ve, all the time, beloved reader, whom I press to
my heart for your steadiness in perusing so far, and to whom I would
give a jewel had I one worthy to give, in token of my consideration (how
you would like a Royalston beryl or an Attleboro topaz).[A] I wish you
to observe, I say, that on the Christmas tide, when the Forefathers
began New England, Charles and Henrietta were first proposed to each
other for that fatal union. Charles, who was to be Charles the First,
and Henrietta, who was to be mother of Charles the Second, and James the
Second. So this was the time, when were first proposed all the precious
intrigues and devisings, which led to Charles the Second, James the
Second, James the Third, so called, and our poor friend the Pretender.
Civil War--Revolution--1715--1745--Preston-Pans, Falkirk and
Culloden--all are in the dispatches Cadenet carries ashore at Dover,
while we are hewing our timbers at the side of the brook at Plymouth,
and making our contribution to Protestant America.

[A] Mrs. Hemans says they did not seek "bright jewels of the
mine," which was fortunate, as they would not have found
them. Attleboro is near Plymouth Rock, but its jewels are
not from mines. The beryls of Royalston are, but they are
far away. Other good mined jewels, I think, New England
has none. Her garnets are poor, and I have yet seen no
good amethysts.

On the one side Christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood
for their fires--and out of the celebration springs an empire. On the
other side it is celebrated by the _noblesse_ of two nations and the
pomp of two courts. And out of the celebration spring two civil wars,
the execution of one king and the exile of another, the downfall twice
repeated of the royal house, which came to the English throne under
fairer auspices than ever. The whole as we look at it is the tale of
ruin. Those are the only two Christmas celebrations of that year that I
have found anywhere written down!

You will not misunderstand the moral, dear reader, if, indeed, you
exist; if at this point there be any reader beside him who corrects the
proof! Sublime thought of the solemn silence in which these words may be
spoken! You will not misunderstand the moral. It is not that it is
better to work on Christmas than to play. It is not that masques turn
out ill, and that those who will not celebrate the great anniversaries
turn out well. God forbi