Hail, father Christmas! hail to thee!
Honour’d ever shalt thou be!
All the sweets that love bestows,
Endless pleasures, wait on those
Who, like vassals brave and true,
Give to Christmas homage due.
* * * * *
From what has been observed of Christmas carols in another work, by the
editor, a few notices will be subjoined with this remark, that the
custom of singing carols at Christmas is very ancient; and though most
of those that exist at the present day are deficient of interest to a
refined ear, yet they are calculated to awaken tender feelings. For
instance, one of them represents the virgin contemplating the birth of
the infant, and saying,
“He neither shall be clothed
in purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen,
as were babies all:
He neither shall be rock’d
in silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden cradle,
that rocks on the mould.”
Not to multiply instances at present, let it suffice that in a MS. at
the British Museum[417] there is “A song on the holly and the ivy,”
beginning,
“Nay, my nay, hyt shal not be I wys,
Let holy hafe the maystry, as the maner ys:
“Holy stond in the hall, fayre to behold,
Ivy stond without the dore, she ys ful sore acold.
“_Nay my nay_,” &c.
“Holy, & hys mery men, they dawnsyn and they syng,
Ivy and hur maydyns, they wepyn & they wryng.
“_Nay my nay_,” &c.
The popularity of carol-singing occasioned the publication of a
duodecimo volume in 1642, intituled, “Psalmes or Songs of Sion, turned
into the language, and set to the tunes of a strange land. By W(illiam)
S(latyer), _intended for Christmas carols_, and fitted to divers of the
most noted and common but solemne tunes, every where in this land
familiarly used and knowne.” Upon the copy of this book in the British
Museum, a former possessor has written the names of some of the tunes to
which the author designed them to be sung: for instance, Psalm 6, to the
tune of _Jane Shore_; Psalm 19, to _Bar. Forster’s Dreame_; Psalm 43, to
_Crimson Velvet_; Psalm 47, to _Garden Greene_; Psalm 84, to _The
fairest Nymph of the Valleys_; &c.
In a carol, still sung, called “Dives and Lazarus,” there is this
amusing account:
“As it fell it out, upon a day,
Rich Dives sicken’d and died,
There came two serpents out of hell,
His soul therein to guide.
“Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,
And come along with me,
For you’ve a place provided in hell,
To sit upon _a serpent’s_ knee.”
However whimsical this may appear to the reader, he can scarcely
conceive its ludicrous effect, when the “serpent’s knee” is solemnly
drawn out to its utmost length by a Warwickshire chanter, and as
solemnly listened to by the well-disposed crowd, who seem, without
difficulty, to believe that Dives sits on a serpent’s _knee_. The idea
of sitting on this knee was, perhaps, conveyed to the poet’s mind by old
wood-cut representations of Lazarus seated in Abraham’s lap. More
anciently, Abraham was frequently drawn holding him up by the sides, to
be seen by Dives in hell. In an old book now before me, they are so
represented, with the addition of a devil blowing the fire under Dives
with a pair of bellows.
* * * * *
Carols begin to be spoken of as not belonging to this century, and few,
perhaps, are aware of the number of these compositions now printed. The
editor of the _Every-Day Book_ has upwards of ninety, all at this time,
published annually.
This collection he has had little opportunity of increasing, except when
in the country he has heard an old woman singing an old carol, and
brought back the carol in his pocket with less chance of its escape,
than the tune in his head.
Mr. Southey, describing the fight “upon the plain of Patay,” tells of
one who fell, as having
“In his lord’s castle dwelt, for many a year,
A well-beloved servant: he could sing
Carols for Shrove-tide, or for Candlemas,
Songs for the wassel, and when the boar’s head
Crown’d with gay garlands, and with rosemary,
Smoak’d on the Christmas board.”
_Joan of Arc_, b. x. l. 466.
These ditties, which now exclusively enliven the industrious
servant-maid, and the humble labourer, gladdened the festivity of
royalty in ancient times. Henry VII., in the third year of his reign,
kept his Christmas at Greenwich: on the twelfth night, after high mass,
the king went to the hall, and kept his estate at the table; in the
middle sat the dean, and those of the king’s chapel, who, immediately
after the king’s first course, “sang a _carall_.”[418]--Granger
innocently observes, that “they that fill the highest and the lowest
classes of human life, seem in many respects to be more nearly allied
than even themselves imagine. A skilful anatomist would find little or
no difference in dissecting the body of a king, and that of the meanest
of his subjects; and a judicious philosopher would discover a
surprising conformity in discussing the nature and qualities of their
minds.”[419]
* * * * *
The earliest collection of Christmas carols supposed to have been
published, is only known from the last leaf of a volume printed by Wynkn
de Worde, in the year 1521. This precious scrap was picked up by Tom
Hearne; Dr. Rawlinson purchased it at his decease in a volume of tracts,
and bequeathed it to the Bodleian library. There are two carols upon it:
one, “a caroll of huntynge,” is reprinted in the last edition of Juliana
Berners’ “Boke of St. Alban’s;” the other, “a caroll, bringing in the
bore’s head,” is in Mr. Dibdin’s “Ames,” with a copy of it as it is now
sung in Queen’s-college, Oxford, every Christmas-day. Dr. Bliss, of
Oxford, also printed on a sheet for private distribution, a few copies
of this and Ant. à Wood’s version of it, with notices concerning the
custom, from the hand-writings of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the
Bodleian library. Ritson, in his ill-tempered “Observations on Warton’s
History of English Poetry,” (1782, 4to. p. 37,) has a Christmas carol
upon bringing up the boar’s head, from an ancient MS. in his possession,
wholly different from Dr. Bliss’s. The “Bibliographical Miscellanies,”
(Oxford, 1813, 4to.) contains seven carols from a collection in one
volume in the possession of Dr. Cotton, of Christchurch-college, Oxford,
“imprynted at London, in the Powltry, by Richard Kele, dwellyng at the
longe shop vnder saynt Myldrede’s Chyrche,” probably “between 1546 and
1552.” I had an opportunity of perusing this exceedingly curious volume,
which is supposed to be unique, and has since passed into the hands of
Mr. Freeling. There are carols among the _Godly and Spiritual Songs and
Balates_, in “Scottish Poems of the sixteenth century,” (1801, 8vo.);
and one by Dunbar, from the Bannatyne MS. in “Ancient Scottish Poems.”
Others are in Mr. Ellis’s edition of Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” with
several useful notices. Warton’s “History of English Poetry” contains
much concerning _old_ carols. Mr. Douce, in his “Illustrations of
Shakspeare,” gives a specimen of the carol sung by the shepherds, on the
birth of Christ, in one of the Coventry plays. There is a sheet of
carols headed thus: “CHRISTUS NATUS EST: _Christ is born_;” with a
wood-cut, 10 inches high, by 8½ inches wide, representing the stable at
Bethlehem; Christ in the crib, watched by the virgin and Joseph;
shepherds kneeling; angels attending; a man playing on the bagpipes; a
woman with a basket of fruit on her head; a sheep bleating, and an ox
lowing on the ground; a raven croaking, and a crow cawing on the
hay-rack; a cock crowing above them; and angels singing in the sky. The
animals have labels from their mouths, bearing Latin inscriptions. Down
the side of the wood-cut is the following account and explanation: “A
religious man, inventing the conceits of both birds and beasts, drawn in
the picture of our Saviour’s birth, doth thus express them: the cock
croweth, _Christus natus est_, Christ is born. The raven asked,
_Quando?_ When? The crow replied, _Hac nocte_, This night. The ox cryeth
out, _Ubi? Ubi?_ Where? where? The sheep bleated out, _Bethlehem_,
Bethlehem. A voice from heaven sounded, _Gloria in Excelsis_, Glory be
on high.--London: printed and sold by J. Bradford, in Little Britain,
the corner house over against the Pump, 1701. Price One Penny.” This
carol is in the possession of Mr. Upcott.
The custom of singing carols at Christmas prevails in Ireland to the
present time. In Scotland, where no church feasts have been kept since
the days of John Knox, the custom is unknown. In Wales it is still
preserved to a greater extent, perhaps, than in England; at a former
period, the Welsh had carols adapted to most of the ecclesiastical
festivals, and the four seasons of the year, but in our times they are
limited to that of Christmas. After the turn of midnight at
Christmas-eve, service is performed in the churches, followed by the
singing of carols to the harp. Whilst the Christmas holidays continue,
they are sung in like manner in the houses, and there are carols
especially adapted to be sung at the doors of the houses by visiters
before they enter. _Lffyr Carolan_, or the book of carols, contains
sixty-six for Christmas, and five summer carols; _Blodeugerdd Cymrii_,
or the “Anthology of Wales,” contains forty-eight Christmas carols, nine
summer carols, three May carols, one winter carol, one nightingale
carol, and a carol to Cupid. The following verse of a carol for
Christmas is literally translated from the first mentioned volume. The
poem was written by Hugh Morris, a celebrated song-writer during the
commonwealth, and until the early part of the reign of William III:--
“To a saint let us not pray, to a pope let us not kneel;
On Jesu let us depend, and let us discreetly watch
To preserve our souls from Satan with his snares;
Let us not in morning invoke any one else.”
With the succeeding translation of a _Welsh wassail song_, the observer
of manners will, perhaps, be pleased. In Welsh, the lines of each
couplet, repeated inversely, still keep the same sense.
_A Carol for the Eve of St. Mary’s Day._
This is the season when, agreeably to custom,
That it was an honour to send _wassail_
By the old people who were happy
In their time, and loved pleasure;
And we are now purposing
To be like them, every one merry:
Merry and foolish, youths are wont to be,
Being reproached for squandering abroad.
I know that every mirth will end
Too soon of itself;
Before it is ended, here comes
The _wassail_ of Mary, for the sake of the time:
N---- [420] place the maid immediately
In the chair before us;
And let every body in the house be content that we
May drink _wassail_ to virginity,
To remember the time, in faithfulness,
When fair Mary was at the sacrifice,
After the birth to her of a son,
Who delivered every one, through his good will
From their sins, without doubt.
Should there be an inquiry who made the carol,
He is a man whose trust is fully on God,
That he shall go to heaven to the effulgent Mary,
Towards filling the orders where she also is.