Marcellus. It faded, on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charn,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time."
Now, observe how the writer's mind is led on from thought to thought through these noble passages. The fine fancy of the ghost's starting away at the crowing of the oock, leads to the general idea that all spirits, being night-wanderers, are subject to the same law, and fear the approach of day: or perhaps this superstition, heard probably in the writer's childhood, and which had been slumbering in his memory ever since, is thus suddenly waked up and called forth. Then, as he proceeds to express it, another idea presents itself, a classic one, that of the "god of day;" then moving on in his verse, his fancy, ranging the universe, thinks of the sea, (albeit rather a wild and unusual place for ghosts to wander through), then "fire" presents itself as an antithesis to "sea," then "earth" and "air," thus, in one line, compassing the bounds of space—so comprehensive is the writer's mind. But after these earthly fancies are uttered, some good angel suggests a heavenly one, that of Christmas, the birth-day of our Saviour, the "gracious and hallowed time," when "peace on earth" was proclaimed by angel voices to the shepherds watching their flocks by night: the thought, that at the yearly coming of this blest night in the circling course of time, the reign of the Prince of Peace at least temporarily prevails (in spite of men's wickedness), and the Powers of Darkness, whom He conquered, are re-
