England. It can obtain no footing in France. A Frenchman will dress like
an Englishman, swear like an Englishman, and get drunk like an
Englishman; but if you would offend him forever, compel him to eat plum
pudding. A few of the leading restaurateurs, wishing to appear
extraordinary, have _plomb-pooding_ upon their cartes; but in no
instance is it ever ordered by a Frenchman. Everybody has heard the
story of Saint Louis--Henri Quatre,--or whoever else it might be--who,
wishing to regale the English ambassador on Christmas Day with a plum
pudding, procured an excellent receipt for making one, which he gave to
his cook with strict injunctions that it should be prepared with due
attention to all particulars. The weight of the ingredients, the size of
the copper, the quantity of water, the duration of time,--everything was
attended to, except one trifle; the king forgot the cloth; and the
pudding was served up like so much soup, in immense tureens, to the
surprise of the ambassador, who was, however, too well-bred to express
his astonishment.
Amongst our ancestors, the duties of the day which followed first after
those of religion were the duties which immediately spring out of a
religion like ours,--those of charity.
"When
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold,
Alas! then for the houseless beggar old!"
was a sentiment of which they never allowed themselves to lose sight.
Amid the preparations making for his own enjoyment, and the comforts by
which he set at defiance the austerities of the season, the old English
gentleman did not forget the affecting truths so beautifully embodied in
words by Mary Howitt:--
"In rich men's halls, the fire is piled,
And ermine robes keep out the weather;
In poor men's huts, the fire is low,
Through broken panes the keen winds blow,
And old and young are cold together.
"Oh! poverty is disconsolate!
Its pains are many, its foes are strong!
The rich man, in his jovial cheer,
Wishes 'twas winter through the year;
The poor man, 'mid his wants profound,
With all his little children round,
Prays God that winter be not long!"
Immediately after the services of the day, the country gentleman stood
of old, at his own gate (as we have represented him at page 109), and
superintended the distribution of alms to the aged and the destitute.
The hall, prepared for the festival of himself and his friends, was
previously opened to his tenants and retainers; and the good things of
the season were freely dispensed to all. "There was once," says the
writer of "Round about our Coal Fire," "hospitality in the land. An
English gentleman at the opening of the great day had all his tenants
and neighbors enter his hall by daybreak; the strong beer was broached,
and the black-jacks went plentifully about, with toast, sugar, nutmeg,
and good Cheshire cheese. . . . The servants were then running here and
there with merry hearts and jolly countenances. Every one was busy in
welcoming of guests, and looked as snug as new-licked puppies. The
lasses were as blithe and buxom as the maids in good Queen Bess's days,
when they ate sirloins of roast-beef for breakfast. Peg would scuttle
about to make a toast for John, while Tom run _harum-scarum_ to draw a
jug of ale for Margery."
[Illustration: COUNTRY CHURCH, CHRISTMAS MORNING.--_Page 290._]
Of this scene we have given a representation at page 42; and much of
this ancient spirit, we hope and believe, still survives in this
Christian country. The solemn festivals of ancient superstition were
marked either by bloody sacrifice, secret revelling, or open
licentiousness. There was no celebration of rites, real or symbolical,
which might become a religion of cheerfulness, decency, and mercy. There
was no medium between a mysteriousness dark and gloomy as the grave,
and a wild and savage enthusiasm or riotous frenzy, which mingled with
the worship of the gods the impassioned depravity of human nature. From
Moloch, upon whose dreadful altar children were offered, to Bacchus, at
whose shrine reason and virtue were prostrated, there were none of the
fabled deities of antiquity whose service united the spirit of devotion
with innocent pleasures and the exercise of the domestic charities. This
was reserved for the Christian religion, one of the marks of whose
divinity it is that it can mingle with many of the pleasures, and all
the virtues of the world, without sullying the purity of its
glory,--without depressing the sublime elevation of its character. The
rites of Ceres were thought profaned if the most virtuous believer of
the divinity of that goddess beheld them without having undergone the
ceremonies of special initiation. The worship of Saturn gave rise to a
liberty inconsistent with the ordinary government of states. At the
altar of Diana, on certain days, the Spartans flogged children to death.
And the offerings which on state occasions the Romans made to Jupiter,
were such as feudal vassals might offer to their warlike lord. But now,
thank God!--to use the words of Milton's Hymn on the Nativity,--
"Peor and Baalim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybick Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
"And sullen Moloch, fled,
Has left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals' ring,
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue:
The brutish Gods of Nile as fast,
Iris, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.
"Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest,
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud.
In vain, with timbrelled anthems dark,
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.
"He feels from Judah's land
The dreaded Infant's hand;
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyne;
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide;
Not Typhon huge, ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his God-head true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew."
Oh! how different were those religions of the passions and the senses
from that of the sentiments and pure affections of the Christian heart;
which, as it rises to heaven in sublime devotion, expands in charity
towards its kind, until it comprehends all humanity in the bond of
universal benevolence. To ameliorate the temporal, as well as elevate
the spiritual state of man, is its distinguishing excellence, the
sublime peculiarity of its character as a religious dispensation. All
the systems of superstition were external and gross, or mysterious and
occult. They either encouraged the follies and the passions of men, or
by a vain and fruitless knowledge flattered their vanity. But
Christianity came to repress the one and to dissipate the other; to make
the exercise of the virtues the result and the proof of mental
attachment to the doctrines which, while they afford grand subjects of
eternal interest, contain the principles of all true civilization. It is
in this religion alone that faith is the sister of charity; that the
former brightens with the beams of another world the institutions by
which the latter blesses this,--those institutions of mercy and of
instruction which cover the land with monuments of humanity that are
nowhere to be found but among the temples of our faith.
And now, when silent and desolate are even the high places over which
Augustus ruled, fallen majestic Rome with all her gods, the religion
proclaimed to the humble shepherds, whose sound was first heard by the
moonlight streams and under the green boughs, has erected on the ruins
of ancient grandeur a sublimer dominion than all those principalities of
the earth which refused its hospitality. It came in gentleness and
lowliness and the spirit of peace; and now it grasps the power of the
universe, and wields the civilized energies of the greatest of all the
nations to the beneficent extension of its authority,--imperishable in
its glory, and bloodless in its triumphs!
[Illustration: BRINGING IN THE BOAR'S HEAD.--_Page 295._]
On the opposite side, our artist has given a lively and correct
representation of the high festival anciently celebrated on Christmas
Day in the old baronial hall; and has presented it at that important
moment when the procession of the boar's head is making its way, with
the customary ceremonies, to the upper table. Our account of Christmas
would not be complete without some notice of this grand dish at the
feasts of our ancestors, and some description of the forms which
attended its introduction.
The boar's head soused, then, was carried into the great hall with much
state, preceded by the Master of the Revels, and followed by choristers
and minstrels, singing and playing compositions in its honor. Dugdale
relates that at the Inner Temple, for the first course of the Christmas
dinner, was "served in, a fair and large bore's head upon a silver
platter, with minstrelsye." And here we would observe, what we do not
think has been before remarked, that the boar's head carols appear to
have systematically consisted of three verses. A manuscript indeed which
we once met with, stated that the "caroll, upon the bringynge in of the
bore's head, was sung to the glorie of the blessed Trinytie;" and the
three subsequent illustrative specimens--in which the peculiarity
mentioned may be observed--tend to confirm this notion. At St. John's,
Oxford, in 1607, before the bearer of the boar's head--who was selected
for his height and lustiness, and wore a green silk scarf, with an empty
sword-scabbard dangling at his side--went a runner dressed in a
horseman's coat, having a boar's spear in his hand, a huntsman in green
carrying the naked and bloody sword belonging to the head-bearer's
scabbard, and "two pages in tafatye sarcenet," each with a "mess of
mustard." Upon which occasion these verses were sung:--
"The boare is dead,
Loe, heare is his head,
What man could have done more
Then his head of to strike,
Meleager like,
And bringe it as I doe before?
"He livinge spoyled
Where good men toyled,
Which made kinde Ceres sorrye;
But now, dead and drawne,
Is very good brawne,
And wee have brought it for ye.
"Then sett downe the swineyard,
The foe to the vineyard,
Lett Bacchus crowne his fall;
Lett this boare's head and mustard
Stand for pigg, goose, and custard,
And so you are welcome all."
So important was the office of boar's-head bearer considered to be,
that, in 1170, Holinshed has chronicled the circumstance of England's
king, Henry II., bringing up to the table of his son, the young prince,
a boar's head, with trumpeters going before him. From this species of
service it is probable that many of our heraldic bearings have
originated. "The ancient crest of the family of Edgecumbe," observes
Ritson, "was the boar's head crowned with bays upon a charger; which,"
he adds, "has been very injudiciously changed into the entire animal."
This same diligent arranger and illustrator of our old ballads gives us,
in his collection of ancient songs, a Boar's-head Carol, which probably
belongs to the fourteenth century, from a manuscript in his
possession,--now, we believe, in the British Museum.
_In die nativitatis._
"Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,
Tydyngs gode y thyngke to telle.
The borys hede that we bryng here,
Be tokeneth a prince with owte pere,
Ys born this day to bye vs dere,
Nowell.
"A bore ys a souerayn beste,
And acceptable in every feste,
So mote thys lorde be to moste & leste,
Nowell.
"This borys hede we bryng with song,
In worchyp of hym that thus sprang
Of a virgyne to redresse all wrong,
Nowell."
The printing-press of Wynkyn de Worde has preserved to us the carol
believed to have been generally used, prior to 1521, upon these
occasions; a modernized version of which continues to be sung in Queen's
College, Oxford. It is entitled "A Caroll bringyne in the Bores heed;"
and runs thus:--
"Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes Domino,
The bore's heade in hande bring I
With garlandes gay and rosemary,
I pray you all synge merely,
Qui estis in convivio.
"The bore's head I understande
Is the chefe servyce in this lande,
Loke wherever it be fande,
Servite cum cantico.
"Be gladde, lordes both more and lasse,
For this hath ordayned our stewarde,
To chere you all this Christmasse,
The bore's head with mustarde."
A tradition of the same college states the introduction there of the
boar's head (which according to Ritson, is now a mere representation
"neatly carved in wood") to be contrived "as a commemoration of an act
of valor performed by a student of the college, who while walking in the
neighboring forest of Shotover, and reading Aristotle, was suddenly
attacked by a wild boar. The furious beast came open-mouthed upon the
youth; who, however, very courageously, and with a happy presence of
mind, is said to have rammed in the volume, and cried _græcum est_,
fairly choking the savage with the sage." To this legend a humorous
"song in honor of the Boar's head at Queen's College, Oxford," refers,
having for its motto, _Tam Marti quam Mercurio_, but for which we cannot
afford space.
The ancient mode of garnishing the boar's head was with sprigs of
sweet-scented herbs. Dekker, than whom we could not name a more
appropriate authority on this subject, speaking of persons apprehensive
of catching the plague, says, "They went (most bitterly) miching and
muffled up and down, with rue and wormwood stuft into their eares and
nostrils, looking like so many bore's heads, stuck with branches of
rosemary, to be served in for brawne at Christmas." The following lines
describe the manner of serving up this famous dish:--
----"if you would send up the brawner's head,
Sweet rosemary and bays around it spread;
His foaming tusks let some large pippin grace,
Or 'midst these thundering spears an orange place;
Sauce like himself, offensive to its foes,
The roguish mustard, dangerous to the nose;
Sack, and the well spiced hippocras, the wine
Wassail, the bowl with ancient ribands fine,
Porridge with plums, and Turkeys, with the chine."
Sack and hippocras are no longer to be found in our cellars; but, as we
have shown, we still compound the wassail-bowl.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS DINNER.--_Page 300._]
The Christmas dinner of modern days is, as most of our readers know, a
gathering together of generations, an assembling of Israel by its
tribes. In the one before us, the artist has given a pretty extensive
muster. We have them of the seven ages and the several professions.
Contrast with this modern Christmas dinner, as well as with the high
festival of yore, the dreary picture of a Christmas Day and dinner,
under the stern prescription of the Puritans, as given in his Diary, by
Pepys, the chatty secretary to the Admiralty. "1668, Christmas-day. To
dinner," thus he writes, "alone with my wife; who, poor wretch! sat
undressed all day till ten at night, altering and lacing of a noble
petticoat; while I, by her, making the boy read to me the life of Julius
Cæsar and Des Cartes' book of Music."
To the heads of the very respectable family before us, we have already
been introduced, in an earlier part of this volume, and are glad to meet
with them again, under circumstances so auspicious, and supported by
their junior branches. In a family so flourishing, we might have
expected to escape the exhibition of antiquated celibacy. But, no! that
is clearly an old maid, who is hobnobbing with the gentleman in the
foreground, and, we must say, there is something about _him_ which
carries a strong suspicion of old-bachelorship. We suppose the one and
the other are to be found in most families. However, they are not the
parties who least enjoy this sort of _reunions_. We fancy, it is
known to most people that meetings of this description are very happy
ones amongst the members of a family, and remarkably uninteresting to
third parties. We should certainly prefer reading Des Cartes, with Pepys
and his wife, to finding ourselves a "foreigner" in such a group as the
present.
But the best of the day is yet to come! and we should have no objection
to join the younger members of that group in the merry sports that await
the evening. We need not give the programme. It is like that of all the
other Christmas nights. The blazing fire, the song, the dance, the
riddle, the jest, and many another merry sport, are of its spirits.
Mischief will be committed under the mistletoe-bough, and all the good
wishes of the season sent round under the sanction of the wassail-bowl.
ST. STEPHEN'S DAY.
26TH DECEMBER.
THIS day, which, in our calendar, is still dedicated to the first
Christian martyr, St. Stephen (for John the Baptist perished in the same
cause before the consummation of the old law and the full introduction
of the Christian dispensation), is more popularly known by the title of
Boxing-day; and its importance amongst the Christmas festivities is
derived from the practice whence that title comes.
[Illustration: BOXING DAY.--_Page 302._]
We have already mentioned that the custom of bestowing gifts at seasons
of joyous commemoration, has been a form of thankfulness at most
periods; and that it may have been directly borrowed, by the Christian
worshippers, from the polytheists of Rome, along with those other modes
of celebration which descended to the Christmas festival from that
source,--introduced, however, amongst our own observances, under
Scripture sanctions, drawn both from the old and new Testaments. The
particular form of that practice whose donations are known by the title
of Christmas-boxes (and which appear to differ from New-year's gifts
in this, that the former, passing from the rich to the poor and from the
master to his dependants, are not reciprocal in their distribution,
whereas the latter are those gifts, for the mutual expression of
goodwill and congratulation, which are exchanged between friends and
acquaintances), was, perhaps, originally one of the observances of
Christmas Day, and made a portion of its charities. The multiplied
business of that festival, however, probably caused it to be postponed
till the day following, and thereby placed the Christmas-boxes under the
patronage of St. Stephen. The title itself has been derived, by some,
from the box which was kept on board of every vessel that sailed upon a
distant voyage, for the reception of donations to the priest,--who, in
return, was expected to offer masses for the safety of the expedition,
to the particular saint having charge of the ship,--and above all, of
the box. This box was not to be opened till the return of the vessel;
and we can conceive that, in cases where the mariners had had a perilous
time of it, this casket would be found to enclose a tolerable offering.
Probably the state of the box might be as good an evidence as the
log-book, of the character of the voyage which had been achieved. The
mass was at that time called Christmass, and the boxes kept to pay for
it were, of course, called Christmass-boxes. The poor, amongst those who
had an interest in the fate of these ships, or of those who sailed in
them, were in the habit of begging money from the rich, that they might
contribute to the mass boxes; and hence the title which has descended to
our day, giving to the anniversary of St. Stephen's martyrdom the title
of Christmas-boxing day, and, by corruption, its present popular one of
Boxing-day.
A relic of these ancient boxes yet exists in the earthen or wooden box,
with a slit in it, which still bears the same name, and is carried by
servants and children for the purpose of gathering money, at this
season, being broken only when the period of collection is supposed to
be over.
Most of our readers know that it was the practice, not many years ago
(and in some places is so still), for families to keep lists of the
servants, of tradesmen and others, who were considered to have a claim
upon them for a Christmas-box, at this time. The practice, besides
opening a door to great extortion, is one in every way of considerable
annoyance, and is on the decline. There is, however, as they who are
exposed to it know, some danger in setting it at defiance, where it is
yet in force. One of the most amusing circumstances arising out of this
determination to evade the annoyances of Boxing-day, is related by
Sandys. A person in trade had imprudently given directions that he
should be denied, on this day, to all applicants for money; and amongst
those who presented themselves at his door, on this errand, was
unfortunately a rather importunate creditor. In the height of his
indignation at being somewhat uncourteously repulsed, he immediately
consulted his lawyer, and, having done _that_, we need scarcely relate
the catastrophe. It follows as a matter of course. A docket was struck
against the unsuspecting victim of Christmas-boxophobia.
Boxing-day, however, is still a great day in London. Upon this
anniversary, every street resounds with the clang of hall-door knockers.
Rap follows rap, in _rap_id succession, the harsh and discordant tones
of iron mingling with those of rich and sonorous brass, and giving a
degenerate imitation of the brazen clangor of the trumpet, which formed
the summons to the gate in days of old, and which, together with the
martial music of the drum, appears to have been adopted, at a later
period, by the Christmas-boxers, on St. Stephen's Day. Pepys, in his
Diary (1668), records his having been "called up by drums and trumpets;
these things and boxes," he adds, "have cost me much money this
Christmas, and will do more." Which passage seems to have been in the
memory of our facetious publisher, when he made the following entry in
his journal of last year, from whence we have taken the liberty of
transcribing it. "Called out," says Spooner (1834), "by the parish
beadle, dustmen, and charity-boys. The postman, street-sweepers,
chimney-sweepers, lamp-lighters, and waits will all be sure to wait upon
me. These fellows have cost me much money this Christmas, and will do
more, the next."
There is an amusing account, given by a writer of the querulous class,
of a boxing-day in London, a century ago. "By the time I was up," says
he, "my servants could do nothing but run to the door. Inquiring the
meaning, I was answered, the people were come for their Christmas-box:
this was logic to me; but I found at last that, because I had laid out a
great deal of ready-money with my brewer, baker, and other tradesmen,
they kindly thought it my duty to present their servants with some
money, for the favor of having their goods. This provoked me a little,
but being told it was the 'custom,' I complied. These were followed by
the watch, beadles, dustmen, and an innumerable tribe; but what vexed me
the most was the clerk, who has an extraordinary place, and makes as
good an appearance as most tradesmen in the parish; to see him come
a-boxing, _alias_, a-begging, I thought was intolerable; however I found
it was 'the custom,' too; so I gave him half-a-crown, as I was likewise
obliged to do to the bellman, for breaking my rest for many nights
together."
The manner in which the beadle approaches his "good masters and
mistresses," for a Christmas-box, particularly in the villages near the
British metropolis, is, as we have before said, by the presentation of a
copy of printed verses, ornamented with wood engravings. These
broadsides are usually termed "Bellman's verses;" and we quite agree
with Mr. Leigh Hunt in his opinion, that "good bellman's verses will
not do at all. There have been," he remarks, "some such things of late
'most tolerable and not to be endured.' We have seen them witty, which
is a great mistake. Warton and Cowper unthinkingly set the way." "The
very absurdity of the bellman's verses is only pleasant, nay, only
bearable, when we suppose them written by some actual doggrel-poet, in
good faith. Mere mediocrity hardly allows us to give our Christmas-box,
or to believe it now-a-days in earnest; and the smartness of your
cleverest wordly-wise men is felt to be wholly out of place. No, no!
give us the good old decrepit bellman's verses, hobbling as their
bringer, and taking themselves for something respectable, like his
cocked-hat,--or give us none at all."