Part 31 (1/2)
THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES
Brand says that in ”Batt upon Batt,” a Poem by a Person of Quality (1694), speaking of Batt's carving knives and other implements, the author asks:--
”Without their help, who can good Christmas keep?
Our teeth would chatter and our eyes would weep; Hunger and dullness would invade our feasts, Did not Batt find us arms against such guests.
He is the cunning engineer, whose skill Makes fools to carve the goose, and shape the quill: Fancy and wit unto our meals supplies: Carols, and not minc'd-meat, make Christmas pies.
'Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off; Brutes and Phanaticks eat, and never laugh.
When _brawn, with powdred wig_, comes swaggering in, And mighty serjeant ushers in the Chine, What ought a wise man first to think upon?
Have I my Tools? if not, I am undone: For 'tis a law concerns both saint and sinner, He that hath no knife must have no dinner.
So he falls on; pig, goose, and capon, feel The goodness of his stomach and Batt's steel.
In such fierce frays, alas! there no remorse is; All flesh is gra.s.s, which makes men feed like horses: But when the battle's done, _off goes the hat_, And each man sheaths, with G.o.d-a-mercy Batt.'”
”Batt upon Batt” also gives the following account of the Christmas Gambols in 1694:--
”O mortal man! is eating all you do At Christ-Tide? or the making Sing-songs? No: Our Batt can _dance_, play at _high Jinks with Dice_, At any primitive, orthodoxal Vice.
_Shooing the wild Mare, tumbling the young Wenches, Drinking all Night_, and sleeping on the Benches.
Shew me a man can _shuffle fair and cut_, Yet always _have three Trays in hand at Putt_: Shew me a man can _turn up Noddy_ still, And _deal himself three Fives too_ when he will: Conclude with _one and thirty, and a Pair_, Never fail _Ten in stock_, and yet play fair, If Batt be not that Wight, I lose my aim.”
Another enumeration of the festive sports of this season occurs (says Brand) in a poem ent.i.tled Christmas--
”Young Men and Maidens, now At _Feed the Dove_ (with laurel leaf in mouth) Or _Blindman's Buff_, or _Hunt the Slipper_ play, Replete with glee. Some, haply, _Cards_ adopt; Of it to _Forfeits_ they the Sport confine, The happy Folk, adjacent to the fire, Their Stations take; excepting one alone.
(Sometimes the social Mistress of the house) Who sits within the centre of the room, To cry the p.a.w.ns; much is the laughter, now, Of such as can't the Christmas Catch repeat, And who, perchance, are sentenc'd to salute The jetty beauties of the chimney black, Or Lady's shoe: others, more lucky far, By hap or favour, meet a sweeter doom, And on each fair-one's lovely lips imprint The ardent kiss.”
_Poor Robin's Almanack_ (1695) thus rejoices at the return of the festival:--
”Now thrice welcome, Christmas, Which brings us good cheer, Minc'd-pies and plumb-porridge, Good ale and strong beer; With pig, goose, and capon, The best that may be, So well doth the weather And our stomachs agree.
Observe how the chimneys Do smoak all about, The cooks are providing For dinner, no doubt; But those on whose tables No victuals appear, O may they keep Lent All the rest of the year!
With holly and ivy So green and so gay; We deck up our houses As fresh as the day, With bays and rosemary, And laurel compleat, And every one now Is a king in conceit.
But as for curmudgeons, Who will not be free, I wish they may die On the three-legged tree.”
At Christmastide, 1696, an Act of Attainder was pa.s.sed against Sir John Fenwick, one of the most ardent of the Jacobite conspirators who took part in the plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate the King. He was executed on Tower Hill, January 28, 1697. This was the last instance in English history in which a person was attainted by Act of Parliament, and Hallam's opinion of this Act of Attainder is that ”it did not, like some acts of attainder, inflict a punishment beyond the offence, but supplied the deficiency of legal evidence.”
Peter the Great, of Russia, kept the Christmas of 1697 in England, residing at Sayes Court, a house of the celebrated John Evelyn, close to Deptford Dockyard.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHRISTMAS, 1701.
[From _Poor Robin's Almanack_.]