In the sunless retreat of a dark coral-grove,
Where slumber young sprites,--the gay elves of a sea
Flinging back the bright blue of its heaven above.
There they sip the sweet fruit of that palm-tree, and leave
Of its best and its ripest for maidens who stray,
And laugh away time with their lovers at eve,
And sing to those elves of the deep by the way.
Ο! to see them at sunset, when down by the shore
Of their own Malabar in gay clusters they stand,
Like spirits of light shedding softness all o’er
The broad sea, and its tribute of fruit, from the land!
There troops of young girls, in their light-hearted mirth,
Are laughing at youths who, reclined on the earth,
Drink the white wine of Kishna;--while some are at play,
Flinging glances and handsfull of roses, in showers,
That their lovers can’t tell, as they bend ’neath the fray,
Which are falling the fastest,--the glances, or flowers.
And then on the sands where these young people meet,
What hushing of songs and suppressing of glee,
As the waves bring in gently, and waft to their feet,
The ripe fruit of the palm that lives under the sea!
There, while, half in earnest, fair Malabar’s daughters,
Half play, dip their white, sandal’d feet in the waters,
To catch the ripe cocoas, and run back again,
As the wave washes over their small anklet bells,
There are some, youths and maidens, who, link’d in a chain,
Like pearls strung, and mix’d, here and there, with sea-shells,
Dash into the flood for the fruit of the palm,
Which they strive for, and, winning, bring joyously out;
Then lean on their lovers, all panting and warm
With laughter and splashing the waters about.
O, who would not like to pass summer away
Amid scenes such as this? O, who would not love
With Malabar’s daughters, at twilight, to play,
And taste the ripe fruit of that dark coral-grove?
The Malabar palm was not the only tree of its kind that used to
afford holidays and banquetings to the people of the East, that is,
according to the poets. The Talipot palm of Ceylon, or, as the natives
somewhat unmusically call it, “_lanka dwipa_,” _was_, in the olden
time of pleasant fiction, one of this gifted species. But the banquet
it afforded was not of annual occurrence; for the tree never flowers
till it is fifty years old, and dies immediately after producing its
fruit. The Kings of Candy used to bestow the rich gift of some of its
blossoms on the favoured fair one whose head rested on the bosom of
the Sovereign at the feast, and who lifted the bowl to his painted
lips. It was, however highly esteemed, not such a present as Demetrius
Poliorcetes made to Lamia, after that accomplished courtezan had
erected at Sicyon a portico so superb, that Polemo wrote a book to
describe it; and poem and portico became the table-talk of all Greece.
The gift of Demetrius was a magnificent purse, containing two hundred
and fifty talents, which, by the way, he had compelled the reluctant
Athenians to contribute; and this he sent to Lamia, saying, that it was
merely “for soap.” The extravagant lady spent it all in one single,
but consuming, feast! How pleasantly, by contrast, shines that other
courtezan, Leæna, whose wit made guests forget that the feast was
frugal; and to whom the Athenians erected a bronze lioness, without a
tongue, in honour of the lady who heroically had bitten out her own,
that torture might not make her betray the accomplices of her protector
Harmodius, in the murder of her tyrant Hipparchus!----
We have not found much of the refinement we looked for in these remote
periods and banquets. Let us see what may be discovered in the Table
Traits of England in Early Times.
TABLE TRAITS OF ENGLAND IN EARLY TIMES.
When Diodorus Siculus wrote an account of the aboriginal inhabitants of
Britain, some fifty years before the Christian era, he described the
island as being thickly inhabited, ruled by many Kings and Princes, and
all living peaceably together,--though with war-chariots and strong
arms, to settle quarrels when they occurred. But if our ancestors
lived peaceably among themselves, they can hardly be said to have
lived comfortably. Their habitations were of reed, or of wood; and
they gathered in the harvest by cutting off the ears of corn. These
ears they garnered in subterranean repositories, wherefrom they daily
culled the ripest grain; and, rudely dressing the same, had thence
their sustenance. Diodorus says that our primitive sires were far
removed from the cunning and wickedness of the rest of the world; and
other writers contrast them favourably with the Irish, who are said to
have fed on human flesh, to have had enormous appetites for such food,
and to have been given to the nasty habit of devouring their deceased
fathers; but it is not uncommon for others, as well as for Irish sons,
to devour, at least, their parents’ substance, even at the present day.
The food of an Irish child was certainly illustrative of character,--we
should rather say that the solemnity of offering the first food to a
child was characteristic. Caius Julius Solinus, a writer of the first
century, says, that “when a Hibernian mother gives birth to a male
child, she puts its first food on the point of her husband’s sword, and
lightly inserts this foretaste of meat into the mouth of the infant,
on its very tip; and, by family vows, desires that it may never die
but under arms.” In other words, the relations wished that the little
stranger might never be in want of a row, when disposed to distinguish
the family name!
In the days of Julius Cæsar, our stalwart sires supported their thews
and sinews on milk and flesh,--the diet of a pugilist. We see how much
progress was made by the time of Constantine,--the Constantine that was
crowned in Britain,--“when,” says a contemporary writer, “the harvests
sufficed alike for the gifts of Ceres and Bacchus, and the pastures
were covered with innumerable multitudes of tame flocks, distended with
milk, or laden with fleeces.”
I very much fear, however, notwithstanding the rather poetical accounts
of certain early writers, that our aboriginal ancestry were very little
superior to the New Zealanders. They were, perhaps, more uncivilized,
and quite as ignorant; and their abstinence from the flesh of hares and
poultry, and, in the northern parts of the island, from fish, bespeaks
a race who lacked, at once, industry and knowledge. Indeed, it is by no
means certain, that we do not wrong the New Zealanders by suggesting
their possible inferiority to the Britons, seeing that the latter
are very strongly suspected of being guilty of the most revolting
cannibalism.
They were clever enough to brew mead and ale; but wine and civilization
were brought to them by their enemies, the Romans,--invaders whom, for
some reasons, they might have welcomed with a sentiment akin to the
line in Béranger:--
“_Vivent nos amis! nos amis, les ennemis!_”
They ate but twice a day. The last meal was the more important one.
Their seats were skins, or bundles of hay, flung on the ground. The
table was a low stool, around which British Chiefs sat, and, even in
the locality occupied by modern Belgravia, tore their food with teeth
and nails, or hacked at it with a wretched knife, as bad as any thing
of the sort now in common use in Gaul. In short, they committed a
thousand solecisms, the very idea of which is sufficient to make the
Sybarites of Belgravia very much ashamed of their descent from the
savages of Britain.
It was characteristic of the sort of civilization which the
Anglo-Saxons brought with them to England, that they introduced the
rather vulgar custom of taking four meals a day. The custom was,
however, one solemnly observed by the high-feeding nobility of the
Saxons. They ate good solid joints of flesh-meat, boiled, baked, or
broiled. It would seem, that, in those days, cooks were not of such
an illustrious guild as that which they subsequently formed. A cook
among the Anglo-Saxons was little more accounted of than the calf
he cut up into collops. The cook, in fact, was a slave; and was as
unceremoniously bequeathed by his owner, in the latter’s last will
and testament, as though the culinary artist had been a mere kitchen
utensil. At Saxon tables, both sexes sat together,--a custom refined
in itself, refining in its effects, and of such importance, that
half-a-dozen nations claim the honour of being the inventors of that
excellent custom. In Europe, Turkey alone has obstinately refused to
follow this civilizing example; and Turkey is falling to pieces. It
may, therefore, be logically proved, that where table rights are not
conceded to the ladies, nations slowly perish; and--“serve them right.”
It is a mark of Anglo-Saxon delicacy, that table-cloths were features
at Anglo-Saxon feasts; but, as the long ends were used in place of
napkins, the delicacy would be of a somewhat dirty hue, if the cloth
were made to serve at a second feast. There was a rude sort of display
upon the board; but the order of service was of a quality that would
strike the “Jeameses” of the age of Victoria with inexpressible
disgust. The meat was never “dished,” and “covers” were as yet unknown.
The attendants brought the viands into the dining hall on the spits,
knelt to each guest, presented the spit to his consideration; and,
the guest having helped himself, the attendant went through the same
ceremony with the next guest. Hard drinking followed upon these same
ceremonies; and even the monasteries were not exempt from the sins
of gluttony and drunkenness. Notwithstanding these bad habits, the
Anglo-Saxons were a cleanly people. The warm bath was in general use.
Water, for hands and feet, was brought to every stranger on entering a
house wherein he was about to tarry and feed; and, it is said that one
of the severest penances of the Church was the temporary denial of the
bath, and of cutting the hair and nails.
With the Normans came greater grandeur and increased discomfort. They
neither knew nor tolerated the use of table-cloths or plain steel
forks; but their bill of fare showed more variety and costliness
than the Saxons cared for. Their cookery was such an improvement on
that of their predecessors in the island, that Norman French, and
Norman dishes, flung the Saxon tongue and table into the annihilating
position of “vulgarity.” The art was so much esteemed, that Monarchs
even granted estates, on condition that the holder thereof should,
through his cook, prepare a certain dish at stated periods, and set
it before the King. It was under the Normans that the boar’s head
had regal honours paid it; and its progress from the kitchen to the
banquet was under escort of a guard, and behind the deafening salutes
of puffy-cheeked trumpeters. The crane was then what the goose is
now,--highly esteemed; yet labouring under the shadow of a suspicion
of being “common.” The peacock, on the other hand, was only seen, tail
and all, at the tables of the wealthy. Their beverage was of a very
bilious character,--spicy and cordialed; namely, hippocras, piment,
morat, and mead. The drink of the humbler classes partook of a more
choleraic quality. It consisted of cider, perry, and ale. The Norman
maxim for good living and plenty of it, was to “rise at five, dine at
nine, sup at five, and bed at nine, if you’d live to a hundred all
but one.” _Dinner_ at nine is, however, a contradiction of terms; for
_dinner_, as I have said, is the abbreviation of _dixième heure_, or
“ten o’clock,” the time at which all people sat down to a solid repast
in the days of the first Williams.
In the two following centuries, cooks and Kings launched into far
greater magnificence than had ever, hitherto, been seen in England.
Richard II. entertained ten thousand guests daily at his numerous
tables; and the exceedingly fast Earl of Leicester, grandson of the
equally slow Henry III., is said to have spent twenty-two thousand
pounds of silver in one year, in eating, alone. His thirsty household
retainers drank no less than three hundred and seventy-one pipes of
wine, in the same space of time. At great banquets, the dishes were
reckoned by thousands, and Kings in vain dictated decrees denouncing
such dinners; for cooks and _convives_ considered them with contempt.
As a show of moderation, the old four meals a day were now reduced to
two; but these two were connected by such a savoury chain of intermeats
and refections, that the board was spread all day long, and guests were
never weary:--
“Their life like the life of the Germans would be,
_Du lit à la table; de la table au lit_.”
To have things “brennying like wildfire,” was the characteristic of
the cookery of the period. Confectionery of the richest sorts were
the lighter materials of meals, which were abundantly irrigated by
hippocras, piment, or _claret_, or the simpler and purer wines of
France, Spain, Syria, and Greece. Thus might a host say:--
“Ye shall have rumney and malespine,
Both ypocrasse and vernage wine;
Mountrasse and wyne of Greke,
Both algrade and despice eke,
Antioche and bastarde,
Pyment also and garnarde,
Wyne of Greke and muscadell,
Both clary, pyment, and Rochelle.”
Ricobaldi of Ferrara, writing, about the year 1300, of the Italian
social condition in the age of Frederick II., illustrates the former
rudeness of the Italian manners, by showing that in those days “a man
and his wife ate off the same plate. There were no wooden-handled
knives, nor more than one or two drinking-cups in a house. Candles of
wax or tallow were unknown; a servant held a torch during supper. The
clothes of men were of leather unlined; scarcely any gold or silver
was seen on their dress. The common people ate flesh but three times a
week, and kept their cold meat for supper. Many did not drink wine in
summer. A small stock of corn seemed riches. The portions of women were
small; their dress, even after marriage, was simple. The pride of men
was to be well provided with arms and horses; that of the nobility to
have lofty towers, of which all the cities in Italy were full. But now,
frugality has been changed for sumptuousness; every thing exquisite is
sought after in dress,--gold, silver, pearls, silks, and rich furs.”
The Household-Book of the Earl of Northumberland admirably illustrates
the interior and table life of the greater nobles of the period of
Henry VII. In this well-known and well-kept record, the family is
described as consisting of one hundred and sixty-six persons, masters
and servants; and hospitable reckoning is allowed for more than half
a hundred strangers who are expected daily to partake of the Earl’s
good cheer. The cost for each individual, for board and fuel, is
settled at twopence halfpenny daily, about one and sixpence of our
present money, if we take into account the relative value of money,
and the relative prices of provisions. The Earl allots for his annual
expenditure £1178. 17_s._ 8_d._ More than two-thirds of this is
consumed in meat, drink, and firing; namely, £797. 11_s._ 2_d._ The
book carefully states the number of pieces which the carver is to cut
out of each quarter of beef, mutton, veal, pork, nay, even stockfish
and salmon; and supervising clerks were appointed to see that this
was carried into effect, and to make due entry of the same in their
registers. An absent servant’s share is to be accounted for, and not
to be divided among the rest. The absentee, if he be on “my Lord’s”
business, received 8_d._ per day, board wages, in winter, and 5_d._ in
summer; with 2_d._ additional daily for the keep of a horse. A little
more than a quarter of wheat, estimated at 5_s._ 8_d._ per quarter, is
allowed for every month throughout the year; with this, 250 quarters
of malt, at 4_s._, (two hogsheads to the quarter,) and producing about
a bottle and a third of intermediate beer to each person, does not say
much for the liberality of the Lord, though it may for the temperance
of his retainers. One hundred and nine fat beeves are to be bought at
All-Hallow’s Tide, at 13_s._ 4_d._ each; a couple of dozen of lean
kine, at 8_s._, are to be bought at St. Helen’s, to be fattened for
service between Midsummer and Michaelmas. All the rest of the year,
nine weary months, the family was on salted provisions, to aid the
digestion of which, the Earl, so chary of his liquor, allows the
profuse aid of one hundred and sixty-six gallons of mustard. 647 sheep
at 1_s._ 8_d._, to be eaten salted between Lammas and Michaelmas;
25 hogs at 2_s._, 28 calves at 1_s._ 8_d._, 40 lambs at 10_d._ or
1_s._,--are other articles which seem to have been reserved rather for
the upper table than for the servants, whose chief fare was salted
beef, without vegetables, but with mustard _à discretion_! There was
great scarcity of linen, and the little there was, except that for the
chapel, not often washed. No mention is made of sheets; and though
“my Lord’s” table had eight “table-cloths” for the year, that of the
Knights had but one, and probably went uncovered while the cloth was
“at the wash.” If the ale was limited, the wine appears to have been
more liberally dispensed; and ten tuns and two hogsheads of Gascony
wine, at £4. 13_s._ 4_d._ per tun, show the bent of the Earl’s taste.
Ninety-one dozens of candles for the year, and no fires after Lady-Day,
except half-fires in the great room and the nursery; twenty-four fires,
with a peck of coals daily for each, (for the offices,) and eighty
chaldrons of coals, at 4_s._ 10_d._, with sixty-four loads of wood,
at 1_s._ a load,--are the provisions made for lighting and firing.
It must have been cold work to live in the noble Earl’s house in
Yorkshire, from Lady-Day till the warm summer came; which advent is
sometimes put off till next year. The family rose at six, or before;
for Mass was especially ordered at that hour, in order to force the
household to rise early. The dinner hour was ten A.M.; four P.M. was
the hour for supper; and at nine the bell rang for bed. I have omitted
the breakfast, which took place at seven, after Mass; when my Lord and
Lady sat down to a repast of two pieces of salt fish, and half-a-dozen
red herrings, with four fresh ones, or a dish of sprats, and a quart
of beer, and the same measure of wine. This was on meagre days. At
other seasons, half a chine of mutton, or of boiled beef, graced
the board of the delicate Earl and Countess, who sometimes forgot
that they had to dine at ten. Capons, at 2_d._ each, were only on the
Lord’s table, and plovers, at a penny, (at Christmas,) were deemed too
good for any digestion that was not carried on in a “noble” stomach.
Game generally is specified, but without intimation as to limit of
the board. No doubt the fragments were not rejected at the servants’
table; but much certainly went in doles at the gate. My Lord maintained
between twenty and thirty horses for his own use. His mounted servants
found their own; but their keep was at the noble master’s cost. Of
mounted servants, not less than three dozen attended their Lord on
a journey; and when this journey was for change of residence from
one mansion to another, the illustrious Percy carried with him bed
and bedding, household furniture, pots, pans, and kitchen utensils
generally. The baggage waggon bore these _impedimenta_; and before and
behind them went chiefs and serving men, including in the array eleven
Priests,--two hundred and twenty-three persons in all,--and only two
cooks to look after their material happiness! No notice is taken of
plate; but the “hiring of pewter vessels” is mentioned; and with these
rough elements did the Earl construct his imperfect social system, so
far taking care for his soul as well as his body, inasmuch as that he
contributed a groat a year to the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham, and
the same magnificent sum to the holy blood at Hales, on the express
condition of the interest of the Virgin for the promotion of the future
welfare of the Earl in heaven. Such is an outline of a nobleman’s
household in the good old days of Henry VII.
In the reign of the same King, fish was a scarce article, and for a
singular reason; namely, people destroyed them at an unlawful season,
for the purpose of feeding their pigs or manuring the ground. The
favourite wine at table was Malmsey: it came from Candy; and there was
a legal restriction against its costing more than four pounds per butt.
In this reign our cooks wrought at fires made with wood imported from
Gascony and Languedoc, whence also much wine was brought, but, by law,
only in English bottoms. The richest man of this reign was Sir William
Stanley, into whose hands fell nearly all the spoil of Bosworth Field;
and therewith he maintained a far more princely house and table than
his master.
In Pegge’s “_Cury_” there is an account of the rolls of provisions,
with their prices, in the time of Henry VIII.; and we find that, at the
dinner given at the marriage of Gervase Clifton and Mary Nevile, the
price of three hogsheads of wine (one white, one red, one claret) was
set down at £5. 5_s._
The dining-rooms--and, indeed, these were the common living rooms in
the greatest houses--were still uncomfortable places. The walls were
of stone, partially concealed by tapestry hung upon timber hooks,
and taken down whenever the family removed, (leaving bare the stone
walls,) lest the damp should rot it. It was a fashion that had lasted
for centuries; but it began to disappear when mansions ceased to be
fortresses. The tapestry, it may be observed, was suspended on a
wooden frame projecting from the wall, between which and the hangings
there was a passage wide enough to kill a man, as Hamlet did Polonius,
“behind the arras.” It was not till the reign of Charles I. that houses
were built with underground rooms; the pantry, cellars, kitchens, and
store-rooms were, previous to this reign, all on the ground floor; and
the officials presiding in each took there, respectively, their solemn
post on great days of state-dinners. There were certain days when the
contents of these several offices, meat and drink, were bountifully
supplied to every applicant. To revert to tapestry: we see the time of
its change, in the speech of Falstaff, who wishes his hostess to sell
her tapestry, and adopt the cheaper painted canvas which came from
Holland.
At this time, and, indeed, long after, our English yeomanry and
tradesmen were more anxious to invigorate their bodies by a generous
diet, than to dwell in well-furnished houses, or to find comfort in
cleanliness and elegance. “These English,” said the Spaniards who came
over with Philip II., “have their houses made of sticks and dirt; but
they fare commonly as well as the King.”
Previous to the age of Elizabeth, even the Monarch, well as he might
fare, and gloriously as he shone in pageants, was but simply lodged.
The furniture of the bed-room of Henry VIII. was of the very simplest;
and the magnificent Wolsey was content with deal for the material
of most of the furniture of his palace. But the community generally
was, from this period, both boarded and bedded more comfortably and
refinedly than before. The hours for meals were eight, noon, and six;
but “after-meats,” and “after-suppers,” filled up the intervals. It was
chiefly at the “after-supper” that wine was used. The dinner, however,
had become the principal meal of the day. It was abundant; but the
jester and harper were no longer tolerated at it, with their lively
sauce of mirth and music. It was the fashion to be sad, and ceremonious
dinners were celebrated in stately silence, or a dignified _sotto
voce_. Each guest took his place according to a properly marshalled
order of precedence; and, before sitting down to dinner, they washed
with rose-water and perfumes, like the parochial boards of half a
century ago, who used also to deduct the expenses of both dinners and
rose-water from the rates levied for the relief of the poor; this, too,
at a time when men who were _not_ parish authorities were being hanged
for stealing to the amount of a few shillings.