me individual at different
periods of life, but by different individuals of the same age; by the
rich and poor, the wretched and the happy, the pampered and the
penniless!

To proceed to the object of this paper, which is simply to throw
together a few casual hints, connected with the period. I would beg my
reader's attention, in the first place, to an odd superstition,
countenanced by Shakspeare, and which, if he happens to lie awake some
night, (say with the tooth-ache--what better?--for that purpose I mean,)
he will have an opportunity of verifying. The passage which contains it
is in _Hamlet_ and exhibits at once his usual wildness of imagination,
and a highly praiseworthy religious veneration for the season. Where the
ghost vanishes upon the crowing of the cock, he takes occasion to
mention its crowing all hours of the night about Christmas time. The
last four lines comprise several other superstitions connected with the
period:--

It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad:
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike;
No fairy takes; no witch hath power to charm;
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

It is to be lamented that the hearty diet, properly belonging to the
season, should have become almost peculiar to it; the _Tatler_
recommends it throughout the year. "I shall begin," says Steele, "with a
very earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers,
that they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile
themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy
race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not
go so high up as the history of Guy, earl of Warwick, who is well known
to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing. The renowned king Arthur
is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a whole
roasted ox, which was certainly the best way to preserve the gravy; and
it is farther added, that he and his knights sat about it at his round
table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they would enter
upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed lover of the
brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the institution
of the order of Beefeaters, which are all so many evident and undeniable
proofs of the