dinner was served at mid-day-the master, with his family and friends, sitting at a table apart. It was now that the mirth and merriment culminated. As some one has said, "Man's gastronomic capacity must have been enlarged for the occasion, as energies expand to meet great emergencies." We read of sixteen courses of meat alone-boar's head, capons, geese, turkeys, peacocks (in all the bravery of their gorgeous plumage), brawn, neats-tongue, etc., concluding with mince pies and plum pudding. It certainly stimulates the appetite only to read of such plenty.

The boar's head, wreathed with bays and served on a silver salver, was the most distinguished of Christmas dishes. Its appropriateness was due to the fact that Jews could not eat it. It was brought to the table in great state, accompanied with minstrelsy. The minstrels continued to play for the dancing that followed, while bagpipes furnished the music for the humbler folk.

Sports of many kinds were succeeded by a general assembling in the evening about the Yule fire, where songs, legendary tales and ghost stories went the rounds.

The hall was lighted only with the blaze of the Yule fire and the huge Christmas candles, wreathed with greenery. These last were types of "The Light of the World," whose coming to dispel moral darkness was the reason for the celebration.

The host mixed the "wassail bowl" with his own hands, and all partook of it, after which it was the custom for every one to join in singing carols, of which the example was the choir of angels heralding the birth of the Redeemer.

An entertainment that shows the rudeness of the times of Elizabeth was a fox-hunt indoors. "A hunts

man came into the hall with a fox and a cat, both tied to the end of a staff, and with them as many as twenty hounds. The animals were then loosed, and the fox and cat were set upon by the hounds and soon despatched. After which, the guests betook themselves to table." THE PURITAN CHRISTMAS

The season of Christmas set apart for sacred observance became more and more but the occasion for revelry and excess of all kinds.

In 1625, Parliament prohibited its observance, and ten years later decreed that it should be kept as a fast. The church-wardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, were fined for decorating the church with greens. The Puritans overshot the mark. "When the church refused to use her pleasant nets, Satan stole them and made them snares,' so, as it was said at the time, "Father Christmas was let in at the back door."

Pepys that delightful old gossip-describes a Christmas dinner "at night " which concluded with "a flagon of ale with apples, out of a wood cup, as a Christmas draught, which made all merry."

Cards were in great favour as a means of Christmas diversion. The crusade against them began later.

As might be supposed, the Puritans brought with them to the New World their prejudice against festivals, and Christmas was elaborately ignored. As time went on, however, the rules against its observance were relaxed. In New Amsterdam, the Dutch kept Christmas with great spirit and innocent merriment, and the fact undoubtedly had its influence upon New England in causing these festivals to become national, and "moderate festivities and rejoicing after attendance at the place where God is preached" were permitted.

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHRISTMAS

There is little need to review our own observance of the great festival, which is familiar to all, but a feast was given last Christmas at a large country house that proves that its traditions are still cherished.

The woods near at hand having been laid under contribution for every sort of evergreen, the vast diningroom was like a bit of the forest itself.

All the colour was massed on the table. Holly and mistletoe formed the centrepiece, and the note of scarlet was repeated in all the decorations and dainties.

The room was lighted only by the glow of the blazing logs in a fireplace (that enlarged forever one's ideas of what a fireplace could be) and with many wax candles.

The dinner began with green turtle soup, followed by a salmon-plentiful in the time of Queen Bess, and called "the king of fish."

Next, a "venison pasty" was served-the nearest approach to an entrée known at medieval banquetsand then a turkey, most successfully cooked with all its feathers on. Our "national bird" was almost as picturesque as the peacock, with advantage on its side as to palatableness.

A trumpet next sounded, and the cook, in full official costume of white linen surcoat and cap, entered, bearing aloft a boar's head, "crowned with bays," with a lemon in its mouth.

Another flourish of trumpets later and the cook again entered, carrying a large round plum-pudding, a sprig of holly atop, and burning with blue fire-followed by the butler with a huge mince pie, and he in turn by his assistants, carrying the ingredients for mixing the "wassail bowl."