perides, who, addressing a friend at Christmas-tide, makes the follow

+ Hesperides, p. 146. The following passages place in a strong and interesting point of view, the hospitality of our ancestors during this season of the year, and will add not a little to the impression derived from the text.

"Heretofore, noblemen and gentlemen of fair estates had their heralds who wore their coate of armes at Christmas, and at other solemne times, and cryed largesse thrice. They lived in the country like petty kings. They always eat in Gothic Halls where the Mummings and Loaf-stealing, and other Christmas sports, were performed. The hearth was commonly in the middle; whence the saying, round about our coal-fire." Antiquarian Repertory, No. xxvi. from the MS. Collections of Aubrey, dated 1678.

"An English Gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e. on Christmas Day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours entered his Hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmegg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin, (the great sausage) must be boiled by day-break, 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.

"In Christmass Holidays, the tables were all spread from the first to the last; the sirloins of beef, the minced pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board: every one eat heartily, and was welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, Merry in the hall when beards wag all.' From a Tract entitled "Round about our Coal-Fire, or Christmas Entertainments;" of which the first edition was published, I believe, about the close of the seventeenth century. "Our ancestors considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a chearful festival; and accordingly distinguished it by devotion, by vacation from business, by merriment and hospitality. They seemed eagerly bent to make themselves and every body about them happy. — The great hall resounded with the tumultuous joys

We shall close this detail of the ceremonies and festivities of Christmas with a passage from the descriptive muse of Mr. Walter Scott, in which he has collected, with his usual accuracy, and with his almost unequalled power of costume-painting, nearly all the striking circumstances which distinguished the celebration of this high festival, from an early period, to the close of the sixteenth century. They form a picture which must delight, both from the nature of its subject, and from the truth and mellowness of its colouring.

"Well our Christian sires of old

Loved when the year its course had rolled,

And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.

Domestic and religious rite

Gave honour to the holy night:

On Christmas eve the bells were rung;
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,

To gather in the misletoe.
Then opened wide the baron's hall
To vassal, tenant, serf and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,

And Ceremony doffed his pride.
The heir with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner chuse ;

The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of "post and pair."
All hailed, with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.

The fire with well dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,

Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.

of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played served as amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who, by encouraging every art conducive to mirth and entertainment, endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and mitigate the influence of winter."-The World, No. 104.

Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;

Then the grim boar's-head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.

Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where, the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassol round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked: hard by
Plumb-porridge stood, and Christmas pye;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,

At such high tide, her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers

in,

And carols roared with blithesome din ;
If unmelodious was the song,

It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;

White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made;
But, O! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;

'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer

The

poor man's heart through half the year."*

*Scott's Marmion. Introduction to Canto Sixth. 8vo. edit. p. 300-303. "At present, Christmas meetings," remarks Mr. Brady, "are chiefly confined to family parties, happy, it must be confessed, though less jovial in their nature; perhaps, too, less beneficial to society, because they can be enjoyed on other days not, as originally was the case, set apart for more general conviviality and sociability; not such as our old ballads proclaim, and history confirms, in which the most frigid tempers gave way to relaxation, and all in eager joy were ready to exclaim, in honour of the festivity,

"For, since such delights are thine,

CHRISTMAS, with thy bands I join."

Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 319.

HAVING described, in as brief a manner as was consistent with the nature of our work, the various circumstances accompanying the celebration of the most remarkable holidays and festivals, in the country, during the age of Shakspeare, from whose inimitable compositions we have drawn many pertinent illustrations on nearly all the subjects as they passed before us; we shall proceed, in the present chapter, to notice those remaining topics which are calculated to complete, on the scale adopted, a tolerably correct view of rural manners and customs, as they existed in the latter half of the sixteenth, and prior portion of the seventeenth, century.

66

A natural transition will carry us, from the description of the rural festival, to the gaieties of the WAKE or FAIR. Of these terms, indeed, the former originally implied the vigil which preceded the festival in honour of the Saint to whom the parish-church was dedicated; for "on the Eve of this day," remarks Mr. Borlase, in his Cornwall, prayers were said, and hymns were sung all night in the church; and from these watchings the festivals were stiled Wakes; which name still continues in many parts of England, though the vigils have been long abolished.” * The religious institution, however, of the Wake, whether held on the vigil or Saint's day, was soon forgotmirth and feasting early became the chief objects of this meeting †, and it, at length, degenerated into something approach

ten;

* Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, p. 333.

+ Mr. Strutt, in a quotation from an old MS. legend of St. John the Baptist, preserved in Dugdale's Warwickshire, tells us, "In the beginning of holi churche, it was so that the pepul cam to the chirche with candellys brinnyng, and wold wake and comme with Light toward the chirche in their devocions, and after they fell to lecherie and songs, daunces, harping, piping, and also to glotony and sinne, &c."— Sports and Pastimes, p. 322.

ing towards a secular Fair. These Wakes or Fairs, which were rendered more popular in proportion as they deviated from their devotional origin, were, until the reign of Henry the Sixth, always held on a Sunday and its eve, a custom that continued to be partially observed as late as the middle of the seventeenth century; hence ale-houses, and places of public resort, in the immediate neighbourhood of church-yards, the former scene of Wakes, were still common at the close of Shakspeare's life; thus Sir Thomas Overbury, describing a Sexton, in his Characters, published in 1616, says: "At every church-style commonly there's an ale-house; where let him (the Sexton) bee found never so idle-pated, hee is still a grave drunkard."

The increasing licentiousness and conviviality, however, which attended these church-yard assemblies, frequented as they were by pedlars and hawkers of every description, finally occasioned their suppression in all places, at least, where much traffic was expected. In their room regular Fairs were established, to which in central or peculiar stations, the resort, at fixed periods, was immense.

Yet the Wake, the meeting for mere festivity and frolic, still continued in every village and small town, and though not preceded by any vigil in the church, was popularly termed the Wake-Day. Tusser, in his catalogue of the "Old Guise," has not forgotten this season of merriment; on the contrary, he seems to welcome its return with much cordiality :

"It appears," says Mr. Brand, "that in antient times the parishioners brought rushes at the Feast of Dedication, wherewith to strew the Church, and from that circumstance the Festivity itself has obtained the name of Rush-bearing, which occurs for a CountryWake in a Glossary to the Lancashire dialect."-Brand ap. Ellis, vol. i. p. 436.

* Hilman's Tusser, p. 81.