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that we have had both hand and heart in it. {130} And so, with all the earnestness and heartiness which befit this happy season, when "No spirit stirs abroad; The nights are wholesome; when no planet strikes, No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time," do we greet all our friends, whether contributors or readers, with the good old English wish, A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! * * * * * SIR E. DERING'S HOUSEHOLD BOOK. The muniment chests of our old established families are seldom without their quota of "household books." Goodly collections of these often turn up, with records of the expenditure and the "doings" of the household, through a period of two or more centuries. These documents are of incalculable value in giving us a complete insight into the domestic habits of our ancestors. Many a note is _there_, well calculated to illustrate the pages of the dramatist or the biographer, and even the accuracy of the historian's statements may often be tested by some of the details which find their way into these accounts; as for the more peculiar province of the antiquary, there is always a rich store of materials. Every change of costume is _there_; the introduction of new commodities, new luxuries, and new fashions, the varying prices of the passing age. Dress in all its minute details, modes of travelling, entertainments, public and private amusements, all, with their cost, are there: and last, though not least, touches of individual character ever and anon present themselves with the force of undisguised and undeniable truth. Follow the man through his pecuniary transactions with his wife and children, his household, his tenantry, nay, with himself, and you have more of his real character than the biographer is usually able to furnish. In this view, a man's "household book" becomes an impartial autobiography. I would venture to suggest that a corner of your paper might sometimes be profitably reserved for "notes" from these household books; there can be little doubt that your numerous readers would soon furnish you with abundant contributions of most interesting matter. While suggesting the idea, there happens to lie open before me the account-book of the first Sir Edward Dering, commencing with the day on which he came of age, when, though his father was still living, he felt himself an independent man. One
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