Turning from the tables of the great to the cottage of the humble, we find a description of the effect of Old Father Christmas’s approach upon the labourer’s home in Bampfylde’s _Sonnet on Christmas_:—
With footstep slow, in furry pall yclad, His brows enreathed with holly never sere, Old Christmas comes, to close the waned year, And aye the shepherd’s heart to make right glad, Who, when his teeming flocks are homeward had, To blazing hearth repairs, and nut-brown beer, And views well pleased the ruddy prattlers dear Hug the grey mongrel; meanwhile maid and lad Squabble for roasted crabs—Thee, Sire, we hail, { 263} Whether thine aged limbs thou dost enshroud, In vest of snowy white, and hoary veil, Or wrap’st thy visage in a sable cloud: Thee we proclaim with mirth and cheer, nor fail To greet thee well with many a carol loud.
It is the practice in many parts of Cumberland at Christmas to roast apples before the fire on a string, and hold under them a bowl of spiced or mulled ale. The apples roast on until they drop into the ale.
Many an ancient Christmas carol tells of the joviality which at that time reigned supreme. The following example is taken from a collection of rare old songs and carols:—
Mye boyes come here Theres capital cheere ’Tis Christmas tyme, let myrthe goe rounde With a flaggon of ale, by tyme well brown’d.
Drink boyes drinke And never thinke Of crustie old tyme, his scythe and his glasse, He cannot, nor dare not, this waye passe.
Drinke and be wise Till red Phœbus arise And banish colde care from the good waning year: The Old year he shall dye, mid plenty of cheere.
My boyes, come passe Your empty glasse, And fill them with Ale, as the world is of strife And toaste to the widow, the maide and the wife.
Come drink success You cannot do less, To the new coming yere, may it be loaded with funne And ne’er bring us worse than the old one has done.
Another verse from a good old song specially celebrates our theme—
Come, help us to raise Loud songs to the praise Of good old England pleasures: To the Christmas cheer, And the foaming Beer. And the buttery’s solid treasures.
Many pages might be compiled of these old English carols, all in praise of the same theme, the roast beef and good ale of Old England; but one more quotation must suffice. It is from _Poor Robin’s Almanack_ (1695):—