descriptions, that the Christmas celebrations of the more exalted
classes are not put forward for the consideration of our readers on the
ground of any great wisdom in the matter or humor in the manner of those
celebrations themselves. But we claim for them serious veneration, in
right of the excellence of the spirit in which they originated, and the
excellence of the result which they produced. The very extravagance of
the court pageantries--their profuse expenditure and grotesque
displays--were so many evidences of the hearty reception which was given
to the season in the highest places, and so many conspicuous sanctions
under which the spirit of unrestrained rejoicing made its appeals in the
lowest. This ancient festival of all ranks, consecrated by all religious
feelings and all moral influences; this privileged season of the lowly;
this Sabbath of the poor man's year,--was recognized by his superiors
with high observance and honored by his governors with ceremonious
state. The mirth of the humble and uneducated man received no check from
the assumption of an unseasonable gravity or ungenerous reserve on the
part of those with whom fortune had dealt more kindly, and to whom
knowledge had opened her stores. The moral effect of all this was of the
most valuable kind. Nothing so much promotes a reciprocal kindliness of
feeling as a community of enjoyment; and the bond of good will was thus
drawn tighter between those remote classes, whose differences of
privilege, of education, and of pursuit, are perpetually operating to
loosen it, and threatening to dissolve it altogether. There was a great
deal of wisdom in all this; and the result was well worth producing even
at the cost of much more folly than our ancestors expended on it. We
deny that spectacles and a wig are the inseparable symbols of sapience;
and we hold that portion of the world to be greatly mistaken which
supposes that wisdom may not occasionally put on the cap and bells, and
under that disguise be wisdom still! The ancient custom which made what
was called a fool a part of the establishment of princes, and gave him a
right in virtue of his bauble to teach many a wise lesson and utter many
a wholesome truth--besides its practical utility, contained as excellent
a moral and was conceived in as deep a spirit as the still more ancient
one of the skeleton at a feast. "_Cucullus non facit monachum_," says
one of those privileged gentry, in the pages of one who, we are sure,
could have enacted a Christmas foolery with the most foolish, and yet
had "sounded all the depths and shallows" of the human mind, and was
himself the wisest of modern men. "Better a witty fool than a foolish
wit." There is a long stride from the wisdom of that sneering
philosopher who laughed _at_ his fellows to his who on proper occasions
can laugh _with_ them; and in spite of all that modern philosophy may
say to the contrary, there was in the very extravagances of Coke and
Hatton, and other lawyers and statesmen of past times--if they aimed at
such a result as that which we have mentioned, and in so far as they
contributed thereto--more real wisdom than all which they enunciated in
their more solemn moods, or have put upon record in their books of the
law.
[Illustration: GATE OF THE "OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN."--_Page 109._]
In the same excellent spirit, too, everything was done that could assist
in promoting the same valuable effect; and while the pageantries which
were prepared by the court and by other governing bodies furnished a
portion of the entertainments by which the populace tasted the season in
towns, and sanctioned the rest, care was taken in many ways (of which we
have given an example) that the festival should be spread over the
country, and provision made for its maintenance in places more secluded
and remote. A set of arrangements sprang up which left no man without
their influence; and figuratively and literally, the crumbs from the
table of the rich man's festival were abundantly enjoyed by the veriest
beggar at his gate. The kindly spirit of Boaz was abroad in all the
land, and every Ruth had leave to "eat of the bread and dip her morsel
in the vinegar." At that great harvest of rejoicing, all men were
suffered to glean; and they with whom at most other seasons the world
had "dealt very bitterly"--whose names were Mara, and who ate sparingly
of the bread of toil--gleaned "even among its sheaves," and no man
reproached them. The old English gentleman, like the generous
Bethlehemite in the beautiful story, even scattered that the poor might
gather, and "commanded his young men saying, . . . 'Let fall also some
of the handfuls of purpose for them and leave them, that they may glean
them, and rebuke them not.'" And the prayer of many a Naomi went up in
answer, "Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee;" "blessed be he
of the Lord!"
In a word, the blaze of royal and noble celebration was as a great
beacon to the land, seen afar off by those who could not share in its
warmth or sit under the influence of its immediate inspirations. But it
was answered from every hill-top and repeated in every valley of
England; and each man flung the Yule log on his own fire at the cheering
signal. The hearth, according to Aubrey, at the first introduction of
coals, was usually in the middle of the room; and he derives from thence
the origin of the saying, "round about our coal fire." But whether the
huge fagot crackled and flustered within those merry circles or flared
and roared up the ample chimneys,--all social feelings, and all
beautiful superstitions and old traditions and local observances awoke
at the blaze; and from their thousand hiding-places crept out the
customs and ceremonials which crowd this festal period of the year, and
of which it is high time that we should proceed to give an account in
these pages. The charmed log that (duly lighted with the last year's
brand, which, as we learn from Herrick, was essential to its virtue)
scared away all evil spirits, attracted all beneficent ones. The 'squire
sat in the midst of his tenants as a patriarch might amid his family,
and appears to have had no less reverence, though he compounded the
wassail-bowl with his own hands and shared it with the meanest of his
dependants. The little book from which we have more than once quoted by
the title of "Round about our Coal-fire," furnishes us with an example
of this reverence too ludicrous to be omitted. Its writer tells us that
if the 'squire had occasion to ask one of his neighbors what o'clock it
was, he received for answer a profound bow and an assurance that it was
what o'clock his worship pleased,--an answer, no doubt, indicative of
profound respect, but not calculated to convey much useful information
to the inquirer. In fine, however, while the glad spirit of the season
covered the land, hospitality and harmony were everywhere a portion of
that spirit. The light of a common festival shone for once upon the
palace and the cottage, and the chain of a universal sympathy descended
unbroken through all ranks, from the prince to the peasant and the
beggar.
"The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dress'd with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go,
To gather in the misletoe.
Then opened wide the baron's hall,
To vassall, tenant, serf and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
_Those nights_ might village partner chuse;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of 'post-and-pair.'
. . . . . . .
The fire with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the _time_ to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the 'squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar's head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where, the monster fell;
What dogs, before his death, he tore,
And all the batings of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plumb-porridge stood, and Christmas pye;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may, in their mumming, see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made:
But, Oh! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light?
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale,
'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale,
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year."
The ceremonies and superstitions and sports of the Christmas season are
not only various in various places, but have varied from time to time in
the same. Those of them which have their root in the festival itself
are for the most part common to all, and have dragged out a lingering
existence even to our times. But there are many which, springing from
other sources, have placed themselves under its protection or, naturally
enough, sought to associate themselves with merry spirits like their
own. Old Father Christmas has had a great many children in his time,
some of whom he has survived; and not only so, but in addition to his
own lawful offspring the generous old man has taken under his patronage
and adopted into his family many who have no legitimate claim to that
distinction by any of the wives to whom he has been united,--neither by
the Roman lady, his lady of the Celtic family, nor her whom he took to
his bosom and converted from the idolatry of Thor. His family appears to
have been generally far too numerous to be entertained at one time in
the same establishment, or indeed by the same community, and to have
rarely travelled therefore in a body.
In Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, to which we have already alluded,
the old gentleman is introduced "attired in round hose, long stockings,
a close doublet, a high-crowned hat with a broach, a long thin beard, a
truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes, his scarfs and garters tied cross,
and his drum beaten before him," and is accompanied by the following
members of his fine family: MISS-RULE, CAROLL, MINCED-PIE, GAMBOLL,
POST-AND-PAIR (since dead), NEW YEAR'S GIFT, MUMMING, WASSAIL,
OFFERING, and BABY-CAKE,--or BABY-COCKE, as we find him elsewhere
called, but who we fear is dead too, unless he may have changed his
name, for we still find one of the family bearing some resemblance to
the description of him given by Ben Jonson.
In the frontispiece to this volume the artist has represented the old
man like another magician, summoning his spirits from the four winds for
a general muster; and we hope that the greater part of them will obey
his conjuration. The purpose, we believe, is to take a review of their
condition and see if something cannot be done to amend their
prospects,--in which it is our purpose to assist him. Already some of
the children have appeared on the stage; and the rest, we have no doubt,
are advancing in all directions. We are glad to see amongst the
foremost, as he ought to be, ROAST BEEF,--that English "champion bold"
who has driven the invader hunger from the land in many a well-fought
fray, and for his doughty deeds was created a knight banneret on one of
his own gallant fields so long ago as King Charles's time. We suppose he
is the same worthy who, in the Romish calendar, appears canonized by the
title of Saint George, where his great adversary Famine is represented
under the figure of a dragon. Still following ROAST BEEF, as he has done
for many a long year, we perceive his faithful 'squire (bottle-holder
if you will) PLUM PUDDING, with his rich round face and rosemary
cockade. He is a blackamoor, and derives his extraction from the spice
lands. His Oriental properties have however received an English
education and taken an English form, and he has long ago been adopted
into the family of Father Christmas. In his younger days his name was
"PLUMB-PORRIDGE": but since he grew up to be the substantial man he is,
it has been changed into the one he now bears, as indicative of greater
consistency and strength. His master treats him like a brother; and he
has, in return, done good service against the enemy in many a
hard-fought field, cutting off all straggling detachments or flying
parties from the main body, which the great champion had previously
routed. Both these individuals, we think, are looking as vigorous as
they can ever have done in their lives, and offer in their
well-maintained and portly personages a strong presumption that _they_
at least have at no time ceased to be favorite guests at the festivals
of the land.
Near them stands, we rejoice to see, their favorite sister Wassail. She
was of a slender figure in Ben Jonson's day, and is so still. If the
garb in which she appears has a somewhat antiquated appearance, there is
a play of the lip and a twinkle of the eye which prove that the glowing
and joyous spirit which made our ancestors so merry "ages long ago," and
helped them out with so many a pleasant fancy and quaint device, is not
a day older than it was in the time of King Arthur. How should she grow
old who bathes in such a bowl? It is her fount of perpetual youth! Why,
even mortal hearts grow younger, and mortal spirits lighter, as they
taste of its charmed waters. There it is, with its floating apples and
hovering inspirations! We see too, that the "tricksy spirit," whose head
bears it (and that is more than every head could do) has lost none of
his gambols, and that he is still on the best of terms with the Turkey
who has been his playfellow at these holiday-times for so many years.
The latter, we suppose, has just come up from Norfolk, where Father
Christmas puts him to school; and the meeting on both sides seems to be
of the most satisfactory kind.
MUMMING also, we see, has obeyed the summons, although he looks as if he
had come from a long distance and did not go about much now. We fancy he
has become something of a student. Misrule too, we believe, has lost a
good deal of his mercurial spirit, and finds his principal resource in
old books. He has come to the muster, however, with a very long "feather
in his cap," as if he considered the present summons portentous of good
fortune. He looks as if he were not altogether without hopes of taking
office again. We observe with great satisfaction, that the Lord of
Twelfth Night has survived the revolutions which have been fatal to the
King of the Cockneys and so many of his royal brethren; and that he is
still "every inch a king." Yonder he comes under a state-canopy of cake,
and wearing yet his ancient crown. The lady whom we see advancing in the
distance we take to be Saint Distaff. She used to be a sad romp; but her
merriest days we fear are over, for she is looking very like an old
maid. Not far behind her we fancy we can hear the clear voice of Caroll
singing as he comes along; and if our ears do not deceive us, the Waits
are coming up in another direction. The children are dropping in on all
sides.
But what is he that looks down from yonder pedestal in the back-ground
upon the merry muster, with a double face? And why, while the holly and
the mistletoe mingle with the white tresses that hang over the brow of
the one, is the other hidden by a veil? The face on which we gaze is the
face of an old man, and a not uncheerful old man,--a face marked by many
a scar, by the channels of tears that have been dried up and the deep
traces of sorrows past away. Yet does it look placidly down from beneath
its crown of evergreens on the joyous crew who are assembled at the
voice of Christmas. But what aspect hath that other face which no man
can see? Why doth our flesh creep and the blood curdle in our veins as
we gaze? What awful mystery doth that dark curtain hide? What may be
written on that covered brow, that the old man dare not lift the veil
and show it to those laughing children? Much, much, much that might
spoil the revels. Much that man might not know and yet bear to abide.
That twin face is Janus, he who shuts the gates upon the old year and
opens those of the new, he who looks into the past and into the future,
and catches the reflections of both, and has the tales of each written
on his respective brows. For the past, it is known and has been
suffered; and even at a season like this we can pause to retrace the
story of its joys and of its sorrows as they are graven on that open
forehead,--and from that retrospect, glancing to the future for hope,
can still turn to the present for enjoyment. But oh, that veil and its
solemn enigmas! On that other brow may be written some secret which,
putting out the light of hope, should add the darkness of the future to
the darkness of the past, until, amid the gloom before and the gloom
behind, the festal lamps of the season, looked on by eyes dim with our
own tears, should show as sad as tapers lighted up in the chamber of the
dead. God in mercy keep down that veil!
"Such foresight who on earth would crave,
Where knowledge is not power to save?"
It will be our business to introduce to our readers each of the children
of old Christmas as they come up in obedience to the summons of their
father, reserving to ourselves the right of settling the order of their
precedence; and we will endeavor to give some account of the part which
each played of old in the revelries of the season peculiarly their own,
and of the sad changes which time has made in the natural constitutions,
or animal spirits, of some of them. Preparatory, however, to this we
must endeavor to give a rapid glance at the causes which contributed to
the decay of a festival so ancient and universal and uproarious as that
which we have described, and brought into the old man's family that
disease to which some of them have already fallen victims, and which
threatens others with an untimely extinction.
We have already shown that so early as the reign of Elizabeth the
Puritans had begun to lift up their testimony against the pageantries of
the Christmas-tide; and the Lord of Misrule, even in that day of his
potential ascendancy, was described as little better than the great
Enemy of Souls himself. Our friend Stubs (whose denunciations were
directed against _all_ amusements which from long usage and established
repetition had assumed anything like a form of ceremonial, and who is
quite as angry with those who "goe some to the woodes and groves and
some to the hilles and mountaines . . . where they spende all the night
in pastymes, and in the mornyng they return bringing with them birch
bowes and braunches of trees to deck their assemblies withall," in the
sweet month of May, as he could possibly be with the Christmas
revellers, although the very language in which he is obliged to state
the charge against the former was enough to tempt people out "a Maying,"
and might almost have converted himself) assures the reader of his
"Anatomie" that all who contribute "to the maintenaunce of these
execrable pastymes" do neither more nor less than "offer sacrifice to
the devill and Sathanas." It is probable, however, that the people of
those days, who were a right loyal people and freely acknowledged the
claim of their sovereigns to an absolute disposition of all their
temporalities (any of the common or statute laws of the land
notwithstanding), considered it a part of their loyalty to be damned in
company with their sovereigns, too, and resolved that so long as these
iniquities obtained the royal patronage it was of their allegiance to
place themselves in the same category of responsibility. Or perhaps
their notion of regal prerogative, which extended so far as to admit its
right to mould the national law at its good pleasure, might go the
further length of ascribing to it a controlling power over the moral
statutes of right and wrong, and of pleading its sanction against the
menaces of Master Stubs. Or it may be that Master Stubs had failed to
convince them that they were wrong, even without an appeal to the royal
dispensation. Certain it is that, in spite of all that Master Stubs and
his brethren could say, the sway of the Lord of Misrule, and the revels
of his court continued to flourish with increasing splendor during this
reign, and, as we have seen, lost no portion of their magnificence
during the two next, although in that time had arisen the great champion
of the Puritans, Prynne, and against them and their practices had been
directed whole volumes of vituperation, and denounced large vials of
wrath.
In Scotland, however, where the reformation took a sterner tone than in
the southern kingdom, and where, as we have said, the irregularities
committed under cover of the Christmas and other ceremonials laid them
more justly open to its censure, the effect of this outcry was earlier
and far more sensibly felt; and even so early as the reign of Queen Mary
an act passed the Scottish Parliament whereby the Abbot of Unreason and
all his "merrie disports" were suppressed.
In England, it is true that, according to Sandys, an order of the common
council had issued as early as the beginning of _our_ Mary's reign
prohibiting the Lord Mayor or Sheriffs from entertaining a Lord of
Misrule in any of their houses; but this appears to have been merely on
financial grounds, with a view of reducing the corporation expenditure,
and to have extended no further.
It was not, however, until after the breaking out of the Civil War that
the persecution of the Puritans (who had long and zealously labored not
only to resolve the various ceremonials of the season into their pagan
elements, but even to prove that the celebration of the Nativity at all
was in itself idolatrous) succeeded to any extent in producing that
result which the war itself and the consequent disorganization of
society must in a great measure have effected even without the aid of a
fanatical outcry. In the very first year of that armed struggle the
earliest successful blow was struck against the festivities with which
it had been usual to celebrate this period of the year, in certain
ordinances which were issued for suppressing the performance of plays
and other diversions; and in the following year some of the shops in
London were for the first time opened on Christmas day, in obedience to
the feelings which connected any observance of it with the spirit of
popery. By the year 1647 the Puritans had so far prevailed that in
various places the parish officers were subjected to penalties for
encouraging the decking of churches and permitting divine service to be
performed therein on Christmas morning; and in the same year the
observance of the festival itself, with that of other holidays, was
formally abolished by the two branches of the legislature.
It was found impossible, however, by all these united means, to
eradicate the Christmas spirit from the land; and many of its customs
and festivities continued to be observed, not only in obscure places,
but even in towns, in spite of prohibition and in spite of the
disarrangement of social ties. The contest between the Puritan spirit
and the ancient spirit of celebration led to many contests; and we have
an account--in a little book of which we have seen a copy in the
British Museum, entitled "Canterbury Christmas, or a True Relation of
the Insurrection in Canterbury"--of the disturbances which ensued in
that city upon the Mayor's proclamation, issued in consequence of that
Parliamentary prohibition at the Christmas which followed. This said
proclamation, it appears, which was made by the city crier, was to the
effect "that Christmas day and all other superstitious festivals should
be put downe and that a market should be kept upon Christmas day." This
order, it goes on to state, was "very ill taken by the country," the
people of which neglected to bring their provisions into the town, and
gave other tokens of their displeasure of a less negative kind. For, a
few of the shopkeepers in the city, "to the number of twelve at the
most," having ventured to open their shops in defiance of the general
feeling, "they were commanded by the multitude to shut up again; but
refusing to obey, their ware was thrown up and down and they at last
forced to shut in."