Sack and hippocras are no longer to be found in our cellars; but, as we have shown, we still compound the wassail-bowl. [Illustration: CHRISTMAS DINNER.--_Page 300._] The Christmas dinner of modern days is, as most of our readers know, a gathering together of generations, an assembling of Israel by its tribes. In the one before us, the artist has given a pretty extensive muster. We have them of the seven ages and the several professions. Contrast with this modern Christmas dinner, as well as with the high festival of yore, the dreary picture of a Christmas Day and dinner, under the stern prescription of the Puritans, as given in his Diary, by Pepys, the chatty secretary to the Admiralty. "1668, Christmas-day. To dinner," thus he writes, "alone with my wife; who, poor wretch! sat undressed all day till ten at night, altering and lacing of a noble petticoat; while I, by her, making the boy read to me the life of Julius Cæsar and Des Cartes' book of Music." To the heads of the very respectable family before us, we have already been introduced, in an earlier part of this volume, and are glad to meet with them again, under circumstances so auspicious, and supported by their junior branches. In a family so flourishing, we might have expected to escape the exhibition of antiquated celibacy. But, no! that is clearly an old maid, who is hobnobbing with the gentleman in the foreground, and, we must say, there is something about _him_ which carries a strong suspicion of old-bachelorship. We suppose the one and the other are to be found in most families. However, they are not the parties who least enjoy this sort of _reunions_. We fancy, it is known to most people that meetings of this description are very happy ones amongst the members of a family, and remarkably uninteresting to third parties. We should certainly prefer reading Des Cartes, with Pepys and his wife, to finding ourselves a "foreigner" in such a group as the present. But the best of the day is yet to come! and we should have no objection to join the younger members of that group in the merry sports that await the evening. We need not give the programme. It is like that of all the other Christmas nights. The blazing fire, the song, the dance, the riddle, the jest, and many another merry sport, are of its spirits. Mischief will be committed under the mistletoe-bough, and all the good wishes of the season sent round under the sanction of the wassail-bowl. ST. STEPHEN'S DAY. 26TH DECEMBER. THIS day, which, in our calendar, is still dedicated to the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen (for John the Baptist perished in the same cause before the consummation of the old law and the full introduction of the Christian dispensation), is more popularly known by the title of Boxing-day; and its importance amongst the Christmas festivities is derived from the practice whence that title comes. [Illustration: BOXING DAY.--_Page 302._]