The same author quotes, from a manuscript in the British Museum, an Anglo-Norman carol of the early date of the thirteenth century, and appends to it a translation by the late Mr. Douce, the following verse of which translation informs us (what, at any rate, might well be supposed, namely) that so much good eating on the part of the ancient gentleman, Christmas, would naturally suggest the propriety of good drinking, too:--
"Lordings, Christmas loves good drinking, Wines of Gascoigne, France, Anjou, English ale, that drives out thinking, Prince of liquors old or new. Every neighbor shares the bowl, Drinks of the spicy liquor deep, Drinks his fill without controul, Till he drowns his care in sleep."
In a "Christmas Carroll," printed at the end of Wither's "Juvenilia," a graphic account is given of some of the humors of Christmas, among which the labors of the kitchen are introduced in the _first_ verse, with a due regard to their right of precedency, and in words which, if few, are full of suggestion:--
"Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast! Let every man be jolly. Each roome with yvie leaves is drest, And every post with holly. Now, all our neighbour's chimneys smoke, And Christmas Blocks are burning; Their ovens they with bak't-meats choke, And all their spits are turning."
We must present our readers with another quotation from an old ballad, entitled "Time's Alteration; or, The Old Man's Rehearsal, what brave dayes he knew a great while agone, when his old cap was new," which appears to have been written after the times of the Commonwealth. And this extract we are induced to add to those which have gone before, because, though it deals with precisely the same subjects, it speaks of them as of things gone by, and is written in a tone of lamentation, in which it is one of the purposes of this chapter to call upon our readers to join. We are sorry we cannot give them directions as to the tune to which it should be sung,--further than that it is obviously unsuited to that of the "Delights of the Bottle," prescribed for the joyous ballad from which we first quoted on this subject; and that, whatever may be the _tune_, we are clear that the direction as to _time_ should be the same as that which Mr. Hood prefixes to his song of the Guildhall Giants; namely, "Dinner-time and mournful":--