The twelfth day after Christmas was celebrated in the old days in

honour of the three Kings, as the Wise Men were called who came out of

the East to worship the Messiah. One of the chief ceremonies connected

with the day was the election of the King and Queen of the Bean. A

large cake—the Twelfth Cake—had been previously made, in which a bean

and a pea were inserted, the cake was cut up and distributed by lot

among the company, and whoever got the piece which contained the bean

was crowned King of the Bean, while the pea conferred the distinction

of Queen upon its happy recipient.

Now, now the mirth comes,

With the cake full of plums,

Where beane’s the king of the sport here;

Besides we must know,

The pea also

Must revell as queene in the court here.

* * * * *

Give then to the king

And queen wassailing;

And though with ale ye be whet here,

Yet part ye from hence,

As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here.[54]

[54] Herrick’s _Twelfth Night_.

Dr. Plot, in his _Natural History of Staffordshire_ (1685), describes

a curious custom called the Hobby-horse dance, which he says had been

practised at Pagets Bromley within memory of persons living when he

wrote. On Twelfth Day a man on a hobby-horse used to dance down the

village street, holding in his hand a bow and arrow, and accompanied by

six men, carrying deers’ heads on their shoulders. “To this Hobby-horse

dance,” says our author, “there also belong’d a _pot_, which was kept

by turnes by 4 or 5 of the _chief_ of the _Tow_, whom they call’d

_Reeves_, who provided _Cakes_ and _Ale_ to put in this _pot_; all

people who had any kindness for the good intent of the Institution of

the _sport_, giving pence a piece for themselves and families; and so

_forraigners_ too, that came to see it: with which mony (the charge

of the _Cakes_ and _Ale_ being defrayed) they not only repaired their

_Church_ but {240} kept their _poore_ too: which _charges_ are not now

perhaps so cheerfully boarn.”

It would be going too far from the special subject of this work

to detail the more elaborate festivities of the Court and the

Universities, or the masques and revels of those ancient abodes of

legal learning, the Inns of Court, where Twelfth Night formed the

annual excuse for much feasting and pageantry. On these occasions,

no doubt, costly wines and liqueurs formed the staple of the liquids

consumed,

Both Ippocras and Vernage wine

Mount Rose and wine of Greek,

and not the honest juice of barley. Suffice it to note in passing

that on the 2nd of February, 1601, John Manningham, a student of the

Middle Temple, records in his Diary: “At our feast we had a play called

_Twelfth Night or What You Will_.” This is the earliest recorded

mention of that grand Twelfth-night revel, and was, perhaps, its first

performance.

The appearance of Twelfth Cake is the signal for the disappearance of

mince pies, in accordance with the farewell words an old carolist puts

into the mouth of Christmas:—

Mark well my heavy doleful tale,

For Twelfth-day now is come,

And now I must no longer stay

And say no word but mum.

For I, perforce, must take my leave

Of all my dainty cheer—

Plum porridge, roast beef, and minced-pies,

My strong ale and my beer.

A minor festival, Plough Monday, used to be celebrated on the first

Monday after Twelfth Night. A plough, dressed up with ribbons by the

villagers, was taken round from house to house. Its escort consisted of

a number of rustics dressed up in various mummers’ guises, and chanting

verses, the text of which was “God speed the Plough.” The principal

performers were Bessy and the Clown, Bessy being, in fact, a man

dressed up in fantastic female weeds. Bread, cheese, and ale were asked

for at the farmhouses and seldom refused, and a variety of curious

dances and uncouth antics completed the entertainment of the day. {241}

The season of Lent, of course, was marked by no special festivities,

but when Easter Sunday was passed, the reaction from the enforced

restraint of the previous period made the enjoyment of the Easter-week

festivities all the keener. Easter Monday and Tuesday were in some

places noted for the curious custom known as “heaving;” on the Monday

the men “heaved” the women (_i.e._, lifted them off the ground and

kissed them), and on the Tuesday the women’s turn came, and they heaved

the men. “Many a time have I passed along the streets inhabited by the

lower orders of people,” says one who has witnessed the ceremony, “and

seen parties of Jolly matrons assembled round tables on which stood a

foaming tankard of Ale. Woe to the luckless man that dared to invade

their prerogatives! as sure as seen he was pursued, as sure taken,

heaved and kissed, and compelled to pay a fine of sixpence for ‘leave

and license’ to depart.”

The antiquity of the custom is proved by an entry in one of the Tower

Rolls of payments made to certain maids-of-honour for having taken

Edward I. in his bed and “lifted him.”

The second Monday and Tuesday after Easter were known in olden days as

Hock-tide. The Tuesday was the principal day, and was designated Hock

Day. Many derivations have been suggested for the name; the best seems

to be that which connects it with the German _hoch_ (high). Hock Day

would thus denote a day of high festivity. Be that as it may, the name

is of great antiquity. In the Annals of Dunstaple we read that in 1242

“Henry III., King of England, crossed over on _Ochedai_ with a great

army against the King of France.” On Hock Day the women of the village

would go into the streets with cords in their hands, and every one of

the opposite sex whom they could catch, was bound until he purchased

his release by a contribution for the purposes of the common feast. On

this day the feasting seems to have frequently passed into excess, and

sometimes with direful results; the Annalist of Dunstaple tells that on

Hokke-day in the year 1252 the village of Esseburne was “burned down

miserably.” In 1450 a Bishop of Worcester prohibited the celebrations

of Hock-tide, on the ground that they led to dissipation and other

evils. There seems to be no connection between this festival and the

Hock-cart spoken of by Herrick, and to be mentioned anon, save that the

name of each takes its derivation, if our surmise be the correct one,

from the word _hoch_. The Hock Day meaning High Day; and the Hock Cart,

the harvest-home wain piled _high_ with the trophies of autumn.

We next come to the May Day festivities, which in many respects {242}

may be regarded as the most joyous and picturesque of all the year.

Without staying to inquire whether the origin of the festival is to be

traced to the old Roman Floralia, or games in honour of the goddess

who ushered in the spring and strewed the earth with flowers, let us

pause for a while to contemplate the old ceremony of “bringing home the

May,” as it was performed some few centuries ago. On May Day morning

the inhabitants of every village would go out at an early hour into

the fields to gather garlands of hawthorn blossom and other flowers,

with which they decorated the May-pole and every door and window of the

village. These floral trophies were brought home to the tune of pipe

and drum; the fairest maid in all the hamlet was crowned with flowers

as Queen of the May, and, embowered in hawthorn branches, presided over

the mirth and feasting of the day. Stubbe, in his _Anatomy of Abuses_

(1585), describes the ceremony of raising the May-pole, in language

which gives some notion of the pretty scene, and which is all the more

likely not to be overdrawn, from the evident abhorrence of the writer

to what he regarded as the impiety of the whole affair. “They have

twenty or fourtie yoke of oxen,” he writes, “every one having a sweet

nosegay of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw

home this Maie pole (this stinckyng Idoll rather) which is couered all

ouer with flowers and hearbes bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from

the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours,

with two or three hundred women and children following it with great

devotion. And thus being reared up with handkerchiefs and flagges

streaming on the toppe they strowe the grounde aboute, binde green

boughes aboute it, sett up sommer houses, Bowers and Arbours hard by

it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute

it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles,

whereof this is a perfect pattern or rather the thing itself.”

The May-pole once raised, of course the next thing to be done was to

pour a libation in honour of the day, and in most cases this would,

equally of course, be performed with the ale of Old England.

The May-pole is up,

Now give me the cup,

I’ll drink to the garlands around it,

But first unto those,

Whose hands did compose,

The glory of flowers that crown’d it.

{243}

In olden days even the King and Queen condescended to mingle with

their lieges, and to assist in commemorating the time-honoured custom.

Chaucer, in his _Court of Love_, describes how on May Day, “Forth goeth

all the Court both most and least, to fetch the flowers fresh.”

Spenser, in his _Shepherd’s Calendar_, thus describes the May Day

festival of Elizabethan times:—

Siker this morrow, no longer ago,

I saw a shole of shepherds out go

With singing and shouting and jolly cheer;

Before them rode a lusty Tabrere,

That to the many a hornpipe played,

Whereto they dancen each one with his maid.

To see these folks make such jouissance,

Made my heart after the pipe to dance.

Then to the green-wood they speeden them all,

To fetchen home May with their musical;

And home they bring him in a royal throne

Crowned as king; and his queen attone

Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend

A fair flock of fairies, and a fresh bend

Of lovely nymphs—O that I were there

To helpen the ladies their May-bush to bear!

Probably the most famous May-pole that ever existed was the one which

gave its name to the parish of St. Andrew-Undershaft. It was of such a

height that it towered above all the houses and even above the church

spire. Chaucer alludes to this mighty pole in the lines:—

Right well aloft and high ye beare your head,

As ye would beare the greate shaft of Cornhill.

When this May-pole was not required for festive purposes, it lay

suspended on great iron hooks above the doors of the neighbouring

houses. In the reign of Edward VI., after a sermon preached at the

cross of St. Paul’s against the iniquity of May games, the inhabitants

of these houses in a fit of pious enthusiasm, desiring, doubtless, to

replenish their wood-cellars and to destroy an “idoll” at the same

time, cut the pole in pieces, each man retaining that portion of it

which had been before his house. The May-pole in the Strand was another

celebrated {244} shaft. It was erected at the Restoration, when there

was a revival of the popular sports which the sour-faced Puritans had

so unsparingly condemned. It was 134 ft. high, and was raised with

great ceremony and public rejoicings.

At Helston, in Cornwall, on the 8th of May, called “Furry Day,” may

still be witnessed a survival of the old May Day festivities. Very

early in the morning the young men and maidens of the place go off into

the country to breakfast. About seven o’clock they return bearing green

branches, and decked with flowers, they dance through the streets to

the tune of the “Furry Dance.” At eight o’clock the “Hal-an-Tow” (Heel

and Toe?) song is sung, and dancing and merriment fill the remainder of

the day.

THE HAL-AN-TOW.

Robin Hood and little John,

They both are gone to fair O !

And we will go to the merry green wood,

To see what they to do there O !

And for to chase O !

To chase the buck and doe O !

With Hal-an-tow,

Jolly rumble O !

Chorus: And we were up as soon as any day O !

And for to fetch the summer home,

The Summer and the May O !

For Summer is a come O !

And Winter is a gone O !

Where are those Spaniards

That makes so great a boast O !

They shall eat the grey goose feather

And we will eat the roast O !

In every land O !

The land where’er we go,

With Hal-an-tow,

Jolly rumble O !

Chorus: And we were up, &c. {245}

As for St. George O !

St. George he was a knight O !

Of all the knights in Christendom

St. George he is the right O !

In every land O !

The land where’er we go,

With Hal-an-tow,

Jolly rumble O !

Chorus: And we were up, &c.

God bless Aunt Mary Moyses,

And all her power and might O !

And send us peace in merry England,

Both day and night O !

And send us peace in merry England,

Both now and evermore O !

With Hal-an-tow,

Jolly rumble O !

Chorus: And we were up, &c.

The custom is popularly attributed to the escape of the town from the

threatened attack of a fiery dragon, who, in days when dragons were

more common than they are now, hung in mid-air over the place, driving

the inhabitants to the greenwood tree for shelter. On his disappearance

the people returned with great rejoicings and to this day commemorate

their fortunate escape. The true explanation is probably that the

festival is simply a survival of the old celebration in honour of

_Flora_.

In some few country villages a May-pole still survives. One such is to

be seen in the little village of Welford, in Gloucestershire, painted

in stripes of red, white, and blue. It was decked with flowers on May

Day not many years ago, owing to the exertions of some of the local

lovers of things ancient; but the genuine spirit of the festival seems

to have entirely disappeared, and the ceremony has not been repeated.

What’s not destroyed by Time’s relentless hand?

Where’s Troy? and where’s the May-pole in the Strand?

In the early days of May occur what used to be known as the Gange Days,

on which the ceremony of beating the parish bounds was, and still {246}

is in some places, undertaken, the work of the day being wound up by

a more or less liberal distribution of buns and ale. Sums of money

were occasionally left to provide the refreshments for these parish

perambulations. At Edgcott, in Buckinghamshire, there was an acre of

land called “Gang Monday Land,” the income of which was devoted to the

provision of cakes and ale for those who took part in the business of

the day; and in Clifton Reynes, in the same county, a devise of land

for a like purpose provides that one small loaf, a piece of cheese, and

a pint of ale, should be given to every married person, and half a pint

of ale to every unmarried person, resident in Clifton, when they walked

the parish boundaries in Rogation week.

When Whitsuntide came round, the time arrived for those quaint

festivals to which Ale gave not only his support, but also his name,

and which were known as Whitsun Ales. The Whitsun Ale was a special

form of the Church Ale, to be mentioned anon. It is thus described by

an old writer:—“Two young men of the Parish are yerely chosen by their

last foregoers to be wardens, who, dividing the task, make collection

among the parishioners of whatsoever provision it pleaseth them

voluntarily to bestow. This they employ in brewing, baking, and other

acates[55] against Whitsuntide; upon which holy days the neighbours

meet at the Church-house, and there merrily feed on their owne victuals

contributing some petty portion to the stock, which by many smalls,

groweth to a meetly greatness: for there is entertayned a kind of

emulation between these wardens, who, by his graciousness in gathering,

and good husbandry in expending, can best advance the churche’s profit.

Besides, the neighbour parishes at those times lovingly visit each

one another, and this way frankly spend their money together. The

afternoones are consumed in such exercises as olde and yong folke

(having leisure) doe accustomably weare out the time withall. When the

feast is ended, the wardens yield in their account to the parishioners:

and such money as exceedeth the disbursement is layd up in store, to

defray any extraordinary charges arising in the parish, or imposed on

them for the good of the country, or the prince’s service: neither of

which commonly so gripe but that somewhat still remayneth to cover the

purse’s bottom.”

[55] acates = purchases.

The Morris Dancers regarded Whitsuntide as their chief festival.

Introduced into this country from Spain, the Morisco or Moorish {247}

Dance had, in the reign of Henry VIII., attained a great popularity.

There seems to have been at that time two principal performers,

Robin Hood and Maid Marian; then there was a friar, a piper, a fool,

and the rank and file of the dancers. In the parish accounts of

Kingston-on-Thames for the year 1537 the Morris Dancers’ wardrobe, then

in the charge of the churchwardens, consisted of “A fryers cote of

russet and a kyrtele weltyd with red cloth, a Mowren’s (Moor’s) cote of

buckram, and four morres daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelid and

two gryne saten cotes, and disardde’s (fool’s) cote of cotton, and six

payre of garters with belles.”

In Elizabethan times the Morris Dance, and indeed every other kind of

picturesque country festivity, may be said to have reached the zenith

of popularity, soon, alas! to be followed by the chilling austerity of

the Puritans, of whom it was so truly said that they “like nothing; no

state, no sex; music, dancing, etc., unlawful even in kings; no kind of

recreation, no kind of entertainment,—no, not so much as hawking; all

are damned.”

These teach that Dauncing is a Jezabell

And barley-break the ready way to Hell,

The Morrice, Idolls; Whitson-ale can bee

But profane Reliques of a Jubilee.[56]

[56] Thomas Randal—_Annalia Dubrensia_.

Whitsuntide, with its lengthening days, was specially set apart for

sports and old-fashioned games, and amongst the many meetings for such

purposes, none attained a wider popularity than the Cotswold or Dover’s

Games. Those who are familiar with the country made classic by its

associations with the great Master of English poetry, know well the

green hill, still called Dover’s Hill, which forms an outpost of the

main body of the Cotswolds, and overlooks the smiling vale of Evesham.

On this spot, time out of mind, rural sports and festivities had been

held under the name of the Cotswold Games. “How does your fallow

greyhound, sir?” says Slender to Page, “I heard say he was outrun at

Cotsale.” This was the site chosen by Robert Dover, an attorney of

Barton-on-the-Heath, for the enlargement and perpetuation of those

national sports in which he took so keen an interest, and which he

{248} hoped would counteract the narrow spirit of bigotry which was

beginning in his day to curtail the innocent amusements of the people.

Armed with a formal authority from King James, Dover was so successful

in his organization of the Games that, with a short interregnum during

the Commonwealth days, their popularity continued until well into

the present century. A curious old volume of poems, called _Annalia

Dubrensia_, published in 1636, contains many quaint descriptions of the

Games and their object. Drayton, Ben Jonson, Thomas Randall and others

of lesser note, contributed each a poem to this collection. One of the

contributors thus eulogises the sports and their patron:—

. . . . . . Oh most famous Greece!

That for brave Pastimes, wert earth’s Master-piece!

Had not our English DOVER, thus out-done

Thy foure games, with his Cotswoldian one.

Dover himself composed the poem which closes the volume. Some of his

motives he thus describes:—

I’ve heard our fine refined clergy teach,

Of the commandments, that it is a breach

To play at any game for gain or coin;

’Tis theft they say; men’s goods you do purloin;

One silly beast another to pursue

’Gainst nature is, and fearful to the view,

And man with man their activeness to try

Forbidden is—much harm doth come thereby;

Had we their faith to credit what they say,

We must believe all sports are ta’en away;

Whereby I see, instead of active things,

What harm the same unto our nation brings;

The pipe and pot are made the only prize

Which all our spriteful youth do exercise.

* * * * *

Yet I was bold for better recreation

T’invent these sports to countercheck that fashion,

And bless the troope that come our sports to see,

With hearty thankes and friendly courtesie

{249}

[Illustration: Cotswold Games.]

The nature of the sports may be gathered from an inspection of the

curious old cut taken from the frontispiece of the above-named work.

Dancing, tumbling, wrestling, sword-play, quarter-staff, cudgel play,

casting the hammer, dog-racing, horse-racing, coursing—must have made

up a highly varied programme, while the table in the midst of the field

of view shows, both by its conspicuous position and by the size of

the cups and tankards in use, that the good creatures, meat and ale,

were by no means neglected. The wonderful structure at the top of the

picture represents the wooden castle erected every year, and called

Dover Castle in honour of the founder of the sports. The artist does

not appear to have quite done justice to his subject if we may credit

the account of the Castle given by one of the versifiers:— {250}

What Ingineere, or cunning Architect

A Fabricke of such pompe did ere erect?

I’ve heard men talk, of Castles in the aire,

Inchanted Cells, Towers, Pageants most faire,

Fortifications, Trophies, Theaters,

Laborinths, Puppet-workes, strange Meteores,

Of those that have their substance wholie spent

To shew their Puppets dauncing with content;

Of Egypts Pharoes stately glasen Tower,

Built by King Ptolomies’ art magick power,

Of Cheops, Pyramids; of Rhodes Colosse,

Of Joves Olympick golden Ivorie Bosse.

These to thy famous works compared will be

Of small account; like them in no degree.

The figure of the founder occupies a prominent place in the foreground.

He used to appear in clothes that had belonged to King James, and it

is said wore them with much greater dignity than did the King. Dover

seems to have been a remarkable person in more ways than one, as may

be gathered from the following quaint note, to be found in one of the

editions of the _Annalia_:—“He was bred an Attorney, who never try’d

but two causes, _always made up the Difference_.”

The next in order of the country celebrations in which ale formed the

principal drink, were the sheep-shearing feasts, formerly so common,

but now in most places things of the past. Many songs have been

preserved which record these old merry-makings when the day’s work

was done, and the farm labourers were gathered round their master’s

hospitable board. One of these, taken from the Sussex Archæological

Collections, is given below. It is a sample of many.

Come all my jolly boys, and we’ll together go

Abroad with our masters, to shear the lamb and ewe.

* * * * *

And there we must work hard, boys, until our backs do ache,

And our master he will bring us beer whenever we do lack.

* * * * *

And then our noble captain doth unto our master say,

“Come, let us have one bucket of your good Ale, I pray”

He turns unto our captain, and makes him this reply {252}

“You shall have the best of beer, I promise, presently,”

Then out with the bucket pretty Bess she doth come,

And master says “Mind, mind and see that every man has some.”

This is some of our pastime while the sheep we do shear,

And though we are such merry boys, we work hard, I declare;

And when ’tis night, and we have done, our master is more free,

And stores us well with good strong beer, and pipes and tobaccee

So we do sit and drink, we smoke, and sing and roar,

Till we become more merry far than e’er we were before,

When all our work is done, and all our sheep are shorn,

Then home to our Captain, to drink the Ale that’s strong.

’Tis a barrel, then, of _hum cup_, which we call the _black ram_,

And we do sit and swagger, and swear that we are men;

But yet before ’tis night, I’ll stand you half a crown,

That if you ha’nt a special care, the _ram_ will knock you down.

[Illustration: The Merry Bagpipes.

The Pleaſant Paſtime betwixt a Jolly Shepherd and a Country Damſel on a

Midſummer-Day in the Morning.

To the tune of _March Boys, &c._

A Shepherd ſat him under a Thorn

he pulled out his pipe and began for to play

It was on a Mid-Summer’s-day in the Morn

for honour of that Holy-day:

A Ditty he did chant along

goes to the tune of Cater-Bordee,

And this was the burden of his ſong

if thou wilt pipe lad, I’ll Dance to thee

To thee, to thee, derry, derry, to thee, &c.

_Roxburghe Ballads._

]

The Haymakers’ song given below is, or rather was, a great favourite at

festive gatherings during the hay harvest:—

In the merry month of June,

In the prime time of the year;

Down in yonder meadows

There runs a river clear;

And many a little fish

Doth in that river play;

And many a lad and many a lass,

Go abroad a-making hay.

In come the jolly mowers,

To mow the meadows down;

With budget and with bottle

Of ale both stout and brown.

All labouring men of courage bold

Come here their strength to try;

They sweat and blow, and cut and mow,

For the grass cuts very dry.

Gratitude to the Giver of all good things has been the mainspring of

rejoicings that in nearly all nations have celebrated the safe {253}

ingathering of the fruits of the earth. In England the festival is

known by the expressive title of the Harvest Home. An ancient ballad

expresses _The Farmer’s Delight in the Merry Harvest_:—

Come all my Lads and Lasses

Let us together go,

To the pleasant Corn-field,

Our courage for to show,

With sickle and with knapsack,

So well we clean our Land,

The Farmer crys work on Boys

Here’s Beer at your command.

In a good old Leather Bottle,

Of ale that is so brown,

We’ll cut and strip together,

Until the Sun goes down;

Every morning Sun,

The small Birds they do sing;

The Echoes of their Harmony,

Do make the Wood to ring.

Young Nanny she came to me,

Some wheat-seed for to lase.[57]

She is a pretty Creature,

I must speak in her Praise:

I wish she was some keeper,

She is my whole delight

In the Groves and Forests,

To range both Day and Night.

Thus the industrious Farmer

By the Sweat of his Brow

He labours and endeavours

To make his Barley Mow.

Sir John produces Liquor,

’Tis very often said,

Good Beer makes Good Blood

Good Blood makes pretty maid. {254}

When Harvest it is over

And the Corn secure from Harm

And for to go to Market,

We must thrash in the Barn.

The Flail which we do handle

So stoutly we do swing,

And after Harvest Supper,

So merry we will sing:

With good Success to the Farmer,

Or else we are to blame,

I wish them Health and Happiness,

Till Harvest comes again.

Beer has always been _the_ drink in the harvest field.

Beneath some shelt’ring heap of yellow corn

Rests the hoop’d keg, and friendly cooling horn,

That mocks alike the goblet’s brittle frame,

It’s costlier potions, and its nobler name.

To Mary first the brimming draught is given,

By toil made welcome as the dews of heaven,

And never lip that press’d its homely edge,

Had kinder blessings or a heartier pledge.

[57] To lase or lease, provincial term for “to glean.”

In most parts of England the grain last cut was brought home in the

Hock Cart or Horkey Cart. The name “Horkey,” is probably a corruption

of “Hock,” and is equivalent to the German _hoch_, the allusion being

to the wain piled _high_ with sheaves. The cart decked with ribbons

and surmounted with a sheaf dressed up to represent a woman—perhaps

Ceres, goddess of the harvest; the horses pranked out in gay trappings;

a crowd of labourers and all the youthful inhabitants of the village

hurrahing in the wake presented such a scene as that described by

Herrick in his poem of the _Hock Cart_:—

Come, sons of summer, by whose toile

We are the Lords of wine and oile;

By whose tough labours and rough hands

We rip up first, then reap our lands,

Crown’d with the ears of corne, now come,

And, to the pipe, sing harvest home.

Come forth, my Lord, and see the cart,

Drest up with all the country art. {255}

See here a maukin, there a sheet

As spotless pure as it is sweet;

The horses, mares, and frisking fillies,

Clad all in linen white as lillies,

The harvest swaines and wenches bound

For joy to see the hock-cart crown’d.

About the cart heare how the rout

Of rural younglings raise the shout,

Pressing before, some coming after,

Those with a shout and these with laughter.

Some blesse the cart; some kisse the sheaves

Some prank them up with oaken leaves;

Some cross the fill-horse; some with great

Devotion stroak the home-borne wheat;

While other rusticks, lesse attent

To prayers than to merryment,

Run after with their breeches rent.

A verse was sung to start the hock-cart on its way; generally some

thing of this kind:—

Harvest home, harvest home,

We have ploughed, we have sowed;

We have reaped, we have mowed,

We have brought home every load,

Hip, hip, hip, harvest home!

In Hampshire it was years ago the custom at the end of harvest to

send to the harvest-field a large bottle containing seven or eight

gallons of strong beer; and the head carter, while the beer was being

discussed, said or sang the lines:—

Well ploughed—well sowed,

Well reaped—well mowed,

Well carried, and

Never a load overthro’d.

He then raised his hand, and all cheered. This was called the custom of

the Hollowing Bottle. {256}

For a description of the harvest-home supper we may again turn to

Herrick:—

Well, on, brave boyes, to your Lord’s hearth

Glittering with fire, where, for your mirth,

You shall see first the large and cheefe

Foundation of your feast, fat beefe;

With upper stories, mutton, veale,

And bacon, which makes full the meale;

With severall dishes standing by,

As here a custard, there a pie,

And here all-tempting frumentie.

And for to make the merry cheer,

If smirking wine be wanting here,

There’s that which drowns all care, stout beer,

Which freely drink to your lord’s health,

Then to the plough, the commonwealth,

Next to your flails, your fans, your vats;

Then to the maids with wheaten hats;

To the rough sickle and the crooked scythe,

Drink, frolic, boys, till all be blithe.

Robert Bloomfield alludes to the horkey-beer as to a brew specially

prepared for the occasion:—

And Farmer Cheerum went, good man,

And broach’d the horkey-beer,

And sich a mort of folks began

To eat up our good cheer.

When supper was finished the horkey-beer was freely sent about the

board, with the effect noticed by old Lydgate in his _Story of

Thebes_:—“They were in silence for a tyme tyl good ale gan arise.”—Slow

tongues are loosened, and the time is passed in songs and mirth.

The following extracts are taken from old Suffolk songs which have

descended from father to son for generations. They are typical of many

more that might be given:—

Here’s a health to our master,

The founder of the feast!

God bless his endeavours

And send him increase. {257}

Now our harvest is ended

And supper is past,

Here’s our mistress’ good health

In a full flowing glass!

She is a good woman,—

She prepared us good cheer;

Come all my brave boys,

And drink off your beer.

Drink, my boys, drink until you come unto me,

The longer we sit, my boys, the merrier shall we be!

In yon green wood there lies an old fox,

Close by his den you may catch him, or no;

Ten thousand to one you catch him, or no.

His beard and his brush are all of one colour,—

(_Takes the glass and empties it off._)

I am sorry, kind sir, that your glass is no fuller.

’Tis down the red lane! ’tis down the red lane!

So merrily hunt the fox down the red lane!”

There is another version of these concluding lines:—

Down the red lane there lives an old fox,

There does he sit a-mumping his chops:

Catch him, boys, catch him, catch if you can;

’Tis twenty to one if you catch him or Nan.

The red lane is the throat, and the fox is the tongue.

A favourite old Norfolk harvest-home song was “The Pye upon the Pear

Tree Top,” the following version of which is taken from Mr. Rye’s

admirable _History of Norfolk_:—

The pye upon the pear-tree top,

(_The singer holds up a glass of beer_)

The pear-tree top—the pear-tree top,

I hold you a crown she is coming down.

(_Brings down the glass slowly_)

She is coming down, she is coming down,

I hold you a crown she is come down.

(_Offers the glass to his right-hand neighbour._) {258}

She _is_ come down, she _is_ come down,

So lift up your elbow, and hold up your chin,

And let your neighbour joggle it in.

The drinker then tries to drink, and his neighbour tries to prevent him.

During the evening one of the reapers, who had been chosen as “lord,”

would retire from the table, and, putting on a kind of mummer’s garb,

return, calling “Lar-gess.” He then carried a hat or plate round and

collected money to prolong the jollification at the village alehouse.

A laughable custom prevalent at Sussex harvest-homes, was the

following: Each person at the table—perhaps twenty or thirty men—had

to drink, without spilling, a glass of ale placed on the top of a tall

hat; when he had finished, he must toss the glass up in the air and

catch it in the hat as it fell. Sometimes a man would fail four or five

times, and at length get too drunk even to try. Meantime the company

kept up the refrain:—

I’ve been to London, I’ve been to Dover,

I’ve been a rambling, boys, all the world over,

Over, over, over and over,

Drink up the liquor and turn the bowl over.

These lines were sung over and over again, getting louder at the

critical moments. If the drinker’s effort was crowned with success the

fourth line was changed to—

The liquor’s drinked up, and the bowl is turned over,

while ill success was greeted by—

The liquor’s drinked up, and the bowl _ain’t_ turned over.

Another Sussex custom practised not many years ago, and perhaps still,

at harvest-home suppers consisted in a harvester sticking a lighted

candle in a glass of beer and drinking the beer while he held the

candle in position with his nose. The company meantime sing a song, of

which the chorus runs—

Your nose’s alight, your nose’s alight,

Your hair’s alight, your hair’s alight,

Your hair’s alight, afire. {259}

Frequently the greasy candle would slip from between the nose and the

rim of the glass, really bringing about a conflagration of hair or

eyebrows.

In Scotland a dish always to be met with at harvest home, or

_Kirn_-suppers, as they are called, is composed of porridge, strong ale

and whisky. Had such dish as this been found at Sabine harvest-homes,

well might Horace have exclaimed, “_O dura messorum ilia!_” Much the

same course of feasting, strong-ale drinking, and singing is observed

as at the English festival—

—the frothing bickers,[58] soon as filled,

Are drained, and to the gauntrees[59] oft return.

[58] The beakers.

[59] The frame supporting the barrel.

Such were some of the principal ceremonies connected with the

harvest-home. It is to be regretted that such observances are now

comparatively rare. The kindly association of master and man at these

and such-like gatherings, did much to keep alive a mutual spirit of

good will, and to grease the wheels of toil, and it is to be feared

that such feelings when once lost cannot easily be recalled. Bloomfield

well describes this peculiarity of former times, which to that extent,

at any rate, may be called the “good old days”:—

Here, once a year, distinction lowers its crest,

The master, servant, and the merry guest,

Are equal all; and round the happy ring,

The reaper’s eyes exulting glances fling;

And, warmed with gratitude, he quits his place,

With sun-burnt hands, and ale-enlivened face,

Refills the jug his honored host to tend,

To serve at once the master and the friend;

Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale,

His nuts, his conversation, and his Ale.

Last of all the great festivals of the year comes Christmas, celebrated

from early ages with feasting and hearty boisterous merriment. In

olden times the closing days of the old year, and the opening days

of the new, were devoted to holiday-making. From Christmas Day to

Twelfth Night was one long Saturnalia of feasting, dancing, and {260}

wassailing. One of the chief ceremonies of the time was the bringing

in of the Yule Log on Christmas Eve. Escorted by troops of shouting

men and boys, and greeted with strains of village minstrelsy, the

yule log was drawn from its resting place, lighted in the great hall

fireplace with some of the charred fragments of the last Christmas log,

and consumed as a token of hospitality and good cheer. Herrick thus

describes the ceremony:—

Come, bring with a noise, my merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing,

While my good Dame she—bids ye all be free,

And drink to your heart’s desiring.

With the last year’s brand—light the new block, and

For good success in his spending,

On your psaltries play—that sweet luck may

Come while the log is teending.[60]

Drink now the strong beare, cut the white loafe here,

The while the meat is a-shredding,

For the rare mince-pie, and the plums stand by,

To fill the paste that’s a-kneeding.

[60] Blazing.

As an accompaniment to the yule log, an immense candle, called the Yule

Candle, shed its light upon the scene of merriment, and neighbours all

began

To quaff brown Ale foam’d high from tall stone jugs

And pledge deep healths in oft-replenished mugs.

The custom of wassailing the fruit trees has been already mentioned.

In some counties the practice extends to the field and pastures, and a

song is still sung on Christmas Eve in Hampshire, of which the chorus

is:—

Apples and pears with right good corn,

Come in plenty to every one,

Eat and drink good cake and hot ale,

Give Earth to drink and she’ll not fail.

{261}

The time-honoured amusement appropriate to Christmas Eve was provided

by the Mummers and the Lord of Misrule.

The Mummers (or Maskers, as the name imports) were to be found in every

village. They dressed themselves to represent various characters, and

the chief pageant exhibited by them was a version of the national

legend of St. George and the Dragon. The principal characters of course

were the gallant Knight, and as close a copy of the Dragon as the wit

and ingenuity of the village could contrive; then there was Old Father

Christmas, the Turk, the Maiden, and a Doctor with a huge box of pills

ready to execute any repairs rendered necessary by the internecine

fury of the Knight, the Turk, and the Dragon. The performance varied a

good deal according to the fancy of the performers, but in all places

there seems to have been a set form of recitation in verse describing

the various antics of the players. The Lord of Misrule, or Master of

Merry Disports, was elected as Master of the Ceremonies, and his term

of office extended from All-hallow Eve to Candlemas Day. He directed

the revels, exercised full power and authority over high and low in

the ordering of the festivities, and played the wit and fool with what

skill nature had endowed him.

And so in mirth and jollity the evening rolls away, and Christmas Day

appears. Sir Roger de Coverley says, or at any rate the _Spectator_

reports that he said: “I have often thought it happens very well that

Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. It is the most dead,

uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very

much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm

fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their

poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my

great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set

it a-running for twelve days for everyone that calls for it.”

From _Round about our Coal Fire_ it may be gathered that “an English

Gentleman at the opening of the great day (_i.e._, on Christmas day

in the morning) had all his tenants and neighbours enter his hall by

daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the black jack went merrily

about with toast, nutmeg, and good Cheshire Cheese.”

It may not be generally known that the _Old English Gentleman_ is but

a version of a very similar song published in 1600, in a book entitled

_Le Prince d’Amour_. The earlier song contains the following verse

relating to our subject:— {262}

With an old fashion when Christmas was come

To call in all his neighbours with a bagpipe or drum.

And good cheer enough to furnish out every old rome,

And beer and ale would make a cat speak and a wise man dumb

Like an old Courtier of Queens,

And the Queen’s old Courtier.

On Christmas Day, and indeed during all the Christmas holidays,

the tables were spread from morn till eve; sirloins of beef, mince

pies and foaming ale formed the chief ingredients of the feast. In

many places, in the houses of the great, the ceremonious custom was

observed of bringing in the boar’s head on a dish of costly plate, the

whole company following in procession, chanting the well-known lines

beginning:—

Caput apri defero,

Reddens laudes Domino.

The custom still observed at Queen’s College, Oxford, of bringing in

the boar’s head at Christmas is said to have arisen from the adventure

of a student of that house in far-off legendary days, who, according

to the wont of students in those distant times, was walking abroad

studying his Aristotle, when a wild boar, who happened to be in the

neighbourhood, whether annoyed at having his lair disturbed, or out

of mere malice, charged down upon him with open mouth. However, the

student’s presence of mind did not desert him; with a loud cry of

“Græcum est” he thrust the volume down the throat of the monster, who,

choked by the tough morsel, then and there expired.

Turning from the tables of the great to the cottage of the humble, we

find a description of the effect of Old Father Christmas’s approach

upon the labourer’s home in Bampfylde’s _Sonnet on Christmas_:—

With footstep slow, in furry pall yclad,

His brows enreathed with holly never sere,

Old Christmas comes, to close the waned year,

And aye the shepherd’s heart to make right glad,

Who, when his teeming flocks are homeward had,

To blazing hearth repairs, and nut-brown beer,

And views well pleased the ruddy prattlers dear

Hug the grey mongrel; meanwhile maid and lad

Squabble for roasted crabs—Thee, Sire, we hail, {263}

Whether thine aged limbs thou dost enshroud,

In vest of snowy white, and hoary veil,

Or wrap’st thy visage in a sable cloud:

Thee we proclaim with mirth and cheer, nor fail

To greet thee well with many a carol loud.

It is the practice in many parts of Cumberland at Christmas to roast

apples before the fire on a string, and hold under them a bowl of

spiced or mulled ale. The apples roast on until they drop into the ale.

Many an ancient Christmas carol tells of the joviality which at that

time reigned supreme. The following example is taken from a collection

of rare old songs and carols:—

Mye boyes come here

Theres capital cheere

’Tis Christmas tyme, let myrthe goe rounde

With a flaggon of ale, by tyme well brown’d.

Drink boyes drinke

And never thinke

Of crustie old tyme, his scythe and his glasse,

He cannot, nor dare not, this waye passe.

Drinke and be wise

Till red Phœbus arise

And banish colde care from the good waning year:

The Old year he shall dye, mid plenty of cheere.

My boyes, come passe

Your empty glasse,

And fill them with Ale, as the world is of strife

And toaste to the widow, the maide and the wife.

Come drink success

You cannot do less,

To the new coming yere, may it be loaded with funne

And ne’er bring us worse than the old one has done.

{264}

Another verse from a good old song specially celebrates our theme—

Come, help us to raise

Loud songs to the praise

Of good old England pleasures:

To the Christmas cheer,

And the foaming Beer.

And the buttery’s solid treasures.

Many pages might be compiled of these old English carols, all in praise

of the same theme, the roast beef and good ale of Old England; but one

more quotation must suffice. It is from _Poor Robin’s Almanack_ (1695):—

Now, thrice welscome, Christmas!

Which brings us good cheer;

Mince pies and plum-pudding—

Strong Ale and strong Beer;

But as for curmudgeons

Who will not be free,

I wish they may die

On a two-legged tree.

And so the cycle of the waning year is nearly completed. Midst sounds

of revelry and mirth the old year is dying, and dying hard, and New

Year’s Eve comes round again. The principal customs of New Year’s Eve

have been already described, being inextricably blended with those

appropriate to New Year’s Day.

One scene more; a custom of very ancient origin and still observed.

An ivy-mantled tower, from which to-night, at all events, the moping

owl has been driven, for within are lights and the sounds of busy

preparation. Those who are about to perform the last offices for the

dying year are here assembled, and a great brown bowl of foaming ale

passes from hand to hand. The old church clock, not bating one jot of

his accustomed space from stroke to stroke, for all the impatience of

listeners in many a house and cottage near, but deliberately, and with

a solemnity befitting the occasion, tolls out the hour of midnight. A

moment’s pause; but ere the last echo of its brazen tongue has died

upon the ear, a merry peal of clashing music bursts from the ancient

pile, carrying over hill and dale, over flood and field, on the rapid

wings of {265} sound, the tidings that the old year is dead and the

new year reigns in his place.

As we gaze back on these old scenes of fun and frolic, their rougher

outlines perchance softened by distance, their true-heartiness and

geniality shining through the golden mist of time, which of us will be

found to deny that in some respects the old was better?

Happy the age and harmless were the days,

For then true love and amity were found,

When every village did a May-pole raise,

And Whitsun ales and May-games did abound.

[Illustration]

{266}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER X.

“And then satten some and songe at the Ale.”

_The Vision of Piers Ploughman._

Be mine each morn with eager appetite

And hunger undissembled to repair

To friendly buttery; there on smoking crust

And foaming Ale to banquet unrestrained;

Material breakfast! Thus in ancient days

Our ancestors robust with liberal cups

Usher’d the morn, unlike the squeamish sons

Of modern times.

_Panegyric on Oxford Ale._

_THE ALES. — ALE AT BREAKFAST. — BEQUESTS OF ALE. — DRINKING CUSTOMS. —

A SERMON ON MALT. — EXCESSES OF THE CLERGY. — ANECDOTES._

So far we have only considered those merry-makings which were peculiar

to certain seasons of the year. It need hardly be said that there were

also a number of festivals in which ale figured as the chief beverage,

in no way related to any particular day, and these, together with a

variety of curious customs connected with ale and beer, will be now

treated of.

Prominent among the many convivial meetings indulged in by our

ancestors were the _Ales_, at which, as their name indicates, malt

liquor was largely consumed. Such a feast is referred to in Chaucer:

“And make him grete feestes atte _nale_.”

And in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Launce says to Speed, “Thou hast not

so much charity in thee as to go to the _Ale_ with a Christian.”

Ben Jonson also mentions Wakes and Ales in his _Tale of a Tub_:— {267}

And all the neighbourhood from old records

Of antique proverbs, drawn from Whitson-lords,

And their authorities at Wakes and Ales,

With country precedents and old wives’ tales,

We bring you now to show what different things

The cotes of clowns are from the courts of kings.

Of Ales there were several kinds—Church-Ales, Bride-Ales, Scot-Ales and

many others. The Church-Ales, of which the Easter-Ales and Whitsun-Ales

and Wakes were varieties, must be considered the most important of

this class of festival. The grotesque carvings on many old churches

have been considered by some to represent the humours of these curious

gatherings. Their origin is no doubt to be traced to the Agapæ, or

Love Feasts of the early Christian Church. Stubbe, in his _Anatomie of

Abuses_ (1585), gives the following account of the manner and intent

of these Ales: “In certain townes where dronken Bacchus beares swaie,

against Christmas and Easter, Whitsondaie, or some other tyme, the

churchwardens of every Parishe provide half a score or twentie quarters

of mault, whereof some they buy of the churche-stocke and some is given

them of the Parishioners themselves, everye one conferring somewhat,

according to his abilitie; whiche maulte being made into very strong

beere or ale, is sette to sale, either in the church or some other

place assigned to that purpose. Then when this is set abroche, well is

he that can gete the soonest to it, and spend the most at it. In this

kinde of practise they continue sixe weekes, a quarter of a yeare,

yea, halfe a year together. That money, they say, is to repaire their

churches and chappels with, to buye bookes for service, cuppes for

the celebration of the Sacrament, surplesses for Sir John, and other

necessaries. And they maintain extraordinarie charges in their Parish

besides.”

The account contains some obvious exaggerations. Stubbe was one

of those of whom the Earl of Dorset might have said as he said of

Prynne,—“My Lords, when God made all His works, He looked upon

them and saw that they were good; this gentleman, the devil having

put spectacles on his nose, says that all is bad.” It will not do

for Macaulay’s New Zealander in looking through the files of old

newspapers, discovered in the ruins of the British Museum, to accept

every statement of the modern teetotal platform as representing an

actual fact.

Carew gives an account of the matter which probably represents the

actual state of the case:—“Touching Church-Ales: these be mine {268}

assertions, if not my proofs:—Of things induced by our forefathers,

some were instituted to a good use, and perverted to a bad; again, some

were both naught in the invention and so continued in the practice. Now

that Church Ales ought to be sorted in the better rank of these twaine,

may be gathered from their causes and effects, which I thus raffe up

together:—entertaining of Christian love; conforming of men’s behaviour

to a civil conversation; compounding of controversies; appeasing of

quarrels; raising a store, which might be converted partlie to good

and goodlie uses, as relieving all sorts of poor people; repairing of

bridges, amending of highways, and partlie for the Prince’s service,

by defraying, at an instant, such rates and taxes as the magistrate

imposeth for the countrie’s defence. Briefly, they do tend to an

instructing of the mind by amiable conference, and an enabling of the

bodie by commendable exercise.”

The curious old Indenture of pre-Reformation times given below, is

an agreement between the inhabitants of the parishes of Elvarton,

Thurlaston, and Ambaston of the one part, and the good folk of Okebrook

of the other part, by John, Abbot of the Dale, Ralph Saucheverell,

Esqre., John Bradshaw, and Henry Tithell. It provides that—“the

inhabitants, as well of the said Parish of Elvarton, as of the town of

Okebrook, shall brew four Ales, and every ale of one quarter of malt,

and at their own costs and charges, betwixt this and the feast of St.

John Baptist next coming. And that every inhabitant of the said town of

Okebrook shall be at the several Ales; and every husband and his wife

shall pay two pence, every cottager one penny; and all the inhabitants

of Elvarton, Thurlaston and Ambaston shall have and receive all the

profits and advantages coming of the said Ales to the use and behoof

of the said Church of Elvarton; and that the inhabitants of the said

towns of Elvarton, Thurlaston, and Ambaston, shall brew eight Ales

betwixt this and the feast of St. John the Baptist; at the which Ales,

and every one of them, the inhabitants of Okebrook shall come and pay

as before rehearsed: and if he be away at one Ale, to pay at t’oder Ale

for both, or else to send his money. And the inhabitants of Okebrook

shall carry all manner of Tymber being in the Dale wood now felled,

that the said Prestchyrch of the said towns of Elvarton, Thurlaston,

and Ambaston shall occupye to the use and profit of the said Church.”

Shakspere mentions these festivals in _Pericles_:

It hath been sung at festivals,

On ember eves and holy ales; {269}

and an old writer (1544) speaks of “keapinge of Church-Ales, in the

whiche with leapynge, dansynge and kyssynge they maynteyne the profett

of their Church.”

The Church-Ale was usually celebrated in a house known as the Church

House, which was either hired for the festival, or was a house to

which the parishioners had a right to resort upon occasions of this

character. By an old lease, mentioned in Worsley’s _History of the Isle

of Wight_, a house, called the Church House held by the inhabitants

of Whitwell, parishioners of Gatcombe, of the Lord of the Manor, was

demised by them to John Brode on condition “that, if the Quarter shall

need at any time to make a _Quarter-Ale_ or _Church-Ale_, for the

maintenance of the Chapel, it shall be lawful for them to have the use

of the s^d house, with all the rooms, both above and beneath, during

their Ale.”

Considerable sums were raised by these means. The parish books of

Kingston-upon-Thames show that in the year 1526 the proceeds of the

Church-Ale amounted to £7 15s., and an ancient church book of Great

Marlow contains the entry in the year 1592, “Received of the torchmen,

for the profytte of the Whitsun Ale £5.”

No doubt some amount of abuse and excess occurred upon these occasions.

Many writers of the sixteenth century stigmatise the Church-Ales

and Wakes as the sources of “gluttonie and drunkenness,” and other

evils; and Harrison, writing in 1587, states as of a subject for

congratulation, that “The superfluous numbers of idle wakes,

church-ales, helpe-ales, and soule-ales, called also dirge ales, with

the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished.” Some,

however, were found to uphold them. Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells,

writes in answer to an inquiry of Archbishop Laud, that “Church-Ales

were when the people went from afternoon prayers on Sundays to their

lawful sports and pastimes in the churchyard, or in the neighbourhood,

or in some public-house, where they drank and made merry. By the

benevolence of the people at these pastimes, many poor parishes have

cast their bells and beautified their churches, and raised stock for

the poor.”

The Puritan movement was, of course, strongly opposed to all these

festivals, and the influence of these “unco’ righteous” folk in the

year 1631, procured an order from Judge Richardson, putting an end to

all such gatherings in the county of Somerset, whereupon, on report

being made to the King, an order was made annulling the decree of the

Judge, and seventy-two of the most orthodox and able of the clergy of

the county certified that “on these days (which generally fell on a

Sunday) {270} the service of God was more solemnly performed, and the

services better attended than on other days.”

A previous attempt by the Justices of the Peace to suppress these

gatherings seems to have been equally unsuccessful. In 1596, John

and Alexander Popham, George Sydenham, and seven other Justices of

Bridgewater, ordered that no Church-Ale, Clerk’s-Ale, or tippling

should be suffered; but the decree seems to have been disregarded. A

custom somewhat similar to the Church-Ale was that of “drinking ale at

the Church stile.” Ale and in some cases food as well, were consumed on

certain occasions on the parish account. Pepys, under date April 14,

1661, mentions that “After dinner we all went to the Church stile (at

Walthamstow) and there eat and drank;” and a writer in the _Gentleman’s

Magazine_ (November, 1852) states that in an old book of parish

accounts belonging to Warrington the entry occurs: “Nov. 5, 1688. Paid

for drink at the Church steele, 13s.”

Clerk-Ales, or lesser Church-Ales, were held for the maintenance of

the parish clerk. Bishop Pierce, from whom we have before quoted,

says of them that “in poor country parishes, where the wages of the

clerk were but small, the people thinking it unfit that the clerk

should duly attend at the church, and not gain by his office, sent

him in provision, and then came on Sundays and feasted with him; by

which means he _sold more Ale_, and tasted more of the liberality of

the people, than their quarterly payments would have amounted to in

many years; and since these have been put down, many ministers have

complained to me (says his Lordship) that they were afraid they should

have no parish clerks.”

There is a tradition well known in the Vale of the Warwickshire Avon,

which connects the name of Shakspere with the Whitsun-Ale. It is

related that the ale of Bidford was in Shakspere’s day famed for its

potency, and that on the occasion of a Whitsun-Ale held at that place,

young Shakspere and some of his friends attended it, having accepted

a challenge of the Bidford men to try their powers as ale-drinkers.

The Bidfordians proved the better men, and the others endeavoured to

return to Stratford. They had not gone far, however, when, overcome

by the fumes of the ale, they were forced to rest under a crab-tree

about a mile out of Bidford. Here sleep overcame them, and their nap

lasted from Saturday night till Monday morning, when they were aroused

by a labourer who was on his way to his work. Shakspere’s companions

urged him to return and renew the contest, but he refused. “I have had

enough” he said; “I have drunk with {271}

“Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,

Haunted Hillbro’, hungry Grafton,

Dudging Exhall, papist Wixford,

Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.”

These villages are all visible from the spot where the Bard’s long

sleep is related to have taken place, and it is said retained

their characteristics until very recently. The Crab, long known as

“Shakspere’s Crab,” was cut down some time in the early part of

this century by the Lady of the Manor, who is said to have given

the somewhat Irish reason for this act of Vandalism, that the tree

was gradually being demolished by curiosity hunters. A new crab has

recently been planted upon the spot, and will, it is to be hoped, hand

down to future generations the memory of the Poet’s youthful escapade.

The term Christian-Ale was in all probability used to denote some kind

of Church or Whitsun Ale. The expression is to be found in a curious

old pamphlet entitled “The Virgins’ Complaint for the loss of their

sweethearts in the present wars . . . presented to the House of Commons

in the names and behalfes of all Damsels both of Country and City,

Jan. 29, 1642, by sundry Virgins of the City of London,” in which

occurs this passage: “Since the departure of the lusty young gentlemen,

and courtiers, and cavaliers, and the ablest prentices and handsome

journeymen, with whom we had used to walk to Islington and Pimlico to

eat Cakes and drink Christian-Ale on holy daies.”

Somewhat akin to Church-Ales were the guild-feasts held by the old

fraternities. The records of the ancient guild at Lynn Regis, in

Norfolk (Rye’s _Hist. of Norfolk_), show that in the time of Richard

II. the annual election of officers of the fraternity was followed by

“a guild-feast,” in which great quantities of ale were consumed. An

alderman’s allowance of ale, “while it lasteth,” was two gallons, a

steward had one gallon, and the dean and clerk a pottle each. The feast

was apparently prolonged night after night, till all the ale brewed

for the occasion was expended, and those brethren who from any urgent

cause were absent, had a gallon of ale reserved for them. Before the

carouse commenced, the guild-light was lit, and the clerk read prayers.

Anybody who “jangled” during prayer-time, or who fell asleep over his

ale afterwards, was liable to a fine.

A curious old custom of a similar nature to the Whitsun-Ale is recorded

in Curll’s _Miscellanies_. It was observed at Newnton, in Wiltshire,

and was intended to preserve the memory of a donation from {272} King

Athelstan of a common, and a house for the hayward (the hay keeper).

“Upon every Trinity Sunday, the parishioners being come to the door of

the hayward’s house, the door was struck thrice, in honour of the Holy

Trinity; they then entered. The bell was rung; after which, silence

being ordered, they read their prayers aforesaid. Then was a ghirland

of flowers made upon a hoop, brought forth by a maid of the town upon

her neck; and a young man (a bachelor) of another parish, first saluted

her three times in honour of the Trinity, in respect of God the Father.

Then she put the ghirland upon his neck and kissed him three times

in honour of the Trinity, particularly God the Son. Then he put the

ghirland on her neck again, and kissed her three times, in respect

of the Holy Trinity, particularly the Holy Ghost. Then he took the

ghirland from her neck, and, by the custom, gave her a penny at least.

The method of giving this ghirland was from house to house annually,

till it came round. In the evening every commoner sent his supper up

to this house, which was called the Eale-house; and having before laid

in there equally a stock of malt which was brewed in the house, they

supped together; and what was left was given to the poor.”

Thoroton, in his _Nottinghamshire_, gives an account of a shepherd who

kept ale to sell _in_ the Church of Thorpe. He was the sole inhabitant

of a village depopulated by inclosure. Besides the _Ales_ already

mentioned, there were Bid-Ales, Bride-Ales, Give-Ales, Cuckoo-Ales,

Help-Ales, Tithe-Ales, Leet-Ales, Lamb-Ales, Midsummer-Ales,

Scot-Ales, and Weddyn-Ales. Some of these are sufficiently explained

by their names. Bid-Ales, or Bede-Ales, and Scot-Ales have been

mentioned in Chapter V. Bride-Ale, also called Bride-bush, Bride-wain

and Bride-stake, was the custom of the bride selling ale on the

wedding-day, for which she received by way of contribution any sum or

present which her friends chose to give her. In the _Christen State of

Matrimony_ (1545) we read: “When they come home from the church, then

beginneth excesse of eatyng and drynking, and as much is waisted in one

daye as were sufficient for the two newe-married folkes halfe a yeare

to lyve upon.” Modern wedding breakfasts and the presents given to the

happy pair are, doubtless, descendants of this old custom. In Norway

at the present day, a peasant’s wedding is celebrated with much the

same ceremony as the old English Bride-Ale. Ale is handed round to the

guests, and they are each expected to contribute, according to their

ability, to form a purse to assist the bride in commencing housekeeping.

Regulations were made in some places to restrain the excesses {273}

attending on the keeping of Bride-Ales. In the Court Rolls of Hales

Owen is an entry:—“A payne ye made that no person or persons that shall

brewe any weddyn ale to sell, shall not brewe aboue twelve stryke of

mault at the most, and that the said persons so marryed shall not keep

nor have above eyght messe of persons at hys dinner within the burrowe,

and before hys brydall daye he shall keep no unlawful games in hys

house, nor out of hys house on payne of 20s.”

The old custom of Cuckoo-Ale appears to have been only of local

observance. In Shropshire the advent of the first cuckoo was celebrated

by general feasting amongst the working classes; as soon as his first

note was heard, even if early in the day, the men would leave their

work and spend the rest of the day in mirth and jollity.

The Tithe-Ale was a repast of bread, cheese and ale, provided by the

recipient of the tithe and enjoyed by the tithe-payers. At Cumnor, in

Berkshire, a curious custom of this kind still obtains. On Christmas

Day, after evening service, the parishioners who are liable to pay

tithe, repair in a body to the vicarage and are there entertained on

bread and cheese and ale. This is not by any means considered in the

light of a benefaction on the part of the vicar, but is demanded as a

right by the tithe-payers, and even the quantity of the good things

which the vicar is to give is strictly specified. He must brew four

bushels of malt in ale and small beer, he must provide two bushels

of wheat for bread making, and half a hundred-weight of cheese; and

whatever remains unconsumed is given to the poor. Leet-Ales, in some

parts of England, denoted the dinner given at the Court Leet of a Manor

to the jury and customary tenants. Another somewhat similar custom

was known by the name of Drink-lean, and was a festive day kept by

the tenants and vassals of the Lord of the Manor, or, as some say, a

potation of ale provided by the tenants for the entertainment of the

Lord or his steward. The origin of the term is not known; it probably

has no connection with the effect which a lover of old ale said that

beverage had upon him. “I always find it makes me lean,” said he.

“Lean!” cries his friend, in amazement; “why, I always thought ale made

folks fat.” “That may be,” was the reply, “but it makes me lean, for

all that—against a lamp-post.”

Another variety of the Ale was called Mary-Ale, and was a feast held

in honour of the Virgin Mary. Foot-Ales seem to have meant not so much

feasts as sums of money paid to purchase ale on a man’s entering a new

situation. We still talk of a man “paying his footing.”

A short consideration may now be devoted to the use of ale in former

{274} times in the household. It is easy to picture to oneself the

English squire or yeoman of old times, an article of whose creed it was

that

“Old England’s cheer is beef and beer,

Soup-meagre is Gallia’s boast,”

as he sat in his hard, uncompromising chair before the fire on a

winter’s evening, with perhaps a few of his cronies gathered round him,

quaffing their bright March beer or mellow old October as they talked

and ruminated in turns on the crops, the market or the hunt. It is not,

however, so easy for the degenerate sons of modern days to realise the

mighty draughts of ale taken at breakfast, soon after daylight. Yet,

before the introduction of tea and coffee, ale was the morning drink

in the palace of the king as in the cottage of the labourer. In 1512

the breakfast of the Earl and Countess of Northumberland on a fast-day

in Lent was “a loaf of bread, two manchetts (_i.e._, rolls of fine

wheat), a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six

bawned herrings, four white herrings, or a dish of sprats.” On flesh

days “half a chyne of mutton or a chyne of boiled beef” was substituted

for the fish. In the same household, the boys, “my lord Percy and

Mr. Thomas Percy,” were allowed “half a loaf of household bread, a

manchett, a pottle (2 quarts) of beer and three mutton bones boiled.”

“My lady’s gentlewoman” seems to have been a rather thirsty soul; she

was allowed for breakfast “a loaf of bread, a pottle of beer and three

mutton bones boiled.” Even the two children in the nursery were brought

up on this diet of beer; their breakfast consisted of “a manchett,

a quart of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish and a dish

of sprats.” The _liveries_, or evening meal, produced even a greater

supply of malt liquor. My Lord and Lady then had “two manchetts, a loaf

of bread, a _gallon_ of beer and a quart of wine.”

The allowance of food and drink made from the Court to Maids of

Honour and other attendants, was called the _bouche of Court_, a name

corrupted into the _bouge of Court_, and “to have bouge of Court”

signified to have meat and drink free. In the Ordinances, of Eltham,

17 Henry VIII., Maids of Honour of the Queen are each allowed for

breakfast “one chet lofe, one manchet, _two gallons of ale_, dim’

pitcher of wine.” Lady Lucy, one of the Maids of Honour in the same

reign, was allowed for breakfast—a chine of beef, a loaf, and a gallon

of ale; for dinner—a piece of boiled beef, a slice of roast meat and a

gallon of ale; and for supper—porridge, mutton, a loaf and a gallon of

ale. {275}

Queen Elizabeth’s breakfast seems frequently to have consisted of

little else but ale and bread. In the household accounts for the year

1576, are to be found certain items of her diet. One morning it is

“Cheate and mancheate 6d., ale and beare 3½d., wine 1 pint. 7d:”

another day it is bread as before, “ale and beare 10½d., wine, 7d;”

and considering the prices of the times, the amount of ale represented

by these figures must have been very considerable. Even well into last

century ale was a common drink for breakfast among those who affected

the manners of the old school. Applebie’s Journal, under date September

11th, 1731, makes mention of “an old gentleman near ninety, who has a

florid and vigorous constitution, and tells us the difference between

the manners of the present age, and that in which he spent his youth.

With regard to _eating_ in his time, _Breakfast_ consisted of good

hams, cold sirloin, and good beer, succeeded with wholesome exercise,

which sent them home hungry and ready for dinner.”

In an old song, _Advice to Bachelors; or, the Married Man’s

Lamentations_, occurs this verse:—

If I but for my breakfast ask

then doth she laugh and jeer;

Perhaps give me a hard dry crust

and strong four shilling beer;

She tells me that is good enough

for such a rogue as me;

And if I do but seem to pout

then hey, boys, flap goes she.

Between breakfast and dinner there was generally a “nunchion”[61] (noon

draught), a word curious from its having been confounded with lunch,

which signifies a large piece or hunch of bread. When uneducated people

speak of their “nunchions,” they are unconsciously using a more correct

form of word than more refined persons when they speak of “luncheon.”

On any occasion when a drink between meals was needed, it was called

a “russin,” as in the lines of the old poem, _The Land of Cockaigne_

(thirteenth century):—

In Cockaigne is met and drink,

Without care, how, or swink,

The met is trie (choice), the drink is clere,

To none, _russin_ and sopper. {276}

An evening draught in the religious houses was called a “potatio.”

When the afternoon reading was finished, the monks proceeded “_ad

potationem_” (_i.e._, to take their evening draught of ale).

[61] From _noon_, and _schenchen_, to pour out.

Ale, generous ale, was the beverage with which all meals alike were

washed down; and ale and beer were in old times considered as having

a peculiar suitability to the stomach of an Englishman. A letter from

John Stile to Henry VIII. (1512) on the condition of the army in France

bears witness to this common notion. “And hyt plese your grace,” he

writes, “the greteyst lacke of vytuals, that ys here ys of bere, for

your subjectys had lyver for to drynk bere than wyne or sydere, for the

hote wynys dothe burne theym, and the syder dothe caste theym yn dysese

and sekenysys.”

The custom of women resorting to ale-houses and taking provisions with

them wherewith to make a common feast, seems to have been an early

form of the modern picnic. In one of the Chester Miracle Plays Noah is

represented as being greatly annoyed at finding his wife eating and

drinking with her gossips in an ale-house when it is time to be getting

into the Ark. Several women meet together, and one of them proposes to

the others an _al fresco_ entertainment of this character.

The ale is recommended in these lines:—

I know a draught of merry-go-downe,

The best it is in all thys towne,

But yet wold I not for my gowne,

My husband it wyst, ye may me trust.

One of the women says, “God might send me a strype or two, if my

husband should see me here.” “Nay,” said Alice, “she that is afraid had

better go home; I fear no man.”

And ich off them will sumwhat bryng,

Gosse, pygge, or capon’s wing,

Pastes off pigeons, or sum other thyng.

Ech of them brought forth their dysch,

Sum brought flesh and sum fysh.

Nor was the “mery-go-downe” forgotten. On going home these revellers

represent to their husbands that they have been _to church_.

It may be gathered from Dean Swift’s satirical advice to servants that

ale and beer in his day formed the principal dinner beverages in polite

society. In his directions to the butler, he tells him, “If any one

{277} desires a glass of bottled ale, first shake the bottle, to see

if anything be in it; then taste it, to see what liquor it is, that you

may not be mistaken; and, lastly, wipe the mouth of the bottle with the

palm of your hand, to show your cleanliness.

“If any one calls for small beer towards the end of the dinner, do

not give yourself the trouble of going down to the cellar, but gather

the droppings and leavings out of the several cups and glasses and

salvers into one; but turn your back to the company, for fear of being

observed. On the contrary, when any one calls for ale towards the end

of dinner, fill the largest tankard cup topful, by which you will have

the greatest part left to oblige your fellow-servants without the sin

of stealing from your master.”

In the seventeenth century there lived an interesting person named

John Bigg, better known as the Dinton Hermit, who subsisted chiefly

on bread and ale supplied him by his friends. He only begged one

thing—leather—with which he patched his shoes in innumerable

places. A portrait of him is to be seen in Lipscombe’s _History of

Buckinghamshire_. Two leather bottles hang at his girdle, the one for

ale, the other for small beer.

Many records are in existence illustrative of the custom of

distributing ale for charitable purposes. The following instances are

selected from a collection of _Old English Customs and various Bequests

and Charities_.

“At Piddle Hinton, Dorsetshire. An ancient custom is for the Rector

to give away, on Old Christmas Day, annually, a pound of bread, a

pint of ale, and a mince pie to every poor person in the parish. This

distribution is regularly made by the Rector to upwards of 300 persons.”

“At Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire. Before the enclosure, the tenant

of the Abbey Farm in this parish, during those years in which the open

field land was under tillage, used to give a slice of cake and a glass

of ale to all parishioners who applied for it.”

“At Giggleswick, Yorkshire. By the will of William Clapham (1603)

4s. 4d. was left towards a potation for the poor scholars of the

Freeschool there on St. George’s Day; and the custom was formerly to

give figs, bread, and ale.”

“At Edgcott, Buckinghamshire. Robert Marcham, Esq., pays the overseers

£3 a year, a rent charge upon an acre of land.” This was formerly

distributed to the tenants in the shape of two cakes each, and as much

beer as they could drink at the time.

“At St. Giles’, Norwich. By the will of John Ballestin, 1584, the {278}

rent from three tenements was to be distributed to the poor in the

following manner: viz., that in the week before Christmas, the week

before Michaelmas, and the week after Easter, in the Church of St.

Giles, the Minister should request the poor people, all that should

receive or have need of alms, to come to Church, and pray for the

preservation of the Prince, &c.; that the poor should place themselves

four and four together, all that should be above the age of eleven

years, and that every four of them should have set before them a

twopenny wheat loaf, a gallon of best beer, and four pounds of beef and

broth.”

“At Prince’s Risborough, Buckinghamshire. Up to 1813, a Bull and a

boar, a sack of Wheat, and a sack of Malt were given away to the poor

by the Lord of the Manor, every Christmas morning about six o’clock.”

In many houses small beer was always kept to dispense in charity, Ben

Jonson, in _The Alchemist_, describes a mean, stingy person as—

. . one who could keep

The buttery-hatch still locked, and save the chippings,

Sell the _dole_ beer to aqua vitæ men.

Visitors at Leicester’s Hospital, Warwick, may have noticed a huge

copper beer-tankard reposing on a shelf. This great cup holds six

quarts, and is filled with strong ale thrice a year on _gaudy_ days,

and passed round among the old brethren, pensioners of the house.

In the fourteenth century there was a custom for one of the fishermen

engaged upon the river Thames to present a salmon to the Abbot of

Westminster once a year. The fisherman who bore the tribute had that

day a right to sit at the prior’s table, and might demand bread and ale

of the cellarer; the cellarer on his part might take from the fish’s

tail as much as he could with “four fingers and his thumb erect.”

Superstitious observances were rife in former times. The Roman augurs

observed the flight of birds, and scrutinised the palpitating vitals

of fresh slain victims, thinking thereby to steal a march upon the

future. Our ancestors would draw omens from the barking of dogs, the

cries of wild fowl, or from the manner in which beer, accidentally

spilt from the cup, distributed itself upon the floor. Melton, in his

_Astrolagaster_, observes that “if the beere fall next a man it is a

signe of good luck.”

The customs and ceremonies attending the actual consumption of ale and

other liquors now require some few words. First in order stands the old

custom of pledging, which was in origin distinct from {279} toasting

or health-drinking. William of Malmesbury says that the treacherous

murder of King Edward while drinking a horn of wine presented to him

by his stepmother Elfrida, gave rise to the old custom of pledging. A

person before drinking would ask one who sat next to him whether he

would _pledge_ him. The other thereupon drew his sword and held it over

the drinker as a _pledge_ to him that no secret foe should strike him

in an unguarded moment while he drained the bowl. Others have referred

the origin of the custom to the treachery of the Danes, who would take

advantage of the attitude of a man when drinking a horn of ale or mead,

to stab him unawares. Be the origin what it may, the custom prevailed

for many centuries, and was one of the things noted by that lively and

inquisitive French physician, Stephen Perlin, who visited England about

the middle of the sixteenth century. Amongst many other entertaining

observations made by him is the following:—“The English, one with the

other, are joyous, and are very fond of music; they are also great

drinkers, . . . and they will say to you usually at table, ‘Goude

chere,’ and they will also say to you more than one hundred times,

‘Drind oui,’ and you will reply to them in their language, “I plaigui’

(‘I pledge you’).”

[Illustration: Health-Drinking.]

The custom of health-drinking seems to have been at one time or another

common to all European nations. The Romans had their _commissationes_,

or drinking bouts, and their “_bene te, bene tibi_.” Our own immediate

ancestors the Saxons, as we have already seen, observed the custom of

health-drinking with their “Wacht heil” and “Drinc heil.” {280} The

picture of an Anglo-Saxon dinner-party is taken from a MS., supposed to

be of the tenth century (Tiberius, c. vi., fol. 5, v.). The peculiar

weapons borne by the attendants are, no doubt, spits from which the

guests are carving meat. The preceding illustration occurs in Alfric’s

version of Genesis (MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. IV., fol. 36, v.) and

represents Abraham’s feast at the birth of his child.

[Illustration: Anglo-Saxons Feasting and Health-Drinking.]

The Danes, also, were great health-drinkers. It is recorded that

previous to the invasion of England by these ravaging pirates of the

North, in the reign of Sweyne, that monarch gave a great banquet on his

accession to the throne. First, the ale-horns were filled and emptied

in memory of the dead King Harold; the next draught was in honour of

Christ, and the third of St. Michael the Archangel. A writer of the

year 1623 thus describes the ceremonies of health-drinking as practised

at that time:—“He that begins the health first uncovering his head, he

takes a full cup in his hand, and setting his countenance with a grave

aspect, he craves for audience; silence being once obtained, he begins

to breathe out the name, peradventure, of some honourable personage,

whose health, is drunk to, and he that pledges must likewise off with

his cap, kiss his fingers, and bow himself in sign of a reverent

acceptance. When the leader sees his follower thus prepared, he sups

up his broth, turns the bottom of the cup upward, and, in ostentation

of his dexterity, gives the cup a fillip to make it cry _twango_. And

thus the first scene is acted. The cup being newly replenished to the

breadth of a hair, he that is the pledger must now begin his part; and

{281} thus it goes round throughout the whole company.” To prove that

each person had drunk off his measure, he had to turn the glass over

his thumb, and if so much liquor remained as to make more than a drop

which would stand on the nail of his thumb without running off, he had

to drink off another bumper. This latter practice went by the name

of _supernaculm_, and is mentioned in an old ballad, _The Winchester

Wedding_:—

Then Phillip began her health,

And turn’d a beer-glass o’er his thumb,

But Jenkin was reckoned for drinking,

The best in Christendom.

The author of _Memoires d’Angleterre_ (1698) mentions the absolute

universality of this practice of health-drinking amongst the English.

“To drink at table,” he writes, “without drinking to the health of some

one in especial, would be considered drinking on the sly, and as an act

of incivility. There are in this proceeding two principal and singular

grimaces, which are universally observed. . . .” The person whose

health is drunk must remain as inactive as a statue while the drinker

drinks, after which the second grimace is “to make him an _inclinabo_,

at the risk of dipping his periwig in the gravy. . . . I confess that

when a foreigner first sees these manners he thinks them laughable.”

And yet one would have thought that a Frenchman’s familiarity with

toasting would have rendered the proceeding not so singular an one

after all, for that custom was carried to an extreme in his own

nation, among the choice spirits of which it was not unusual to give a

toast which necessitated the drinking of a glass to each letter of a

mistress’s name, as illustrated in the lines:—

Six fois je m’en vas boire au beau nom de Cloris,

Cloris, le seul desire de ma chaste pensée.

Space forbids that we should go very fully into all these old drinking

customs, though some of them are fantastic and curious enough. One

or two more, however, may be mentioned. In Elizabethan times it was

customary for hard drinkers to put some inflammable substance on the

surface of their liquor, and so to swallow the draught and the blazing

fragment at a gulp. This was called flap-dragoning, and the fiery

morsel was known as a flap-dragon. Shakspere has many allusions to

this practice. Falstaff says of Prince Hal, that he “drinks off {282}

candle-ends for flap-dragons.” And in _Winter’s Tale_ an instance of

the verb occurs in the passage, “But to make an end of the ship; to

see how the sea flap-dragoned it.” The captain in _Rowley’s Match at

Midnight_ asserts that his corporal “was lately choked at Delf by

swallowing a flap-dragon.”

The term hob-nob as denoting pot-companionship, has been said by some

to be a corruption of “Habbe or nabbe?” _i.e._, Will you have or not

have (a drink)? Others suggest a more whimsical derivation. It is said

that the Maids of Honour of the Tudor Court, who we have seen were

ale-ladies, if they cannot be called ale-knights, frequently liked

their beer warm, and had it placed upon the hob of the grate “to take

the chill off.” It was therefore natural for their attendants to ask

the question, “From the hob or not from the hob?” which in process of

time became “Hob or nob?”

The above remarks on drinking customs lead to the consideration of the

extravagant drinking and eating of days gone by. Our ancestors, both

Saxon and Dane, were tremendous drinkers, and their sole amusement

after the labours of the day seems to have been drinking down mighty

draughts of ale and mead, and getting themselves under the table as

quickly as possible. An ancient anecdote is told of a Saxon bishop,

who invited a Dane to his house for the purpose of making him drunk.

After dinner “the tables were taken away, and they passed the rest

of the day until evening in drinking.” The cupbearer manages matters

in such a manner that the Dane’s turn comes round much oftener than

that of the others, as, indeed, “the bishop had directed him,” and

the desired end is at last attained. Whether Iago was right when he

gave to the English the palm in drinking over “your Dane, your German,

and your swag-bellied Hollander,” and whether one taught the other

his own particular drinking vices, we cannot stop now to inquire. The

English were always famed for their love of strong ale, and passing

over the intervening centuries and coming down to the Tudor period,

many instances could be quoted from contemporary writers showing the

proneness of our ancestors to drench deep thought in tankards of the

nappy nut-brown ale. Stubbe, in his _Anatomie of Abuses_ (1585), says

that the ale-houses in London were crowded from morning to night with

inveterate drunkards, whose only care was how to get as much heady ale

into their carcases as possible. Ale, strong ale, was all the cry;

one who could not or would not quaff of the strongest was counted a

milksop, {284} while he who could drink longest of it without (or

rather before), getting tipsy, was the king of the company. It must

have been of such an one that Herrick wrote—

Tap, better known than trusted, as we hear,

Sold his old mother’s spectacles for beer,

And not unlikely, rather too than fail,

He’ll sell her eyes and nose for beer and ale.

The love for the strong and the contempt for the small is illustrated

in the well-known lines of the old song:—

He who drinks small beer, goes to bed sober,

Falls as the leaves do fall, that fall in October;

He who drinks strong ale, goes to bed mellow,

Lives as he ought to live, and dies a jolly fellow.

Such was the love of strong ale in the sixteenth century that a term

was actually invented to describe madness produced by excessive

ale-drinking. A writer in the year 1598 affords us an instance of

the word in question, when he says that “to arrest a man that hath

no likeness to a horse is flat lunasie or _alecie_.” Harrison, whom

we have frequently had occasion to quote, in speaking of the heavy

ale-drinking of his days, though the ale was then “more thick and

fulsome” than the beer, says, “Certes I know some ale-knights so much

addicted thereunto, that they will not cease from morow until even to

visit the same, clensing house after house, till they either fall quite

under the boord, or else, not daring to stirre from their stooles, sit

still pinking with their narrow eies as halfe sleeping, till the fume

of their adversarie be digested that he may go to it afresh.”

[Illustration: The Ale-Wives’ Invitation to Married Men and Bachelors:

Shewing

How a good fellow is ſlighted when he is brought to Poverty.

Therefore take my Counſel and Ale-wives don’t truſt.

For when you have waſted and ſpent all you have

Then out of doors ſhe will you headlong thruſt,

Calling you raſcal and ſhirking Knave,

But ſo long as you have money, come early or late

You ſhall have her command, or elſe her maid Kate.

To a new tune, or _Digbys Farewell._

A Ballad ſuppoſed to be ſung by a young man who, having ſpent his money

in Ale-houſes, offers ſome advice on the ſubject.

“And thus all young men, you plainly may ſee

This ſong it will learn you good huſbands to be.”

_Collec. Eng. Ballads._

]

Herrick has left us an epigram upon a person of the class described by

Harrison:—

Spunge makes his boast that he’s the onely man,

Can hold of beere and ale an ocean;

Is this his glory? then his triumph’s poore;

I know the Tunne of Hidleberge holds more.

Profuseness in drinking was accompanied with enormous gluttony in

eating. At one of the feasts of the Court of King James I.—

They served up venison, salmon, and wild boars,

By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores. {285}

Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard,

Muttons and fatted beeves, and bacon swine;

Herons, and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard.

Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeon, and in fine,

Plum puddings, pancakes, apple pie and custard.

And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine,

With mead, and _Ale_, and cider of our own.

This, however, was only a mild repetition of some of the prodigious

feasts of former days. On the enthronement of George Nevile as

archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV., the following was the

list of eatables which furnished the tables:—104 oxen, 6 wild bulls,

1,000 sheep, 304 calves, 304 swine, 400 swans, 2,000 geese, 1,000

capons, 2,000 pigs, many thousand of various small birds such as quail,

plovers, &c., 4,000 cold venison pasties, 500 stags, 608 pike and

bream, 12 porpoises and seals, and many other delicacies. These solids

were washed down with 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine and “one

pynt of hypocrass.”

Nor were the clergy behind the laity in their devotion to good living.

In Saxon times the frequent directions to the monks and friars to

abstain from excess in eating and drinking, from haunting ale-houses

and from acting the ale-scop or gleeman at such places, all tell their

own tale. The frequency with which from that period the intemperance

of the clergy called forth the rebukes of their superiors and the

satire of the writers of the day, show that matters did not mend much

as mediæval times advanced. Friar Tuck, as depicted in _Ivanhoe_, is

probably a type of many a jolly monk of his day. For his drink is

assigned “a but of sack, a rumlet of malvoisie, and three hogsheads of

ale of the first strike. And if,” continues the King, “that will not

quench thy thirst, thou must come to court, and be acquainted with my

butler.” Chaucer describes his monk as a free liver and a jolly good

fellow, whose sentiments with regard to the duties of his order are

shown in the lines:—

The reule of seynt Maure or of seint Beneyt,

Bycause that it was old and somdel streyt,

This ilke monk let olde things pace,

And held after the newe world the space.

The Friar, too, who “knew the taverns well in every town,” may be taken

as a true portrait of a prominent figure of the times. It is recorded

that the Abbey of Aberbrothwick expended annually 9,000 {286} bushels

of malt in ale-brewing, and a popular satire, perpetuated by Sir Walter

Scott on the monks of Melrose, declares that—

The monks of Melrose made fat kail

On Fridays when they fasted;

And neither wanted beef nor ale,

So long as their neighbours’ lasted.

The names of some of the drinks in vogue are exceedingly suggestive; we

read of Bishop, Cardinal, Lawn Sleeves, Pope, and others of a similar

character.

The Glutton-masses of the secular clergy, as described by Henry in his

_History of England_, “were celebrated five times a year, in honour of

the Virgin Mary, in this manner. Early in the morning the people of the

parish assembled in the church, loaded with ample stores of meats and

drinks of all kinds. As soon as mass ended, the feast began, in which

the clergy and laity engaged with equal ardour. The church was turned

into a tavern, and became a scene of excessive riot and intemperance.

The priests and people of different parishes entered into formal

contests, which of them should have the greatest glutton mass, _i.e._,

which of them should devour the greatest quantity of meat and drink in

honour of the Holy Virgin.”

The Tudor period seems to have produced but little amendment in this

respect. Satirists of the day make constant allusion to the fondness of

ecclesiastics, both exalted and humble, for strong drink and every kind

of sensual indulgence. Skelton, in _Colin Clout_, speaking of the angry

disputes of churchmen when under the influence of drink, says:—

Such logic men will chop,

And in their fury hop

When the good ale-sop

Doth dance in their foretop.

In the old Comedy of _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, already referred to,

the parson is wanted, and the old Gammer gives the boy the following

directions for finding him:—

Hence swithe to Doctor Rat, hye thee that thou were gone,

And pray him come speke with me, cham not well at ease,

Shall find him at his chamber, or els at Mother Bees,

Els seek him at _Hobfilcher’s_ shop; for as charde it reported

There _is the best Ale in the Town, and now is most resorted_.

{287}

The boy goes forth to seek him as he is ordered; and when he returns,

Gammer thus inquires:—

_Gammer_:

“Where did’st thou finde him, Boy? was he not wher I told thee?”

_Cock_:

“Yes, yes, even at _Hobfilcher’s_ house, by him that bought and

sold me:

A _cup of ale_ had in his hand, and a _crab_ lay in the fier . .”

Drunkenness amongst the clergy was probably at this period too

common for much mention of it to be made in the various records of

ecclesiastical offences. An occasional prosecution, however, seems to

have been instituted before the Ordinary. One such may be found in the

Records of the Ecclesiastical Court of Chester, 1575, where the Vicar

of Whalley is charged with being “a common dronker and ale-knight.”

The time has happily gone by when a Swift could write of

“Three or four parsons full of October,

Three or four squires between drunk and sober,”

or a Pope of “a parson much bemused with beer,” or when the following

old Ballad could be supposed to give a true picture of the habits of

village clergymen:—

THE PARSON.

A parson who had the remarkable foible

Of minding the bottle much more than the Bible,

Was deemed by his neighbours to be less perplex’d

In handling a tankard than handling a text.

Perch’d up in his pulpit, one Sunday, he cry’d,

“Make patience, my dearly beloved, your guide,

And in your distresses, your troubles, your crosses,

Remember the patience of Job in his losses.”

The parson had got a stout cask of beer,

By way of a present—no matter from where—

Suffice it to know, it was toothsome and good,

And he lov’d it as well as he did his own blood. {288}

While he the church service in haste rambled o’er,

The hogs found a way thro’ his old cellar door,

And by the strong scent to the beer barrel led

Had knock’d out the spiggot or cock from its head.

Out spurted the liquor abroad on the ground,

The unbidden guests quaffed it merrily round,

Nor from their diversion and merriment ceas’d

Till ev’ry hog there was as drunk as a beast.

And now the grave lecture and prayers at an end,

He brings along with him a neighbouring friend,

To be a partaker of Sunday’s good cheer,

And taste the delightful October brew’d beer.

The dinner was ready, the things were laid snug,

“Here, wife,” says the parson, “go fetch us a mug,”

But a mug of what?—he had scarce time to tell her,

When, “yonder,” says she, “are the hogs in the cellar.

To be sure they got in when we’re at prayers,”

“To be sure you’re a fool,” said he, “get you down stairs,

And bring what I bid you, and see what’s the matter.

For now I myself hear a grunting and clatter.”

She went, and returned with sorrowful face,

In suitable phrases related the case,

He rav’d like a madman about in the room,

And then beat his wife and the hogs with the broom.

“Lord, husband,” said she, “what a coil you keep here,

About a poor beggarly barrel of beer.

You should, ‘_in your troubles, mischances, and crosses,

Remember the patience of Job in his losses_.’”

“A plague upon Job,” cried the priest in his rage,

“That beer, I dare say, was near ten years of age;

But you’re a poor ignorant jade like _his_ wife;

For Job never had such a cask in his life.”

A curious tale is related of one Mr. Dod, who had a country living near

Cambridge. Being impressed by the intemperance then prevalent in the

University, he on one occasion preached a very vigorous condemnatory

sermon on the vice of drunkenness. Soon after, several of the {289}

undergraduates, who were disporting themselves at some little distance

from the town, perceived Mr. Dod jogging along towards them on his old

horse. Annoyed at the sermon on drinking, which had probably seemed

to them as directed specially against themselves, the undergraduates

rapidly consulted together, and determined in revenge to make the old

man preach a sermon from a text of their own choosing. At first he

declined, but his persecutors were inexorable, and he was forced to

submit with the best grace he could. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “as

you are thus urgent for my compliance, pray what is the subject I am

to handle?” They answered, “Sir, the word _malt_; and, for want of a

better, here, Sir, is your pulpit,” pointing to the stump of a hollow

tree that stood by. Whereupon the venerable man mounted the rostrum,

and spoke as follows:—

“Beloved,

“I am a little man, come at a short warning,—to deliver a brief

discourse,—upon a small subject,—to a thin congregation, and from an

unworthly pulpit.

“Beloved, my text is—

“M A L T,

“Which cannot be divided into words, it being but one; nor into

syllables, it being but one: therefore, of necessity, I must reduce it

into letters, which I find to be these,

“M—A—L—T.

“M—my beloved, is Moral. A—is Allegorical. L—is Literal, T—is

Theological.

“The moral is set forth to teach you drunkards good manners, therefore:

M—my Masters. A—All of you. L—Listen. T—to my Text.

“The allegorical is when one thing is spoken, and another is intended:

the thing expressed is MALT; the thing signified is the oil of Malt,

which you Bacchanals make: M—your Meat. A—your Apparel. L—your liberty.

T—your Text.

“The Literal is according to the letter: M—Much. A—Ale. L—Little.

T—Thrift.

“The Theological is according to the effects it produces, which I find

to consist of two kinds. The first respects this life, the second, that

which is to come.

“The effects it produces in this world are in some: M—Murder.

A—Adultery. L—Licentious Lives. T—Treason. {290}

“The effects consequent in the world to come are: M—Misery. A—Anguish.

L—Lamentation. T—Torment.

“Thus, sirs, having briefly opened and explained my short text, give me

leave to make a little use and improvement of the foregoing. First, by

way of exhortation: M—My Masters. A—All of you. L—Look for. T—Torment.

“Now to wind up the whole and draw to a close, take with you the

characteristics of a drunkard. A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty,

the spoil of civility, his own shame, his children’s curse, his

neighbour’s scoff, the alehouse man’s benefactor, the devil’s drudge, a

walking swill-bowl, the picture of a beast, and monster of a man.”

There was a curious custom in vogue at the beginning of the seventeenth

century known as “muggling.” It was thus described by Young, in

_England’s Bane_: “I have seen a company amongst the very woods and

forests drinking for a muggle. Sixe determined to try their strengths

who could drinke most glasses for the muggle. The first drinkes a

glasse of a pint, the second two, the next three, and so every one

multiplieth till the last taketh sixe. Then the first beginneth againe

and taketh seven, and in this manner they drinke thrice a peece round,

every man taking a glasse more than his fellow, so that he that dranke

least, which was the first, dranke one and twenty pints, and the sixth

man thirty-six.” So great was the ale-drinking at this time, that the

headache brought on by it was known by the common expression, “the

ale passion,” and one in liquor was said to have been “kicked by the

brewer’s horse.”

One or two instances, only, of the drinking songs popular in

olden times can be given here. The _Merry Fellows_, a song of the

Restoration, well illustrates the old idea that merriness must be

accompanied with potations “pottle deep”:—

Now, since we’re met, let’s merry, merry be,

In spite of all our foes;

And he that will not merry be,

We’ll pull him by the nose.

_Chorus._ Let him be merry, merry there,

While we’re all merry, merry here;

For who can know where he shall go,

To be merry another year. {291}

He that will not merry, merry be,

With a generous bowl and a toast,

May he in Bridewell be shut up,

And fast bound to a post.

Let him, &c.

He that will not merry, merry be,

And take his glass in course,

May he be obliged to drink small beer,

Ne’er a penny in his purse.

Let him, &c.

He that will not merry, merry be

With a company of jolly boys,

May he be plagued with a scolding wife

To confound him with her noise.

Let him, &c.

He that will not merry, merry be,

With his sweetheart by his side,

Let him be laid in the cold church-yard

With a head-stone for his bride.

Let him, &c.

Cobblers have already been mentioned as devotees of strong malt drinks,

and many a cozier’s catch celebrates this propensity. Here is one:—

Come, sit we here by the fire-side,

And roundly drink we here,

Till that we see our cheeks ale-dyed,

And noses tanned with beer.

Shoemakers and cobblers used to call a red-herring a pheasant, and in

the same inflated style term half a pint of beer half a gallon, and a

pint of beer a gallon, much after the manner of Caleb Balderstone in

_The Bride of Lammermoor_.

Tinkers, too, swore by Ceres and not by Bacchus, as Herrick shows in

his _Tinker’s Song_.

Along, come along,

Let’s meet in a throng

Here of tinkers; {292}

And quaff up a bowl,

As big as a cowl,

To beer-drinkers.

The pole of the hop

Place in the ale shop,

To bethwack us,

If ever we think

So much as to drink

Unto Bacchus.

Who frolic will be

For little cost, he

Must not vary

From beer-broth at all

So much as to call

For canary.

Last century may be said to have brought the vice of heavy drinking to

its highest pitch. Statesmen, Judges, dignitaries of the Church—all

joined in the riotous living of the time. The usual allowance for a

_moderate_ man at dinner seems to have been two bottles of port. Men

were known as two-bottle men, three and four-bottle men, and even in

some instances _six-bottle men_. Lord Eldon, who was himself inclined

to get a little merry after dinner, relates an amusing story in his

_Anecdote Book_, which is illustrative of the habits of the day. He

tells how Jemmy Boswell, Dr. Johnson’s Biographer, while on assize, so

exceeded the bounds of moderation one evening, that he was found by

his friends lying on the pavement very drunk. His comrades, of whom

Lord Eldon (then Mr. Scott) was one, subscribed a guinea amongst them,

and sent Boswell a bogus brief, instructing him to move the Court

the next day for a writ of _Quare adhæsit pavimento_. Much to the

astonishment of the learned Judge who presided, Mr. Boswell actually

made the application in due course. The whole court was convulsed with

laughter, and the unfortunate counsel, turning this way and that in his

perplexity, knew not what to make of it. At last a learned friend came

to his assistance. “My lord,” he said, “Mr. Boswell _adhæsit pavimento_

last night; there was no moving him for some time. At length he was

carried to bed, and has been dreaming of what happened to himself.”

Where such manners prevailed in the {293} upper ranks of life, the

lower orders were not likely to be more sober. As a matter of fact,

gin ran riot amongst the working classes in the great centres of

population, spreading corruption of morals and ruin of health on every

side.

One more instance of a huge drinker may be given: One Jedediah Buxton

was curious enough in his drinking habits to calculate the number of

pints of ale or strong beer that he had drunk free of cost to himself

since he was twelve years of age, and the names of the gentlemen at

whose houses he had consumed them. The list began with the Duke of

Kingston, 2,130 pints; Duke of Norfolk, 266 pints; Duke of Leeds, 232,

and so on through a long list, of which it need only be said the total

amounted to 5,116 pints or _winds_, as he termed them, because, he

said, he never took more than one wind, or breath, to a pint and two

to a quart. Surely this man deserves to rank among the curiosities

of the subject. Happily times have changed and drunkenness, we may

hope, will soon cease to be counted a national vice. Bearing in mind

the excesses to which drinking was carried in the last century, it

cannot be denied that much progress has been made in the direction of

moderation; and that the habits of the whole people—slow and difficult

as such habits are to change—have undergone a very marked improvement.

Ere the next century has had time to grow from youth to old age, it may

be impossible to find in any rank of the population a man who could say

of an evening’s amusement like the old Scotch Shepherd, “It was a grand

treat, for before the end o’t there was na ane of us able to bite his

ain thoomb!”

[Illustration]

{294}

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI.

’Tis Ale, immortal Ale I sing!

Bid all the Muses throng!

Bid them awake each slumbering string,

Till the loud chords responsive ring

To swell the lofty song!

_Brasenose College Shrovetide Poem._

These venerable ancient song inditers

Soar’d many a pitch above our modern writers;

Our numbers may be more refin’d than those,

But what we’ve gained in verse we’ve lost in prose;

Their words no shuffling double meaning knew,

Their speech was homely, but their hearts were true.

_Rowe._

_OLD BALLADS, SONGS AND VERSES RELATING TO ALE AND BEER._

Long ago, in the merry days when the chilling influence of Puritanism

had not yet put an end to the majority of our sports and pastimes, and

when anyone who had ventured to speak of a May-pole as a “Stinckyng

Idoll” would most likely have been ducked in the nearest pond as a

proper reward for his calumny, the lower orders of England were far

more musical than at present; and there existed a great demand for

ballads to be sung at village merry-makings, ale-house gatherings,

and during the long winter evenings which would have been dull indeed

without the cheering influence of song. {295}

Of the quaint old ballads, written mostly in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries, a splendid collection was made by the Earl of

Oxford (born in 1661), to whom we are also indebted for the Harleian

MSS., now in the British Museum. These ballads are known as the

_Roxburghe Collection_, and a selection of them is given in this

chapter, together with facsimile reproductions of the curious woodcuts

with which the originals are adorned.[62]

[62] Most of the Roxburghe Ballads have been reprinted by the Ballad

Society, and for the very scanty information we have been able to

gather concerning them we are in a great measure indebted to the

Editors of these reprints. Our illustrations have been taken in

every case from the original ballads, and are, we believe, the only

exact facsimile reproductions in existence.

The most important ballad connected with the subject of ale and beer

is _Sir John Barley-corne_, of which there are many versions. It seems

very probable that the original is not in existence, for at a very

early date songs bearing the same name, and containing in effect the

same words, were known both in the North of England and in the West

Country. In later editions of Sir John Barley-corne old printers seem

to have frequently varied the text, and in recent times Burns has

recast the verses of the old ballad.

The version given below is the oldest in the _Roxburghe Collection_,

and must have been written at some time previous to the reign of

James I. To anyone who has perused these pages so far, the pretty

allegory contained in the ballad will not require explanation, but it

may be well to point out that Sir John is the grain of barley which

the farmer, the maltster, the miller, and the brewer do their best

to destroy. However, after having forced Sir John to go through the

various processes of agriculture, malting, and brewing, a friend,

Thomas Good-ale, comes to the poor fellow’s assistance with mickle

might, and takes “their tongues away, their legs or else their sight.”

The illustration is taken from a later version.

SIR JOHN BARLEY-CORNE.

A pleasant new Ballad to sing both even and morne

Of the bloody Murther of Sir John Barley-corne.

To the tune of _Shall I lye beyond thee_. {296}

[Illustration]

As I went through the North countrey,

I heard a merry greeting,

A pleasant toy and full of joy,

two noblemen were meeting.

And as they walkèd for to sport,

upon a summer’s day,

Then with another nobleman,

they went to make a fray.

Whose name was Sir John Barley-corne;

he dwelt down in a dale;

Who had a kinsman dwelt him nigh,

they cal’d him Thomas Good-ale.

Another namèd Richard Beere

was ready at that time,

Another worthy Knight was there,

call’d Sir William White-wine.

Some of them fought in a Blacke-Jack,

some of them in a Can;

But the chiefest in a blacke-pot,

like a worthy alderman. {297}

Sir Barly-corn fought in a Boule,

who wonne the victorie;

And made them all to fume and swear

that Barly-corne should die.

Some said Kill him some said Drown

others wisht to hang him hie—

For as many as follow Barly-corne,

shall surely beggers die.

Then with a plough they plow’d him up,

and thus they did devise,

To burie him quicke within the earth,

and swore he should not rise.

With harrowes strong they combèd him,

and burst clods on his head,

A joyful banquet then was made,

when Barly-corne was dead.

He rested still within the earth,

till raine from skies did fall,

Then he grew up in branches greene,

which sore amaz’d them all.

And so grew up till midsommer,

which made them all afeard;

For he was sprouted up on hie

and got a goodly beard.

Then he grew till S. James’s-tide,

his countenance was wan,

For he was growne unto his strength,

and thus became a man.

With hookes and sickles keene

into the field they hide,

They cut his legs off by the knees,

and made him wounds full wide. {298}

Thus bloodily they cut him downe,

from place where he did stand,

And like a thiefe for treachery,

they bound him in a band.

So then they tooke him up againe,

according to his kind,

And packt him up in severall stackes

to wither with the wind.

And with a pitchforke that was sharpe,

they rent him to the heart;

And like a thiefe for treason vile,

they bound him in a cart.

And tending him with weapons strong,

unto the towne they hie,

And straight they mowed him in a mow,

and there they let him lie.

Then he lay groning by the wals,

till all his wounds were sore,

At length they tooke him up againe,

and cast him on the floore.

They hyrèd two with holly clubs,

to beat on him at once,

They thwackèd so on Barly-corne

that flesh fell from his bones.

And then they tooke him up againe,

to fulfill women’s minde,

They dusted and they sifted him,

till he was almost blind.

And then they knit him in a sacke,

which grievèd him full sore,

They steep’d him in a Fat, God-wot,

for three days space and more. {299}

Then they took him up againe,

and laid him for to drie,

They cast him on a chamber floore,

and swore that he should die.

They rubbèd him and stirrèd him,

and still they did him turne

The malt-man swore that he should die,

his body he would burne.

They spightfully tooke him up againe

and threw him on a Kill;

So dried him there with fire hot,

and thus they wrought their will.