There is truth in the saying that onlookers see more of the game than the players, and in the same way it may be said that in this series of sketches of rural England, with descriptions of rustic customs, and above all of the hearty keeping of Christmas in an old country house, the eyes of a sympathetic American, born in colonial days, have seen things worth recording that might have been overlooked by an Englishman as too familiar to mention. Washington Irving was born in New York city on April 3, 1783.