CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY.

Of Christmas in the North of Germany, we have a pleasing description by Mr. Coleridge. Writing from Ratzeburg, he says, “There is a Christmas custom here which pleased and interested me. The children make little presents to their parents, and to each other; and the parents to the children. For three or four months before Christmas, the girls are all busy, and the boys save up their pocket-money, to make or purchase these presents. What the present is to be, is cautiously kept secret, and the girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it-such as working when they are out on visits, and the others are not with them: getting up in the morning before day-light, etc. Then, on the evening before Christmas-day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not go: a great yew-bough is fastened on the table, at a little distance from the wall: a multitude of little tapers are fastened in the bough, but not so as to burn it till they are nearly burnt out, and coloured paper, etc. hangs and flutters from the twigs. Under this bough, the children lay out in great order the presents they mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets, what they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift: they then bring out the rest one by one from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces. Where I witnessed this scene, there were eight or nine children, and the mother and eldest daughter wept aloud for joy and tenderness, and the tears ran down the face of the father, who clasped all his children so tight to his breast, it seemed as if he did it to stifle the sob that was rising within him. The shadow of the bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the ceiling, made a pretty picture; and then the raptures of the very little ones, when at last the twigs and their needles begin to take fire and snap-Oh, it was a delight for them! On the next day, in their great parlour, the parents lay out on the table the presents for the children: a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, after an old custom, the mother says privately to each of her daughters, and the father to his sons, that which he has observed as most praiseworthy, and that which was most faulty in their conduct."

The Spirit of the Journals.

THE EPIGRAM CLUB.

The last association, upon which I shall rather dilate, is called the Epigram Club. Young Culpepper, a friend of mine, is a member. He and the elegant Captain Augustus Thackeray prepared to adjourn one evening to the Adelphi Theatre, to witness the performance of Tom and Jerry. They mounted a hackney coach, which soon drew up opposite Adam-street. Surprised at the quietness of the rabble, they dismounted and on going up to the door of the theatre found it closed. It was the first Wednesday in Lent! "Suppose we go to the Epigram Club," said Culpepper. The latter gladly acceded to the proposal. "Where do you meet," said the dragoon, as he and his companion hastily turned up Southampton-street. "At the Wrekin," answered the other; "you will find it a very agreeable lounge: I hope you have got an epigram ready.” “Oh no! not I," ejaculated the son of Mars. "I know a great many songs. I know Drink to me only,' and

which begins" Here the

Fly not yet,' and

Believe me if all these endearing young charms,' and the first verse of Had I a heart, But as to epigrams, I only know one, Hero was cut short in his narrative by two waiters, who, with a brace of napkins and five brace of bows, ushered the two gentlemen up stairs. The company had assembled and the dinner was upon the table. Captain Thackeray and young Culpepper had already dined upon cold beef and cucumbers in Savage-gardens. This, however, made no difference. Like James Boswell the elder, who regularly dined at the Sheriff of London's table twice in each day during the Old Bailey sessions, the two friends felt a returning appetite, and played as good a knife and fork as if nothing had happened.

On the removal of the cloth, the president gave three knocks with his hammer upon a table, whose dinted surface bore evident tokens of many former attacks of the same sort. Silence being procured, he commenced his harangue by reminding the society,

here, nobody was required to sing; that it was gothic bar

call upon a gentleman to struggle with a cold and hoarse

ness; that the organs of singing were frequently deranged, those of speaking very seldom; and, therefore, that the usages of this institution were highly rational, inasmuch as no man was there called upon for a song, but every man for an epigram. Then, addressing himself to the member on his right, with the most amusing gravity, he exclaimed, "Mr. Merryweather, may I trouble you for an epigram?" Mr. Merryweather thus accosted, begged to remind the company that on the Bow-street side of Covent-garden Theatre stood a statue of Comedy and another of Tragedy. "You are right, sir," said Culpepper," and they both look so sober that it would puzzle Garrick himself to say which was which." "You have hit it, sir," answered Merryweather; "upon that circumstance hinges my epigram. It is as follows:

With steady mien, unalter'd eye,

The muses mount the pile;
Melpomene disdains to cry,

And Thalia scorns to smile.

Pierian springs when moderns quaff,
'Tis plainly meant to show,
Their Comedy excites no laugh,
Their Tragedy no woe.

A pretty general knocking of glasses upon the table denoted that this sally told well; and the society, as in duty bound, drank Mr. Merryweather's health. "Mr. Daffodil, pray favour us with an epigram." This request was addressed to a slender young man, who sat ❝ like a lily drooping," and had all the air of having been recently jilted. Thus called upon, he started from the reverie in which he appeared to be plunged, and in a silver tone spoke as follows:

To Flavia's shrine two suitors run

And woo the fair at once:

A needy fortune-hunter one,

And one a wealthy dunce.

If she's a fool she'll wed the knave,

And if a knave the fool.

This effort was received with some applause, but it did not quite amount to a hit. The company seemed to opine that knave and fool were not fit names to call a lady. It mattered little what they thought, young Daffodil had relapsed into his reverie. The following was pronounced considerably better:

My thrifty spouse, her taste to please,
With rival dames at auctions vies;
She doats on every thing she sees,
And every thing she doats on buys.

I, with her taste, am quite enchanted:
Such costly wares, so wisely sought!
Bought because they may be wanted :

Wanted, because they may be bought.

"I should not be at all surprised," said Captain Thackeray to the utterer of the jeu d'esprit, "if Mrs. Backhouse gave you that idea. You must know her she lives in Castle-street, Holborn, and spends the whole morning in picking up things remarkably cheap. She bought the late Irish giant's boots; she has no occasion for them at present, but they may come into play. Last Wednesday she met with a capital bargain in Brokers' Row, Moorfields a brass door-plate, with Mr. Henderson engraved upon it; it only cost her ninepence halfpenny. Should any thing happen to Backhouse, and she be afterwards courted by any body of the name of Henderson, there is a door-plate ready."

Gentlemen," said the member whose turn was next in succession. "I have a weighty objection to all that has been hitherto uttered. An epigram should not be extended to eight lines; and I believe all that we have heard this evening have been of that length. Four lines ought to be the ne plus ultra: if only two, so much the better. Allow me to deliver one which was uttered by an old gentleman, whose daughter, Arabella, importuned him for money:

Dear Bell, to gain money, sure, silence is best,
For dumb Bells are fittest to open the chest.

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"Now, captain," said the president, addressing himself to young Culpepper's mustachioed associate. The dragoon started, and waxed rather red. "Oh, is it, I? I'm very sorry-I can't at this moment-Really, it's very ridiculous; Oh, now I remember, Had I a heart for falsehood framed-"" "Beg pardon, Sir," said the president, but that's Sheridan," "Oh, true, I had forgotten; well then, Drink to me only with thine eyes" "Beg pardon again, Sir, but that's Ben Jonson." "Must it be in English?" "No, Sir, we are not confined to any language." "Well, then, I will give you a Latin one. My friend Culpepper and I, on coming out of the Opera-House last Saturday, got into a dispute with a hackney coachman. Upon which I collared him and he collared me, and he tore the silk-facing of my cloak. Upon which says Culpepper who is to mend it? Upon which said I, nobody, can replace the silk-facing but the man who made the cape; be cause according to the Latin adage,

11

Qui capit ille facit.

Now, I think I have beaten the gentleman who epigrammatised last. He has made a great merit of confining himself to two lines, and, egad! I have confined myself to one." "Your quantum of merit, Sir," said the chairman very gravely," will depend upon the votes of the gentlemen present."

A dark mahogany balloting-box was now produced: each member had two votes: the several epigrams were proposed, and balloted for, in rotation; and upon drawing forth the balls, it was ascertained that each person had given one favourable ball to his own epigram, and one to Captain Thackeray's; thus intimating, that, next to his own production, the superior merit lay with the Latin adage. Our visitor has it," said the president; and at the same time, with great ceremony, threw over the captain's head a blue silk riband, to which was appended a silver medal. "It is very like a Waterloo medal," exclaimed the son of Mars, and sat as proud as a peacock until the meeting broke up.

New Monthly Magazine.