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HISTORY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illustratesthe temper of the precisians than their conduct respectingChristmas day. Christmas had been, from time immemorial,the season of joy and domestic affection, the season when fa-milies assembled, when children came home from school,when quarrels were made up, when carols were heard in everystreet, when every house was decorated with evergreens, andevery table was loaded with good cheer. At that season allhearts not utterly destitute of kindness were enlarged andsoftened. At that season the poor were admitted to partakelargely of the overflowings of the wealth of the rich, whosebounty was peculiarly acceptable on account of the shortnessof the days and of the severity of the weather. At that seasonthe interval.between landlord and tenant, master and servant,was less marked than through the rest of the year. Wherethere is much enjoyment there will be some excess: yet, onthe whole, the spirit in which the holiday was kept was notunworthy of a Christian festival. The Long Parliament gaveorders, in 1044, that the twenty-fifth of December should bestrictly observed as a fast, and that all men should pass it inhumbly bemoaning the great national sin which they and theirfathers had so often committed on that day by romping underthe mistletoe, eating boar’s head, and drinking ale flavouredwith roasted apples. No public act of that time seems to haveirritated the common people more. On the next anniversaryof the festival formidable riots broke out in many places. Theconstables were resisted, the magistrates insulted, the housesof noted zealots attacked, and the proscribed service of theday openly read in the churches.

Such was the spirit of the extreme Puritans, both Pres-byterian and Independent. Oliver, indeed, was little disposed

people hate me, and call me all the names in the rainbow. But did notDavid kill a bear? Did not the Lord Deputy Irelon kill a bear? Did notanother lord of ours kill five bears? ” — Last Speech and dying Words ofThomas Pride.