Page:Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern.djvu/136

 (and perhaps elsewhere) in a small cheap form, containing several carols; such as, “The Christian’s Sacred Lyre, or a choice Assortment of Original and Select Carols for Christmas,” by Bloomer, of Birmingham.

In 1822 Mr. D. Gilbert [Davies Gilbert] published twelve favourite western carols, which were followed by a second edition in 1823, containing twenty, with a few old ballads, &c. There have been various collections of Welsh carols; among the Myvyrian MSS. belonging to the Cymmrodorion, are several; No. XIV. written about the year 1640, contains thirty- two, and No. XV. of about the same date, has two. Hone, (On Mysteries, &c. p. 103,) mentions two printed collections. “Lffyr Carolan, or the Book of Carols,” (Shrewsbury, 4th edit. 1740, l2mo.) containing sixty-six for Christmas, and five Summer carols; “Blodeugerdd Cymrii, or the Anthology of Wales,” (Shrewsbury, 1779, 8vo.) containing forty-eight Christmas carols, nine Summer carols, three May carols, one Winter carol, one nightingale carol, and a carol to Cupid.’ I wish I was enabled to lay before my female readers a translation of this “Carol to Cupid.”

The practice of singing carols at Christmas on the Continent has been preserved to recent times. Calabrian peasants pour forth their minstrelsy before the images of the Virgin Mother, and thus pay their homage. Crysostom, the unfortunate youth in “Don Quixote,” who was probably intended to have been the Coryphæus of his village, according to the goatherd’s narrative, “was such a great roan at composing couplets, that he made carols for Christmas-eve, and plays for the Lord’s-day, which were represented by the young men in our village; and every body said that they were tip-top.’