at Leicester House,
and in the evening returned to St. James's."[79]

At this period

THE FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS DIVERSION

was card-playing. The King himself spent a great deal of his time in
playing at cards with the ladies and gentlemen of his court. In doing
so, however, he was but following the example of George II., of whom
the biographer already quoted (Mr. Huish) says:--

"After the death of Queen Caroline, the King was very fond of a game
at cards with the Countess of Pembroke, Albemarle, and other
distinguished ladies. His attachment to cards was transferred to his
attachment for the ladies, and it was said that what he gained by the
one he lost by the other." Cards were very much resorted to at the
family parties and other social gatherings held during the twelve days
of Christmas. Hone makes various allusions to card-playing at
Christmastide, and Washington Irving, in his "Life of Oliver
Goldsmith," pictures the poet "keeping the card-table in an uproar."
Mrs. Bunbury invited Goldsmith down to Barton to pass the Christmas
holidays. Irving regrets "that we have no record of this Christmas
visit to Barton; that the poet had no Boswell to follow at his heels,
and take notes of all his sayings and doings. We can only picture him
in our minds, casting off all care; enacting the Lord of Misrule;
presiding at the Christmas revels; providing all kinds of merriment;
keeping the card-table in an uproar, and finally opening the ball on
the first day of the year in his spring-velvet suit, with the Jessamy
Bride for a partner."

From the reprint additions made in the British Museum large paper copy
of Brand's "Antiquities," by the late Mr. Joseph Haslewood, and dated
January, 1779, we quote the following verses descriptive of the
concluding portion of the Christmas festivities at this period:--

TWELFTH DAY.

Now the jovial girls and boys,
Struggling for the cake and plumbs,
Testify their eager joys,
And lick their fingers and their thumbs.

Statesmen like, they struggle still,
Scarcely hands kept out of dishes,
And yet, when they have had their fill,
Still anxious for the loaves and fishes.

Kings and Queens, in petty state,
Now their sovereign will declare,
But other sovereigns' plans they hate,
Full fond of peace--detesting war.

One moral from this tale appears,
Worth notice when a world's at stake;
That all our hopes and all our fears,
Are but a _stru