_sobriquet_) Jack Roastbeef, from a notion we cannot live without
roast-beef, any more than without plum-pudding, porter, and punch;
however, the notion is palpably erroneous. We are proving more and more
every day--to our shame be it spoken!--that we can live without it. At
least do not let it be said we can pass a Christmas without it, merely
to make way for turkeys, fricassees, and ragouts! "Oh, reform it
altogether!"

* * * * *

England was always famous among foreigners for the celebration of
Christmas, at which time our ancestors introduced many sports and
pastimes unknown in other countries, or now even among ourselves. "At
the feast of Christmas," says Stowe, "in the king's court, wherever he
chanced to reside, there was appointed a lord of misrule, or master of
merry disports; the same merry fellow made his appearance at the house
of every nobleman and gentleman of distinction; and, among the rest, the
lord mayor of London and the sheriffs had their lords of misrule, ever
contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest
pastime to delight the beholders." Alas! where are all these, or any
similar, "merry disports" in our degenerate days? We have no "lords of
misrule" now; or, if we have, they are of a much less innocent and
pacific character. Mr. Cambridge, also, (No 104, of the _World_) draws a
glowing picture of an ancient Christmas. "Our ancestors," says he,
"considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a
cheerful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by
vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed
eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy. With
what punctual zeal did they wish one another a merry Christmas! and what
an omission would it have been thought, to have concluded a letter