CHRISTMAS.
The next and last of these popular festivities that I shall notice at
any length, is jolly old Christmas,--the festival of the fireside; the
most domestic and heartfelt carnival of the year. It has changed its
features with the change of national manners and notions, but still it
is a time of gladness, of home re-union and rejoicing; a precious time,
and one so thoroughly suited to the grave yet cheerful spirit of
Englishmen, that it will not soon lose its hold on our affections. Its
old usages are so well known; they have been so repeatedly of late years
brought to our notice by Washington Irving, Walter Scott, Leigh Hunt in
his most graphic and cordial-spirited Months, Indicator, and London
Journal, and by many other lovers of the olden time, that I shall not
now particularly describe them. We have already seen how, in all our
religious festivals, the most ancient customs and rites have been
interwoven with Catholicism. Who does not recognise in the decoration of
our houses and churches with ivy, holly, and other evergreens, the
decorations of the altars of Greece and Rome with laurels and bays as
the symbols of the renewal of the year and the immortality of Nature? In
our mistletoe branches the practice of Druidical times? Who does not see
in the Abbot of Unreason, and his jolly crew, the Saturnalia of ancient
times? Those who do not, may find in Brand’s Antiquities, the various
volumes of Time’s Telescope, collected by my worthy friend John Millard,
and in Hone’s Everyday Table, and Year Books, matter on these subjects,
and on the Christmas pageants, rites, and processions of Rome, that
would of itself fill a large volume. In old times it was from Christmas
to Candlemas a period of general jollification; for the first twelve
days--a general carnival. The churches were decorated with evergreens;
midnight mass was celebrated with great pomp; according to Aubrey, they
danced in the church after prayers, crying Yole, Yole, Yole, etc. For a
fortnight before Christmas, and during its continuance, the mummers, or
guisers, in their grotesque array, went from house to house, acting
George and the Dragon, having the Princess Saba, the Doctor, and other
characters all playing and saying their parts in verse. Others acted
Alexander the Great, and the King of Egypt. Bands of carollers went
about singing; and all the great gentry had
A good old fashion when Christmas was come,
To call in their old neighbours with bagpipe and drum.
And then in those good old halls, what a feasting, and a sporting, and a
clamour was there! The Yule block on the fire, the plum-porridge and
mince-pies on the table, with mighty rounds of beef, plum-pudding,
turkeys, capons, geese, goose-pies, herons, and sundry other game and
good things. Ale of twelve months old circling round, and the old butler
and his serving-men carrying up the boar’s head, singing in chorus the
accustomed chant, as they set it before the lord of the feast:
Caput Apri defero
Reddens laudes domino.
The boar’s head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary;
I pray you all sing merrily,
Qui estis in convivio, etc.
Then, as Burton in his Anatomie of Melancholie, tells us,--“what cards,
tables, dice, shovel-board, chesse-play, the philosopher’s game, small
trunkes, billiards, musicke, singing, dancing, ale-games, catches,
purposes, questions, merry tales of arrant knights, kings, queens,
lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, fairies, goblins,
friars, witches, and the rest. Then what kissing under the mistletoe!
roaring of storms without, and blazing hearths and merry catches
within!”
With all this rude happiness we cannot now linger; let us be thankful
that our ancestors, rich and poor, enjoyed it so thoroughly, enjoyed it
together, as became Christians, on the feast of the nativity of their
common Saviour. We will just review this state of things as it existed
in the time of old Wither, two hundred years ago; and the remembrance of
it, as it glanced on the imagination of Scott, and then turn to it as it
exists amongst us now.
CHRISTMAS.
So now is come our joyful’st feast;
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is dressed,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine;
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry.
Now all our neighbours’ chimneys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning,
Their ovens they with baked meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie;
And if from cold it hap to die,
We’ll bury it in a Christmas pie,
And evermore be merry.
Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labour;
Our lasses have provided them
A bagpipe and a tabor:
Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another’s joys;
And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry.
Rank misers now do sparing shun;
Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things there aboundeth.
The country folks themselves advance
With crowdy-muttons out of France;
And Jack shall pipe, and Jyll shall dance,
And all the town be merry.
Ned Squash hath fetched his bands from pawn,
And all his best apparel;
Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn
With dropping of the barrel.
And those that hardly all the year
Had bread to eat, or rags to wear,
Will have both clothes and dainty fare,
And all the day be merry.
Now poor men to the justices
With capons make their errants;
And if they hap to fail of these,
They plague them with their warrants:
But now they find them with good cheer,
And what they want, they take in beer,
For Christmas comes but once a year,
And then they shall be merry.
Good farmers in the country nurse
The poor, that else were undone;
Some landlords spend their money worse
On lust and pride in London.
There the roysters they do play;
Drab and dice their lands away,
Which may be ours another day,
And therefore let’s be merry.
The client now his suit forbears;
The prisoner’s heart is eased;
The debtor drinks away his cares,
And for the time is pleased.
Though others’ purses be most fat,
Why should we pine or grieve at that?
Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,
And therefore let’s be merry.
Hark! now the wags abroad do call
Each other forth to rambling;
Anon you’ll see them in the hall
For nuts and apples scrambling.
Hark how the roofs with laughter sound,
Anon they’ll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar’s depth have found,
And then they will be merry.
The wenches with their wassail bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls,
The wild mare in it bringing.
Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box,
And to the dealing of the ox
Our honest neighbours come by flocks,
And here they will be merry.
Now kings and queens poor sheepcotes have,
And mute with every body;
The lowest now may play the knave,
And wise men play the noddy.
Some youths will now a mumming go,
And others play at Rowland-bo,
And twenty other games boys mo,
Because they will be merry.
Then wherefore in these merry daies
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays,
To make our mirth the fuller.
And while we thus inspired sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring;
Woods and hills and every thing,
Bear witness we are merry.
This is, at once, quaint and graphic. It shews us the joys of our
ancestors in their homeliness and their strength. It is full of the
spirit of the time, and the impressions of surrounding things. Let us
now see the same days through the magic mist of a modern poet’s
imagination--a poet whose soul turned to all the beauty and picturesque
splendour, and the jollity of the past, with a passion never, in any
bosom, living with a stronger delight. How, in reverted vision of his
heart and mind is every thing purified, sanctified, and refined. What a
force of enjoyment breathes through the whole: how vividly are all the
characteristics of the time, its fable and its manners given; yet with
what a grace and delicacy, unknown to the poet of the times themselves.
We have here all the happiness, the hospitality, the generous simplicity
of the past, tinged with the beautiful illusions of the present.
ANCIENT CHRISTMAS.
And well our Christian sires of old
Loved, when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all its hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night:
On Christmas-eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas-eve the mass was sung;
That only night of all the year
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go
To gather in the mistletoe.
Then opened wide the baron’s hall,
To vassals, tenants, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating share
The vulgar game of “post and pair.”
All hailed with uncontrolled delight
And general voice the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of Salvation down.
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 day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty braun
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 baiting of the boar,
While round the merry wassail bowl,
Garnished with ribbons, blithe did trowl
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high tide the savoury goose.
Then came the merry maskers 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 shirt supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the vizor made;
But oh! what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England then,
Old Christmas brought his sports again;
’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer
A poor man’s heart through half the year.
_Scott’s Marmion._
In these two poems we have sufficient picture of the past; what of these
things continue with the present? In Catholic countries, indeed, much of
the ancient show and circumstance remain. In Rome, all the splendour of
the church is called forth. On Christmas-eve, the pipes of the
Pifferari, or Calabrian minstrels, are heard in the streets. The
decorators are busy in draping the churches, clothing altars, and
festooning façades. Devout ladies and holy nuns are preparing dresses,
crowns, necklaces, and cradles, for the Madonna and Child of their
respective churches. The toilette of the Virgin is performed, and she
blazes in diamonds, or shines in tin, according to the riches of the
respective parish treasuries. In the Church of the Pantheon, says Lady
Morgan, she was crowned with gilt paper, and decked with glass beads,
and on the same day in Santa Maria Novella, we beheld the coal-black
face set off with rubies and sapphires, which glittered on her dusky
visage “like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.” The cannons of St. Angelo
announce the festival; shops are shut, and saloons deserted. The
midnight supper and the midnight bands begin the holy revel, and the
splendid pomp in which the august ceremonies are performed at the
churches of the Quirinal, St. Louis, and the Ara Cœli, is succeeded by a
banquet of which even the poorest child of indigence contrives to
partake. The people from the mountains and the Campagna flock in to
witness and to enjoy the fête, and present a strange sight of wild
figures amid the inhabitants of the city. The churches are lit up with
thousands of wax tapers; the _culla_, or cradle of Christ, is removed
from the shrine at the chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore, and carried in
procession to the chapel of the Santa Croce, where it is exposed on the
high altar on Christmas-day to the admiration of the faithful. Musical
masses are performed; the Pope himself performs service in the Sextine
Chapel on Christmas-eve, and on Christmas-day his Holiness performs mass
in St. Peter’s, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; amid a most brilliant
assembly of people of all nations, princes, ambassadors, nobles, and
distinguished strangers.
At Naples numbers of shepherds from the mountains of the Abruzzi and the
neighbouring Apennines, flock in two or three weeks before Christmas,
and go about the streets, playing on their bagpipes, as the Calabrians
do both here and in Rome. Most of the Neapolitan families engage some of
these itinerant musicians to play a quarter of an hour at their houses
on each day of the _Novena_: the wild appearance of these mountaineers,
and the shrill notes of their pipes attract the attention of travellers.
Fireworks are displayed here in the most extraordinary manner; and, as
in other parts of Italy, it is the custom to erect in the churches and
in private houses, representations of the birth of our Saviour;--the
stable, the shepherds, the oxen, the Virgin Mary, receiving the homage
of kings and their trains, are all exhibited with great ingenuity. A
similar custom prevailed in some parts of Spain. Such are the customs of
these and other catholic countries. In the north, where Christmas was
celebrated as a festival of the gods of the ancient Scandinavians, under
the name of Yule, it is now celebrated with great devotion; and in
Germany they have some domestic customs of a very interesting nature.
Coleridge, in the FRIEND, gives the following account of what he
witnessed himself. “The children make little presents to their parents,
and to each other; and the parents to their children. For three or four
months before Christmas, the girls are all busy; and the boys save their
pocket-money to make or purchase these presents. What the present is to
be, is cautiously kept secret, and the girls have a world of
contrivances to conceal it--such as working when they are out on
visits, and the others are not with them; getting up in the morning
before daylight, etc. Then, on the evening before Christmas-day, one of
the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must
not go. A great yew bough is fastened on the table at a little distance
from the wall; a multitude of little tapers are fixed in the bough, but
not so as to burn it till they are nearly consumed; and coloured paper,
etc. hangs and flutters from the twigs. Under this bough, the children
lay out in great order, the presents they mean for their parents, still
concealing in their pockets, what they intend for each other. Then the
parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift: they then
bring out the remainder, one by one, from their pockets, and present
them with kisses and embraces. When I witnessed this scene, there were
eight or nine children, and the eldest daughter and mother wept aloud
for joy and tenderness; and the tears ran down the face of the father,
and he clasped all his children so tight to his breast, it seemed as if
he did it to stifle the sob that was rising within him. I was very much
affected. The shadow of the bough and its appendages on the walls and
arching over on the ceiling, made a pretty picture; and then the rapture
of the very little ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began
to take fire and snap,--O, it was a delight for them!
“On the next day, in the great parlour, the parents lay on the table the
presents for the children. A scene of more sober joy succeeds; as on
this day, after an old custom, the mother says privately to each of her
daughters, and the father to his sons, that which he has observed most
praiseworthy, and that which was most faulty in their conduct. Formerly,
and still in all the smaller towns and villages throughout North
Germany, these presents are sent by all the parents to some one fellow,
who, in high buskins, a white robe, a mask, and an enormous flax wig,
personates Knecht Rupert, _i. e._ the servant Rupert. On Christmas night
he goes round to every house, and says that Jesus Christ, his master,
sent him thither. The parents and elder children receive him with great
pomp and reverence, while the little ones are most terribly frightened.
He then inquires for the children, and according to the character which
he hears from the parents he gives them the intended presents, as if
they came out of heaven from Jesus Christ. Or if they should have been
bad children, he gives the parents a rod, and, in the name of his
master, recommends them to use it frequently. About seven or eight years
old, the children are let into the secret, and it is curious how
faithfully they keep it.”
The bough mentioned by Coleridge as yew, is by other writers said to be
of birch. The Christ-child is said to come flying through the air on
golden wings; and causes the birch-bough fixed in the corner of the room
to grow, and to produce in the night, all manner of fruit; gilt
sweetmeats, apples, nuts, etc., for the good children. Richter makes
Quintus Fixlein recal one of these scenes of his youth, very
beautifully. “I will,” said he to himself, “go through the whole
Christmas-eve, from the very dawn, as I had it of old. At his very
rising he finds spangles on the table, sacred spangles from the
gold-leaf and silver-leaf with which the Christ-child has been
emblazoning and coating his apples and nuts, the presents of the night.
Then comes his mother, bringing him both Christianity and clothes; for
in drawing on his trousers, she easily recapitulated the ten
commandments; and in tying his garters, the Apostles’ creed. So soon as
candlelight was over, and daylight come, he clambers to the arm of the
settle, and then measures the nocturnal growth of the yellow wiry grove
of Christmas-birch. There was no such thing as school all day. About
three o’clock the old gardener takes his place on his large chair, with
his Cologne tobacco-pipe, and, after this, no mortal shall work a
stroke. He tells nothing but lies, of the aeronautic Christ-child, and
the jingling Ruprecht with his bells. In the dark our little Quintus
takes an apple, and divides it with all the figures of stereometry, and
spreads the fragments in two heaps on the table. Then, as the lighted
candle enters, he starts up in amazement at the unexpected present, and
says to his mother, ‘Look what the good Christ-child has given thee and
me, and I saw one of his wings glittering!’ And for this same glittering
he himself lies in wait the whole evening.
“About eight o’clock, both of them with necks almost excoriated with
washing, and clean linen, and in universal anxiety lest the Holy
Christ-child find them up, are put to bed. What a magic night! What
tumult of dreaming hopes! The populous, motley, glittering cave of
fancy opens itself in the length of the night, and in the exhaustion of
dreaming effort, still darker and darker, fuller and more grotesque; but
the waking gives back to the thirsty heart its hopes. All accidental
tones, the cries of animals, of watchmen, are, for the timidly devout
fancy, sounds out of heaven; singing voices of angels in the air; church
music of the morning worship.
“At last come rapid lights from the neighbourhood, playing through the
window on the walls, and the Christmas trumpets, and the crowing from
the steeple hurries both the boys from their bed. With their clothes in
their hands, without fear for the darkness, without feeling for the
morning frost, rushing, intoxicated, shouting, they hurry down stairs
into the dark room. Fancy riots in the pastry and fruit perfume of the
still eclipsed treasures, and haunts her air-castles by the glimmering
of the Hesperides-fruit with which the birch-tree is laden. While their
mother strikes a light, the falling sparks sportfully open and shroud
the dainties on the table, and the many-coloured grove on the wall; and
a single atom of that fire bears on it a hanging garden of Eden.”
I am informed by a lady friend that German families in Manchester have
introduced this custom of the Christmas-tree, and that it is spreading
fast amongst the English there,--pine-tops being brought to market for
the pupose, which are generally illuminated with a taper for every day
in the year.
Such are the rites, fancies, and ceremonies with which other, and
especially Catholic countries, have invested this ancient festival. What
now remain in our Protestant nation of these customs?--Much is gone;
many are the changes that have taken place in our manners and opinions;
and yet it is certain that we regard this season of festivity with a
strong and sacred affection. It is true that there is commonly but one
day of thorough holiday to the people; one day on which all shops are
shut; on which labour in a great measure ceases, and the poor join with
the rich in repose and worship. The poor, indeed, do not partake the
benefit of this season, as the poor of old time did; the houses of the
great are not, as they were then, open to all tenants and dependents.
There is now, indeed, upon the great man’s table,
No mark to part the squire and lord;
but there is a mark more immobile than the salt, set in the grain of our
minds. The distinctions of society have grown with our commercial
wealth, and have multiplied grades and relations. A sense of
independence too has sprung up in the lower classes, with commerce and
the growth of intelligence. The great man might, indeed, condescend to
call his tenants and dependents to his hall to a Christmas revel, but if
they went at all they would go reluctantly, and feel ill at ease. They
would feel it as a condescension, and not as springing out of the
heartiness of old customs. They would feel that they were out of their
element; for all classes know instinctively the broad differences of
habits, manners, and modes of thinking that separate them from each
other more effectually than any feudal institutions did their ancestors.
The pride of the yeoman would be more in danger of suffering than the
pride of the lord; the pride of the cottager than that of the farmer, if
invited to his table. When the brick floor and the wooden bench gave way
in the farm-house to the carpet and the mahogany chair, the feet of the
labourer ceased to tread familiarly round the farmer’s table. Harvest
meals and harvest-home suppers bring them together in rustic districts;
they are the remaining links of the old chain of society; but the
Christmas custom is broken, and is therefore no longer observable with
full content. This great difference between the past and present exists,
and therefore the rejoicing of the poor at this time is short and small:
would to heaven that the kindly feeling of the community would make it
greater!
But, independent of this, to the rest of the community Christmas brings
much of its ancient pleasure. Each class within itself, enjoys it,
perhaps more deeply, if less noisily than of old. It is, as I have
before said, the festival of the fireside. Friends and families are
brought together by many circumstances. Summer tourists and out-of-door
pleasure-seekers have all turned home at the frown of winter. As it was
their delight in the early year to plan excursions, to make parties, and
then to fly forth in all directions, to enjoy new scenes, new faces,
summer skies, and sea-breezes; it is now their delight to assemble again
round their familiar firesides, with the old familiar faces, to talk
over all that they have seen, and said, and done. Parliament has
adjourned, and weary senators and their families have fled from London,
and are, once more, at their country seats. Children are come home from
school; business seems to pause, or to move less urgently in the dead
season of the year, and releases numbers from its tread-mill round to an
interval of relaxation. All the branches of families meet with spirits
eager for enjoyment; and storms, frosts, and darkness without, send them
for that enjoyment to the fire-bright hearth.
Christmas-eve approaches, and with it signs of observance, and feasting,
and amusement. Holly, ivy, and mistletoe appear in vast quantities in
the markets, and almost every housekeeper, except those of the Society
of Friends, furnishes herself with a quantity to decorate her windows,
if not always to sport a kissing-bush. Churches, halls, city houses and
country cottages, are all seen with their windows stuck over with sprigs
of green and scarlet-berried holly. Mistletoe is said never to be
introduced into churches except by ignorance of the sextons, being held
in abhorrence by the early Christians on account of its prominence in
the Druidical ceremonies. And this is likely enough; but in the house it
maintains its station, and well merits it, by the beauty of its
divaricated branches of pale-green, and its pearly-white berries. But
Christmas-eve brings not only evergreens into request, but abundance of
more substantial things. The coaches to town are fairly loaded to the
utmost with geese, turkeys and game, as those downwards are with barrels
of oysters. The grocers are busy selling currants, raisins, spices, and
other good things, for the composition of mince-pies and Christmas
sweetmeats. Pigs are killed, and pork-pies, sausages, and spareribs
abound, from the greatest hall to the lowest hut. Heaven be thanked that
the blessing goes so far in this instance. It is a delight to think of
all the little children in the poor man’s house, that the year through
have lived coarsely if not sparely, now watching the fat pig from their
own sty cut up, and pies and spareribs, boiling pieces, black puddings
and sausages, springing up as from a magical storehouse unlocked by the
key of Old Christmas. O! it is a delicious time, when the father and the
mother can sit down amongst their throng of eager little ones, that
“feel their life in every limb,” and feast them to their hearts’
content; and live with them for a short time amid substantial things and
savoury smells, and, after all, hang in the chimney-corner two noble
flitches for the coming year.
These good things come with Christmas-eve, and with them come the
WAITES. Except in some few very primitive districts, these do not go
about for a week or more as they used to do, but merely on this night.
And it is a fact singularly unfortunate for Mr. Bulwer’s theory of the
effect of Methodism noticed before, that wherever Methodists exist they
are sure to be amongst these waites, and are, in many places, the only
ones. The strange, dreamy, yet delightful effect of the music and
singing of these waites, as you hear them in a state rather of sleep
than waking, who has not experienced? They are, as Fixlein expresses it,
to our conscious senses, but half dormant understandings, “sounds out of
heaven, singing voices of angels in the air.” I shall never forget the
delicious impressions of this midnight music on my childish spirit, and
would fain hear such strains on every returning Christmas-eve till I
cease to hear any mortal sounds.
But Christmas morning comes; and ere daylight dawns, you are awoke by
the rejoicing music of all the village or the city bells, as it may be;
and cannot help feeling, spite of all that puritans and grave denouncers
of times and seasons have said, that there is something holy in the
remembrance of the time, which does your spirit good. Who can read these
verses of, Wordsworth’s addressed to his brother, without feeling the
truth of this?
TO THE REV. DR. WORDSWORTH.
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by the lofty moon,
The encircling laurels thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sank to rest with folded wings;
Keen was the air but could not freeze
Nor check the music of their strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.
And who but listened?--till was paid
Respect to every inmate’s claim;
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And “merry Christmas” wished to all!
O Brother! I revere the choice
Which took thee from thy native hills;
And it is given thee to rejoice;
Though public care full often tills
(Heaven only witness of the toil)
A barren and ungrateful soil.
Yet would that thou with me and mine
Hadst heard this never-failing rite;
And seen on other faces shine
A true revival of the light--
Which Nature and these rustic Powers,
In simple childhood, spread on ours!
For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
On these expected, annual rounds,
Whether the rich man’s sumptuous gate
Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
Or they are offered at the door
That guards the dwelling of the poor.
How touching when at midnight sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear--and sink again to sleep!
Or, at an earlier call, to mark,
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence.
The mutual nod,--the grave disguise
Of hearts with gladness brimming o’er;
And some unbidden tears that rise
For names once heard, and heard no more:
Tears brightened by the serenade,
For infant in the cradle laid!
Ah! not for emerald fields alone,
With ambient streams more pure and bright
Than fabled Cytherea’s zone
Glittering before the Thunderer’s sight,
Is to my heart of hearts endeared
The ground where we were born and reared!
Hail! ancient Manners! sure defence,
Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love whose modest sense
Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,
And ye, that guard them, Mountains old!
Christmas-day then is come! and with it begins a heartfelt season of
social delight, and interchanges of kindred enjoyments. In large houses
are large parties, music and feasting, dancing and cards. Beautiful
faces and noble forms, the most fair and accomplished of England’s sons
and daughters, beautify the ample firesides of aristocratic halls.
Senators and judges, lawyers and clergymen, poets and philosophers,
there meet in cheerful and even sportive ease, amid the elegances of
polished life. In more old-fashioned, but substantial country abodes,
old-fashioned hilarity prevails. In the farm-house hearty spirits are
met. Here are dancing and feasting too; and often blindman’s-buff,
turn-trencher, and some of the simple games of the last age remain. In
all families, except the families of the poor, who seem too much
forgotten at this, as at other times in this refined age, there are
visits paid and received; parties going out, or coming in; and
everywhere abound, as indispensable to the season, mince-pies, and
wishes for “a merry Christmas and a happy New-Year.”
It is only in the more primitive parts of the country that the olden
customs remain. The Christmas carols which were sung about from door to
door, for a week at least, not twenty years ago, are rarely heard now in
the midland counties. More northward, from the hills of Derbyshire, and
the bordering ones of Staffordshire, up through Lancashire, Yorkshire,
Northumberland, and Durham, you may frequently meet with them. The late
Mrs. Fletcher (Miss Jewsbury) one of the most highly-gifted, both in
talents and principle, of those who are early lost to the world,
collected a volume of such as are sung in the neighbourhood of
Manchester, and presented it to Mrs. Howitt. Amongst them are many of
the most ancient, such as--“Under the Leaves, or the Seven Virgins,”
beginning--
All under the leaves, and the leaves of life,
I met with virgins seven;
And one of them was Mary mild,
Our Lord’s Mother in Heaven.
“The Moon shone bright,”--beginning with
The moon shone bright, and the stars gave a light
A little before it was day,
The Lord our God he called to us,
And bade us awake and pray.
Awake, awake, good people all,
Awake and you shall hear,
Our blessed Lord died on the cross
For us whom he loved so dear;
and ending thus--
To day, though you’re alive and well,
Worth many a thousand pound,
To-morrow dead, and cold as clay,
Your corpse lies under ground.
God bless the master of this house,
Mistress and children dear;
Joyful may their Christmas be,
And happy their New-Year.
That singular old ballad of Dives and Lazarus, in which occur these
stanzas:--
As it fell out upon a day,
Poor Lazarus sickened and died;
There came two angels out of heaven
His soul therein to guide.
“Rise up, rise up, brother Lazarus,
Thine heavenly guides are we;
Thy place it is provided in heaven,
To sit on an angel’s knee.”
As it fell out upon a day,
Rich Dives sickened and died;
There came two serpents out of hell
His soul therein to guide.
“Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,
Thine evil; guides are we;
Thy place it is provided in hell,
To sit on a serpent’s knee!”
One has this home-thrusting stanza:
So proud and lofty do some people grow,
Dressing themselves like players in a show;
They patch and paint, and dress like idle stuff,
As if God had not made them good enough.
The well-known TWELVE JOYS:
The first good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of one,
To see her own son Jesus to suck at her breast-bone;
To suck at her breast-bone, good man, and blessed shall he be,
Through, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the One United Three! etc.
The equally popular one:
God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay;
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas-day,
To save poor souls from Satan’s power,
Who’ve long time gone astray.
Which ends thus:
God bless the master of this house,
And mistress also;
And all the little children
That round the table go;
With their pockets full of money,
And their cellars full of beer;
And God send you a happy New-Year.
Amongst them is found BETHLEHEM CITY.
In Bethlehem city, in Jewry it was,
That Joseph and Mary together did pass;
And there to be tax’d, as many one mo,
When Cæsar commanded, in truth it was so. etc.
And that fine hymn which is sung in some places at midnight by the
Waites, and which the Methodists have adopted for their early morning
service:
Christians, awake! salute the happy morn,
Whereon the Saviour of the world was born.
And the following, which, though evidently in a most defective state, I
shall give entire, as exhibiting a striking impress of the character of
the middle ages; and shewing how well they understood the true spirit of
Christ.
Honour the leaves and the leaves of life,
Upon this blest holiday,
When Jesus asked his mother dear,
Whether he might go to play.
To play! to play! said blessed Mary,
To play, then get you gone;
And see there be no complaint of you
At night when you come home.
Sweet Jesus, he ran unto yonder town,
As far as the holy well;
And there he saw three as fine children
As ever eyes beheld.
He said, “God bless you every one,
And sweet may your sleep be;
And now, little children, I’ll play with you,
And you shall play with me.”
“Nay, nay, we are lords’ and ladies’ sons--
Thou art meaner than us all;
Thou art but a silly fair maid’s child,
Born in an oxen’s stall.”
Sweet Jesus he turned himself about,
Neither laughed, nor smiled, nor spoke,
But the tears trickled down from his pretty little eyes,
Like waters from the rock.
Sweet Jesus he ran to his mother dear,
As fast as he could run--
O mother, I saw three as fine children
As ever were eyes set on.
I said “God bless you every one,
And sweet may your sleep be--
And now, little children, I’ll play with you,
And you shall play with me.”
“Nay,” said they, “we’re lords’ and ladies’ sons,
Thou art meaner than us all;
For thou art but a poor fair maid’s child,
Born in an oxen’s stall.”
Then the tears trickled down from his pretty little eyes
As fast as they could fall.
“Then,” said she, “go down to yonder town,
As far as the holy well,
And there take up those infants’ souls,
And dip them deep in hell.”
“O no! O no!” sweet Jesus then said,
“O no! that never can be;
For there are many of those infants’ souls
Crying out for the help of me!”
I must not close this article either without recalling to the
recollection of some of my readers that quaint old carol, which was sung
by bands of little children at Christmas, and which brings fairly before
us the paintings of the old masters, where Joseph is always represented
as so old a man, and Mary sits in the “oxen’s stall” with her crown on
her head.
Joseph was an old man, and an old man was he,
And he married Mary, the Queen of Galilee.
It goes on to describe how they went into the garden, and Queen Mary
asked Joseph to gather her some cherries, on which he turned very
crabbed, made Mary weep, and then all the cherry-trees made their
obeisance;
And bowed down to Mary’s knee--
And she gathered cherries by one, two, and three.
These are in the spirit of the legend which relates that Jesus, when a
boy, was playing with other boys, when they made sparrows of clay, and
he made a sparrow too, but his sparrow became instantly alive, and flew
away.
Simple were the times when such rude rhymes as these were framed, to be
sung before the doors and by the blazing yule-clogs of gentle and
simple. They are not calculated to stand the test of these days; the
schoolmaster will root them all out: but it is to be hoped that he will
leave untouched the cordial spirit of piety and affection so fitted to
make happy this desolate period of the year.
In Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Cornwall, and Devon, the old spirit of
Christmas seems to be kept up more earnestly than in most other
counties. In Cornwall, they still exhibit the old dance of St. George
and the Dragon. A young friend of ours happening to be at Calden-Low in
the Staffordshire hills at Christmas, in came the band of bedizened
actors, and performed the whole ancient drama, personating St. George,
the King of Egypt, the fair Saba, the king’s daughter, the Doctor, and
other characters, with great energy and in rude verse. In Devon they
still bless the orchards on Christmas-eve, according to the old
verses:--
Wassail the trees, that they may beare
You many a plum, and many a peare:
For more or less fruits they will bring
As you do give them wassailing.
In some places, they walk in procession to the principal orchards in
the parish. In each orchard one tree is selected as the representative
of the rest; and is saluted with a certain form of words. They then
either sprinkle the tree with cider, or dash a bowl of cider against it.
In other places, only the farmer and his servants assemble on the
occasion, and after immersing cakes in cider, hang them on the
apple-trees. They then sprinkle the trees with cider; pronounce their
incantation; dance about the tree, and then go home to feast.
In Mr. Grant Stewart’s “Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,” may be
found an account of the Highland mode of celebrating Christmas; and here
we say a hearty good-bye to Jolly Old Christmas.
* * * * *
We have now made a hasty sketch of those old festivals which still
retain more or less of their ancient influence. We have endeavoured to
shew what is the present state of custom and feeling in these
particulars by contrasting it with the past. New Year’s-day is yet a day
of salutations; Valentine’s-day has yet some sportive observance amongst
the young; and Plough-Monday, here and there, in the thoroughly
agricultural districts, sends out its motley team. This consists of the
farm-servants and labourers. They are dressed in harlequin guise, with
wooden swords, plenty of ribbons, faces daubed with white-lead, red
ochre, and lamp-black. One is always dressed in woman’s clothes and
armed with a besom, a sort of burlesque mixture of Witch and Columbine.
Another drives the team of men-horses with a long wand, at the end of
which is tied a bladder instead of a lash; so that blows are given
without pain, but with plenty of noise. The insolence of these
Plough-bullocks, as they are called, which might accord with ancient
license, but does not at all suit modern habits, has contributed more
than anything else to put them down. They visited every house of any
account, and solicited a contribution in no very humble terms. If it was
refused, their practice was to plough up the garden walk, or do some
other mischief. One band ploughed up the palisades of a widow lady of
our acquaintance, and having to appear before a magistrate for it, and
to pay damages, never afterwards visited that neighbourhood. In some
places I have known them enter houses, whence they could only be
ejected by the main power of the collected neighbours; for they extended
their excursions often to the distance of ten miles or more, and where
they were the most unknown, there practised the most insolence. Nobody
regrets the discontinuance of this usage.