George Daniel

Merrie England in the Olden Time


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Jack Frost commonly takes

       us by the nose, the diversions are within doors, either in

       exercise, or by the fire-side. Viz. a game at blind-man's-

       buff, puss-in-the-corner, questions and commands, hoop-and-

       hide; stories of hobgoblins, Tom-pokers, bull-beggars,

       witches, wizards, conjurors, Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon,

       Doctor Partridge, and such-like horrible bodies, that

       terrify and delight!

       “O you merry, merry souls,

       Christmas is a-coming:

       We shall have flowing bowls,

       Dancing, piping, drumming.

       Delicate minced pies,

       To feast every virgin;

       Capon and goose likewise,

       Brawn, and dish of sturgeon.

      We hate to be everlastingly bewailing the follies and vices of mankind; and gladly turn to the pleasanter side of the picture, to contemplate something that we can love and emulate. We know

      Then for Christmas-box,

      Sweet plum-cake and money;

      Delicate holland smocks,

      Kisses sweet as honey.

      Hey for Christmas ball,

      Where we will be jolly;

      Coupling short and tall,

      Kate, Dick, Ralph, and Molly.

      To the hop we go,

      Where we'll jig and caper;

      Cuckolds all a-row—

      Will shall pay the scraper.

      Tom must dance with Sue,

      Keeping time with kisses;

      We'll have a jolly crew

      Of sweet smirking Misses!”—Old Song.

      There are such things as opaque wits and perverse minds, as there are squinting eyes and crooked legs; but we desire not to entertain such guests either as companions or foils. We come not to the conclusion that the world is split into two classes, viz. those who are and those who ought to be hanged; that we should believe every man to be a rogue till we find him honest. There is quite virtue enough in human life to make our journey moderately happy. We are of the hopeful order of beings, and think this world a very beautiful world, if man would not mar it with his pride, selfishness, and gloom.

      It has been a maxim among all great and wise nations to encourage public sports and diversions. The advantages that arise from them to a state; the benefit they are to all degrees of the people; the right purposes they may be made to serve in troublesome times, have generally been so well understood by the ruling powers, that they have seldom permitted them to suffer from the assaults of narrow-minded and ignorant reformers.

      Our ancestors were wise when they appointed amusements for the people. And as religious services (which are the means, not the end—the road to London is not London) were never intended for a painful duty, the “drum ecclesiastic,” which in latter times called its recruits to pillage and bloodshed, often summoned Punch, Robin Hood, and their merry crew, to close the motley ceremonies of a holy-appointed day! Then was the calendar Devotion's diary and Mirth's manual! Rational pleasure is heightened by participation; solitary enjoyment is always selfish. Who ever inquires after a sour recluse, except his creditors and next heir? Nobody misses him when there are so many more agreeable people to supply his place. Of what use is such a negative, “crawling betwixt earth and heaven?” If he hint that Diogenes, * dying of the dumps, may be found at home in his tub, who cares to disinter him? Oh, the deep solitude of a great city to a morose and selfish spirit! The Hall of Eblis is not more terrible. Away, then, with supercilious exclusiveness! 'Tis the grave of the affections! the charnel-house of the heart! What to us is the world, if to the world we are nothing?

      We delight to see a fool ** administer to his brethren.

      * Diogenes, when he trod with his dirty cobbled shoes on the

       beautiful carpets of Plato, exclaimed triumphantly, “I tread

       upon the pride of Plato!”—“Yes,” replied Plato, “but with

       a greater pride!”

       ** “A material fool,” as Jacques describes Touchstone. Such

       was Dr. Andrew Borde, the well-known progenitor of Merry

       Andrews; and the presumed author of the “Merry Tales of the

       Wise Men of Gotham,” composed in the early part of the

       sixteenth century. “In the time of Henry VIII. and after,”

       (says Anthony à Wood,) “it was accounted a book full of wit

       and mirth by the scholars and gentlemen.” It is thus

       referred to in an old play of 1560:—

       “Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

       I must needs laughe in my slefe.

       The wise men of Gotum are risen againe.”

      If merriment sometimes ran riot, it never exhibited itself in those deep-laid villanies so rife among the pretenders to sanctity and mortification. An appeal to “clubs” among the London apprentices; the pulling down of certain mansions of iniquity, of which Mrs. Cole, * in after days, was the devout proprietress; a few broken heads at the Bear Garden; the somewhat opposite sounds of the “belles tolling for the lectorer, and the trumpets sounding to the stages,” ** and sundry minor enormities, were the only terrible results of this national licence. Mark what followed, when masking, morris-dancing, ***

      * Foote's “Minor.” Act i. scene 1.

       ** Harleian MSS. No. 286.

       *** The morris-dance was one of the most applauded

       merriments of Old England. Robin Hood, Little John, Friar

       Tuck, Maid Marian, the Queen or Lady of the May, the fool,

       the piper, to which were afterwards added a dragon, and a

       hobbyhorse, were the characters that figured away in that

       truly ancient and grotesque movement. Will Kempe, “the

       comical and conceited jest-monger, and vicegerent to the

       ghost of Dicke Tarleton,” who “raised many a roar by making

       faces and mouths of all sorts,” danced the morris with his

       men of Gotham, in his “Nine daies' wonder from London to

       Norwich.” Kempe's “new jigg,” rivalled in popularity his

       Peter in Romeo and Juliet; Dogberry, in “Much ado about

       nothing;” and

       Justice Shallow, of which he was the original performer. In

       “Jacke Drum's Entertainment,” 4to. 1601, is the following

       song:

       ON THE INTRODUCTION OF A WHITSUN MORRIS-DANCE.

       “Skip it and trip it nimbly, nimbly,

       Tickle it, tickle it lustily,

       Strike up the tabour for the wenches' favour,

       Tickle it, tickle it, lustily.

       Let us be seene on Hygate Greene,

       To dance for the honour of Holloway.

       Sing we are come hither, let us spare for no leather,

       To dance for the honour of Holloway.”

      May