assail bowl,
That's tossed up after Fox-i'-th'-hole;
Of Blind-man's-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoe the Mare;
Of Twelfth-tide cake, of peas and beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
When as ye choose your king and queen,
And cry out, 'Hey for our town green.'
Of ash-heaps in the which ye use
Husbands and wives by streaks to choose:
Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds;
Of these, and such like things, for shift,
We send instead of New-year's gift.
Read then, and when your faces shine
With bucksome meat and cap'ring wine,
Remember us in cups full crowned,
And let our city's health go round,
Quite through the young maids and the men,
To the ninth number, if not ten,
Until the fired chestnuts leap
For joy to see the fruits ye reap,
From the plump chalice and the cup
That tempts till it be tossed up.
Then as ye sit about your embers,
Call not to mind those fled Decembers;
But think on these, that are t' appear,
As daughters to the instant year;
Sit crowned with rose-buds and carouse,
Till _Liber Pater_ twirls the house
About your ears, and lay upon
The year, your cares, that's fled and gone.
And let the russet swains the plough
And harrow hang up resting now;
And to the bagpipe all address
Till sleep takes place of weariness.
And thus, throughout, with Christmas plays,
Frolic the full twelve holy-days."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S BIRTH, ON CHRISTMAS DAY,

at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, was the most important Christmas event
of the memorable year which saw the outbreak of the Civil War (1642).
In the year of the Restoration he entered Cambridge, where the
teaching of Isaac Barrow quickened his genius for mathematics, and
from the time he left College his life became a series of wonderful
physical discoveries. As early as 1666, he discovered the law of
gravitation, but it was not till the eve of the Revolution that his
"Principia" revealed to the world his new theory of the universe.

THE CUSTOMS OF CHRISTMASTIDE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

"A Christmas Carol," by George Wither, a well-known poet of this
period, contains many allusions to the customs of Christmastide:--

So, now is come our joyful'st feast;
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garl