73 12 3 To the Reader. December 24. of Spoleto, A. D. 304. I am encouraged, by the approbation Sts. Thrasilla and Emiliana. St. Gregory, of my labours, to persevere in the completion of my plan, and to continue this little work next year as usual. Not a sentence that has appeared in Christmas Eve. This is the vigil of that solemn festival which commemorates the day that gave "To man a saviour-freedom to the slave." In the last days of Advent the Calabrian minstrels enter Rome, and are to be seen in every street saluting the shrines of the virgin mother with their wild music, under the traditional notion of soothing her until the birth-time of her infant at the approaching Christmas. This circumstance is related by lady Morgan, who observed them frequently stopping at the shop of a carpenter. To questions concerning this practice, the workmen, who stood at the door, said it was done out of respect to St. Joseph. The preceding engraving, representing this custom, is from a clever etching by D. Allan, a Scottish artist of great merit. In Mr. Burford's excellent panorama of the ruins of Pompeii, exhibited in the Strand, groups of these peasantry are celebrating the festival of the patron saint of the master of a vineyard. The printed "Description" of the panorama says, these mountaineers are called Pifferari, and " play a pipe very similar in form and sound to the bagpipes of the Highlanders." It is added, as lady Morgan before observed, that "just before Christmas they descend from the mountains to Naples and Rome, in order to play before the pictures of the Virgin and Child, which are placed in various parts of every Italian town." In a picture of the Nativity by Raphael, he has introduced a shepherd at the door playing on the bagpipes. Christmas Carols. Carol is said to be derived from cantare, to sing, and rola, an interjection of joy.* It is rightly observed by Jeremy Taylor, that Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, and good-will towards men," the song of the angels on the birth of the Saviour, is the first Christmas carol. Anciently, bishops carolled at Christmas among their clergy; but it would be diverging into a wide field to exemplify ecclesiastical practices on this festival; and to keep close to the domestic usages of the season, church customs of that kind will not now be noticed. In Mr. Brand's "Popular Antiquities," he gives the subjoined Anglo-Norman carol, from a MS. in the British Museum,† with the accompanying translation by his very learned and communicative friend, Mr. Douce; in which it will easily be 66 Bourne in Brand's Antiquities Bib. Reg. 16. E. VIII. Deu doint a tuz icels joie d'amurs Qi a DANZ NOEL ferunt honors. Seignors io vus di por veir KE DANZ NOEL ne uelt aveir Si joie non; E repleni sa maison, De payn, de char, & de peison, Deu doint a tuz ces joie damur. E fet les granz honors sovent Seignors escriez les malveis, Botun, batun, ferun groinard, Lordings, in these realms of pleasure, Lordings, 'tis said the liberal mind, Who largely gives with willing hand, Or quickly gives with willing heart, Men that are loyal, good, and true. Gluttons never can be brave. Lordings, Christmas loves good drinking, Till he drowns his care in sleep. And all the joys they both inspire! Here I'll drink a health to all. The glorious task shall first be mine: And ever may foul luck befal Him that to pledge me shall decline! THE CHORUS. Hail, father Christmas! hail to thee! From what has been observed of Christmas carols in another work, by the editor, a few notices will be subjoined with this remark, that the custom of singing carols at Christmas is very ancient; and though most of those that exist at the present day are deficient of interest to a refined ear, yet they are calculated to awaken Gascoigne and Anjou, being at this time under the dominion of the English sovereigns, were not regarded as part of France, tender feelings. For instance, one of them represents the virgin contemplating the birth of the infant, and saying, "He neither shall be clothed in purple nor in pall, But all in fair linen, as were babies all: He neither shall be rock'd But in a wooden cradle, that rocks on the mould.' Not to multiply instances at present, let it suffice that in a MS. at the British Museum there is " A song on the holly and the ivy," beginning, "Nay, my nay, hyt shal not be I wys, Ivy and hur maydyns, they wepyn & they "Nay my nay," &c. wryng. The popularity of carol-singing occasioned the publication of a duodecimo volume in 1642, intituled, "Psalmes or Songs of Sion, turned into the language, and set to the tunes of a strange land. By William) S(latyer), intended for Christmas carols, and fitted to divers of the most noted and common but solemne tunes, every where in this land familiarly used and knowne." Upon the copy of this book in the British Museum, a former possessor has written the names of some of the tunes to which the author designed them to be sung: for instance, Psalm 6, to the tune of Jane Shore; Psalm 19, to Bar. Forster's Dreame; Psalm 43, to Crimson Velvet; Psalm 47, to Garden Greene; Psalm 84, to The fairest Nymph of the Valleys; &c. In a carol, still sung, called "Dives and Lazarus, "there is this amusing account: "As it fell it out, upon a day, Rich Dives sicken'd and died, His soul therein to guide. "Rise up, rise up, brother Dives, And come along with me, However whimsical this may appear to the reader, he can scarcely conceive its ludicrous effect, when the "serpent's Harl. Coli. 53 16. knee" is solemnly drawn out to its utmost length by a Warwickshire chanter, and as solemnly listened to by the well-disposed crowd, who seem, without difficulty, to believe that Dives sits on a serpent's knee. The idea of sitting on this knee was, perhaps, conveyed to the poet's mind by old wood-cut representations of Lazarus seated in Abraham's lap. More anciently, Abraham was frequently drawn holding him up by the sides, to be seen by Dives in hell. In an old book now before me, they are so represented, with the addition of a devil blowing the fire under Dives with a pair of bellows. sopher would discover a surprising con- carols supposed to have been published, The earliest collection of Christmas is only known from the last leaf of a the year 1521. This precious scrap was volume printed by Wynkn de Worde, in picked up by Tom Hearne; Dr. Rawlinlume of tracts, and bequeathed it to the son purchased it at his decease in a voBodleian library. There are two carols upon it: one, "a caroll of huntynge," is reprinted in the last edition of Juliana Berners' "Boke of St. Alban's ;" the other, Carols begin to be spoken of as not belonging to this century, and few, per- in Mr.Dibdin's "Ames," with a copy of it a caroll, bringing in the bore's head," is haps, are aware of the number of these compositions now printed. The editor of ford, every Christmas-day. Dr. Bliss, of as it is now sung in Queen's-college, Oxthe Every Day Book has upwards of Oxford, also printed on a sheet for private ninety, all at this time, published annually. distribution, a few copies of this and Ant. This collection he has had little opportunity of increasing, except when in the cerning the custom, from the hand-writa Wood's version of it, with notices concountry he has heard an old woman sing-ings of Wood and Dr. Rawlinson, in the ing an old carol, and brought back the carol in his pocket with less chance of its escape, than the tune in his head. Mr. Southey, describing the fight "upon the plain of Patay," tells of one who fell, as having "In his lord's castle dwelt, for many a year, mary, Smoak'd on the Christmas board." Joan of Arc, b. x. l. 466. These ditties, which now exclusively enliven the industrious servant-maid, and the humble labourer, gladdened the festivity of royalty in ancient times. Henry VII., in the third year of his reign, kept hisChristmas at Greenwich: on the twelfth night, after high mass, the king went to the hall, and kept his estate at the table; in the middle sat the dean, and those of the king's chapel, who, immediately after the king's first course, "sang a carall." Granger innocently observes, that "they that fill the highest and the lowest classes of human life, seem in many respects to be more nearly allied than even themselves imagine. A skilful anatomist would find little or no difference in dissecting the body of a king, and that of the meanest of his subjects; and a judicious philo Leland, Collect, vol. iv. p. 237. pered "Observations on Warton's History Bodleian library. Ritson, in his ill-tema Christmas carol upon bringing up the of English Poetry,” (1782, 4to. p. 37,) has boar's head, from an ancient MS. in his Bliss's. The "Bibliographical Miscellapossession, wholly different from Dr. nies," (Oxford, 1813, 4to.) contains seven the possession of Dr. Cotton, of Christcarols from a collection in one volume in church-college, Oxford, London, in the Powltry, by Richard Kele, imprynted at dwellyng at the longe shop vnder saynt 1546 and 1552:"I had an opportunity of Myldrede's Chyrche," probably "between perusing this exceedingly curious volume, which is supposed to be unique, and has since passed into the hands of Mr. Freeling. There are carols among the Godly and Spiritual Songs and Balates, in (1801, 8vo.); and one by Dunbar, from "Scottish Poems of the sixteenth century," the Bannatyne MS. in "Ancient Scottish Poems." Others are in Mr. Ellis's edition several useful notices. Warton's "History of Brand's "Popular Antiquities," with of English Poetry" contains much concerning old carols. Mr. Douce, in his" Illustrations of Shakspeare," gives a specimer of the carol sung by the shepherds, on the birth of Christ, in one of the Coventry plays. There is a sheet of carols headed thus: "CHRISTUS NATUS EST: Christ is born;" with a wood-cut, 10 inches high, Biog. Hist. Engl. ed. 1804, vol. iv. p. 856. by 84 inches wide, representing the stable at Bethlehem; Christ in the crib, watched by the virgin and Joseph; shepherds kneeling; angels attending; a man playing on the bagpipes; a woman with a basket of fruit on her head; a sheep bleating, and an ox lowing on the ground; a raven croaking, and a crow cawing on the hay-rack; a cock crowing above them; and angels singing in the sky. The animals have labels from their mouths, bearing Latin inscriptions. Down the side of the wood-cut is the following account and explanation: "A religious man, inventing the conceits of both birds and beasts, drawn in the picture of our Saviour's birth, doth thus express them: the cock croweth, Christus natus est, Christ is born. The raven asked, Quando? When? The crow replied, Hac nocte, This night. The ox cryeth out, Ubi? Ubi? Where? where? The sheep bleated out, Bethlehem, Bethlehem. A voice from heaven sounded, Gloria in Excelsis, Glory be on high. London: printed and sold by J. Bradford, in Little Britain, the corner house over against the Pump, 1701. Price One Penny." This carol is in the possession of Mr. Upcott. The custom of singing carols at Christnas prevails in Ireland to the present time. In Scotland, where no church feasts have been kept since the days of John Knox, the custom is unknown. In Wales it is still preserved to a greater extent, perhaps, than in England; at a former period, the Welsh had carols adapted to most of the ecclesiastical festivals, and the four seasons of the year, but in our times they are limited to that of Christmas. After the turn of midnight at Christmaseve, service is performed in the churches, followed by the singing of carols to the harp. Whilst the Christmas holidays continue, they are sung in like manner in the houses, and there are carols especially adapted to be sung at the doors of the houses by visiters before they enter. Lffyr Carolan, or the book of carols, contains sixty-six for Christmas, and five summer carols; Blodeugerdd Cymrii, or the "Anthology of Wales," contains fortyeight Christmas carols, nine summer carols, three May carols, one winter carol, one nightingale carol, and a carol to Cupid. The following verse of a carol for Christmas is literally translated from the first mentioned volume. The poem was written by Hugh Morris, a celebrated songwriter during the commonwealth, and until the early part of the reign of William III : "To a saint let us not pray, to a pope let us not kneel; With the succeeding translation of a Welsh wassail song, the observer of manners will, perhaps, be pleased. In Welsh, the lines of each couplet, repeated inversely, still keep the same sense. A Carol for the Eve of St. Mary's Day. This is the season when, agreeably to custom, In their time, and loved pleasure; And we are now purposing To be like them, every one merry: Merry and foolish, youths are wont to be, Being reproached for squandering abroad. I know that every mirth will end Too soon of itself; Before it is ended, here comes The wassail of Mary, for the sake of the time: N place the maid immediately In the chair before us; Here the master or mistress of the house was called on by name to officiate. |