From Christmas Carols by Frank Landon Humphreys.

FEW writers on English holidays and holiday customs have failed to make pleasant mention of the ancient custom of singing Christmas carols. In Washington Irving's famous "Sketch Book," which was one of the first pieces of American literature to portray English country life and manners, we are charmingly introduced to most of the good old customs that from time immemorial attended the Christmas festival. Irving says of his first night at Bracebridge Hall: "I had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some neighbouring village. They went around the house, playing under the windows. I drew aside the curtains to hear them more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apartment. The sounds, as they receded, became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with the quiet and the moonlight. I listened and listened – they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank upon the pillow and I fell asleep. "Good Jeremy Taylor in his "Great Exemplar," referring to the hymn sung by the angels on the plains of Bethlehem, on the night that Christ was born, the "Gloria in Excelsis," says: "As soon as these blessed Choristers had sung their Christmas Carol, and taught the Church a hymn to put into her offices forever, they returned
into heaven." Shakespeare in his "Midsummer Night's Dream" makes Titania say, "No night is now with hymn or carol blest."

Milton in his grand epic writes:

His place of birth a solemn angel tells

To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;

They gladly thither haste and by a quire

Of squadron'd angels hear his carol sung.

The dear old Vicar of Wakefield tells us that his simple, rural parishioners "Kept up the Christmas Carol, sent true-love-knots on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on Shrovetide, showed their wit on the first day of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas-eve."

The history of the Christmas carol is almost coeval with that of Christianity itself. A large sarcophagus of the second century has a sculptured representation of a Christian family joining in praise of Christ's birth, and there is no doubt that the Christmas carol they are represented as singing was a sacred hymn commemorating Christ's nativity, and that such religious, family Christmas hymns were common among the early Christians. At a comparatively early date the bishops were accustomed to sing Christmas carols among their clergy, in imitation of the
singing of the angels on the night of Jesus' birth.

The name carol, which means originally a dance, may have come into our language either from the Norman French Carole or from the Celtic carol; in its application to Christmas songs it covers a wide diversity of popular metrical compositions, from the quaintly expressed, simple record of the incidents of the birth of Christ to rude wassail songs and rhymes of holiday revelry. We have in the list of preserved old carols a large number with their chief theme the holly or ivy of Christmas decorations, many of the jolly character of the famous "Boar's Head Song," which comes to us from the earliest printed collection of English carols, that of Wynkyn de Worde, in 1521, and is still sung at Queen's College, Oxford, on Christmas Day; as well as carols on the Adoration of the Angels, the Visit of the Shepherds and the Magi, and that well-known and friendly carol, which has always been so popular:

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay.

The earliest specimen of Christmas carols we have is in Norman French, and is preserved in the British Museum. It belongs to the thirteenth century. After the printed collection of de Worde we have collections by Ritson, Wright, and Sandys in the fifteenth century, a small black-letter collection in 1642, and another in
1688. These collections, which are of the highest rarity, contain many curious specimens of the songs sung by English shepherds and ploughmen at Christmas entertainments in farm houses throughout the merrie land. In the second half of the
eighteenth century a Birmingham publisher did good service by issuing in broadside form all the carols that came to his notice; but William Sandys's Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern," published in 1833, is the most complete collection yet gathered of English carols. In France the Christmas carol was called fio'il, and often had a bacchanalian character. Collections of French carols were also published in the sixteenth century. The carol is native to most of the other European nations as well as the English and French, Russian literature being especially rich in these compositions. In Scotland Christmas carols never attained
much popularity, but they were very common in Wales and the Isle of Man.

A writer in "Once a Week," in 1863, says that by the beginning of the nineteenth century the singing of Christmas carols had become little better than a respectable scheme for raising money by beggars in the streets, and had therefore fallen into general disuse among the better sort of people. But in 1822 a revival of Christmas carolling began under W. Davies Gilbert, who published the music of twelve favorite carols preserved in the West of England, and he was followed, as we have seen, by Mr. W. Sandys, who published eighty carols, seventeen melodies, and some French no'els. Since that time the singing of Christmas carols, certainly in the English churches, has been all but universal, and in our American Sunday-schools for twenty or thirty years we have in many places heartily followed the lead.

That the custom, however, among the English people never wholly died out is borne witness to by Hone, who says in his "Ancient Mysteries," published in 1823: "The melody of 'God rest you, merry gentlemen,' delighted my childhood; and I still listen with pleasure to the shivering carolists' evening chant towards the clean kitchen window, decked with holly, the flaming fire showing the whitened hearth, and reflecting gleams of light from the surfaces of the kitchen utensils."

Carols in England were formerly sung at large Christmas feasts and family dinners, in the open air on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, and at the time of public worship in the churches on Christmas Day. In Pasquils' "Jests," an old book
published in 1604, there is an amusing story of an eccentric knight who, at a Christmas feast which he had made for a large number of his tenants and friends, ordered no man at the table to drink a drop "till he that was master over his wife should sing a carol." After a pause one poor dreamer alone lifted his voice, the others all sitting silent and glum. Then the knight turned to the table where the women sat, and bade "her who was master over her husband" sing a carol. The story says that forthwith "the women fell all to singing, that there was never heard such a catter-walling piece of musicke."

The Christmas carols which interest us most are those quaint old ballads, half religious, half secular, that have been remembered favorites from age to age and were sung on Christmas eve or Christmas morning by the choristers of country churches before the principal houses in the parishes, often to the accompaniment of such simple instruments as the people could play. The waits, who often sang Christmas carols, were village or town musicians, who for two or three weeks before Christmas were accustomed during the night hours to play on wind instruments any popular tunes they knew, no doubt often to the great annoyance of the people who wanted to sleep. On Christmas Day, naturally, these serenaders were accustomed to call for donations at the doors of the houses before which they
had played.

The writer of the article on " Christmas Carols " in Chambers's "Book of Days" speaks of a Christmas he once spent in Devonshire, where the singing of carols was very general, and of the impression the carol-singing made upon him. "The sweet and pathetic melody, which was both well sung and well played, the picturesqueness of the group of singers, whose persons were only rendered visible, in the darkness of the night, by the light of one or two lanterns which they carried, and the novelty and general interest of the scene, all produced an impression which
was never to be forgotten."/ In this part of England, this writer says, it was customary for the singers to club the money they received on such occasions, and expend it in a social merry-making on Twelfth Day, a fortnight afterwards.

But the singing of carols that must have touched all hearts and opened all purses was that of little children, who, in the clear, crisp morning air, went around from house to house and raised their lisping voices in the dear old-fashioned folk-songs of the Saviour's birth.

Any revival of interest among us, in the ancient Christmas carol, is heartily to be welcomed. The writer in "Once a Week," before referred to, says very fitly: "The men of the nineteenth century are fain to admit that better means for attracting the ear and ravishing the hearts of the poor and simple can scarcely be
employed than those used by the men of old. The quaint expressions, the homely recital of Scripture narrative, and withal the soothing and plaintive strains of pure English melody strike home at once to the hearts of the humble and devout observers of the blessed coming of our Redeemer in the Flesh."

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Dmitri Gheorgheni

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