Thus, on the day which followed Twelfth-night, the implements of labor were prepared and the team was even yoked for a space; but the business of turning the soil was not required to be laboriously engaged in until the Monday which followed, and which therefore bore (and bears) the title of Plough Monday. After a few hours of morning labor, a sort of half-holiday was the concluding privilege of this privileged season; and the husbandman laid aside his plough, and the maiden her distaff, to engage in certain revels which were peculiar to the day and to the country districts. From the partial resumption of the spinning labors of the women on this morning, the festival in question takes its name; and it is (or was) sometimes called also "Rockday," in honor of the rock, which is another name for the distaff. It is described as being "a distaff held in the hand, from whence wool is spun by twirling a ball below." Of the sports by which this day was enlivened we doubt if there are any remains. These seem to have consisted in the burning, by the men who had returned from the field, of the flax and tow belonging to the women, as a sort of assertion of the supremacy of the spirit of fun over his laborious rival for this one day more, and a challenge into his court; and this challenge was answered by the maidens, and the mischief retorted, by sluicing the clowns with pails of water. It was, in fact, a merry contest between these two elements of water and of fire; and may be looked upon as typical of that more matter-of-fact extinction which was about to be finally given to the lights of the season when the sports of this day should be concluded. Of these merry proceedings our artist has given a very lively representation; and Herrick's poem on the subject, which we must quote from the "Hesperides," includes all that is known of the ancient observances of St. Distaff's day. "Partly work and partly play, You must on S. Distaff's day; From the plough soone free your teame, Then come home and fother them, If the maides a spinning goe, Burne the flax, and fire the tow; . . . . . . . Bring in pailes of water then, Let the maides bewash the men:-- Give S. Distaffe all the right, Then bid Christmas sport good-night: And next morrow, every one To his own vocation." - - - - - - - [Illustration: RETURNING TO SCHOOL.--_Page 355._] OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED; and our Christmas prince must abdicate. In flinging down his wand of misrule, we trust there is no reason why he should, like Prospero, when his charms were over and he broke his staff, drown this, his book, "deeper than did ever plummet sound." The spells which it contains are, we believe, all innocent; and, we trust, it may survive to furnish the directions for many a future scheme of Christmas happiness.