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don and the sheriffs had their lords of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastime to delight the beholders." Alas! where are all these, or any similar, "merry disports" in our degenerate days? We have no "lords of misrule" now; or, if we have, they are of a much less innocent and pacific character. Mr. Cambridge, also, (No 104, of the _World_) draws a glowing picture of an ancient Christmas. "Our ancestors," says he, "considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a cheerful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy. With what punctual zeal did they wish one another a merry Christmas! and what an omission would it have been thought, to have concluded a letter without the compliments of the season! The great hall resounded with the tumultuous joys of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played served as an amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who, by encouraging every art that conduced to mirth and entertainment, endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and to mitigate the influence of winter. How greatly ought we to regret the neglect of mince-pies, which, besides the idea of merry-making inseparable from them, were always considered as the test of schismatics! How zealously were they swallowed by the orthodox, to the utter confusion of all fanatical recusants! If any country gentleman should be so unfortunate in this age as to lie under a suspicion of heresy, where will he find so easy a method of acquitting himself as by the ordeal of plum-porridge?" This alludes to the Puritans, who refused to observe Christmas, or any other festival of the church, either by devotion or merriment. And I regret to say there are certain modern "fanatical recusants," certain modern Puritans, as schismatical in this particular as their gloomy precursors. Mr. Cambridge then proceeds "to account for a revolution which has rendered this season (so eminently distinguished in former times) now so little different from the rest of the year," which he thinks "no difficult task." The reasons he assigns are, the decline of devotion, and the increase of luxury, the latter of which has extended rejoicings and feastings, formerly peculiar to Christmas, through the whole year; these have consequently lost their
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