The Wittenagemots of our Saxon ancestors were held, under the solemn sanctions and beneficent influences of the time; and the series of high festivities established by the Anglo-Saxon kings appear to have been continued, with yearly increasing splendor and multiplied ceremonies, under the monarchs of the Norman race. From the court, the spirit of revelry descended, by all its thousand arteries, throughout the universal frame of society,visiting its furthest extremities and most obscure recesses, and everywhere exhibiting its action, as by so many pulses, upon the traditions, and superstitions, and customs which were common to all, or peculiar to each. The pomp and ceremonial of the royal observance were imitated in the splendid establishments of the more wealthy nobles; and more faintly reflected from the diminished state of the petty baron. The revelries of the old baronial castle found echoes in the hall of the old manor-house,—and these were, again, repeated in the tapestried chamber of the countrymagistrate, or from the sanded parlor of the village inn. Merriment was, everywhere, a matter of public concernment; and the spirit which assembles men in families now, congregated them by districts then. Neither, however, were the feelings wanting which connected the superstitions of the season with the tutelage of the roof-tree, and mingled its ceremonies with the sanctities of home. Men might meet in crowds to feast beneath the banner of the baron— but the misletoe hung over each man's own door. The black jacks might go round in the hall of the lord of the manor,—but they who could, had a wassail-bowl of their own. The pageantries and high observances of the time might draw men to common centres, or be performed on a common account,-but the flame of the Yule-log roared up all the individual chimneys of the land. Old father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit, for some few moments, by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farmhouses, or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door. For be it observed, this worthy old gentleman and his kindhearted children were no respecters of persons. Though trained to courts, they had ever a taste for a country life. Though accustomed, in those days, to the tables of princes, they sat freely down at the poor man's board. Though welcomed by the peer, they showed no signs of superciliousness, when they found themselves cheek-by-jowl with the pauper. Nay, they appear even to have preferred the less exalted society and to have felt themselves more at ease in the country mansion of the private gentleman than in the halls of kings. Their reception in those high places was accompanied, as royal receptions are apt to be, by a degree of state repugnant to their frank natures; and they seem never to have been so happy as when they found themselves amongst a set of free and easy spirits, whether in town or country,-unrestricted by the punctilios of etiquette,—who had the privilege of laughing just when it struck them to do so, without inquiring wherefore, or caring how loud. Then, what a festival they created! The land rang with their joyous voices; and the frosty air steamed with the incense of the good things provided for their entertainment. Everybody kept holiday but the cooks; and all sounds known to the human ear seemed mingled in the merry pæan, save the gobble of the turkeys. There were no Turkeys—at least they had lost their “most sweet voices." The turnspits had a hard time of it, too. That quaint little book which bears the warm and promising title of "Round About our Coal Fire," tells us that "by the time dinner was over, they would look as black and as greasy as a Welch porridge-pot.' Indeed the accounts of that time dwell, with great and savory emphasis, upon the prominent share which eating and drinking had in the festivities of the season, There must have been sad havoc made amongst the live-stock. That there are turkeys at all, in our days, is only to be accounted for upon the supposition of England having been occasionally replenished with that article from the East; and our present possession of geese must be explained by the well-known impossibility of extinguishing the race of the goose. It is difficult to imagine a consumption equal to the recorded provision. Men's gastronomic capacities appear to have been enlarged for the occasion,-as the energies expand to meet great emergencies. "The tables," says the same racy authority above quoted, "were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloyns of beef, the minc'd pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board; and all those who had sharp stomachs and sharp knives, eat heartily and were welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, 'Merry in the hall, when beards wag all.'" Now, all men, in those days, appear to have had good stomachs; and, we presume, took care to provide themselves with sharp knives.-The only recorded instance in which we find a failure of the latter, is that portentous one which occurred, many a long day since, in the court of King Arthur; when the Christmas mirth was so strangely disturbed by the mischievous interference of the Boy with the Mantle. Under the test introduced by that imp of discord—and which appears to have "taken the shine out of" the monarch's own good sword Excalibar itself, there was found but one knight, of all the hungry knights who sat at that Round Table, whose weapon was sharp enough to carve the boar's head, or hand steady enough to carry the cup to his lip without spilling the lamb's wool;-and even he had a very narrow escape from the same incapacities. But then, as we have said, this was at court, and under the influence of a spell (with whose nature we take it for granted that our readers are acquainted, and if not, we refer them to the Percy Ballads)—and it is probable that in those early, as in later, days, tests of such extreme delicacy were of far more dangerous introduction in the courts of kings than amongst assemblies of more mirth and less pretension. We could by no means feel sure that the intrusion, in our times, of a similar test, into a similar scene, might not spoil the revels. But to return.-The old ballads which relate to this period of the year, are redolent of good things; and not to be read by a hungry man with any degree of equanimity. Of course, they are ex post facto ballads; and could only have been written, under the inspiration of memory,—at a time when men were at leisure to devote their hands to some other occupation than those of cooking or carving. But it is very difficult to understand how they ever found, as it appears they did,their mouths in a condition to sing them, at the season itself. There is one amongst those ballads, of a comparatively modern date, printed in Evans's collection, which we advise no man to read, fasting. It is directed to be sung to the tune of "The Delights of the Bottle;" and contains, in every verse, a vision of good things,-summed up by the perpetually recurring burthen of 66 Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd pies, and roast beef!" Our readers had better take a biscuit and a glass of sherry, before they venture upon the glimpses into those regions of banqueting which we are tempted to lay before them. The ballad opens like the ringing of a dinner-bell; and, we conceive, should be sung to some such accompaniment. "All you that to feasting and mirth are inclin'd, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd pies, and roast beef." "Diet the chief!"—by which we are to understand that this promising muster-roll merely includes the names of some of the principal viands-the high-commissioned dishes of the feast ;leaving the subalterns, and the entire rank and file which complete the goodly array, unmentioned. It must have been a very ingenious, or a very strong-minded mouse which could contrive to be starved, under such circumstances. The ballad is long; and we can only afford to give our readers "tastings" of its good things. It is everywhere full of most gracious promise.— "The cooks shall be busied, by day and by night, "Although the cold weather doth hunger provoke, Plum-pudding, goose, capon, minc'd-pies, and roast-beef. "All travellers, as they do pass on their way, And so on,-through a variety of joyous and substantial anticipations; from which the writer draws an inference, which we think is most satisfactorily made out : "Then well may we welcome old Christmas to town, We feast it all day, and we frolick all night." In Ellis's edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, an old Christmas song is quoted from "Poor Robin's Almanack," for 1695,— which gives a similar enumeration of Christmas dainties; but throws them into a form calculated for more rapid enunciation, as if with due regard to the value of those moments at which it was probably usual to sing it. The measure is not such a mouthful as that of the former one which we have quoted. It comes trippingly off the tongue; and it is not impossible that, in those days of skilful gastronomy, it might have been sung, eating. We will quote a couple of the verses, though they include the same commissariat truths as that from which we have already extracted: and our readers will observe, from the ill-omened wish which concludes the second of these stanzas, in what horror the mere idea of fasting had come to be held, since it is the heaviest curse which suggested itself to be launched against those who refused to do homage to the spirit of the times.— "Now thrice welcome Christmas, And our stomachs agree. |