With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,

On a new journey to London straight we all must begone, And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John, Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete, With a new coachman, footmen, and pages to carry up the meat,

With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat, Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat ;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With new titles of honour, bought with his father's old gold;
For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold;
And this is the course most of our new gallants hold,
Which makes that good housekeeping is now grown so cold
Among the young courtiers of the king,
Or the king's young courtiers.

GOD SAVE THE KING.

17TH CENTURY.

THIS National Anthem is generally attributed to Dr. John Bull, 1591, professor of music, Oxford, and chamber musician to James I., but he could only have been the composer, and of this the proof is slight. Henry Carey's son claimed it as the composition of his father, whose granddaughter, Alice Carey, was the mother of Edmund Kean. The germ of the song is to be found in one which Sir Peter Carew used to sing before Henry VIII.; chorus

[GEORGE WITHER was born in Hampshire in 1588, and, after studying at Oxford, entered Lincoln's Inn, where he wrote satires for which he was imprisoned. He afterwards joined the Parliamentarians, and was taken prisoner by the king's party, by whom he would have been put to death had not Denham interfered, under the jocose pretext that, so long as Wither lived, he himself could not be considered the worst poet in England. Wither was afterwards made Governor of Farnham Castle, and was enriched by the estates of the Royalists; but at the Restoration he was deprived of all his possessions, and sent to the Tower. When he angrily remonstrated, he was treated with great severity. released, and died in obscurity, in 1667.

He was at length

Most of his best productions were written while he was in confinement, and before he became imbued with puritanical ideas. His principal poem is "The Shepherd's Hunting," but his shorter pieces are better known.]

O now is come our joyful'st feast;

Let every man be jolly;

Each room with ivy leaves is drest,

And every post with holly.

Though some churls at our mirth repine,

Round your foreheads garlands twine,

Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,

And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meat choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie;
And if for cold it hap to die,
We'll bury't in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry.

Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labour;
Our lasses have provided them
A bagpipe and a tabor;

Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another's joys;

And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun;
Their hall of music soundeth ;

And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things there aboundeth.

The country folks themselves advance,
With crowdy-muttons out of France;

And Jack shall pipe and Gill shall dance,

And all the town be merry.

Ned Squash hath fetcht his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel;

Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn

With dropping off the barrel.

And those that hardly all the year

Had bread to eat, or rags to wear,

Will have both clothes and dainty fare,
And all the day be merry.

Now poor men to the justices

With capons make their errants;

And if they hap to fail of these,

They plague them with their warrants:

But now they feed them with good cheer,
And what they want they take in beer,
For Christmas comes but once a year,
And then they shall be merry.

Good farmers in the country nurse
The poor, that else were undone ;
Some landlords spend their money worse
On lust and pride at London.
There the roysters they do play,
Drab and dice their lands away,
Which may be ours another day,
And therefore let's be merry.

The client now his suit forbears,
The prisoner's heart is eased;
The debtor drinks away his cares,
And for the time is pleased.
Though others' purses be more fat,
Why should we pine, or grieve at that?
Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,
And therefore let's be merry.

Hark! now the wags abroad do call
Each other forth to rambling;

Anon you'll see them in the hall,
For nuts and apples scrambling.

Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound,
Anon they'll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar's depth have found,
And there they will be merry.

The wenches with their wassail bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls,
The wild mare in is bringing.
Our kitchen boy hath broke his box,
And to the dealing of the ox

Our honest neighbours come by flocks,
And here they will be merry.