is the title of a lively Christmas ditty which is a kind of reply to the preceding ballad. It is preserved in the collection formed by Samuel Pepys, some time Secretary to the Admiralty, and author of the famous diary, and by him bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge. The full title and first verse of the old song are as follows:--
"Old Christmas returned, or Hospitality revived; being a Looking-glass for Rich Misers, wherein they may see (if they be not blind) how much they are to blame for their penurious house-keeping, and likewise an encouragement to those noble-minded gentry, who lay out a great part of their estates in hospitality, relieving such persons as have need thereof:
'Who feasts the poor, a true reward shall find, Or helps the old, the feeble, lame, and blind.'"
"All you that to feasting and mirth are inclined, Come, here is good news for to pleasure your mind; Old Christmas is come for to keep open house, He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse; Then come, boys, and welcome, for diet the chief, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd pies, and roast beef."
was revived in accordance with the commands of Queen Elizabeth, who listened sympathetically to the "Lamentations" of her lowlier subjects. Their complaint was that the royal and public pageants at Christmastide allured to the metropolis many country gentlemen, who, neglecting the comforts of their dependents in the country at this season, dissipated in town part of their means for assisting them, and incapacitated themselves from continuing that hospitality for which the country had been so long noted. In order to check this practice, the gentlemen of Norfolk and Suffolk were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to depart from London before Christmas, and "to repair to their counties, and there to keep hospitality amongst their neighbours." The presence of the higher classes was needed among the country people to give that assistance which was quaintly recommended by Tusser in his "Hundreth good Points of Husbandrie":
"At Christmas be mery, and thanke God of all: And feast thy pore neighbours, the great with the small. Yea al the yere long have an eie to the poore: And God shall sende luck to kepe open thy doore."