_For the Table Book._
Mr. Editor,--In reading your account of the “Boar’s Head Carol,” in your
_Every-Day Book_, vol. i. p. 1619, I find the _old_ carol, but not the
words of the carol as sung _at present_ in Queen’s College, Oxford, on
Christmas-day. As I think it possible you may never have seen them, I
now send you a copy as they were sung, or, more properly, chanted, in
the hall of Queen’s, on Christmas-day, 1810, at which time I was a
member of the college, and assisted at the chant.
A boar’s head in hand bear I,
Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary;
And I pray you, my masters, be merry,
Quot estis in convivio.--
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino.
The boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all this land;
And when bedeck’d with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico.--
Caput apri, &c.
Our steward hath provided this,
In honour of the King of bliss:
Which on this day to be served is
In reginensi atrio.--
Caput apri, &c.