Christmas: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance

The End

2. In the “Inexhaustibility of the Subject of Christmas” by Leigh Hunt the following sentence:

“There are two p’s, observe, in plenipotential; and so there are in plum-pudding. We love an exquisite fitness,—a might and wealth of adaptation).

is transcribed:

(There are two p’s, observe, in plenipotential; and so there are in plum-pudding. We love an exquisite fitness,—a might and wealth of adaptation).

3. In “Christmas Holly:”

I sing the holly, and who can breathe

Aught of that that is not good?

Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,

That hangs over peasant and king; was changed as follows to correct an error and to preserve the symmetrical verse structure [4,8,8,8,4]:

I sing the holly, and who can breathe

Aught of that that is not good?

Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly,

That hangs over peasant and king;

4. In “Sery” by Richard Watson Gilder:

At a very queer sight

In the dim starlight.

As plain as can be

A fairy tree was changed to:

At a very queer sight

In the dim starlight.

As plain as can be

A fairy tree

5. In Christmas Dreams, the word “stravaigging” was corrected to “stravaiging.”

6. “Hang up the Baby’s Stocking” was not attributed in the Table of Contents or in the text in the original edition. For clarity this edition attributed both as follows: [Emily Huntington Miller]. Attribution makes the text more readable. Without it one could believe the poem to have been written by Andrew Lang; especially after Haven inserts an extra poem by Southwell, “A Carol” following “The Wassailer’s Song,” which is unlisted in the contents.

7. Finally, the 1907 edition includes a story called “Golden Cobwebs” at the close of section IV that was not included in the 1968 edition used for this transcription.