The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 289, December 22, 1827

BY WILLIAM SHOBERL

The youth I love is far away.
O'er forest, river, brake, and glen;
And distant, too, perchance the day,
When I shall see him once again.

Nine moons have wasted. [2 - "Till now some nine moons wasted."—SHAKSPEARE.] since we met,
How sweetly, then, the moments flew!
Methinks the fairy vision yet
Portrays the joy that ZEMLA knew.

In list'ning to the tale of strife,
When Shone AZALCO'S prowess bright,
The strange adventures of his life,
That gave me such unmix'd delight.

That dream of happiness is past!
For ever fled those magic charms!
The cruel moment came at last,
That tore AZALCO from my arms!

What bitter pangs my bosom rent,
When he my sight no longer bless'd!
To some lone spot my steps I bent,
My secret sorrows there confess'd.

My sighs, alas! were breath'd unheard,
Could aught on earth dispel my grief?
Nor smiling sun, nor minstrel bird,
Can give this aching heart relief.

Since he I love is far away,
O'er forest, river, brake, and glen,
And distant, too, perchance the day,
When I shall see him once again.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(For the Mirror.)

"Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?"

    SHAKSPEARE'S Henry the Eighth.
Since, my dear readers, even in this season of busy festivity I can spare a few moments to write for your gratification, I venture to hope you will spare a few to read for mine.

And so here we are, once again on tiptoe for a merry Christmas and a happy new year. My good friends, especially my fair friends, permit me to wish you both. Yes, Christmas is here—Christmas, when winter and jollity, foul weather and fun, cold winds and hot pudding, good frosts and good fires, are at their meridian! Christmas! With what dear associations is it fraught! I remember the time when I thought that word cabalistical; when, in the gay moments of youth, it seemed to me a mysterious term for every thing that is delightful; and such is the force of early associations, that even now I cannot divest myself of them. Christmas has long ceased to be to me what it once was; yet do I even now hail its return with pleasure, with enthusiasm. But, alas! how differently is it viewed, not only by the same individual at different periods of life, but by different individuals of the same age; by the rich and poor, the wretched and the happy, the pampered and the penniless!

To proceed to the object of this paper, which is simply to throw together a few casual hints, connected with the period. I would beg my reader's attention, in the first place, to an odd superstition, countenanced by Shakspeare, and which, if he happens to lie awake some night, (say with the tooth-ache—what better?—for that purpose I mean,) he will have an opportunity of verifying. The passage which contains it is in Hamlet and exhibits at once his usual wildness of imagination, and a highly praiseworthy religious veneration for the season. Where the ghost vanishes upon the crowing of the cock, he takes occasion to mention its crowing all hours of the night about Christmas time. The last four lines comprise several other superstitions connected with the period:—

It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long.
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad:
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike;
No fairy takes; no witch hath power to charm;
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

It is to be lamented that the hearty diet, properly belonging to the season, should have become almost peculiar to it; the Tatler recommends it throughout the year. "I shall begin," says Steele, "with a very earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not go so high up as the history of Guy, earl of Warwick, who is well known to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing. The renowned king Arthur is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a whole roasted ox, which was certainly the best way to preserve the gravy; and it is farther added, that he and his knights sat about it at his round table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they would enter upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed lover of the brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the institution of the order of Beefeaters, which are all so many evident and undeniable proofs of the great respect which our warlike predecessors have paid to this excellent food. The tables of the ancient entry of this nation were covered thrice a day with hot roast-beef; and I am credibly informed by an antiquary, who has searched the registers in which the bills of fare of the court are recorded, that instead of tea and bread and butter which have prevailed of late years, the maids of honour in queen Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for their breakfast!"

Now this is manly, and so is the diet it advises; I recommend both to my readers. Let each determine to make one convert, himself that one. On Christmas day, let each dine off, or at least have on his table, the good old English fare, roast beef and plum-pudding! and does such beef as our island produces need recommendation? What more nutritive and delicious? and, for a genuine healthy Englishman, what more proper than this good old national English dish? Let him whose stomach will not bear it, look about and insure his life—I would not give much for it. It ought, above all other places, to be duly honoured in our officers' mess-rooms. As Prior says,

"If I take Dan Congreve right,
Pudding and beef make Britons fight."

So, then, if beef be indeed so excellent, we shall not much wonder that Shakspeare should say,

—"A pound of man's flesh
Is not so estimable or profitable.
As flesh of mutton, beeves, or goats!"

The French have christened us (and I think it no disreputable sobriquet) Jack Roastbeef, from a notion we cannot live without roast-beef, any more than without plum-pudding, porter, and punch; however, the notion is palpably erroneous. We are proving more and more every day—to our shame be it spoken!—that we can live without it. At least do not let it be said we can pass a Christmas without it, merely to make way for turkeys, fricassees, and ragouts! "Oh, reform it altogether!"

England was always famous among foreigners for the celebration of Christmas, at which time our ancestors introduced many sports and pastimes unknown in other countries, or now even among ourselves. "At the feast of Christmas," says Stowe, "in the king's court, wherever he chanced to reside, there was appointed a lord of misrule, or master of merry disports; the same merry fellow made his appearance at the house of every nobleman and gentleman of distinction; and, among the rest, the lord mayor of London and the sheriffs had their lords of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastime to delight the beholders." Alas! where are all these, or any similar, "merry disports" in our degenerate days? We have no "lords of misrule" now; or, if we have, they are of a much less innocent and pacific character. Mr. Cambridge, also, (No 104, of the World) draws a glowing picture of an ancient Christmas. "Our ancestors," says he, "considered Christmas in the double light of a holy commemoration and a cheerful 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. With what punctual zeal did they wish one another a merry Christmas! and what an omission would it have been thought, to have concluded a letter without the compliments of the season! The great hall resounded with the tumultuous joys of servants and tenants, and the gambols they played served as an amusement to the lord of the mansion and his family, who, by encouraging every art that conduced to mirth and entertainment, endeavoured to soften the rigour of the season, and to mitigate the influence of winter. How greatly ought we to regret the neglect of mince-pies, which, besides the idea of merry-making inseparable from them, were always considered as the test of schismatics! How zealously were they swallowed by the orthodox, to the utter confusion of all fanatical recusants! If any country gentleman should be so unfortunate in this age as to lie under a suspicion of heresy, where will he find so easy a method of acquitting himself as by the ordeal of plum-porridge?" This alludes to the Puritans, who refused to observe Christmas, or any other festival of the church, either by devotion or merriment. And I regret to say there are certain modern "fanatical recusants," certain modern Puritans, as schismatical in this particular as their gloomy precursors. Mr. Cambridge then proceeds "to account for a revolution which has rendered this season (so eminently distinguished in former times) now so little different from the rest of the year," which he thinks "no difficult task." The reasons he assigns are, the decline of devotion, and the increase of luxury, the latter of which has extended rejoicings and feastings, formerly peculiar to Christmas, through the whole year; these have consequently lost their raciness, the appetite for amusement has become palled by satiety, and the relish for it, reserved formerly for this particular season, is now no longer peculiar to it, having been already dissipated and exhausted. Another cause he assigns is, "the too general desertion of the country, the great scene of hospitality." Now this was written just fifty-three years ago, and as all the causes assigned for the declension of this grand national festivity up to that period are incontrovertible, and have been operating even more powerfully ever since, they will sufficiently account for the still greater declension observable in our days. And the declension appears to me to consist in this,—there is more gastronomy and expanse, but less heartiness and hospitality; and these latter are the only legitimate characteristics of Englishmen. Be they then restored, this very Christmas, to the English character; the opportunity is fast approaching—be it employed.

I know nothing better to conclude with than a good old Christmas carol from Poor Robin's Almanack for 1695, preserved in Brand's Popular Antiquities, to which work I refer those of my readers who may require further information on the subject of Christmas customs and festivities:—

Now, thrice welcome, Christmas!
Which brings us good cheer;
Mince-pies and plum-pudding—
Strong 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 smoke 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