Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 28

THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES IN THE 17TH CENTURY

through contemporary writers of the period. Nicholas Breton,[70]

writing in merry mood, says: "It is now Christmas, and not a cup of drink must pa.s.s without a carol; the beasts, fowl, and fish come to a general execution, and the corn is ground to dust for the bakehouse and the pastry: cards and dice purge many a purse, and the youth show their agility in shoeing of the wild mare: now, good cheer, and welcome, and G.o.d be with you, and I thank you:--and against the New Year provide for the presents:--The Lord of Misrule is no mean man for his time, and the guests of the high table must lack no wine: the l.u.s.ty bloods must look about them like men, and piping and dancing puts away much melancholy: stolen venison is sweet, and a fat coney is worth money: pit-falls are now set for small birds, and a woodc.o.c.k hangs himself in a gin: a good fire heats all the house, and a full alms-basket makes the beggar's prayers:--the maskers and the mummers make the merry sport, but if they lose their money their drum goes dead: swearers and swaggerers are sent away to the ale-house, and unruly wenches go in danger of judgment; musicians now make their instruments speak out, and a good song is worth the hearing. In sum it is a holy time, a duty in Christians for the remembrance of Christ and custom among friends for the maintenance of good fellows.h.i.+p. In brief I thus conclude it: I hold it a memory of the Heaven's love and the world's peace, the mirth of the honest, and the meeting of the friendly. Farewell."

In 1633, William Prynne, a Puritan lawyer, published his "Histriomastix," against plays, masques, b.a.l.l.s, the decking of houses with evergreens at Christmas, &c., for which he was committed to the Tower, prosecuted in the Star Chamber, and sentenced to pay a fine to the King of 5,000, to be expelled from the University of Oxford, from the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and from his profession of the law; to stand twice in the pillory, each time losing an ear; to have his book burnt before his face by the hangman; and to suffer perpetual imprisonment: a most barbarous sentence, which Green[71] says, "showed the hard cruelty of the Primate."

Milton's masque of "Comus" was produced the following year (1634) for performance at Ludlow Castle, in Shrops.h.i.+re, which was the seat of government for the Princ.i.p.ality of Wales, the Earl of Bridgewater being then the Lord President, and having a jurisdiction and military command that comprised the English counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford and Shrops.h.i.+re. Ludlow Castle was to the Lord President of Wales of that period what Dublin Castle is to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the present day; and, as hospitality was one of the duties of the Lord President's office, the Earl and Countess of Bridgewater gave a grand entertainment to the country people, in which the masque of "Comus" was an important feature. The music was composed by the eminent musician Henry Lawes, and the masque was adapted for performance by the family of the earl and countess, who then had ten children--eight daughters and two sons.

It is quite refres.h.i.+ng to think of the author of "Paradise Lost," with his friend Lawes, the musician, among the country dancers, listening to the song of the attendant spirit:--

"Back, shepherds, back; enough your play Till next sun-s.h.i.+ne holiday: Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades, On the lawns, and on the leas."

"But Milton was a courtier when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle,"

says Charles Lamb, "and still more of a courtier when he composed the 'Arcades'" (a masque, or entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Derby, at Harefield, by some n.o.ble persons of her family).

"When the national struggle was to begin, he becomingly cast these varieties behind him."

From "Archaeologia" (vol. xviii. p. 335), we learn that "Richard Evelyn, Esq., High Sheriff of Surrey and Suss.e.x in 1634, held a splendid Christmas at his mansion at Wotton, having a regular Lord of Misrule for the occasion: and it appears it was then the custom for the neighbours to send presents of eatables to provide for the great consumption consequent upon such entertainments. The following is a list of those sent on this occasion: two sides of venison, two half brawns, three pigs, ninety capons, five geese, six turkeys, four rabbits, eight partridges, two pullets, five sugar loaves, half a pound of nutmeg, one basket of apples, two baskets of pears."

Hone[72] states that "in the ninth year of King Charles I. the four Inns of Court provided a Christmas mask, which cost 2,400, and the King invited a hundred and twenty gentlemen of the four Inns to a mask at Whitehall on Shrove Tuesday following." And Sandys says that on the 13th December, 1637, a warrant under Privy Seal was issued to George Kirke, for 150 to provide masking apparel for the King; and on the 1st of the same month Edmund Taverner had a warrant for 1,400 towards the charge of a mask to be presented at Whitehall the next Twelfth Night. A similar sum for a similar purpose was granted to Michael Oldisworth on the 3rd of January, 1639.

In connection with the entertainments at the Inns of Court, Sandys mentions that by an order, 17th November, 4th Charles I., all playing at dice, cards, or otherwise was forbidden at Gray's Inn, except during the 20 days in Christmas.

As indicating the prolongation of the Christmas revels at this period, it is recorded that in February, 1633, there was a celebrated masque, called "The Triumph of Peace," presented jointly by the two Temples, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, which cost the Societies about 20,000.

Evelyn, in his "Memoirs," relates, that on the 15th December, 1641, he was elected one of the Comptrollers of the Middle Temple revellers, "as the custom of ye young students and gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this yeare with greate solemnity"; but he got excused.

An order still existed directing the n.o.bility and gentry who had mansions in the country "to repair to them to keep hospitality meet to their degrees;" for a note in Collier's History states that Sir J.

Astley, on the 20th of March, 1637, in consequence of ill-health, obtained a license to reside in London, or where he pleased, at Christmas, or any other times; which proves such license to have been requisite.

At this period n.o.blemen and gentlemen lived like petty princes, and in the arrangement of their households copied their sovereign, having officers of the same import, and even heralds wearing their coat of arms at Christmas, and other solemn feasts, crying largesse thrice at the proper times. They feasted in their halls where many of the Christmas sports were performed. When coals were introduced the hearth was commonly in the middle, whence, according to Aubrey, is the saying, "Round about our coal-fire." Christmas was considered as the commemoration of a holy festival, to be observed with cheerfulness as well as devotion. The comforts and personal gratification of their dependants were provided for by the landlords, their merriment encouraged, and their sports joined. The working man looked forward to Christmas as the time which repaid his former toils; and grat.i.tude for worldly comforts then received caused him to reflect on the eternal blessings bestowed on mankind by the event then commemorated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERVANTS' CHRISTMAS FEAST.]

Of all our English poets, Robert Herrick, a writer of the seventeenth century, has left us the most complete contemporary picture of the Christmas season. He was born in Cheapside, London, and received his early education, it is supposed, at Westminster School, whence he removed to Cambridge, and after taking his M.A. degree in 1620, left Cambridge. He afterwards spent some years in London in familiar intercourse with the wits and writers of the age, enjoying those "lyric feasts" which are celebrated in his "Ode to Ben Jonson":--

"Ah Ben!

Say how or when Shall we, thy guests Meet at those lyric feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun; Where we such cl.u.s.ters had As made us n.o.bly wild, not mad?

And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

In 1629 he accepted the living of Dean Prior, in Devons.h.i.+re, where he lived as a bachelor Vicar, being ejected by the Long Parliament, returning on the Restoration under Charles the Second, and dying at length at the age of eighty-four. He was buried in the Church at Dean Prior, where a memorial tablet has latterly been erected to his memory. And it is fitting that he should die and be buried in the quiet Devons.h.i.+re hamlet from which he drew so much of his happiest inspiration, and which will always be a.s.sociated now with the endless charm of the "Hesperides."

In "A New Year's Gift, sent to Sir Simeon Steward," included in his "Hesperides," Herrick refers to the Christmas sports of the time, and says:--

"No new device or late-found trick

We send you; but here a jolly Verse crowned with ivy and with holly; That tells of winter's tales and mirth, That milk-maids make about the hearth, Of Christmas sports, the Wa.s.sail bowl, That's tossed up after Fox-i'-th'-hole; Of Blind-man's-buff, and of the care That young men have to shoe the Mare; Of Twelfth-tide cake, of peas and beans, Wherewith ye make those merry scenes, When as ye choose your king and queen, And cry out, 'Hey for our town green.'

Of ash-heaps in the which ye use Husbands and wives by streaks to choose: Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds A plenteous harvest to your grounds; Of these, and such like things, for s.h.i.+ft, We send instead of New-year's gift.

Read then, and when your faces s.h.i.+ne With bucksome meat and cap'ring wine, Remember us in cups full crowned, And let our city's health go round, Quite through the young maids and the men, To the ninth number, if not ten, Until the fired chestnuts leap For joy to see the fruits ye reap, From the plump chalice and the cup That tempts till it be tossed up.

Then as ye sit about your embers, Call not to mind those fled Decembers; But think on these, that are t' appear, As daughters to the instant year; Sit crowned with rose-buds and carouse, Till _Liber Pater_ twirls the house About your ears, and lay upon The year, your cares, that's fled and gone.

And let the russet swains the plough And harrow hang up resting now; And to the bagpipe all address Till sleep takes place of weariness.

And thus, throughout, with Christmas plays, Frolic the full twelve holy-days."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S BIRTH, ON CHRISTMAS DAY,

at Woolsthorpe, Lincolns.h.i.+re, was the most important Christmas event of the memorable year which saw the outbreak of the Civil War (1642).

In the year of the Restoration he entered Cambridge, where the teaching of Isaac Barrow quickened his genius for mathematics, and from the time he left College his life became a series of wonderful physical discoveries. As early as 1666, he discovered the law of gravitation, but it was not till the eve of the Revolution that his "Principia" revealed to the world his new theory of the universe.

THE CUSTOMS OF CHRISTMASTIDE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

"A Christmas Carol," by George Wither, a well-known poet of this period, contains many allusions to the customs of Christmastide:--

So, now is come our joyful'st feast; Let every man be jolly; Each room with ivy leaves is drest, And every post with holly.

Though some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine; Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.

Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with baked meats choke, And all their spits are turning.

Without the door let sorrow lie; And if for cold it hap to die, We'll bury 't in a Christmas pie, And ever more be merry.

Now every lad is wondrous trim, And no man minds his labour; Our la.s.ses have provided them A bag-pipe and a tabour; Young men and maids, and girls and boys, Give life to one another's joys; And you anon shall by their noise Perceive that they are merry.

Rank misers now do sparing shun; Their hall of music soundeth; And dogs thence with whole shoulders run, So all things there aboundeth.

The country folks themselves advance With crowdy-muttons[73] out of France; And Jack shall pipe, and Jill shall dance, And all the town be merry.

Ned Squash hath fetched his bands from p.a.w.n, And all his best apparel; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat, or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And all the day be merry.

Now poor men to the justices With capons make their errants; And if they hap to fail of these; They plague them with their warrants; But now they feed them with good cheer.

And what they want they take in beer; For Christmas comes but once a year, And then they shall be merry.

Good farmers in the country nurse The poor that else were undone; Some landlords spend their money worse, On l.u.s.t and pride at London.

There the roys'ters they do play, Drab and dice their lands away, Which may be ours another day; And therefore let's be merry.

The client now his suit forbears, The prisoner's heart is eased: The debtor drinks away his cares, And for the time is pleased.

Though other purses be more fat, Why should we pine or grieve at that?

Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat, And therefore let's be merry.

Hark! how the wags abroad do call Each other forth to rambling: Anon you'll see them in the hall For nuts and apples scrambling.

Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound!

Anon they'll think the house goes round, For they the cellar's depth have found, And there they will be merry.

The wenches with their wa.s.sail bowls About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare in is bringing.

Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box,[74]

And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbours come by flocks, And here they will be merry.

Now kings and queens poor sheep cotes have, And mate with everybody; The honest now may play the knave, And wise men play the noddy.

Some youths will now a mumming go, Some others play at Rowland-ho And twenty other gambols mo, Because they will be merry.