King James I. at Whitehall, by the Right Honourable and
Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrewes, sometime Lord Bishop of
Winchester," were preserved to posterity by an order of Charles I.,
who, after Bishop Andrewes's death, commanded Bishops Laud and
Buckeridge to collect and publish his sermons. This series of sermons
on the Nativity have recently been reprinted in "The Ancient and
Modern Library of Theological Literature," and the editor, after
referring to the ability and integrity of Bishop Andrewes, says: "An
interest apart from that which must be created by his genius,
learning, and character, belongs to him as the exponent of the mind
and practice of the English Church in the years that intervened
between the Reformation and the Revolution."

THE POPULAR AMUSEMENTS OF CHRISTMASTIDE

at this period are thus enumerated by Robert Burton in his "Anatomy of
Melancholy," published in 1621:--

"The ordinary recreations which we have in winter are cards, tables
and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small
trunks, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ule games, catches,
purposes, questions; merry tales of errant knights, kings, queens,
lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, fairies, goblins,
friars, witches, and the rest."

The following curious cut is from the title-page of the amusing story
of the great "Giant Gargantua" of this period:--

[Illustration: "Giant Gargantua"]

The legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Bevis of
Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of Clough, were
favourites among the lovers of romance; but the people of this age,
being very superstitious, were very fond of stories about ghosts and
goblins, believing them to be founded on fact, and also attributing
feats performed by conjurors and jugglers to supernatural agency. The
King himself was equally superstitious, for Strutt in describing the
tricks of jugglers says: "Our learned monarch, James I., was perfectly
convinced that these, and other inferior feats exhibited by the
tregetours, could only be performed by the agency of the devil, 'who,'
says he, 'will learne them many juglarie tricks, at cardes and dice,
to deceive men's senses thereby, and such innumerable false
practiques, which are proved by over-many in this age.'"[68]

Looking back to the ancient superstitions about ghosts and fairies,
Dryden, the poet, has some lines which may fitly close this chapter:--