"The boare is dead,Loe, heare is his head,What man could have done moreThen his head of to strike,Meleager like,And bringe it as I doe before?"He livinge spoyledWhere 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 mustardStand 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 sprangOf 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 deferoReddens laudes Domino,The bore's heade in hande bring IWith garlandes gay and rosemary,I pray you all synge merely,Qui estis in convivio."The bore's head I understandeIs 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 presenceof mind, is said to have rammed in the volume, and criedgræcum 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 wineWassail, 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.
large gathering around tableChristmas 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 abouthimwhich 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 ofreunions. 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.
26th December.
Thisday, 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.
People out in the streetsBoxing 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 indignationat being somewhat uncourteously repulsed, he immediately consulted his lawyer, and, having donethat, 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, inrapid 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 "goodbellman'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."
Upon the bellman's verses which were last year circulated by the beadles of Putney, Chiswick, and other parishes on the west side of London, it was recorded, that they were "first printed in the year 1735," and our curiosity induced us to inquire of the printer the number annually consumed. "We used, sir," said he, "not many years ago, to print ten thousand copies, and even more, but now I suppose we don't print above three thousand." Whether the trade of this particular dealer in bellman's verses has passed into other hands, or whether the encouragement given to the circulation of these broadsides has declined, the statement of an individual will not of course enable us to determine.But we are inclined to think that, like other old Christmas customs, the popularity of bellman's verses is passing away, and that, before many years have elapsed, penny magazines and unstamped newspapers will have completely superseded these relics of the rude, but sincere, piety of our ancestors.
The claims of dustmen to be remembered upon "Boxing-day" were formerly urged, without literary pretensions; but now "the march of intellect" has rendered it necessary for them to issue their addresses in print. One of these, which lies before us, represents that "the United Association of Dustmen and Scavengers, of the Parish of ——— have the honor to pay their humble duty and respects to the good [MasterorMistress] of this house, and to solicit a Christmas mark of approbation of their unwearied exertions, which they flatter themselves conduce so eminently to the comfort and salubrity of the greatest metropolitan city of civilized Europe." Here, however, is another, in which the spirit of St. Stephen's Day is embittered by the rivalries of business; and the harmony of those two respectable bodies, the scavengers and dustmen, appears to have been disturbed. The dustmen, it will be seen, repudiate the scavengers, and appeal to Saint Stephen on a separate interest.
"To the Worthy Inhabitants of the Southampton Estate.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,—At this season, when you are pleased to give to laboring men, employedin collecting your dust, a donation called Christmas-box, advantage of which is often taken by persons assuming the name of Dustmen, obtaining under false pretences your bounty, we humbly submit to your consideration, to prevent such imposition, to bestow no gift on any not producing a brass figure of the following description,—A Scotch Fifer, French horn, etc., between his legs; James Dee and Jerry Cane; Southampton Paving Act, on the bell; Contractor, Thomas Salisbury.
"No connection with scavengers. Please not to return this bill to any one."
The principal Wait also leaves a notice of a more imposing description, stating a regular appointment to the office by warrant and admission, with all the ancient forms of the City and Liberty of Westminster; and bears a silver badge and chain, with the arms of that city.
We cannot dismiss the various modes of collecting Christmas-boxes, without a few words upon the pieces of writing carried about by parish boys, and which once presented the only evidence that the schoolmaster was abroad. It appears formerly to have been the practice at this season to hang up in our churches the work of the most skilful pen-man in the parish, after it had been generally exhibited; the subject of which was the life of some saint, or other religious legend. Pepys thus mentions the custom:—"26 December, 1665. Saw some fine writing work and flourishing of Mr. Hore,with one that I knew long ago, an acquaintance of Mr. Tomson's at Westminster, that is this man's clerk. It is the story of the several Archbishops of Canterbury, engrossed on vellum, to hang up in Canterbury cathedral in tables in lieu of the old ones, which are almost worn out."
To this usage, which was no doubt of monkish origin, we are inclined to refer the specimens of caligraphy upon gaudily ornamented sheets of paper, brought round on St. Stephen's Day by parish boys and charity-school children, and displayed for admiration and reward. The walls of school-rooms, and the houses of the children's parents are afterwards decorated with these "Christmas pieces," in the same manner as were anciently the walls of churches.
There are in the different Christian countries of Europe a variety of popular practices connected with St. Stephen's Day; such as that of bleeding horses, which is mentioned by old Tusser in his "December's Abstract:"—
"At Christmas is goodTo let thy horse blood;"
and more particularly in his "December's Husbandry:"—
"Ere Christmas be passed, let horse be let blood,For many a purpose, it doth them much good,Theday of St. Stephenold fathers did use."
These various popular observances, however, are generally of that local and peculiar kind which we are compelled to omit in our enumeration, for reasons already given. But there is one of so striking a character, that we must pause to give some account of it.
This custom, which is called "hunting the wren," is generally practised by the peasantry of the south of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day. It bears a close resemblance to the Manx proceedings described by Waldron,—as taking place however on a different day. "On the 24th of December," says that writer, in his account of the Isle of Man, "towards evening the servants in general have a holiday; they go not to bed all night, but ramble about till the bells ring in all the churches, which is at twelve o'clock. Prayers being over, they go to hunt the wren; and after having found one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay her on a bier with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to the parish church and burying her with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the Manx language, which they call her knell; after which Christmas begins."
The Wren-boys in Ireland, who are also called Droleens, go from house to house for the purpose of levying contributions, carrying one or more of these birds in the midst of a bush of holly, gaily decorated with colored ribbons; which birds they have, like the Manx mummers, employed their morning in killing. The following is their song;of which they deliver themselves in most monotonous music:—
"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,St. Stephen's-day was caught in the furze,Although he is little, his family's great,I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat."My box would speak, if it had but a tongue,And two or three shillings would do it no wrong;Sing holly, sing ivy—sing ivy, sing holly,A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy."And if you draw it of the best,I hope, in heaven your soul will rest;But if you draw it of the small,It won't agree with these Wren-boys at all."
If an immediate acknowledgment, either in money or drink, is not made in return for the civility of their visit, some such nonsensical verses as the following are added:—
"Last Christmas-day, I turned the spit,I burned my fingers (I feel it yet),A cock sparrow flew over the table,The dish began to fight with the ladle."The spit got up like a naked man,And swore he'd fight with the dripping pan;The pan got up and cocked his tail,And swore he'd send them all to jail."
The story told to account for the title of "king of all birds," here given to the wren, is a curious sample of Irish ingenuity, and is thus stated in theclever "Tales of the Munster Festivals," by an Irish servant in answer to his master's inquiry:—
"Saint Stephen! why what the mischief, I ask you again, have I to do with Saint Stephen?"
"Nothen, sure, sir, only this being his day, when all the boys o' the place go about that way with the wran, the king of all birds, sir, as they say (bekays wanst when all the birds wanted to choose a king, and they said they'd have the bird that would fly highest, the aigle flew higher than any of 'em, till at last when he couldn't fly an inch higher, a little rogue of a wran that was a-hide under his wing took a fly above him a piece, and was crowned king, of the aigle an' all, sir), tied in the middle o' the holly that way you see, sir, by the leg, that is. An old custom, sir."
Vainly have we endeavored to arrive at the probable origin of hunting and killing these little birds upon this day. The tradition commonly related is by no means satisfactory. It is said that a Danish army would have been surprised and destroyed by some Irish troops, had not a wren given the alarm by pecking at some crumbs upon a drum-head,—the remains of the sleeping drummer's supper; which roused him, when he instantly beat to arms. And that from this circumstance the wren became an object of hatred to the Irish.
Songs similar in spirit to that of the Irish Droleen boys were popularly sung by the Greeks. In D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," may befound translations of "the crow song," and "the swallow song;" between which and the Irish wren song the resemblance is very striking. "Swallow-singing or chelidonising, as the Greek term is," was, it appears, a method of collecting eleemosynary gifts in the month of Boedromion or August. We think D'Israeli is right in his opinion that there is probably a closer connection between the custom which produced the songs of the crow and the swallow and that of our northern mummeries, than may be at first sight suspected. The subject of mumming we have elsewhere treated at some length; but this curious variety of the practice, and the manner in which it seems to connect the subject with the ceremonies of the Greeks, we could not allow ourselves wholly to omit.
31st December.
Thisis the last day of the year, and the feelings which belong to it are of a tangled yarn. Regrets for the past are mingled with hopes of the future; and the heart of man, between the meeting years, stands like the head of Janus looking two ways.
The day and eve which precede the New Year are marked, in England, by few outward observances, save such as are common to the season; and it is in the peculiar trains of thought to which they give rise that they have a character of their own.
In Scotland, on the other hand, the festival of this season is, since the Reformation, nearly limited to these two days; and the last day of the year is distinguished both by omens and by customs peculiar to itself. In Mr. Stewart's "Popular Superstitions of the Highlands," there is an account of some of these omens, as they were gathered, at no distant period, in that land of mist and mystery; and a singular example may be mentioned in the auguries drawn from what was called the Candlemasbull. The term Candlemas, which has been given to this season, in Scotland and elsewhere, is supposed to have had its origin in some old religious ceremonies which were performed by candle light; and the bull was a passing cloud, which in Highland imagination assumed the form of that animal, and from whose rise or fall, or motions generally on this night, the seer prognosticated good or bad weather. Something of the same kind is mentioned in Sir John Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland," who explains more particularly the auguries gathered from the state of the atmosphere on New Year's Eve. The superstition in question, however, is not peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland, but shared with the northern European nations in general, most of whom assigned portentous qualities to the winds of New Year's Eve.
It is on this night that those Scottish mummers, the Guisars, to whom we have already more than once alluded, still go about the streets, habited in antic dresses, having their faces covered with vizards and carrying cudgels in their hands. The doggerel lines repeated by these masquers, as given by Mr. Callender, in a paper contributed by him to the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland, are as follows:—
"Hogmanay,Trollolay,Gie me o' your white bread,I'll hae nane o' your grey;"
and much learning has been exhausted, and ingenuity exercised in their explanation. The admirable paper of Mr. Repp, in the same Transactions (to which we have already alluded, and which we recommend to the notice of our antiquarian readers), connects them, as we have before hinted, with another superstition common to many of the northern nations; and which may be compared with one of the articles of popular belief before described, as prevailing in England, on Christmas Eve; that, viz., which seems to imply that the spirits of evil are at this time in peculiar activity, unless kept down by holier and more powerful influences. According to this able investigator, the moment of midnight, on New Year's Eve, was considered to be a general removing term for the races of genii, whether good or bad; and the first two lines of the cry in question, which as he explains them, after the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic dialects, were words of appeal to the good genii (the hoghmen or hillmen), and of execration against the evil ones (the trolles), were so used, in consequence of such belief (that these different spirits were, at that hour, in motion), and of the further one that the words of men had power to determine that motion to their own advantage. It is well known that, in some countries, and we may mention Germany, great importance is attached to words involuntarily uttered at certain seasons, and under certain circumstances, and they are supposed to be either words of betrayal, leavingthe speaker open to the machinations of evil spirits, who may apply them in a strained and fatal sense, if at all ambiguous; or words of power, controlling the designs of demons, and compelling them to work out the good of the utterer, against their will. Now a superstition of this kind, Mr. Repp says, attachesgenerallyto the doctrines of demonology; and he states that he could prove his position by many instances from Arabic and Persian fairy lore. We may observe that some of the Highland superstitions mentioned by Mr. Stewart, such as that of sprinkling the household with water drawn fromthe dead and living ford, and that of fumigating the apartments and half smothering their tenants with the smoke from burning piles of the juniper-bush (both considered to operate as charms against the spells of witchcraft and the malignity of evil eyes), have, evidently, their origin in that same belief, that the powers of evil are on the wing at this mysterious and solemn time of natural transition.
Some ancient superstitions are likewise alluded to in the old dialogue of Dives and Pauper, as being in force at the beginning of the year, and which appear to have had a like origin with the Highland ones above described. As an example, mention may be made of the practice of "setting of mete or drynke by nighte on the benche, to fede Alholde or Gobelyn."
We must not forget to observe that Brand speaks of an ancient custom, which he says is still retainedin some parts of England, in which young women go about on this eve carrying a wassail-bowl, and singing certain verses from door to door, which custom has certainly some analogy with the hogmanay practice in Scotland. And we may further state, while we are in the way of tracing resemblances, that thehet pint, which, in Scotland, was formerly carried about the streets at the midnight of the New Year's coming in, and which was composed of ale, spirits, sugar, and nutmeg or cinnamon, is neither more nor less, though it was borne about in a kettle, than a Scottish version of the wassail-bowl.
In Ritson's collection of ancient songs, there is a very spirited carol given at length, which appears to have been sung by these English wassail mummers, in honor of their bowl; but which some of its verses prove to be a Twelfth-night song, and show, therefore, that a similar practice marked the night of the Epiphany. It begins right heartily:—
"A jolly wassel-bowl,A wassel of good ale,Well fare the butler's soulThat setteth this to sale;Our jolly wassel;"
but is too long for insertion in our pages. We should mention here, however, that ale in all its forms, whether in that of wassail composition or in its own simple dignity, "prince of liquors, old or new!" was ever the most cherished beverage of our ancestors, and many and enthusiastic are thesongs in its praise. Our readers may take the following verse from a very pleasant example of these carols:—
"I love no rost, but a nut brown toste,And a crab layde in the fyre,A little bread shall do me stead,Much breade I not desyre:No froste nor snow, no winde, I trowe,Can hurt mee if I wolde;I am so wrapt, and throwly laptOf jolly good ale and olde.Back and syde go bare, go bare,Both foote and hand, go colde;But belly God send thee good ale inoughe,Whether it be new or olde."
We believe that most of the customs which, up to a recent period, filled the streets of Edinburgh with mirth and bustle, on the eve of the New Year, have met with discouragement, and of late fallen into disuse, in consequence of some outrages which were committed under their shelter, in the year 1811. We presume, however, that there are still many places of the northern kingdom, in which the youth waits impatiently for the striking of the midnight hour, that he may be the earliest to cross the threshold of his mistress, and the lassie listens eagerly, from the moment when its chiming has ceased, to catch the sound of thefirst-footon the floor:—
"Thefirst foot'sentering step,That sudden on the floor is welcome heard,Ere blushing maids have braided up their hair;The laugh, thehearty kiss, the good New Year,Pronounced with honest warmth."
Considerable importance was formerly, and probably is still, attached to this custom. The welfare of a family, particularly of the fairer portion of its members, was supposed to depend much on the character of the person who might first cross the threshold, after the mid-hour of this night had sounded. Great care was therefore taken to exclude all improper persons; and when the privilege of the season is taken into consideration (that viz., of the hearty kiss above mentioned), it is probable that the maidens themselves might consider it desirable to interfere after their own fashion in the previous arrangements which were to secure the priority of admission to an unobjectionable guest.
But our space does not permit us to inquire at length in the present volume into any other customs than those which belong to anEnglishChristmas season. We have only been able occasionally to advert to others, even amongst our own sister nations, when they helped to throw light upon those which on this occasion are our immediate subject. We must therefore return at once to the only general and conspicuous observance of this eve in England, viz., that which is commonly called "seeing the New Year in."
It is almost impossible for man on this day to be insensible to the "still small voices" that call upon him for a gathering up of his thoughts. In the very midst of the house of mirth, a shadowpasses through the heart and summons it to a solemn conference. The skeleton who sits at all feasts, though overlooked at most from long habit, gets power on this day to wave his hand, and points emphatically, with his "slow-moving finger," to the long record whose burthen is "passing away!" The handwriting of Time comes visibly out upon the wall; and the spirit pauses to read its lessons, and take an account of the wrecks which it registers and the changes which it announces. Properly speaking, every day is the commencement of a new year, and the termination of an old one; but it is only, as we have said at the beginning of this book, by these emphatic markings that man is attracted to a consideration of a fact, whose daily recurrence at once makes its weighty importance and causes it to be forgotten, as if it were of none!
But on this particular day, no man fails to remember that—
"Again the silent wheels of timeTheir annual round have driven;"
and how solemn are the reflections which suggest themselves to him who casts his eye over the space of a year, in a spirit which can look beyond his own personal share in its doings, and embrace the wide human interests that such a retrospect includes! "What a mighty sum of events," says that excellent writer, William Howitt, "has been consummated; what a tide of passions and affectionshas flowed; what lives and deaths have alternately arrived; what destinies have been fixed forever! . . . Once more our planet has completed one of those journeys in the heavens which perfect all the fruitful changes of its peopled surface, and mete out the few stages of our existence; and every day, every hour of that progress has in all her wide lands, in all her million hearts, left traces that eternity shall behold." Oh! blessed they and rich, beyond all other blessedness and all other wealth which "Time's effacing fingers" may have left them, who, on the last night of the year, can turn from reviews like these to sleep upon the pillow of a good conscience, though that pillow should be moistened, aye, steeped in their tears!
No doubt it is in the name of his own private affections that man is first summoned to that review, which the wise will end by thus extending; and the first reckoning which each will naturally take is that of the treasures which may have been lost or gained to himself in the year which is about to close. Through many, many a heart, that summons rings in the low, sweet, mournful voice of some beloved one, whom in that bereaving space we have laid in the "narrow house;" and then it will happen (for man is covetous of his griefs, when his attention is once called to them) that the ghost which took him out into the churchyard to visit its own tomb, will end by carrying him round its dreary precincts and showing him all the gravesthat he has planted from his childhood. Therewillbe hours on a day like this to many, and in some year or another to most, when the cheerful hopes which are also of the natural spirit of the season would contend in vain with the memories which it conjures up, but for that furthest and brightest hope which lies beyond the rest, and which is at this moment typified and shadowed forth by the returning sun and the renewing year.
We cannot refrain from pausing here, to quote for our readers a few exquisite and affecting lines written in the seventeenth century by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, to one such beloved remembrancer, and in the cheering spirit of that same precious hope. We fancy they are very little known.
"Sleep on, my love! in thy cold bed,Never to be disquieted!My last 'good night!'—thou wilt not wakeTill I thy fate shall overtake;Till age, or grief, or sickness mustMarry my body to that dustIt so much loves,—and fill the roomMy heart keeps empty in thy tomb.Stay for me there!—I will not faileTo meet thee in that hollow vale:—And think not much of my delay,I am already on the way,And follow thee with all the speedDesire can make, or sorrows breed.Each minute is a short degree,And every houre a step tow'rds thee:—At night, when I betake to rest,Next morn I rise nearer my WestOf life, almost by eight houres' sail,Than when sleep breathed his drowsy gale!"
There are in the last volume of poems published by Mr. Tennyson, some beautiful verses, in which the natural thoughts that inevitably haunt this season of change are touchingly expressed, as they arise even in the young breast of one for whom "seasons and their change" are immediately about to be no more. We are in a mood which tempts us to extract them.
If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear,For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year—It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,Then ye may lay me low i' the mould, and think no more of me.To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behindThe good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never seeThe may upon the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day:Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;And we danced about the maypole, and in the hazel-copse,Till Charles's wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high—I long to see a flower so before the day I die.The building rook 'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave,But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,In the early, early morning the summer sun 'll shine,Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,When you are warm asleep, mother, and all the world is still.When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light,Ye 'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool,On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.Ye 'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,And ye 'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid,I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass,With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.I have been wild and wayward, but ye 'll forgive me now:Ye 'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;Nay,—nay, ye must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,Ye should not fret for me, mother, ye have another child.If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-placeTho' ye 'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what ye say,And be often—often with ye when ye think I'm far away.Good night! good night! when I have said good night for evermore,And ye see me carried out from the threshold of the door,Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green;She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.She'll find my garden tools upon the granary floor;Let her take 'em,—they are hers,—I shall never garden more:But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set,About the parlor window, and the box of mignonette.Good night, sweet mother! call me when it begins to dawn:All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn:But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New year,So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear!
And it is wholesome that the mournful reflections which the period suggestsshouldbe indulged, but not to the neglect of its more cheerful influences. The New Year's Eve is in all quarters looked upon as a time of rejoicing; and perhaps no night of this merry season is more universally dedicated to festivity. Men are for the most part met in groups to hail the coming year with propitiatory honors; and copious libations are poured to its honor, as if to determine it to look upon us with a benignant aspect. We generally spendourNew Year's Eve in some such group; but, we confess, it is not every class of wassailers that will suit us for the occasion. The fact is, after all our resolves to work up our minds to the pitch of gladness, aye, and notwithstanding oursuccess, too, there areotherfeelingsthatwillintrude in spite of us; and we like to find ourselves in a party where their presence is not looked upon as a marrer of the revels. When fitly associated for such a night, we find the very feelings in question for the most part to harmonize very delightfully with the predominant spirit of the time, producing a sort of mixed sensation which is full of luxury and tenderness. Bye the by, we have no great wish to have for our companions at any time those precisians who insist greatly on theexternalsolemnities. "Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise," says Burns. But for ourselves, gentlemen, our sympathies lie with those who can be made to understand that the garb of even folly may by possibility be at times worn by those who conceal beneath it more sickness of the heart, as well as more wisdom, than shall ever be dreamt of inyourphilosophy,—who know, in fact, that that same folly is sometimes the very saddest thing in the world; that the jingle of the cap and bells is too often but a vain device, like that of the ancient Corybantes, to drown the "still small" sounds whose wailing is yet heard over all.
And on the night before us, of all nights in the year, the smile and the laugh go freely round, but ever and anon there is, as it were, the echo of a far sigh. A birth in which we have a mighty interest is about to take place, but every now and then comes to the heart the impression of low whispering and soft treading in the back-ground, as ofthose who wait about a death-bed. We are in a state of divided feelings, somewhat resembling his whose joy at the falling of a rich inheritance is dashed by tender recollections of the friend by whose departure it came. Let Mr. Tennyson explain for us why this is so:—