Who had half a score of the softer sex to lisp "Papa," not one of whom
his lady was conjuror enough "to get off," was one day accosted in
Piccadilly by an old Oxford _chum_, with, "I hope I see your Lordship
well." "Pretty well, for a man who is daily smothered in _petticoats_,
and has ten daughters and a wife to carve for," was the reply.
* * * * *
BRIEF NOTICE OF THE BOAR'S HEAD CAROL, AS SUNG IN QUEEN'S COLLEGE,
OXFORD, ON CHRISTMAS DAY.
"The earliest collection of Christmas carols supposed to have been
published," says Hone, in his Every-Day Book, "is only known from the
last leaf of a volume, printed by Wynkyn Worde, in the year 1521. This
precious scrap was picked up by Tom Hearne; Dr. Rawlinson purchased it
at his decease in a volume of tracts, and bequeathed it to the
Bodleian Library. There are two carols upon it: one, 'a caroll of
huntynge,' is reprinted in the last edition of Juliana Berner's 'Boke
of St. Alban's;' the other, 'a caroll bringing in the boar's head,' is
in Mr. Dibdin's edition of "Ames," with a copy of it as it is now sung
in Queen's College, Oxford, every Christmas Day. Dr. Bliss of Oxford
also printed on a sheet, for private distribution, a few copies of
this, and Anthony Wood's version of it, with notices concerning the
custom, from the handwriting of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the
Bodleian Library. Ritson, in his ill-tempered 'Observations on
Warton's History of English Poetry,' (1782, 4to., p. 37,) has a
Christmas carol upon bringing up the boar's head, from an ancient MS.
in his possession, wholly different from Dr. Bliss's. The
'Bibliographical Miscellanies' (Oxford, 1814, 4to.) contains seven
carols from a collection in one volume, in the possession of Dr.
Cotton, of Christ-Church College, Oxford, 'imprynted at London, in the
Poultry, by Richard Kele, dwelling at the longe shop vnder Saynt
Myldrede's Chyrche,'" probably between 1546 and 1552. "I had an
opportunity of perusing this exceedingly curious volume (Mr. Hone,)
which is supposed to be unique, and has since passed into the hands of
Mr. Freeling." "According to Aubrey's MS., in the Coll. Ashmol. Mus.,
Oxford," says a writer in the Morning Herald of the 25th of Dec.,
1833, "before the last Civil Wars, in gentlemen's houses, at
Christmas, the first dish that was brought to the table was _a boar's
head, with a lemon in his mouth_. At Qeeun's College, Oxford," adds
this writer, "they still retain this custom; the bearer of it brings
it into the hall, singing, to an old tune, an old Latin rhyme, "_Caput
apri defero_," &c. "The carol, according to Hearne, Ames, Warton, and
Ritson," says Dr. Dibdin, in his edition of the second, is as
follows:--