Mr. Brand collects a variety of particulars respecting this wedding
custom.
A curious little book, entitled “The West-country Clothier undone by a
Peacock,” says, “The sack-posset must be eaten and the stocking flung,
to see who can first hit the bridegroom _on the nose_.” Misson, a
traveller in England at the beginning of the last century, relates,
concerning this usage, that the young men took the bride’s stocking, and
the girls those of the bridegroom; each of whom, sitting at the foot of
the bed, threw the stocking over their heads, endeavouring to make it
fall upon that of the bride, or her spouse: if the bridegroom’s
stockings, thrown by the girls, fell upon the bridegroom’s head, it was
a sign that they themselves would soon be married: and a similar
prognostic was taken from the falling of the bride’s stocking, thrown by
the young men. The usage is related to the same effect in a work
entitled “Hymen,” &c. (8vo. 1760.) “The men take the bride’s stockings,
and the women those of the bridegroom: they then seat themselves at the
bed’s feet, and throw the stockings over their heads, and whenever any
one hits the owner of them, it is looked upon as an omen that the person
will be married in a short time: and though this ceremony is looked upon
as mere play and foolery, new marriages are often occasioned by such
accidents. Meantime the posset is got ready and given to the married
couple. When they awake in the morning, a sack-posset is also given
them.” A century before this, in a “A Sing-Song on Clarinda’s Wedding,”
in R. Fletcher’s “Translations and Poems, 1656,” is the following
stanza:--
“This clutter ore, Clarinda lay
Half-bedded, like the peeping day
Behind Olimpus’ cap;
Whiles at her head each twitt’ring girle
The fatal stocking quick did whirle
To know the lucky hap.”
And the “Progress of Matrimony,” in “The Palace Miscellany,” 1733, says,
“Then come all the younger folk in,
With ceremony throw the stocking;
Backward, o’er head, in turn they toss’d it,
Till in sack-posset they had lost it.
Th’ intent of flinging thus the hose,
Is to hit him or her _o’ th’ nose_:
Who hits the mark, thus, o’er left shoulder
Must married be, ere twelve months older.”
This adventuring against the most prominent feature of the face is
further mentioned in “The Country Wedding,” a poem, in the Gentleman’s
Magazine, for March 1735, vol. v. p. 158.
“Bid the lasses and lads to the merry brown bowl,
While rashers of bacon shall smoke on the coal:
Then Roger and Bridget, and Robin and Nan,
_Hit ’em each on the nose, with the hose if you can_.”
Dunton’s “British Apollo,” 1708, contains a question and answer
concerning this old usage.
“_Q._ Apollo, say, whence ’tis I pray,
The ancient custom came,
Stockings to throw (I’m sure you know)
At bridegroom and his dame?
“_A._ When Britons bold, bedded of old,
Sandals were backward thrown;
The pair to tell, that, ill or well,
The act was all their own.”
If a more satisfactory explanation of the custom could be found, it
should be at the reader’s service. The practice prevails on the
continent as well as in this country, but its origin is involved in
obscurity.
[79] Note to the Bridal of Caölchairn, by J. H. Allan, Esq.
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. VII.
[From “Fortune by Land and Sea,” a Comedy, by T. Heywood, and W.
Rowley, 1655.]
_Old Forest forbids his Son to sup with some riotous gallants; who goes
notwithstanding, and is slain._
_Scene, a Tavern._
_Rainsworth, Foster, Goodwin. To them enters Frank Forest._
_Rain._ Now, Frank, how stole you from your father’s arms?
You have been school’d, no doubt. Fie, fie upon’t.
Ere I would live in such base servitude
To an old greybeard; ’sfoot, I’d hang myself.
A man cannot be merry, and drink drunk,
But he must be control’d by gravity.
_Frank._ O pardon him; you know, he is my father,
And what he doth is but paternal love.
Though I be wild, I’m not yet so past reason
His person to despise, though I his counsel
Cannot severely follow.
_Rain._ ’Sfoot, he is a fool.
_Frank._ A fool! you are a a--
_Fost._ Nay, gentlemen--
_Frank._ Yet I restrain my tongue.
Hoping you speak out of some spleenful rashness,
And no deliberate malice; and it may be
You are sorry that a word so unreverent,
To wrong so good an aged gentleman,
Should pass you unawares.
_Rain._ Sorry, Sir Boy! you will not take exceptions?
_Frank._ Not against you with willingness, whom I
Have loved so long. Yet you might think me a
Most dutiless and ungracious son to give
Smooth countenance unto my father’s wrong.
Come, I dare swear
’Twas not your malice, and I take it so.
Let’s frame some other talk. Hear, gentlemen--
_Rain._ But hear me, Boy! it seems, Sir, you are angry--
_Frank._ Not thoroughly yet--
_Rain._ Then what would anger thee?
_Frank._ Nothing from you.
_Rain._ Of all things under heaven
What would’st thou loathest have me do?
_Frank._ I would
Not have you wrong my reverent father; and
I hope you will not.
_Rain._ Thy father’s an old dotard.
_Frank._ I would not brook this at a monarch’s hand,
Much less at thine.
_Rain._ Aye, Boy? then take you that.
_Frank._ Oh I am slain.
_Good._ Sweet Cuz, what have you done? Shift for yourself.
_Rain._ Away.--
_Exeunt._
_Enter Two Drawers._
_1st Dr._ Stay the gentlemen, they have killed a man. O sweet Mr.
Francis. One run to his father’s.
_2d Dr._ Hark, hark, I hear his father’s voice below ’tis ten to one he
is come to fetch him home to supper and now he may carry him home to his
grave.
_Enter the Host, old Forest, and Susan his daughter._
_Host._ You must take comfort, Sir.
_For._ Is he dead, is he dead, girl?
_Sus._ Oh dead, Sir, Frank is dead.
_For._ Alas, alas, my boy! I have not the heart
To look upon his wide and gaping wounds.
Pray tell me, Sir, does this appear to you
Fearful and pitiful--to you that are
A stranger to my dead boy?
_Host._ How can it otherwise?
_For._ O me most wretched of all wretched men!
If to a stranger his warm bleeding wounds
Appear so grisly and so lamentable,
How will they seem to me that am his father?
Will they not hale my eye-brows from their rounds,
And with an everlasting blindness strike them?
_Sus._ Oh, Sir, look here.
_For._ Dost long to have me blind?
Then I’ll behold them, since I know thy mind.
Oh me!
Is this my son that doth so senseless lie,
And swims in blood? my soul shall fly with his
Unto the land of rest. Behold I crave,
Being kill’d with grief, we both may have one grave.
_Sus._ Alas, my father’s dead too! gentle Sir,
Help to retire his spirits, over travail’d
With age and sorrow.
_Host._ Mr. Forest--
_Sus._ Father--
_For._ What says my girl? good morrow. What’s a clock,
That you are up so early? call up Frank;
Tell him he lies too long a bed this morning.
He was wont to call the sun up, and to raise
The early lark, and mount her ’mongst the clouds.
Will he not up? rise, rise, thou sluggish boy.
_Sus._ Alas, he cannot, father.
_For._ Cannot, why?
_Sus._ Do you not see his bloodless colour pale?
_For._ Perhaps he’s sickly, that he looks so pale.
_Sus._ Do you not feel his pulse no motion keep,
How still he lies?
_For._ Then is he fast asleep.
_Sus._ Do you not see his fatal eyelid close?
_For._ Speak softly; hinder not his soft repose.
_Sus._ Oh see you not these purple conduits run?
Know you these wounds?
_For._ Oh me! my murder’d son!
_Enter young Mr. Forest._
_Y. For._ Sister!
_Sus._ O brother, brother!
_Y. For._ Father, how cheer you, Sir? why, you were wont
To store for others comfort, that by sorrow
Were any ways distress’d. Have you all wasted,
And spared none to yourself?
_O. For._ O Son, Son, Son,
See, alas, see where thy brother lies.
He dined with me to day, was merry, merry,
Aye, that corpse was; he that lies here, see here,
Thy murder’d brother and my son was. Oh see,
Dost thou not weep for him?
_Y. For._ I shall find time;
When you have took some comfort, I’ll begin
To mourn his death, and scourge the murderer’s sin.
_O. For._ Oh, when saw father such a tragic sight,
And did outlive it? never, son, ah never,
From mortal breast ran such a precious river.
_Y. For._ Come, father, and dear sister, join with me;
Let us all learn our sorrows to forget.
He owed a death, and he hath paid that debt.
If I were to be consulted as to a Reprint of our Old English Dramatists,
I should advise to begin with the collected Plays of Heywood. He was a
fellow Actor, and fellow Dramatist, with Shakspeare. He possessed not
the imagination of the latter; but in all those qualities which gained
for Shakspeare the attribute of _gentle_, he was not inferior to him.
Generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; sweetness, in
a word, and gentleness; Christianism; and true hearty Anglicism of
feelings, shaping that Christianism; shine throughout his beautiful
writings in a manner more conspicuous than in those of Shakspeare, but
only more conspicuous inasmuch as in Heywood these qualities are
primary, in the other subordinate to poetry. I love them both equally,
but Shakspeare has most of my wonder. Heywood should be known to his
countrymen, as he deserves. His plots are almost invariably English. I
am sometimes jealous, that Shakspeare laid so few of his scenes at home.
I laud Ben Jonson, for that in one instance having framed the first
draught of his Every Man in his Humour in Italy, he changed the scene,
and Anglicised his characters. The names of them in the First Edition,
may not be unamusing.
_Men._
Lorenzo, Sen.
Lorenzo, Jun.
Prospero.
Thorello.
Stephano (Master Stephen.)
Dr. Clement (Justice Clement.)
Bobadilla (Bobadil.)
Musco.
Cob (the same in English.)
Peto.
Pizo.
Matheo (Master Mathew.)
_Women._
Guilliana.
Biancha.
Hesperida.
Tib (the same in English.)
How say you, Reader? do not Master Kitely, Mistress Kitely, Master
Knowell, Brainworm, &c. read better than these Cisalpines?