man and woman with boxes on their backsGALANTEE SHOW.
crowded marketMarket—Christmas Eve.—Page 267.
24TH DECEMBER.
"Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,This bird of dawning singeth all night long:And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."Hamlet.
Theprogress of the Christmas celebrations has at length brought us up to the immediate threshold of that high day in honor of which they are all instituted; and amid the crowd of festivities by which it is on all sides surrounded, the Christian heart makes a pause to-night. Not that the Eve of Christmas is marked by an entire abstinence from that spirit of festival by which the rest of this season is distinguished, nor that the joyous character of the event on whose immediate verge it stands requires that it should. No part of that season is more generally dedicated to the assembling of friends than are the great day itself and the eve which ushers it in. Still, however, thefeelings of rejoicing which properly belong to the blessed occasion are chastened by the immediate presence of the occasion itself; and touching traditions and beautiful superstitions have given an air of solemnity to the night, beneath whose influence the spirit of commemoration assumes a religious character, and takes a softened tone.
Before however, touching upon the customs and ceremonies of the night, or upon those natural superstitions which have hung themselves around its sacred watches, we must take a glimpse at an out-of-door scene which forms a curious enough feature of Christmas Eve, and is rather connected with the great festival of to-morrow than with the hushed and expectant feelings which are the fitting moral condition of to-night.
Everywhere throughout the British isles Christmas Eve is marked by an increased activity about the good things of this life. "Now," says Stevenson, an old writer whom we have already quoted for the customs of Charles the Second's time, "capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die; for in twelve days a multitude of people will not be fed with a little;" and the preparations in this respect of this present period of grace, are made much after the ancient prescription of Stevenson. The abundant displays of every kind of edible in the London markets on Christmas Eve, with a view to the twelve days' festival of which it is the overture, the blaze of lightsamid which they are exhibited and the evergreen decorations by which they are embowered, together with the crowds of idlers or of purchasers that wander through these well-stored magazines, present a picture of abundance and a congress of faces well worthy of a single visit from the stranger, to whom a London market on the eve of Christmas is as yet a novelty.
The approach of Christmas Eve in the metropolis is marked by the Smithfield show of over-fed cattle; by the enormous beasts and birds, for the fattening of which medals and cups and prizes have been awarded by committees of amateur graziers and feeders; in honor of which monstrosities, dinners have been eaten, toasts drunk, and speeches made. These prodigious specimens of corpulency we behold, after being thus glorified, led like victims of antiquity decked with ribbons and other tokens of triumph, or perhaps instead of led, we should, as the animals are scarcely able to waddle, have used the word goaded, to be immolated at the altar of gluttony in celebration of Christmas! To admiring crowds, on the eve itself, are the results of oil-cake and turnip-feeding displayed in the various butcher's shops of the metropolis and its vicinity; and the efficacy of walnut-cramming is illustrated in Leadenhall market, where Norfolk turkeys and Dorking fowls appear in numbers and magnitude unrivalled. The average weight given for each turkey, by the statement heretoforequoted by us of the number and gravity of those birds sent up to London from Norfolk during two days of a Christmas some years ago, is nearly twelve pounds; but what is called a fine bird in Leadenhall Market weighs, when trussed, from eighteen to one or two-and-twenty pounds,—the average price of which may be stated at twenty shillings; and prize turkeys have been known to weigh more than a quarter of a hundred weight.
Brawn is another dish of this season, and is sold by the poulterers, fishmongers, and pastry-cooks. The supply for the consumption of London is chiefly derived from Canterbury, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. "It is manufactured from the flesh of large boars, which are suffered to live in a half-wild state, and, when put up to fatten, are strapped and belted tight round the principal parts of the carcass, in order to make the flesh become dense and brawny. This article comes to market in rolls about two feet long and ten inches in diameter, packed in wicker baskets."
Sandys observes that "Brawn is a dish of great antiquity, and may be found in most of the old bills of fare for coronation and other great feasts." "Brawn, mustard, and malmsey were directed for breakfast at Christmas, during Queen Elizabeth's reign; and Dugdale, in his account of the Inner Temple Revels, of the same age, states the same directions for that society. The French," continues Sandys, "do not appear to have been so well acquaintedwith it; for, on the capture of Calais by them, they found a large quantity, which they guessed to be some dainty, and tried every means of preparing it; in vain did they roast it, bake it, and boil it; it was impracticable and impenetrable to their culinary arts. Its merits, however, being at length discovered, 'Ha!' said the monks, 'what delightful fish!'—and immediately added it to their fast-day viands. The Jews, again, could not believe it was procured from that impure beast, the hog, and included it in their list of clean animals."
Amid the interior forms to be observed, on this evening, by those who would keep their Christmas after the old orthodox fashion, the first to be noticed is that of the Yule Clog. This huge block, which, in ancient times, and consistently with the capacity of its vast receptacle, was frequently the root of a large tree, it was the practice to introduce into the house with great ceremony, and to the sound of music. Herrick's direction is:—
"Come, bring with a noiseMy merrie, merrie boys,The Christmas log to the firing;While my good dame sheBids you all be free,And drink to your heart's desiring."
In Drake's "Winter Nights" mention is made of the Yule Clog, as lying, "in ponderous majesty, on the kitchen floor," until "each had sung hisYule song, standing on its centre,"—ere it was consigned to the flames that
"Went roaring up the chimney wide."
This Yule Clog, according to Herrick, was to be lighted with the brand of the last year's log, which had been carefully laid aside for the purpose, and music was to be played during the ceremony of lighting:—
"With the last yeere's brandLight the new block, andFor good successe in his spending,On your psaltries play,That sweet luck mayCome while the log is a teending."
This log appears to have been considered as sanctifying the roof-tree, and was probably deemed a protection against those evil spirits over whom this season was in every way a triumph. Accordingly, various superstitions mingled with the prescribed ceremonials in respect of it. From the authority already quoted on this subject, we learn that its virtues were not to be extracted, unless it were lighted with clean hands—a direction, probably, including both a useful household hint to the domestics, and, it may be, a moral of a higher kind:—
"Wash your hands or else the fireWill not tend to your desire;Unwash'd hands, ye maidens, know,Dead the fire though ye blow."
Around this fire, when duly lighted, the hospitalities of the evening were dispensed; and as the flames played about it and above it, with a pleasant song of their own, the song and the tale and the jest went cheerily round. In different districts, different omens attached themselves to circumstances connected with this observance, but generally it was deemed an evil one if the log went out during the night or, we suppose, during the symposium. The extinguished brand was, of course, to be preserved, to furnish its ministry to the ceremonial of the ensuing year.
The Yule Clog is still lighted up, on Christmas Eve, in various parts of England, and particularly in the north. In some places, where a block of sufficient dimensions is not readily come by, it is usual to lay aside a large coal for the purpose, which, if not quite orthodox, is an exceedingly good succedaneum, and a very rich source of cheerful inspirations.
Another feature of this evening, in the houses of the more wealthy, was the tall Christmas candles, with their wreaths of evergreens, which were lighted up, along with the Yule log, and placed on the upper table, or dais, of ancient days. Those of our readers who desire to light the Christmas candles, this year, may place them on the sideboard, or in any other conspicuous situation. Brand, however, considers the Yule log and the Christmas candle to be but one observance, and that theformer is only a substitute for the latter. By our ancestors, of the Latin church, Christmas was formerly called the "Feast of Lights," and numbers of lights were displayed on the occasion. The lights and the title were both typical of the religious light dawning upon the world at that sacred period,—of the advent, in fact, of the "Light of lights," and the conquest over moral darkness. Hence, it is thought, arose thedomesticceremony of the Christmas candle, and that the Yule block was but another form of the same,—the poor man's Christmas candle.
Occasionally, the Catholics appear to have made these Christmas candles (as also the candles exhibited by them, on other occasions of the commemorations connected with their religion) in a triangular form, as typical of the Trinity. Mr. Hone, in his volume on the subject of "Ancient Mysteries," gives a representation of one of these candles; and Mr. Crofton Croker, in a letter to us, speaking of the huge dip candles called Christmas candles, exhibited at this season in the chandlers' shops in Ireland, and presented by them to their customers, says, "It was the custom, I have been told (for the mystery of such matters was confined to the kitchen), to burn the three branches down to the point in which they united, and the remainder was reserved to 'see in,' as it was termed, the new year by." "There is," says Mr. Croker, "always considerable ceremony observed in lighting these greatcandles on Christmas Eve. It is thought unlucky to snuff one; and certain auguries are drawn from the manner and duration of their burning."
Men at a steaming bowlWassail Bowl.—Page 275.
The customs peculiar to Christmas Eve are numerous, and various in different parts of the British isles; the peculiarities, in most cases, arising from local circumstances or traditions, and determining theparticularforms of a celebration which isuniversal. To enter upon any thing like an enumeration of these, it would be necessary to allow ourselves another volume. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to the general observances by which the Christmas spirit works, and each of our readers will have no difficulty in connecting the several local customs which come under his own notice with the particular feature of common celebration to which they belong.
But all men, in all places, who would keep Christmas Eve as Christmas Eve should be kept, must set the wassail-bowl a-flowing for the occasion. "Fill me a mighty bowl!" says Herrick, "up to the brim!" and though this fountain of "quips and cranks and wreathed smiles," belongs, in an especial sense, to Twelfth-night (Twelfth-night not being Twelfth-night without it), yet it should be compounded for every one of the festival nights, and invoked to spread its inspirations over the entire season.
"Honor to you who sitNear to the well of wit,And drink your fill of it!"
again says our friend Herrick (what could we do without him, in this Christmas book of ours?). And surely, judging by such effects as we have witnessed, Herrick must have meant the wassail-bowl. We are perfectly aware that there are certain other dwellers in that same bowl. Truth has been said to lie at the bottom of a well; and we have certainly seen him unseasonably brought up out of the very well in question, by those who have gone further into its depths than was necessary for reaching the abode of wit. No doubt, truth is at all times a very respectable personage; but there are certain times when he and wit do not meet on the best of terms, and he is apt, occasionally, to be somewhat of a revel-marrer. The garb and temper in which he often follows wit out of that bowl are not those in which he appears to the most advantage. We know, also, that there is yet a deeper deep, in which worse things still reside; and although there be pearls there, too,—and the skilful diver may bring treasures up out of that bowl, and escape all its evil spirits, besides,—yet it is, at any rate, not on this night of subdued mirth that we intend to recommend an exploration of these further depths. But still the bowl should be produced, and go round. A cheerful sporting with the light bubbles that wit flings up to its surface are perfectly consistent with the sacred character of the night, and, for ourselves,wewill have a wassail-bowl this Christmas Eve.
The word "wassail" is derived from the Saxonwas haile;which word, anddrinc-heil(heil, health) were, as appears from old authors quoted by Brand, the usual ancient phrases of quaffing, among the English and equivalent to the "Here's to you," and "I pledge you," of the present day. "The wassail-bowl," says Warton, "is Shakspeare's gossip's bowl, in the Midsummer Night's Dream." It should be composed, by those who can afford it, of some rich wine highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples floating on its surface. But ale was more commonly substituted for the wine, mingled with nutmeg, ginger, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs. "It is," says Leigh Hunt, "a good-natured bowl, and accommodates itself to the means of all classes, rich and poor. You may have it of the costliest wine or the humblest malt liquor. But in no case must the roasted apples be forgotten. They are thesine qua nonof the wassail-bowl, as the wassail-bowl is of the day (heis speaking of New Year's Day); and very pleasant they are, provided they are not mixed up too much with the beverage, balmy, comfortable, and different, a sort of meat in the drink, but innocent withal and reminding you of the orchards. They mix their flavor with the beverage, and the beverage with them, giving a new meaning to the line of the poet,—
'The gentler apple's winy juice;'
for both winy and gentler have they become by this process. Our ancestors gave them the affectionatename of 'lamb's wool;' for we cannot help thinking, in spite of what is intimated by one of our authorities, that this term applied more particularly to the apples and not so much to the bowl altogether; though if it did, it shows how indispensably necessary to it they were considered." With all deference to Mr. Leigh Hunt's pleasant and graceful trifling, lamb's wool was the title given to the composition itself, no doubt on account of the delicate and harmonious qualities, to which the apples contribute their share. Our readers will find an account of the alleged origin of this annual practice in a curious description of an old wassail-bowl, carved upon the oaken beam that supported a chimney-piece in an old mansion in Kent, which description is copied by Hone into his "Every-Day Book," from the "Antiquarian Repertory." In the halls of our ancestors, this bowl was introduced with the inspiring cry of "wassail," three times repeated, and immediately answered by a song from the chaplain. We hope our readers will sing to the wassail-bowl this Christmas-tide.
We find that in some parts of Ireland and in Germany, and probably in districts of England, too, Christmas Eve is treated as a night of omens, and that practices exist for gathering its auguries having a resemblance to those of our northern neighbors at Halloween. Many beautiful, and some solemn superstitions belong to this night and the followingmorning. It is stated by Sir Walter Scott, in one of his notes to "Marmion," to be an article of popular faith, "that they who are born on Christmas or Good Friday have the power of seeing spirits, and even of commanding them;" and he adds that "the Spaniards imputed the haggard and downcast looks of their Philip II. to the disagreeable visions to which this privilege subjected him."
Among the finest superstitions of the night may be mentioned that which is alluded to by Shakspeare in the lines which we have placed as the epigraph to the present chapter. It is a consequence or application of that very ancient and popular belief which assigns the night for the wanderings of spirits, and supposes them, at the crowing of "the cock, that is the trumpet to the morn," to start "like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," and betake themselves to flight. Here again, as in so many cases of vulgar superstition, a sort of mental metonymy has taken place; and the crowing of the cock, which in the early stage of the belief was imagined to be the signal for the departure of evil spirits, onlybecauseit announced the morning, is, in the further stage which we are examining, held to be a soundin itselfintolerable to these shadowy beings. Accordingly it is supposed that on the eve of Christmas "the bird of dawning singeth all night long," to scare away all evil things from infesting the hallowed hours:—
"And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."
In the south-west of England there exists a superstitious notion that the oxen are to be found kneeling in their stalls at midnight of this vigil, as if in adoration of the Nativity,—an idea which Brand, no doubt correctly, supposes to have originated from the representations by early painters of the event itself. That writer mentions a Cornish peasant who told him (1790) of his having with some others watched several oxen in their stalls, on the eve of old Christmas Day. "At twelve o'clock at night, they observed the two oldest oxen fall upon their knees, and, as he expressed it in the idiom of the country, make 'a cruel moan like Christian creatures.'" To those who regard the analogies of the human mind, who mark the progress of tradition, who study the diffusion of certain fancies, and their influence upon mankind, an anecdote related by Mr. Howison in his "Sketches of Upper Canada," is full of comparative interest. He mentions meeting an Indian at midnight, creeping cautiously along in the stillness of a beautiful moonlight Christmas Eve. The Indian made signals to him to be silent; and when questioned as to his reason replied,—"Me watch to see the deer kneel; this is Christmas night, and all the deer fall upon their knees to the Great Spirit, and look up."
In various parts of England, bees are popularly said to express their veneration for the Nativity by "singing," as it is called, in their hives at midnight, upon Christmas Eve: and in some places, particularly in Derbyshire, it is asserted that the watcher may hear the ringing of subterranean bells. In the mining districts again, the workmen declare that—
"Ever 'gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,"
high mass is solemnly performed in that cavern which contains the richest lode of ore, that it is brilliantly lighted up with candles, and that the service is chanted by unseen choristers.
Superstitions of this kind seem to be embodied in the carol commencing with "I saw three ships come sailing in," to which we have before alluded; the rhythm of which old song is to our ear singularly melodious:—
"And all the bells on earth shall ringOn Christmas-day, on Christmas-day,And all the bells on earth shall ringOn Christmas-day in the morning."And all the angels in heaven shall singOn Christmas-day, on Christmas-day,And all the angels in heaven shall singOn Christmas-day in the morning."And all the souls on earth shall singOn Christmas-day, on Christmas-day,And all the souls on earth shall sing,On Christmas-day in the morning."
Such fancies are but the natural echoes in the popular mind of ancient songs and customs; and so strongly is that mind impressed with the feeling of a triumph pervading the entire natural economy on
"the happy nightThat to the cottage as the crown,Brought tidings of salvation down,"
that even the torpid bees are figured in its superstitions to utter a voice of gladness, the music of sweet chimes to issue from the bosom of the earth, and rich harmonies to echo and high ceremonies to be gorgeously performed, amid the hush and mystery of buried cells.
We must not omit to mention that these supposed natural testimonies to the triumph of the time have been in some places used as means of divination on a very curious question. The change of style introduced into our calendars nearly a century ago, and by which Christmas Day was displaced from its ancient position therein, gave great dissatisfaction on many accounts, and on none more than that of its interference with this ancient festival. The fifth and sixth of January continued long to be observed as the true anniversary of the Nativity and its vigil; and the kneeling of the cattle, the humming of the bees, and the ringing of subterranean bells, were anxiously watched for authentications on this subject. The singular fact of the budding about the period of old Christmas Day ofthe Cadenham oak, in the New Forest of Hampshire, and the same remarkable feature of the Glastonbury thorn (explained in various ways, but probably nowhere more satisfactorily than in the number for the 31st December, 1833, of the Saturday Magazine), were of course used by the vulgar as confirmation of their own tradition; and the putting forth of their leaves was earnestly waited for as an unquestionable homage to the joyous spirit of the true period.
We have already alluded to the high ceremonies with which the great day is ushered in amongst the Catholics, and to the beautiful music of the midnight mass:—
"That only night of all the yearSaw the stoled priest his chalice rear."
The reader who would have a very graphic and striking account of the Christmas Eve mass, as performed by torchlight amid the hills in certain districts of Ireland, will find one in Mr. Carleton's "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry."
We have also mentioned that all the watches of this hallowed night shall ring to the sounds of earthly minstrelsy, intimating, as best they may, the heavenly choirs that hailed its rising over Judea nearly two centuries ago. Not for the shepherds alone, was that song! Its music was for us, as for them; and all minstrelsy, however rude, is welcome on this night that gives us any echoes of it, howeverwild. For us too, on the blessed day of which this vigil keeps the door, "is born in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;" and we too amid the sacred services of to-morrow will "go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us."
Father Christmas on goat
In furry pall yclad,His brows enwreathed with holly never sere,Old Christmas comes to close the wained year:Bampfylde.
25th December.
Andnow has arrived the great and important day itself which gives its title to the whole of this happy season, and the high and blessed work of man's redemption is begun. The pæan of universal rejoicing swells up on every side; and after those religious exercises which are the language that man's joy should take first, the day is one of brightened spirits and general congratulation. In no way can man better express his sense of its inestimable gift than by the condition of mind that receives gladly, and gives freely; than by mustering his worldly affections, that he may renew them in the spirit of the time. This is not the proper place to speak more minutely of thereligioussentiments and services which belong to the season than we have already done. We may merely remark that the streets of the city and the thousand pathways of the country are crowded on this morning by rich and poor, young and old, coming in on all sides, gathering from all quarters, to hearthe particulars of the "glad tidings" proclaimed; and each lofty cathedral and lowly village church sends up a voice to join the mighty chorus whose glad burthen is—"Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, good will toward men."
Woman pulling pudding out of large cauldron over fireChristmas Pudding.—Page 286.
From the religious duties of the day, we must turn at once to its secular observances; and these we will take in the order, with reference to the progress of its hours, in which they come, mingling the customs of modern times with those of the past in our pages, as, in many respects, we wish our readers would do in practice.
The plate then on the other side represents the earliest, and not the least important, of the worldly ceremonies of the day, the due observance thereof being essential to the due observance of that later ceremony which no man holds to be unimportant, least of all on Christmas Day, the dinner. But, "oh! Molly Dumpling! oh! thou cook!" if that clock of thine be right, thou art far behindhand with thy work! Thou shouldst have risen when thou wast disturbed by the Waits at three o'clock this morning! To have discharged thy duty faithfully, thou shouldst have consigned that huge pudding at least two hours earlier to the reeking caldron! We are informed by those who understand such matters, that a plum pudding of the ordinary size requires from ten to twelve hours boiling; so that a pudding calculated for the appetites of such a party as our artist has assembled further on, forits consumption, and due regard being had to the somewhat earlier hour than on days in general at which a Christmas dinner is commonly discussed, should have found its way into the boiler certainly before six o'clock. Molly evidently wants a word of advice from the ancient bellman:—
"Up, Doll, Peg, Susan! You all spoke to meBetimes to call you, and 'tis now past three,Get up on your but-ends, and rub your eyes,For shame, no longer lye abed, but rise;The pewter still to scow'r and house to clean,And you abed! good girls, what is't you mean?"
On the subject of the identity of the modern plum pudding with the ancienthackin, we are furnished with the following curious remarks by Mr. Crofton Croker, which we think well worth submitting for the consideration of the curious in such matters.
"The 'hackin,'" says that amusing old tract, entitled 'Round about our Coal Fire,' "'must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden [i. e., the cook] by the arms, and run her round the market-place, till she is ashamed of her laziness.' Brand, whose explanation Hone in his Every-Day Book has adopted, renders 'hackin' by 'the great sausage;' and Nares tells us, that the word means 'a large sort of sausage, being a part of the cheer provided for Christmas festivities,'—deriving the word fromhack, to cut or chop. Agreeing in this derivation, we do not admitNares's explanation. 'Hackin,' literally taken, is mince-meat of any kind; but Christmas mince-meat, everybody knows, means a composition of meat and suet (hacked small) seasoned with fruit and spices. And from the passage above quoted, that 'the hackin must be boiled, i. e., boiling, by daybreak,' it is obvious the worthy archdeacon who, as well as Brand and Hone, has explained it as a great sausage, did not see that 'hackin' is neither more nor less than the old name for the national English dish of plum pudding.
"We have heard first-rate authorities upon this subject assert, the late Dr. Kitchener and Mr. Douce were amongst the number, that plum pudding, the renowned English plum pudding, was a dish comparatively speaking of modern invention; and that plum porridge was its ancient representative. But this, for the honor of England, we never would allow, and always fought a hard battle upon the point. Brand indeed devotes a section of his observations on popular antiquities to 'Yule-doughs, mince-pies, Christmas-pies, and plum porridge,' omitting plum pudding, which new Christmas dish, or rather new name for an old Christmas dish, appears to have been introduced with the reign of the 'merry monarch,' Charles II. A revolution always creates a change in manners, fashions, tastes, and names; and our theory is that, among other changes, the 'hackin' of our ancestors was then baptized plum pudding. In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1676, itis observed of Christmas,—'Good cheer doth so abound as if all the world were made of minced-pies, plum pudding, and furmity.' And we might produce other quotations to show that, as the name 'hackin' fell into disuse about this period, it was generally supplanted by that of plum pudding."
Plum pudding is a truly national dish, and refuses to flourish out of 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, haveplomb-poodingupon 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.
"WhenAmong their children, comfortable menGather 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!"
Church in snow with people aroundCountry Church, Christmas Morning.—Page 290.
Immediately after the services of the day, the country gentleman stood of old, at his own gate (as we have represented him atpage 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 runharum-scarumto draw a jug of ale for Margery."
Of this scene we have given a representation atpage 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 andgloomy 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 BaalimForsake their temples dim,With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine;And mooned AshtarothHeaven'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 dreadHis 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 seenIn 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 landThe dreaded Infant's hand;The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyne;Nor all the gods besideLonger 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 allhumanity 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 lowlinessand 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!
men carrying in the boar's head on a platterBringing 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:—