classes, is involved in fable. By some it has been supposed, from the
Oriental ingredients which enter into its composition, to have a
reference (as probably had also the plum-porridge of those days) to the
offerings made by the wise men of the East; and it was anciently the
custom to make these pies of an oblong form, thereby representing the
manger in which, on that occasion, those sages found the infant Jesus.
Against this practice--which was of the same character with that of the
little image called the Yule Dough, or Yule Cake, formerly presented by
bakers to their customers at the anniversary of the Nativity--the
Puritans made a vehement outcry, as idolatrous; and certainly it
appears to us somewhat more objectionable than many of those which they
denounced, in the same category. Of course it was supported by the
Catholics with a zeal the larger part of which (as in most cases of
controversy where the passions are engaged) was derived from the
opposition of their adversaries; and the latter having pronounced the
mince-pie to be an abomination, the eating thereof was immediately
established as a test of orthodoxy by the former. Sandys mentions that
even when distressed for a comfortable meal they would refuse to partake
of this very tempting dish, when set before them, and mentions John
Bunyan when in confinement as an example. He recommends that under such
extreme circumstances they should be eaten with a protest, as might be
done by a lawyer in a similar case.
In a struggle like this, however, it is clear that the advocates of
mince-pie were likely to have the best of it, through the powerful
auxiliary derived to their cause from the savoriness of the dish itself.
The legend of the origin of eating roast-pig, which we have on the
authority of Charles Lamb, exhibits the rapid spread of that practice,
against the sense of its abomination, on the strength of the
irresistible appeals made to the palate by the _crackling_. And
accordingly, in the case of mince-pie we find that the delicious
compound has come down to our days, stripped of its objectionable forms
and more mystic meanings, from the moment when they ceased to be topics
of disputation, and is freely partaken of by the most rigid
Presbyterian, who raises "no question" thereon "for conscience' sake."
It may be observed, however, that relics of the more recondite virtues
ascribed to this dish by the Catholics, in the days of its sectarian
persecution, still exist in the superstitions which attach certain
privileges and promises to its consumption. In some places the form of
this superstition, we believe, is, that for every house in which a
mince-pie shall be eaten at the Christmas season, the eater shall enjoy
a happy month in the coming year. As, however, this version would limit
the consumption, as far as any _future_ benefit is attached to it, to
the insufficient number of twelve, we greatly prefer an edition of the
same belief which we have met with elsewhere, and which promises a happy
_day_ for every individual pie eaten during the same period,--thereby
giving a man a direct and prospective interest in the consumption of as
large a number out of three hundred and sixty-five as may happen to
agree with his inclination.
Leaving, however, those proceedings which are going on within our homes,
and of which the manufacture of mince-pies forms so important an
article, we must turn to the symptoms of the approaching holiday that
meet the eye at every turn which we make out of doors. He who will take
the king's highway in his search after these, planting himself on the
outside of a stage-coach, will have the greater number of such signs
brought under his observation in the progress of a journey which whirls
him through town and village, and by park and farmhouse.
The road is alive with travellers; and along its whole extent there is
an air of aimless bustle, if we may so express ourselves,--an appearance
of active idleness. No doubt he who shall travel that same road in the
days of hay-making or harvest will see as dense a population following
their avocations in the open air and swarming in the fields. But then at
those periods of labor the crowds are more widely scattered over the
face of the country, and each individual is earnestly engaged in the
prosecution of some positive pursuit, amid a silence scarcely broken by
the distant whistle or occasional song that comes faintly to the ear
through the rich sunny air. People are busier without being so bustling.
But now all men are in action, though all men's business seems
suspended. The population are gathered together in groups at the corners
of streets or about the doors of ale-houses, and the mingling voices of
the speakers and the sound of the merry laugh come sharp and ringing
through the clear frosty air. There is the appearance, every way, of a
season of transition. The only conspicuous evidence of the business of
life going forward with a keen and steady view to its ordinary objects,
exists in the abundant displays made at the windows of every
shopkeeper, in every village along the road. Vehicles of all kinds are
in motion; stage-coach, post-chaise, and private carriage are alike
filled with travellers passing in all directions to their several places
of assembling, and give glimpses of faces bright with the re-awakened
affections that are radiating on all sides to common centres. Everywhere
hearts are stirred and pulses quickened by pleasant anticipations; and
many a current of feelings which for the rest of the year has wandered
only in the direction of the world's miry ways and been darkened by its
pollutions, met by the memories of the season and turned back from its
unpleasing course, is flowing joyously back by every highway into the
sweet regions of its pure and untainted spring.
[Illustration: COMING HOME FROM SCHOOL.--_Page 163._]
But of all wayfarers who are journeying towards the haunts of Christmas,
who so happy as the emancipated school-boy? And of all vehicles that are
carrying contributions of mirth to that general festival, what vehicle
is so richly stored therewith as the post-chaise that holds a group of
these young travellers? The glad day which has been the subject of
speculation so long before, and has been preceded by days which, in
their imaginary calendar, are beyond any question the very longest days
of all the year, has at length arrived, after seeming as if it never
would arrive, and the long restrained and hourly increasing tide of
expectation has at length burst its barriers, and is rushing forward
with no little noise, into the sea of fruition. "_Eja! quid silemus?_"
says the well-known breaking-up song of the Winchester boys; and the
sentiment therein expressed is wide awake (as everything must be, on
this morning, that lies within any reasonable distance of their voices)
in the breast of every school-boy, at all schools.
"Appropinquat ecce! felix
Hora gaudiorum,
Post grave tedium,
Advenit omnium
Meta petita laborum.
Domum, domum, dulce domum!
Domum, domum, dulce domum!
Dulce, dulce, dulce domum!
Dulce domum resonemus.
"Musa! libros mitte, fessa;
Mitte pensa dura,
Mitte negotium,
Jam datur otium,
Mea mittito cura!
Domum, domum, etc.
. . . . . . .
"Heus, Rogere, fer caballos;
Eja nunc eamus,
Limen amabile,
Matris et oscula,
Suaviter et repetamus
Domum, domum, etc.
"Concinamus ad Penates,
Vox et audiatur;
Phosphore! quid jubar,
Segnius emicans,
Gaudia nostra moratur.
Domum, domum, etc."
And away they go well inclined to act up to the injunctions of the
ancient song. "_Concinamus, O Sodales!_" Our readers will do well on the
present occasion to translate the verb by its English equivalent,--to
shout. "_Vox et audiatur!_"--small doubt of that! That deaf-looking old
woman by the way-side must be "very deaf indeed" if the sounds of that
merriment have failed at least to reach her ears,--though they may get
no further; for she looks like one of those in whom all the avenues by
which mirth reaches the heart, where they have not been closed at their
external outlets by the infirmities of age, are choked up within by the
ruins of that heart itself. But the entire progress of these glad hearts
to-day is in the nature of a triumph, and all objects in its course are
ministers to their unreflecting mirth. Theirs is the blessed age, and
this its most privileged day, when the spirit can extract from all
things the chyle of cheerfulness. That urchin who is flinging alms (a
most gracious act in childhood!) is doing so to the sound of his merry
neighbor's trumpet; and yet the act performed and the duty remembered,
amid all the heydey and effervescence of the spirits, has not lost its
gracefulness for the frolicsome mood by which it is attended. There are
men in this world who dispense their charities to the flourish of _their
own_ trumpets; and though they are practised performers on that
instrument, and play with considerable skill, the effect is unpleasing
and the act a mockery. Away go the light-hearted boys! away past the
aged and the poor,--as happiness has long since done, and the happy have
long continued to do!--awaking the shrill echoes of the road and all its
adjacent fields with the sound of their revelry. Every school-boy knows
the programme. Flags flying, horns blowing, racing against rival
chaises, taunts from the foremost, cheers from the hindmost, all sorts
of practical jokes upon each other and upon all they meet and all they
pass, and above all, the loud, ringing laugh,--the laugh of boyhood, so
unlike all other laughter, that comes out clear and distinct, direct
from the heart, stopping nowhere on its way, not pausing to be
questioned by the judgment nor restrained by the memory, presenting no
hollowness nor flatness to the nicest attention, betraying no under-tone
to the finest ear, giving true and unbroken "echoes to the seat where
_mirth_ is throned," born spontaneously of that spirit, and excited so
often by causes too minute for older eyes to see. And it is in this very
causelessness that consists the spell of childhood's laughter, and the
secret of youth's unmingled joy. We seldom begin to seek _reasons_ for
being gay till we have had some for being grave; and the search after
the former is very apt to bring us upon more of the latter. There are
tares among that wheat. The moment we commence to distrust our
light-heartedness, it begins to evade us. From the day when we think it
necessary to reason upon our enjoyments, to philosophize upon our
mirth, to analyze our gladness, their free and unmingled character is
gone. The toy is taken to pieces to see of what it was composed, and can
no more be put together in the same perfect form. They who have entered
upon the paths of knowledge, or gone far into the recesses of
experience, like the men of yore who ventured to explore the cave of
Trophonius, may perhaps find something higher and better than the
light-heartedness they lose, but they smile never more as they smiled of
old. The fine, clear instrument of the spirit that we bring with us from
heaven is liable to injury from all that acts upon it here; and the
string that has once been broken or disordered, repair it as we may,
_never_ again gives out the precise tone which it did before. The old
man,--nay, even the young man,--let him be as merry as he may, and laugh
as long and loudly as he will, never laughs as the school-boy laughs.
But of all this, and all the slumbering passions yet to be awakened in
those young breasts, and of many a grief to come, there is no token to
darken the joy of to-day. The mighty pleasures towards which they are
hastening have as yet never "broken the word of promise to their hope."
The postilions are of their party, and even he with the bottle-nose, who
seems to be none of the youngest, is a boy for the nonce. The very
horses appear to have caught the spirit of the occasion, and toss their
heads and lay their haunches to the ground and fling out their forelegs
as if they drew the car of Momus. The village boys return them shout for
shout, fling up their hats as the triumph approaches, and follow it till
their breath fails. The older passer-by returns their uproarious salute,
taking no umbrage at their mischievous jokes and impish tricks, and
turning, as the sounds of the merry voices die in the distance, to a
vision of the days when he too was a boy, and an unconscious rehearsal
of the half-forgotten song of "Dulce, dulce domum!"
And then the "limen amabile," and the "matris oscula," and the
"Penates," towards which they are advancing; the yearning hearts that
wait within those homes to clasp them; the bright eyes that are even now
looking out from windows to catch the first token of "their coming, and
look brighter when they come;" the quiet halls that shall ring to-night
to their young voices; and the lanes and alleys whose echoes they shall
awaken to-morrow, and still more loudly when the ice comes; and, above
all, the Christmas revelries themselves! The whole is one crowded scene
of enjoyment, across whose long extent the happy school-boy has as yet
caught no glimpse of that _black Monday_ which forms the opposite and
distant portal of this haunted time.
Amongst the signs of the time that are conspicuous upon the roads the
traveller whose journeyings bring him towards those which lead into the
metropolis will be struck by the droves of cattle that are making their
painful way up to the great mart for this great festival. But a still
more striking, though less noisy, Christmas symptom forms a very amusing
object to him who leaves London by such of its highways as lead
eastward. There is little exaggeration in the accompanying picture of a
Lynn or Bury coach on its town-ward journey with its freight of turkeys
at the Christmas season. Nay, as regards the freightage itself, the
artist has kept himself within bounds. Many a time have we seen a
Norfolk coach with its hampers piled on the roof and swung from beneath
the body, and its birds depending, by every possible contrivance, from
every part from which a bird could be made to hang. Nay, we believe it
is not unusual with the proprietors, at this season, to refuse inside
passengers of the human species, in favor of these Oriental gentry, who
"pay better;" and on such occasions of course they set at defiance the
restriction which limits them to carrying "four insides." Within and
without, the coaches are crammed with the bird of Turkey; and a
gentleman town-ward bound, who presented himself at a Norwich
coach-office at such a time, to inquire the "fare to London," was pertly
answered by the bookkeeper, "Turkeys." Our readers will acquit us of
exaggeration when we tell them that Mr. Hone, in his "Every-Day Book,"
quotes from an historical account of Norwich an authentic statement of
the amount of turkeys which were transmitted from that city to London
between a Saturday morning and the night of Sunday, in the December of
1793, which statement gives the number as one thousand seven hundred,
the weight as nine tons, two hundredweight, and two pounds, and the
value as £680. It is added that in the two following days these were
followed by half as many more. We are unable to furnish the present
statistics of the matter; but in forty years which have elapsed since
that time the demand, and of course the supply, must have greatly
increased; and it is probable that the coach-proprietors find it
convenient to put extra carriages on the road for these occasions.
[Illustration: NORFOLK COACH AT CHRISTMAS.--_Page 170._]
In making the annexed sketch we presume that Mr. Seymour must have had
in mind, and intended to illustrate by "modern instances," that class of
"wise saws" such as "Birds of a feather flock together," "Tell me the
company, and I will tell you the man," and others which tend generally
to show that men are apt to catch the hues of surrounding objects, and
take the features of their associates. If this was not his design, we
have only the alternative conclusion, that he had drawn turkeys till he
could draw nothing else, and till his best efforts at representing "the
human face divine" resulted in what the Scotch call a "bubbly-jock."
Some poet, in describing the perfections of his mistress's countenance,
speaks of it as conveying the impression that she "had looked on heaven,
and caught its beauty." Our friend the guard of this coach seems to
have looked on those turkeys of which he has charge till he has "caught
their beauty." It is impossible to conceive that the breath which he is
pouring into that horn of his should issue in any other form of sound
than that of a gobble. The coachman is clearly a turkey in disguise; and
the old-looking figure that sits behind him, with something like a
sausage round its neck, is probably his father. As for the swan with two
necks that floats on the panel of the coach-door, it is a
strange-looking bird at any time, but looks considerably more strange in
its present situation. It is unquestionably out of place, and forms no
fitting cognizance for a Norfolk coach at Christmas time.
Norfolk must be a noisy county. There must be a "pretty considerable
deal" of gabble towards the month of November in that English Turkistan.
But what a silence must have fallen upon its farmyards since Christmas
has come round! Turkeys are indisputably born to be killed. That is an
axiom. It is the end of their training, as it ought to be (and, in one
sense, certainly _is_) of their desires. And such being the destiny of
this bird, it may probably be an object of ambition with a respectable
turkey to fulfil its fate at the period of this high festival. Certain
it is that at no other time can it attain to such dignities as belong to
the turkey who smokes on the well-stored table of a Christmas
dinner,--the most honored dish of all the feast. Something like an
anxiety for this promotion is to be inferred from the breathless haste
of the turkey of which our artist has here given us a sketch, in its
pursuit of the coach which has started for London without it. The
picture is evidently a portrait. There is an air of verisimilitude in
the eager features, and about the action altogether, of the bird, which
stamps it genuine. In its anxiety it has come off without even waiting
to be killed; and at the rate after which it appears to be travelling,
is, we think, likely enough to come up with a heavily laden coach. We
hope, however, that it is not in pursuit of the particular coach which
we have seen on its way to the "Swan with two Necks," because we verily
believe there is no room on _that_ conveyance for a single additional
turkey, even if it should succeed in overtaking it.
[Illustration: TOO LATE FOR THE COACH.]
One of the most striking signs of the season, and which meets the eye
in all directions, is that which arises out of the ancient and still
familiar practice of adorning our houses and churches with evergreens
during the continuance of this festival. The decorations of our
mantel-pieces, and in many places of our windows, the wreaths which
ornament our lamps and Christmas candles, the garniture of our tables,
are alike gathered from the hedges and winter gardens; and in the
neighborhood of every town and village the traveller may meet with some
such sylvan procession as is here represented, or some group of boys
returning from the woods laden with their winter greenery, and like the
sturdy ambassador in the plate, engaged in what we have heard
technically called "bringing home Christmas" This symptom of the
approaching festivity is mentioned by Gay in his "Trivia":--
"When Rosemary and Bays, the poet's crown,
Are bawl'd in frequent cries through all the town,
Then judge the festival of Christmass near,--
Christmass, the joyous period of the year!
Now with bright holly all the temples strow;
With Lawrel green, and sacred Misletoe."
[Illustration: BRINGING HOME CHRISTMAS.--_Page 173._]
The practice of these decorations, which is recommended to modern times
by its own pleasantness and natural beauty, is of very high antiquity,
and has been ascribed by various writers to various sources. They who
are desirous of tracing a Christian observance to a Christian cause
remind us of those figurative expressions in the prophets which speak
of the Messiah as the "Branch of righteousness," etc., and describe by
natural allusions the fertility which should attend his coming. "The
Lord shall comfort Zion," says Isaiah: "he will comfort all her waste
places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like
the garden of the Lord." Again, "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto
thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the
place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious."
And Nehemiah, on an occasion of rejoicing, orders the people, after the
law of Moses, to "go forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches, and
pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of
thick trees," and to make booths thereof, "every one upon the roof of
his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God,"
and in the streets; "and all the congregation of them that were come
again out of the captivity" sat under these booths, "and there was very
great gladness." A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" asks if this
custom may not be referred, as well as that of the palms on Palm Sunday,
to that passage in the Scripture account of Christ's entry into
Jerusalem which states that the multitude "cut down branches from the
trees, and strawed them in the way."
The practice, however, of introducing flowers and branches amongst the
tokens of festivity seems, and very naturally, to have existed
universally and at all times. It was, as we know, a pagan manifestation
of rejoicing and worship, and is forbidden on that express ground in
early councils of the Christian Church. Hone, in his "Every-Day Book,"
quotes Polydore Virgil to the effect that "trymming of the temples with
hangynges, flowres, boughes, and garlondes, was taken of the heathen
people, whiche decked their idols and houses with suche array;" and it
came under the list of abominations denounced by the Puritans for the
same reason. The practice was also in use amongst the nations both of
Gothic and Celtic origin; and Brand quotes from Dr. Chandler's "Travels
in Greece" a very beautiful superstition, mentioned as the reason of
this practice, amongst the votaries of Druidism. "The houses," he says,
"were decked with evergreens in December, that the sylvan spirits might
repair to them and remain unnipped with frost and cold winds until a
milder season had renewed the foliage of their darling abodes."
In England the practice, whencesoever derived, has existed from the very
earliest days, and, in spite of outcry and prohibition, has come down in
full vigor to our own. In former times, as we learn from Stow, in his
"Survey of London," not only were our houses and churches decorated with
evergreens, but also the conduits, standards, and crosses in the
streets; and in our own day they continue to form a garniture not only
of our temples and our houses, but constitute a portion of the striking
display made at this festive season in our markets and from the windows
of our shops. Holly forms a decoration of the shambles, and every tub
of butter has a sprig of rosemary in its breast.