Since, my dear readers, even in this season of busy festivity I can
spare a few moments to write for your gratification, I venture to hope
you will spare a few to read for mine.
And so here we are, once again on tiptoe for a merry Christmas and a
happy new year. My good friends, especially my fair friends, permit me
to wish you both. Yes, Christmas is here--Christmas, when winter and
jollity, foul weather and fun, cold winds and hot pudding, good frosts
and good fires, are at their meridian! Christmas! With what dear
associations is it fraught! I remember the time when I thought that word
cabalistical; when, in the gay moments of youth, it seemed to me a
mysterious term for every thing that is delightful; and such is the
force of early associations, that even now I cannot divest myself of
them. Christmas has long ceased to be to me what it once was; yet do I
even now hail its return with pleasure, with enthusiasm. But, alas! how
differently is it viewed, not only by the same individual at different
periods of life, but by different individuals of the same age; by the
rich and poor, the wretched and the happy, the pampered and the
penniless!
To proceed to the object of this paper, which is simply to throw
together a few casual hints, connected with the period. I would beg my
reader's attention, in the first place, to an odd superstition,
countenanced by Shakspeare, and which, if he happens to lie awake some
night, (say with the tooth-ache--what better?--for that purpose I mean,)
he will have an opportunity of verifying. The passage which contains it
is in _Hamlet_ and exhibits at once his usual wildness of imagination,
and a highly praiseworthy religious veneration for the season. Where the
ghost vanishes upon the crowing of the cock, he takes occasion to
mention its crowing all hours of the night about Christmas time. The
last four lines comprise several other superstitions connected with the
period:--
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad:
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike;
No fairy takes; no witch hath power to charm;
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
It is to be lamented that the hearty diet, properly belonging to the
season, should have become almost peculiar to it; the _Tatler_
recommends it throughout the year. "I shall begin," says Steele, "with a
very earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers,
that they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile
themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy
race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not
go so high up as the history of Guy, earl of Warwick, who is well known
to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing. The renowned king Arthur
is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a whole
roasted ox, which was certainly the best way to preserve the gravy; and
it is farther added, that he and his knights sat about it at his round
table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they would enter
upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed lover of the
brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the institution
of the order of Beefeaters, which are all so many evident and undeniable
proofs of the great respect which our warlike predecessors have paid to
this excellent food. The tables of the ancient entry of this nation were
covered thrice a day with hot roast-beef; and I am credibly informed by
an antiquary, who has searched the registers in which the bills of fare
of the court are recorded, that instead of tea and bread and butter
which have prevailed of late years, the maids of honour in queen
Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for their breakfast!"
Now this is manly, and so is the diet it advises; I recommend both to my
readers. Let each determine to make one convert, himself that one. On
Christmas day, let each dine off, or at least have on his table, the
good old English fare, roast beef and plum-pudding! and does such beef
as our island produces need recommendation? What more nutritive and
delicious? and, for a genuine healthy Englishman, what more proper than
this good old national English dish? Let him whose stomach will not bear
it, look about and insure his life--I would not give much for it. It
ought, above all other places, to be duly honoured in our officers'
mess-rooms. As Prior says,
"If I take Dan Congreve right,
Pudding and beef make Britons fight."
So, then, if beef be indeed so excellent,
we shall not much wonder that Shakspeare
should say,
--"A pound of man's flesh
Is not so estimable or profitable.
As flesh of mutton, beeves, or goats!"
The French have christened us (and I think it no disreputable
_sobriquet_) Jack Roastbeef, from a notion we cannot live without
roast-beef, any more than without plum-pudding, porter, and punch;
however, the notion is palpably erroneous. We are proving more and more
every day--to our shame be it spoken!--that we can live without it. At
least do not let it be said we can pass a Christmas without it, merely
to make way for turkeys, fricassees, and ragouts! "Oh, reform it
altogether!"
* * * * *
England was always famous among foreigners for the celebration of
Christmas, at which time our ancestors introduced many sports and
pastimes unknown in other countries, or now even among ourselves. "At
the feast of Christmas," says Stowe, "in the king's court, wherever he
chanced to reside, there was appointed a lord of misrule, or master of
merry disports; the same merry fellow made his appearance at the house
of every nobleman and gentleman of distinction; and, among the rest, the
lord mayor of London and the sheriffs had their lords of misrule, ever
contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest
pastime to delight the beholders." Alas! where are all these, or any
similar, "merry disports" in our degenerate days? We have no "lords of
misrule" now; or, if we have, they are of a much less innocent and
pacific character. Mr. Cambridge, also, (No 104, of the _World_) draws a
glowing picture of an ancient Christmas. "Our ancestors," says he,
"considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a
cheerful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by
vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed
eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy. With
what punctual zeal did they wish one another a merry Christmas! and what
an omission would it have been thought, to have concluded a letter
without the compliments of the season! The great hall resounded with the
tumultuous joys of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played
served as an amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who,
by encouraging every art that conduced to mirth and entertainment,
endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and to mitigate the
influence of winter. How greatly ought we to regret the neglect of
mince-pies, which, besides the idea of merry-making inseparable from
them, were always considered as the test of schismatics! How zealously
were they swallowed by the orthodox, to the utter confusion of all
fanatical recusants! If any country gentleman should be so unfortunate
in this age as to lie under a suspicion of heresy, where will he find so
easy a method of acquitting himself as by the ordeal of plum-porridge?"
This alludes to the Puritans, who refused to observe Christmas, or any
other festival of the church, either by devotion or merriment. And I
regret to say there are certain modern "fanatical recusants," certain
modern Puritans, as schismatical in this particular as their gloomy
precursors. Mr. Cambridge then proceeds "to account for a revolution
which has rendered this season (so eminently distinguished in former
times) now so little different from the rest of the year," which he
thinks "no difficult task." The reasons he assigns are, the decline of
devotion, and the increase of luxury, the latter of which has extended
rejoicings and feastings, formerly peculiar to Christmas, through the
whole year; these have consequently lost their raciness, the appetite
for amusement has become palled by satiety, and the relish for it,
reserved formerly for this particular season, is now no longer peculiar
to it, having been already dissipated and exhausted. Another cause he
assigns is, "the too general desertion of the country, the great scene
of hospitality." Now this was written just fifty-three years ago, and as
all the causes assigned for the declension of this grand national
festivity up to that period are incontrovertible, and have been
operating even more powerfully ever since, they will sufficiently
account for the still greater declension observable in our days. And the
declension appears to me to consist in this,--there is more gastronomy
and expanse, but less heartiness and hospitality; and these latter are
the only legitimate characteristics of Englishmen. Be they then
restored, this very Christmas, to the English character; the opportunity
is fast approaching--be it employed.
I know nothing better to conclude with than a good old Christmas carol
from _Poor Robin's Almanack_ for 1695, preserved in Brand's _Popular
Antiquities_, to which work I refer those of my readers who may require
further information on the subject of Christmas customs and
festivities:--
Now, thrice welcome, Christmas!
Which brings us good cheer;
Mince-pies and plum-pudding--
Strong ale and strong beer;
With pig, goose, and capon,
The best that may be:
So well doth the weather
And our stomachs agree.
Observe how the chimneys
Do smoke all about;
The cooks are providing
For dinner no doubt.
But those on whose tables
No victuals appear,
O may they keep Lent
All the rest of the year!
With holly and ivy,
So green and so gay,
We deck up our houses
As fresh as the day;
With bays and rosemary,
And laurel complete,--
And every one now
Is a king in conceit,
But as for curmudgeons
Who will not be free,
I wish they may die
On a two-legged tree!