audience, we give them in this rough translation:

   For ever hallow'd be
      The night when Christ was born,
   For then the saints did see
      The holy star of morn.
   St. Anastasius and St. Joseph old
   They did that blessed sight behold.

              CHORUS.
   The night of the Nativity
       It is a holy night,
      When Father, Son, and Holy Ghost unite
   That man may saved be.

The music ceases; and, for a moment a dead
silence reigns throughout the little group;
then Complimenti are produced for the
principle personages: a glass of wine, a little
fruit, and sometimes more substantial fare;
and so the performances of the day conclude.

For eight days and nights (the Novena) are
these ceremonies continued; the ninth is
Christmas Day; and though the Zampognaro
continues his rounds, the material and
earthly seem to have taken place of the
heavenly. And now Christmas assumes
another phase. The whole day the people have
been fasting to be better prepared for a feast
– though the Church calls it a fast – at night.
For twenty-four hours they will not touch
either meat or animal fat; yet they sell the
very beds on which they sleep to have their
favourite and canonical dish of capitone – a
kind of conger-eel, in great vogue at Christmas.
At two o'clock the log is ignited; for the
tradition is, that at about that hour the
Madonna had need of a comforting blaze. As the
day advances, whether in town or country, or
at Rome or Naples, or any of the neighbouring
villages, silence creeps grandly over every
place. The solitary pedestrian hurries along
in his best coat, as if all too late for his
engagement. The merry voice of children is
no longer heard in the Piazza. Every sound
which speaks of labour is stilled. Where is
all this busy, noisy population which were
so recently shouting and singing? Look up
to every smoking roof, and there you have
your answer; for in a quiet Italian village,
where, from choice or necessity, the food of
the people is oftener cold than warm, the
smoking chimney is one of the most remarkable
phenomena on the approach of a fête.
It strikes one, too, much more in the clear
crystal atmosphere of these latitudes, where
every mote is visible. Looking back on the
little village which slept in one of the
prettiest and snuggest nooks in the world, I
had no difficulty in telling where all the
population had sunk, and why I remained
the last man.

The preparations are rude, it is true, for an
Englishman; but there is good feeling, and
good temper, and plenty of merriment in the
rustic group; and this blinds one to a
thousand defects. First, there is the eternal dish
of maccaroni, dressed with oil instead of fat.

Then comes the capitone, and the salt fish,
and fish broiled, and fried, and boiled, and in
salad and polpetti, until every sort of fish in
the ocean is exhausted. Some of these dishes
are dressed with immense ingenuity, and
tolerable success in imitation of meat. For
these pious frauds the nuns are responsible:
much of their holy retirement being spent
in devising modes of diminishing the rigours
of fasting, and in preparing sweets and
confectionary, with which the table of my host
is groaning. The feast concluded, the friends
dispose themselves for the amusements of the
evening. I never observed that dancing
forms one of them; indeed, it does not seem
to harmonise with the religious sentiment
which prevails on such an occasion. People
seem more disposed to group together, and to
be cozy, confidential, and loving; and the
only game that I had witnessed amongst
these poor villagers is one which seats them
round a table close enough to touch one
another, and look kindly into each other's
eyes. Every one has a heap of nuts before
him, and contributes a number to the common
pool, and then the lot decides who is to
begin. The great art is to take away as
many nuts as possible without moving the
rest. An error incurs a forfeit, and the
chance passes on to the next. Immense
anxiety is felt by the youngsters of the party,
and peals of laughter greet every failure.
Others, of a more roving and lively character,
adjourn to the streets and chaunt the
whole night away. Many are popping off
fireworks. The more devout spend the night
by the presepe in the church; but, at two or
three o'clock in the morning all adjourn to
the parish church, which is brilliantly illuminated
on the occasion. The offices of the
church are chanted; and a grand procession,
headed by the priests and all that is
distinguished in the little village, makes the
round of the building, and the new-born babe
is deposited in the manger.

The great event is now accomplished which
gives its name to the season, and Christmas
is fairly ushered in, or, as some would here
say, is finished.

BLOBBS OF WADHAM.

MY name is Withers – Richard Withers,
of Jermyn Street, London, ostensibly an
importer of foreign wines. I don't mention it
by way of advertisement, but that I may not
be introduced to the public under false
pretences. I am not Blobbs of Wadham; that is
what I wish to be understood clearly. In
the year eighteen hundred and ten, or
thereabouts, the great firm of Nature and
Company falling short, I suppose, in their original
material, issued a couple of duplicates –
facsimiles – and I had the misfortune to be one
of them. We were not twins: there was no
mystic sympathy of being between us to