We have _spiced_ our former volumes, as well as our present number,
with two or three articles suitable to this jocund season; but we
cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of adding "more last words." People
talk of Old and New Christmas with woeful faces; and a few, more
learned than their friends, cry _stat nominis umbra_,--all which may
be very true, for aught we know or care. Swift proved that mortal MAN
is a _broomstick_; and Dr. Johnson wrote a sublime meditation on a
_pudding_; and we could write a whole number about the midnight mass
and festivities of Christmas, pull out old Herrick and his Ceremonies
for Christmasse--his yule log--and Strutt's Auntient Customs in Games
used by Boys and Girls, merrily sett out in verse; but we leave
such relics for the present, and seek consolation in the thousand
wagon-loads of poultry and game, and the many million turkeys
that make all the coach--offices of the metropolis like so many
charnel-houses. We would rather illustrate our joy like the Hindoos
do their geography, with rivers and seas of liquid amber, clarified
butter, milk, curds, and intoxicating liquors. No arch in antiquity,
not even that of Constantine, delights us like the arch of a baron of
beef, with its soft-flowing sea of gravy, whose silence is only broken
by the silver oar announcing that another guest is made happy. Then
the pudding, with all its Johnsonian associations of "the golden grain
drinking the dews of the morning--milk pressed by the gentle hand of
the beauteous milk-maid--egg, that miracle of nature, which Burnett
has compared to creation--and salt, the image of intellectual
excellence, which contributes to the foundation of a pudding." As long
as the times spare us these luxuries, we leave Hortensius to his
peacocks; Heliogabalus to his dishes of cocks-combs; and Domitian to
his deliberations in what vase he may boil his huge turbot. We have
epicures as well as had our ancestors; and the wonted fires of
Apicius and Sardanapalus may still live in St. James's-street and
Waterloo-place; but commend us to the board, where each guest, like
a true feeler, brings half the entertainment along with him. This
brings us to notice _Christmas_, a Poem, by Edward Moxon, full of
ingenuousness and good feeling, in _Crabbe-like_ measure; but,
captious reader, suspect not a pun on the poet of England's
hearth--for a more unfortunate name than Crabbe we do not recollect.
Mr. Moxon's is a modest little octavo, of 76 pages, which may be read
between the first and last arrival of a Christmas party. As a
specimen, we subjoin the following:--
Hail, Christmas! holy, joyous time,
The boast of many an age gone by,
And yet methinks unsung in rhyme,
Though dear to bards of chivalry;
Nor less of old to Church and State,
As authors erudite relate.
If so, my harp, thou friend to me,
Thy chords I'll touch right merrily--