The preceding poem was evidently written by Wither before the Civil War troubles of the reign of Charles the First had interfered to damp the national hilarity, or check the rejoicings at the festive season of Christmas. THE DEFEAT OF THE ROYALISTS, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the changes resulting therefrom at Christmastide are alluded to in "The Complaint of Christmas, written after Twelftide, and printed before Candlemas, 1646," by old John Taylor, the Water Poet, who says: "All the liberty and harmless sports, the merry gambols, dances and friscols, with which the toiling ploughman and labourer once a year were wont to be recreated, and their spirits and hopes revived for a whole twelvemonth, are now extinct and put out of use, in such a fashion as if they never had been. Thus are the merry lords of bad rule at Westminster; nay, more, their madness hath extended itself to the very vegetables; senseless trees, herbs, and weeds, are in a profane estimation amongst them--holly, ivy, mistletoe, rosemary, bays, are accounted ungodly branches of superstition for your entertainment. And to roast a sirloin of beef, to touch a collar of brawn, to take a pie, to put a plum in the pottage pot, to burn a great candle, or to lay one block the more in the fire for your sake, Master Christmas, is enough to make a man to be suspected and taken for a Christian, for which he shall be apprehended for committing high Parliament Treason and mighty malignancy against the general Council of the Directorian private Presbyterian Conventicle." With the success of the Parliamentarians, certain changes came in the ruling manners of the age; but THE ATTEMPT TO ABOLISH CHRISTMAS DAY was, of course, a signal failure. The event commemorated made it impossible for the commemoration to cease. Men may differ as to the mode of celebration, but the Christ must and will be celebrated.