an Act of Attainder was passed against Sir
John Fenwick, one of the most ardent of the Jacobite conspirators who
took part in the plot to assassinate the King. He was executed on
Tower Hill, January 28, 1697. This was the last instance in English
history in which a person was attainted by Act of Parliament, and
Hallam's opinion of this Act of Attainder is that "it did not, like
some acts of attainder, inflict a punishment beyond the offence, but
supplied the deficiency of legal evidence."

Peter the Great, of Russia, kept the Christmas of 1697 in England,
residing at Sayes Court, a house of the celebrated John Evelyn, close
to Deptford Dockyard.

[Illustration]

CHRISTMAS, 1701.

[From _Poor Robin's Almanack_.]

Now enter Christmas like a man,
Armed with spit and dripping-pan,
Attended with pasty, plum-pie,
Puddings, plum-porridge, furmity;
With beef, pork, mutton of each sort
More than my pen can make report;
Pig, swan, goose, rabbits, partridge, teal,
With legs and loins and breasts of veal:
But above all the minced pies
Must mention'd be in any wise,
Or else my Muse were much to blame,
Since they from Christmas take their name.
With these, or any one of these,
A man may dine well if he please;
Yet this must well be understood,--
Though one of these be singly good,
Yet more the merrier is the best
As well of dishes as of guest.
But the times are grown so bad
Scarce one dish for the poor is had;
Good housekeeping is laid aside,
And all is spent to maintain pride;
Good works are counted popish, and
Small charity is in the land.
A man may sooner (truth I tell ye)
Break his own neck than fill his belly.
Good God amend what is amiss
And send a remedy to this,
That Christmas day again may rise
And we enjoy our Christmas pies.

The Christmas customs of this period are thus referred to by the
"Bellman, on Christmas Eve":--

"This night (you may my Almanack believe)
Is the return of famous Christmas Eve: