229

"The Mask Dance" 231

The Christmas Mummers 234

The Waits 240

The Christmas Plum-Pudding 245

Italian Minstrels in London, at Christmas, 1825 246

Snap Dragon 247

Blindman's Buff 249

The Christmas Dance 250

The Giving Away of Christmas Doles 257

Poor Children's Treat in Modern Times 265

The Christmas Bells 271

Wassailing the Apple-Trees in Devonshire 279

Modern Christmas Performers: Yorkshire Sword-Actors 282

Modern Christmas Characters: "St Peter," "St. Denys" 283

A Scotch First Footing 285

Provencal Plays at Christmastide 320

Nativity Picture (_From Byzantine Ivory in the British Museum_) 324

Calabrian Shepherds Playing in Rome at Christmas 329

Worshipping the Child Jesus (_From a Picture in the Museum
at Naples_) 337

Angels and Men Worshipping the Child Jesus (_From a
Picture in Seville Cathedral_) 338

Simeon Received the Child Jesus into his Arms (_From Modern
Stained Glass in Bishopsgate Church, London_) 348

Lichfield Cathedral 349

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground;
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

_Carol._]

THE HERALD ANGELS.

Lo! God hath ope'd the glist'ring gates of heaven,
And thence are streaming beams of glorious light:
All earth is bath'd in the effulgence giv'n
To dissipate the darkness of the night.
The eastern shepherds, 'biding in the fields,
O'erlook the flocks till now their constant care,
And light divine to mortal sense reveals
A seraph bright descending in the air.

Hark! strains seraphic fall upon the ear,
From shining ones around th' eternal gates:
Glad that man's load of guilt m