George Daniel
Merrie England in the Olden Time
(Vol. 1&2)
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2021 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066382452
VOLUME 1
Table of Contents
MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
INTRODUCTION.
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Y outh is the season of ingenuousness and enjoyment, when we desire to please, and blush not to own ourselves pleased. At that happy period there is no affectation of wisdom; we look only to the bright and beautiful: we inquire not whether it be an illusion; it is sufficient that fairy land, with its flowers of every hue, is the path on which we tread. To youth succeeds manhood, with its worldly prudence: then we are taught to take nothing, not even happiness, upon trust; to investigate until we are lost in the intricacies of detail; and to credit our judgment for what is due only to our coldness and apathy. We lose all sympathy for the past; the future is the subject of our anxious speculation; caution and re serve are our guardian angels; and if the heart still throb with a fond emotion, we stifle it with what speed we may, as detrimental to our interests, and unworthy our new-born intelligence and philosophy. A short acquaintance with the world will convince the most sanguine that this stage is not the happiest; that ambition and mercenary cares make up the tumultuous scene; and though necessity compel a temporary submission, it is good to escape from the toils, and breathe a purer air. This brings us to another period, when reflection has taught us self-knowledge, and we are no longer overwise in our own esteem. Then returns something of the simplicity that characterised our early days. We welcome old friends; have recourse to old amusements, and the fictions that enchained our youthful fancy resume their wonted spell.
We remember the time when just emerging from boyhood, we affected a disdain for the past. We had put on the man, and no urchin that put on for the first time his holiday suit, felt more inexpressible self-complacency. We had roared at pantomime, and gaped with delight at the mysteries of melodramebut now becoming too sober to be amused, puerile!
ridiculous! were the critical anathemas that fulminated from our newly-imbibed absolute wisdom! It might be presumption to say that we have since grown wiser; certain it is, we are become less pleased with ourselves, and consequently more willing to be pleased.
Gentle Reader, we are old enough to have enjoyed, and young enough to remember many of the amusements, wakes, and popular drolleries of Merrie England that have long since submitted to the tooth of time and razure of oblivion. Like Parson Adams, we have also been a great travellerin our books! Reversing the well-known epigram,
Give me the thing that's pretty, smart, and new:
All ugly, old, odd things, I leave to you,
we have all our life been a hunter after oddities. We have studied attentively the past. For the future we have been moderately solicitous; there being so many busy economists to take the unthankful task off our hands. We have lost our friend rather than our joke, when the joke has been the better of the two; and have been free of discourse where it has been courteously received, preferring (in the cant of pompous ignorance, which is dear at any price!) to make ourselves cheap rather than be set down as exclusive and unkind. Disappointments we have had, and sorrows, with ample experience of the world's ingratitude. But life is too short to harbour enmities; and to be resentful is to be unhappy. This may have cast a transient shade over our lucubrations, which let thy happier humour shine upon and dispel! Wilt thou accept us for thy Cicerone through a journey of strange sights? the curiosities of nature, and the whimsicalities of art. We promise thee faster speed than steam-boat and railroad: for thou shalt traverse the ground of two centuries in two hours! With pleasant companions by the way, free from the perils of fire and flood,
Fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
CHAPTER I.
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D ost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale? was the admirable reply of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio when he would have marred his Christmas * merrymaking with Sir Andrew and the Clown. And how beautiful is Olivia's reply to the self-same precisian when the searching apophthegms of the foolish wise man, or wise foolish man, sounded like discords in his ears. O, you are sick of selflove, Malvolio, and taste all with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.
* Christmas being the season when 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.
