Chapter XI: Part 11

"_Greek-street_," says Pennant, "I am sorry to degrade into _Grig-street_;" whether it alludes to the little vivacious eel, or to the merry character of its tenants, he does not resolve.

_Bridewell_ was _St. Bridget's-well_, from one dedicated to Saint Bride, or Bridget.

_Marybone_ was _St. Mary-on-the-Bourne_, corrupted to _Marybone_; as _Holborn_ was _Old Bourn_, or the Old River; _Bourne_ being the ancient English for _river_; hence the Scottish _Burn_.

_Newington_ was _New-town_.

_Maiden-lane_ was so called from an image of the Virgin, which, in Catholic days, had stood there, as Bagford writes to Hearne; and he says, that the frequent sign of the _Maiden-head_ was derived from "our Lady's head."

_Lad-lane_ was originally _Lady's-lane_, from the same personage.

_Rood-lane_ was so denominated from a Rood, or Jesus on the cross, there placed, which was held in great regard.

_Piccadilly_ was named after a hall called _Piccadilla-hall_, a place of sale for _Piccadillies_, or _turn-overs_; a part of the fashionable dress which appeared about 1614. It has preserved its name uncorrupted; for Barnabe Rice, in his "Honestie of the Age," has this passage on "the body-makers that do swarm through all parts, both of London and about London. The body is still pampered up in the very dropsy of excess. He that some fortie years sithens should have asked after a _Pickadilly_, I wonder who would have understood him; or could have told what a _Pickcadilly_ had been, either fish or flesh."[120]

Strype notices that in the liberties of Saint Catharine is a place called _Hangmen's-gains_; the traders of _Hammes_ and _Guynes_, in France, anciently resorted there; thence the strange corruption.

_Smithfield_ is a corruption of _Smoothfield_; smith signifies smooth, from the Saxon ʃmeð. An antiquarian friend has seen it designated in a deed as _campus planus_, which confirms the original meaning. It is described in Fitz Stephen's account of London, written before the twelfth century, as a plain field, both in reality and name, where "every Friday there is a celebrated rendezvous of fine horses, brought hither to be sold. Thither come to look or buy a great number of earls, barons, knights, and a swarm of citizens. It is a pleasing sight to behold the ambling nags and generous colts, proudly prancing." This ancient writer continues a minute description, and, perhaps, gives the earliest one of a horse-race in this country. It is remarkable that _Smithfield_ should have continued as a market for cattle for more than six centuries, with only the change of its vowels.

This is sufficient to show how the names of our streets require either to be corrected, or explained by their historian. The French, among the numerous projects for the moral improvement of civilised man, had one, which, had it not been polluted by a horrid faction, might have been directed to a noble end. It was to name streets after eminent men. This would at least preserve them from the corruption of the people, and exhibit a perpetual monument of moral feeling and of glory, to the rising genius of every age. With what excitement and delight may the young contemplatist, who first studies at Gray's Inn, be reminded of _Verulam_-buildings!

The names of streets will often be found connected with some singular event, or the character of some person; and _anecdotes of our streets_ might occupy an entertaining antiquary. Not long ago, a Hebrew, who had a quarrel with his community about the manner of celebrating the Jewish festival in commemoration of the fate of Haman, called _Purim_, built a neighbourhood at Bethnal-green, and retained the subject of his anger in the name which the houses bear, of _Purim_-place. This may startle some theological antiquary at a remote period, who may idly lose himself in abstruse conjectures on the sanctity of a name, derived from a well-known Hebrew festival; and, perhaps, in his imagination be induced to colonise the spot with an ancient horde of Israelites!

SECRET HISTORY OF EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD.

It is an odd circumstance in literary research, that I am enabled to correct a story which was written about 1680. The Aubrey Papers, recently published with singular faithfulness, retaining all their peculiarities, even to the grossest errors, were memoranda for the use of Anthony Wood's great work. But beside these, the Oxford antiquary had a very extensive literary correspondence; and it is known, that when speechless and dying he evinced the fortitude to call in two friends to destroy a vast multitude of papers: about two bushels full were ordered for the fires lighted for the occasion; and, "as he was expiring, he expressed both his knowledge and approbation of what was done, by throwing out his hands." These two bushels full were not, however, all his papers; his more private ones he had ordered not to be opened for seven years. I suspect also, that a great number of letters were not burnt on this occasion; for I have discovered a manuscript written about 1720 to 1730, and which, the writer tells us, consists of "Excerpts out of Anthony Wood's papers." It is closely written, and contains many curious facts not to be found elsewhere. These papers of Anthony Wood probably still exist in the Ashmolean Museum; should they have perished, in that case this solitary manuscript will be the sole record of many interesting particulars.

By these I correct a little story, which may be found in the Aubrey Papers, vol. iii. 395. It is an account of one Nicholas Hill, a man of great learning, and in the high confidence of a remarkable and munificent Earl of Oxford, travelling with him abroad. I transcribe the printed Aubrey account.

"In his travels with his lord (I forget whether Italy or Germany, but I think the former), a poor man begged him to give him a penny. 'A penny!' said Mr. Hill; 'what dost say to ten pounds?'--'Ah! ten pounds,' said the beggar; 'that would make a man happy.' Mr. Hill gave him immediately ten pounds, and putt it downe upon account. Item, _to a beggar ten pounds to make him happy_!"--The point of this story has been marred in the telling: it was drawn up from the following letter by Aubrey to A. Wood, dated July 15, 1689. "A poor man asked Mr. Hill, his lordship's steward, once to give him sixpence, or a shilling, for an alms. 'What dost say, if I give thee ten pounds?' 'Ten pounds! _that would make a man of me_!' Hill gave it him, and put down in his account, '£10 _for making a man_,' which his lordship inquiring about for the oddness of the expression, not only allowed, but was pleased with it."

This philosophical humorist was the steward of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, in the reign of Elizabeth. This peer was a person of elegant accomplishments; and Lord Orford, in his "Noble Authors," has given a higher character of him than perhaps he may deserve. He was of the highest rank, in great favour with the queen, and, in the style of the day, when all our fashions and our poetry were moulding themselves on the Italian model, he was the "Mirrour of Tuscanismo;" and, in a word, this coxcombical peer, after seven years' residence in Florence, returned highly "Italianated." The ludicrous motive of this peregrination is given in the present manuscript account. Haughty of his descent and alliance, irritable with effeminate delicacy and personal vanity, a little circumstance, almost too minute to be recorded, inflicted such an injury on his pride, that in his mind it required years of absence from the court of England ere it could be forgotten. Once making a low obeisance to the queen, before the whole court, this stately and inflated peer suffered a mischance, which has happened, it is said, on a like occasion--it was "light as air!" But this accident so sensibly hurt his mawkish delicacy, and so humbled his aristocratic dignity, that he could not raise his eyes on his royal mistress. He resolved from that day to "be a banished man," and resided for seven years in Italy, living in more grandeur at Florence than the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He spent in those years forty thousand pounds. On his return he presented the queen with embroidered gloves and perfumes, then for the first time introduced into England, as Stowe has noticed. Part of the new presents seem to have some reference to the earl's former mischance. The queen received them graciously, and was even painted wearing those gloves; but my authority states, that the masculine sense of Elizabeth could not abstain from congratulating the noble coxcomb; perceiving, she said, that at length my lord had forgot the mentioning the little mischance of seven years ago!

This peer's munificence abroad was indeed the talk of Europe; but the secret motive of this was as wicked as that of his travels had been ridiculous. This Earl of Oxford had married the daughter of Lord Burleigh, and when this great statesman would not consent to save the life of the Duke of Norfolk, the friend of this earl, he swore to revenge himself on the countess, out of hatred to his father-in-law. He not only forsook her, but studied every means to waste that great inheritance which had descended to him from his ancestors. Secret history often startles us with unexpected discoveries: the personal affectations of this earl induced him to quit a court where he stood in the highest favour, to domesticate himself abroad; and a family _pique_ was the secret motive of that splendid prodigality which, at Florence, could throw into shade the court of Tuscany itself.

ANCIENT COOKERY, AND COOKS.

The memorable grand dinner given by the classical doctor in Peregrine Pickle, has indisposed our tastes for the cookery of the ancients; but, since it is often "the cooks who spoil the broth," we cannot be sure but that even "the black Lacedæmonian," stirred by the spear of a Spartan, might have had a poignancy for him, which did not happen at the more recent classical banquet.

The cookery of the ancients must have been superior to our humbler art, since they could find dainties in the tough membranous parts of the matrices of a sow, and the flesh of young hawks, and a young ass. The elder Pliny records, that one man had studied the art of fattening snails with paste so successfully, that the shells of some of his snails would contain many quarts.[121] The same monstrous taste fed up those prodigious goose livers; a taste still prevailing in Italy. Swine were fattened with whey and figs; and even fish in their ponds were increased by such artificial means. Our prize oxen might have astonished a Roman as much as one of their crammed peacocks would ourselves. Gluttony produces monsters, and turns away from nature to feed on unwholesome meats. The flesh of young foxes about autumn, when they fed on grapes, is praised by Galen; and Hippocrates equals the flesh of puppies to that of birds. The humorous Dr. King, who has touched on this subject, suspects that many of the Greek dishes appear charming from their mellifluous terminations, resounding with a _floios_ and _toios_. Dr. King's description of the Virtuoso Bentivoglio or Bentley, with his "Bill of Fare" out of Athenæus, probably suggested to Smollett his celebrated scene.

The numerous descriptions of ancient cookery which Athenæus has preserved indicate an unrivalled dexterity and refinement: and the ancients, indeed, appear to have raised the culinary art into a science, and dignified cooks into professors. They had writers who exhausted their erudition and ingenuity in verse and prose; while some were proud to immortalise their names by the invention of a poignant sauce, or a popular _gâteau_. Apicius, a name immortalised, and now synonymous with a gorger, was the inventor of cakes called Apicians; and one Aristoxenes, after many unsuccessful combinations, at length hit on a peculiar manner of seasoning hams, thence called Aristoxenians. The name of a late nobleman among ourselves is thus invoked every day.

Of these _Eruditæ gultæ_ Archestratus, a culinary philosopher, composed an epic or didactic poem on good eating. His "Gastrology" became the creed of the epicures, and its pathos appears to have made what is so expressively called "their mouths water." The idea has been recently successfully imitated by a French poet.[122] Archestratus thus opens his subject:--

I write these precepts for immortal Greece,
That round a table delicately spread,
Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast,
Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine,
Are like a troop marauding for their prey.

The elegant Romans declared that a repast should not consist of less in number than the Graces, nor of more than the Muses. They had, however, a quaint proverb, which Alexander ab Alexandro has preserved, not favourable even to so large a dinner-party as nine; it turns on a play of words:--

Septem convivium, Novem convicium facere.[123]

An elegant Roman, meeting a friend, regretted he could not invite him to dinner, "because my _number_ is complete."

When Archestratus acknowledges that some things are for the winter, and some for the summer, he consoles himself, that though we cannot have them at the same time, yet, at least, we may talk about them at all times.

This great genius seems to have travelled over land and seas that he might critically examine the things themselves, and improve, with new discoveries, the table-luxuries. He indicates the places for peculiar edibles and exquisite potables; and promulgates his precepts with the zeal of a sublime legislator, who is dictating a code designed to ameliorate the imperfect state of society.

A philosopher worthy to bear the title of cook, or a cook worthy to be a philosopher, according to the numerous curious passages scattered in Athenæus, was an extraordinary genius, endowed not merely with a natural aptitude, but with all acquired accomplishments. The philosophy, or the metaphysics, of cookery appears in the following passage:--

"Know then, the COOK, a dinner that's bespoke,
Aspiring to prepare, with prescient zeal
Should know the tastes and humours of the guests;
For if he drudges through the common work,
Thoughtless of manner, careless what the place
And seasons claim, and what the favouring hour
Auspicious to his genius may present,
Why, standing 'midst the multitude of men,
Call we this plodding _fricasseer_ a Cook?
Oh differing far! and one is not the other!
We call indeed the _general_ of an army
Him who is charged to lead it to the war;
But the true general is the man whose mind,
Mastering events, anticipates, combines;
Else is he but a _leader_ to his men!
With our profession thus: the first who comes
May with a humble toil, or slice, or chop,
Prepare the ingredients, and around the fire
Obsequious, him I call a fricasseer!
But ah! the cook a brighter glory crowns!
Well skill'd is he to know the place, the hour,
Him who invites, and him who is invited,
What fish in season makes the market rich,
A choice delicious rarity! I know
That all, we always find; but always all,
Charms not the palate, critically fine.
Archestratus, in culinary lore
Deep for his time, in this more learned age
Is wanting; and full oft he surely talks
Of what he never ate. Suspect his page,
Nor load thy genius with a barren precept.
Look not in books for what some idle sage
So idly raved; for cookery is an art
Comporting ill with rhetoric; 'tis an art
Still changing, and of momentary triumph!
Know on thyself thy genius must depend.
All books of cookery, all helps of art,
All critic learning, all commenting notes,
Are vain, if, void of genius, thou wouldst cook!"
The culinary sage thus spoke: his friend
Demands, "Where is the ideal cook thou paint'st?"
"Lo, I the man?" the savouring sage replied.
"Now be thine eyes the witness of my art!
This tunny drest, so odorous shall steam,
The spicy sweetness so shall steal thy sense,
That thou in a delicious reverie
Shalt slumber heavenly o'er the Attic dish!"

In another passage a Master-Cook conceives himself to be a pupil of Epicurus, whose favourite but ambiguous axiom, that "Voluptuousness is the sovereign good," was interpreted by the _bon-vivans_ of antiquity in the plain sense.

MASTER COOK.
Behold in me a pupil of the school
Of the sage Epicurus.

FRIEND.
Thou a sage!

MASTER COOK.
Ay! Epicurus too was sure a cook,
And knew the sovereign good. Nature his study,
While practice perfected his theory.
Divine philosophy alone can teach
The difference which the fish _Glociscus_[124] shows
In winter and in summer: how to learn
Which fish to choose, when set the Pleiades,
And at the solstice. 'Tis change of seasons
Which threats mankind, and shakes their changeful frame.
This dost thou comprehend? Know, what we use
In season, is most seasonably good!

FRIEND.
Most learned cook, who can observe these canons

MASTER COOK.
And therefore phlegm and colics make a man
A most indecent guest. The aliment
Dress'd in my kitchen is true aliment;
Light of digestion easily it passes;
The chyle soft-blending from the juicy food
Repairs the solids.

FRIEND.
Ah! the chyle! the solids!
Thou new Democritus! thou sage of medicine!
Versed in the mysteries of the Iatric art!

MASTER COOK.
Now mark the blunders of our vulgar cooks!
See them prepare a dish of various fish,
Showering profuse the pounded Indian grain,
An overpowering vapour, gallimaufry
A multitude confused of pothering odours!
But, know, the genius of the art consists
To make the nostrils feel each scent distinct;
And not in washing plates to free from smoke.
I never enter in my kitchen, I!
But sit apart, and in the cool direct,
Observant of what passes, scullions' toil.

FRIEND.
What dost thou there?

MASTER COOK.
I guide the mighty whole;
Explore the causes, prophesy the dish.
'Tis thus I speak: "Leave, leave that ponderous ham;
Keep up the fire, and lively play the flame
Beneath those lobster patties; patient here,
Fix'd as a statue, skim, incessant skim.
Steep well this small Glociscus in its sauce,
And boil that sea-dog in a cullender;
This eel requires more salt and marjoram;
Roast well that piece of kid on either side
Equal; that sweetbread boil not over much."
'Tis thus, my friend, I make the concert play.

FRIEND.

O man of science! 'tis thy babble kills!

MASTER COOK.

And then no useless dish my table crowds;
Harmonious ranged, and consonantly just.

FRIEND.

Ha! what means this?

MASTER COOK.

Divinest music all!
As in a concert instruments resound,
My ordered dishes in their courses chime.
So Epicurus dictated the art
Of sweet voluptuousness, and ate in order,
Musing delighted o'er the sovereign good!
Let raving Stoics in a labyrinth
Run after virtue; they shall find no end.
Thou, what is foreign to mankind, abjure.

FRIEND.

Right honest Cook! thou wak'st me from their dreams!

Another cook informs us that he adapts his repasts to his personages.

I like to see the faces of my guests,
To feed them as their age and station claim.
My kitchen changes, as my guests inspire
The various spectacle; for lovers now,
Philosophers, and now for financiers.
If my young royster be a mettled spark,
Who melts an acre in a savoury dish
To charm his mistress, scuttle-fish and crabs,
And all the shelly race, with mixture due
Of cordials filtered, exquisitely rich.
For such a host, my friend! expends much more
In oil than cotton; solely studying love!
To a philosopher, that animal,
Voracious, solid ham and bulky feet;
But to the financier, with costly niceness,
Glociscus rare, or rarity more rare.
Insensible the palate of old age,
More difficult than the soft lips of youth,
To move, I put much mustard in their dish;
With quickening sauces make their stupor keen,
And lash the lazy blood that creeps within.

Another genius, in tracing the art of cookery, derives from it nothing less than the origin of society; and I think that some philosopher has defined man to be "a cooking animal."

COOK.

"The art of cookery drew us gently forth
From that ferocious life, when void of faith
The Anthropophaginian ate his brother!
To cookery we owe well-ordered states,
Assembling men in dear society.
Wild was the earth, man feasting upon man,
When one of nobler sense and milder heart
First sacrificed an animal; the flesh
Was sweet; and man then ceased to feed on man!
And something of the rudeness of those times
The priest commemorates; for to this day
He roasts the victim's entrails without salt.
In those dark times, beneath the earth lay hid
The precious salt, that gold of cookery!
But when its particles the palate thrill'd,
The source of seasonings, charm of cookery! came.
They served a paunch with rich ingredients stored;
And tender kid, within two covering plates,
Warm melted in the mouth. So art improved!
At length a miracle not yet perform'd,
They minced the meat, which roll'd in herbage soft,
Nor meat nor herbage seem'd, but to the eye,
And to the taste, the counterfeited dish
Mimick'd some curious fish; invention rare!
Then every dish was season'd more and more,
Salted, or sour, or sweet, and mingled oft
Oatmeal and honey. To enjoy the meal
Men congregated in the populous towns,
And cities flourish'd which we cooks adorn'd
With all the pleasures of domestic life.

An arch-cook insinuates that there remain only two "pillars of the state," besides himself, of the school of Sinon, one of the great masters of the condimenting art. Sinon, we are told, applied the elements of all the arts and sciences to this favourite one. Natural philosophy could produce a secret seasoning for a dish; and architecture the art of conducting the smoke out of a chimney: which, says he, if ungovernable, makes a great difference in the dressing. From the military science he derived a sublime idea of order; drilling the under cooks, marshalling the kitchen, hastening one, and making another a sentinel. We find, however, that a portion of this divine art, one of the professors acknowledges to be vapouring and bragging!--a seasoning in this art, as well as in others. A cook ought never to come unaccompanied by all the pomp and parade of the kitchen: with a scurvy appearance, he will be turned away at sight; for all have eyes, but few only understanding.[125]

Another occult part of this profound mystery, besides vapouring, consisted, it seems, in filching. Such is the counsel of a patriarch to an apprentice! a precept which contains a truth for all ages of cookery.

Carian! time well thy ambidextrous part,
Nor always filch. It was but yesterday,
Blundering, they nearly caught thee in the fact;
None of thy balls had livers, and the guests,
In horror, pierced their airy emptiness.
Not even the brains were there, thou brainless hound!
If thou art hired among the middling class,
Who pay thee freely, be thou honourable!
But for this day, where now we go to cook,
E'en cut the master's throat for all I care;
"A word to th' wise," and show thyself my scholar!
There thou mayst filch and revel; all may yield
Some secret profit to thy sharking hand.
'Tis an old miser gives a sordid dinner,
And weeps o'er every sparing dish at table;
Then if I do not find thou dost devour
All thou canst touch, e'en to the very coals,
I will disown thee! Lo! old Skin-flint comes;
In his dry eyes what parsimony stares!

These cooks of the ancients, who appear to have been hired for a grand dinner, carried their art to the most whimsical perfection. They were so dexterous as to be able to serve up a whole pig boiled on one side, and roasted on the other. The cook who performed this feat defies his guests to detect the place where the knife had separated the animal, or how it was contrived to stuff the belly with an olio composed of thrushes and other birds, slices of the matrices of a sow, the yolks of eggs, the bellies of hens with their soft eggs flavoured with a rich juice, and minced meats highly spiced. When this cook is entreated to explain his secret art, he solemnly swears by the manes of those who braved all the dangers of the plain of Marathon, and combated at sea at Salamis, that he will not reveal the secret that year. But of an incident so triumphant in the annals of the gastric art, our philosopher would not deprive posterity of the knowledge. The animal had been bled to death by a wound under the shoulder, whence, after a copious effusion, the master-cook extracted the entrails, washed them with wine, and hanging the animal by the feet, he crammed down the throat the stuffings already prepared. Then covering the half of the pig with a paste of barley, thickened with wine and oil, he put it in a small oven, or on a heated table of brass, where it was gently roasted with all due care: when the skin was browned, he boiled the other side; and then, taking away the barley paste, the pig was served up, at once boiled and roasted. These cooks, with a vegetable, could counterfeit the shape and the taste of fish and flesh. The king of Bithynia, in some expedition against the Scythians, in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, had a violent longing for a small fish called _aphy_--a pilchard, a herring, or an anchovy. His cook cut a turnip to the perfect imitation of its shape; then fried in oil, salted, and well powdered with the grains of a dozen black poppies, his majesty's taste was so exquisitely deceived, that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish. This transmutation of vegetables into meat or fish is a province of the culinary art which we appear to have lost; yet these are _cibi innocentes_, compared with the things themselves. No people are such gorgers of mere animal food as our own; the art of preparing vegetables, pulse, and roots, is scarcely known in this country. This cheaper and healthful food should be introduced among the common people, who neglect them from not knowing how to dress them. The peasant, for want of this skill, treads under foot the best meat in the world; and sometimes the best way of dressing it is least costly.

The gastric art must have reached to its last perfection, when we find that it had its history; and that they knew how to ascertain the æra of a dish with a sort of chronological exactness. The philosophers of Athenæus at table dissert on every dish, and tell us of one called _maati_, that there was a treatise composed on it; that it was first introduced at Athens, at the epocha of the Macedonian empire, but that it was undoubtedly a Thessalian invention; the most sumptuous people of all the Greeks. The _maati_ was a term at length applied to any dainty of excessive delicacy, always served the last.

But as no art has ever attained perfection without numerous admirers, and as it is the public which only can make such exquisite cooks, our curiosity may be excited to inquire whether the patrons of the gastric art were as great enthusiasts as its professors.

We see they had writers who exhausted their genius on these professional topics; and books of cookery were much read: for a comic poet, quoted by Athenæus, exhibits a character exulting in having procured "The New Kitchen of Philoxenus, which," says he, "I keep for myself to read in my solitude." That these devotees to the culinary art undertook journeys to remote parts of the world, in quest of these discoveries, sufficient facts authenticate. England had the honour to furnish them with oysters, which they fetched from about Sandwich. Juvenal[126] records that Montanus was so well skilled in the science of good eating, that he could tell by the first bite whether they were English or not. The well-known Apicius poured into his stomach an immense fortune. He usually resided at Minturna, a town in Campania, where he ate shrimps at a high price: they were so large, that those of Smyrna, and the prawns of Alexandria, could not be compared with the shrimps of Minturna. However, this luckless epicure was informed that the shrimps in Africa were more monstrous; and he embarks without losing a day. He encounters a great storm, and through imminent danger arrives at the shores of Africa. The fishermen bring him the largest for size their nets could furnish. Apicius shakes his head: "Have you never any larger?" he inquires. The answer was not favourable to his hopes. Apicius rejects them, and fondly remembers the shrimps of his own Minturna. He orders his pilot to return to Italy, and leaves Africa with a look of contempt.

A fraternal genius was Philoxenus: he whose higher wish was to possess a crane's neck, that he might be the longer in savouring his dainties; and who appears to have invented some expedients which might answer, in some degree, the purpose. This impudent epicure was so little attentive to the feelings of his brother guests, that in the hot bath he avowedly habituated himself to keep his hands in the scalding water; and even used to gargle his throat with it, that he might feel less impediment in swallowing the hottest dishes. He bribed the cooks to serve up the repast smoking hot, that he might gloriously devour what he chose before any one else could venture to touch the dish. It seemed as if he had used his fingers to handle fire. "He is an oven, not a man!" exclaimed a grumbling fellow-guest. Once having embarked for Ephesus, for the purpose of eating fish, his favourite food, he arrived at the market, and found all the stalls empty. There was a wedding in the town, and all the fish had been bespoken. He hastens to embrace the new-married couple, and singing an epithalamium, the dithyrambic epicure enchanted the company. The bridegroom was delighted by the honour of the presence of such a poet, and earnestly requested he would come on the morrow. "I will come, young friend, if there is no fish at the market!"--It was this Philoxenus, who, at the table of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily, having near him a small barbel, and observing a large one near the prince, took the little one, and held it to his ear. Dionysius inquired the reason. "At present," replied the ingenious epicure, "I am so occupied by my Galatea," (a poem in honour of the mistress of the tyrant,) "that I wished to inquire of this little fish, whether he could give me some information about Nereus; but he is silent, and I imagine they have taken him up too young: I have no doubt that old one, opposite to you, would perfectly satisfy me." Dionysius rewarded the pleasant conceit with the large barbel.

ANCIENT AND MODERN SATURNALIA.

The Stagyrite discovered that our nature delights in imitation, and perhaps in nothing more than in representing personages different from ourselves in mockery of them; in fact, there is a passion for masquerade in human nature. Children discover this propensity; and the populace, who are the children of society, through all ages have been humoured by their governors with festivals and recreations, which are made up of this malicious transformation of persons and things; and the humble orders of society have been privileged by the higher, to please themselves by burlesquing and ridiculing the great, at short seasons, as some consolation for the rest of the year.

The Saturnalia of the Romans is a remarkable instance of this characteristic of mankind. Macrobius could not trace the origin of this institution, and seems to derive it from the Grecians; so that it might have arisen in some rude period of antiquity, and among another people. This conjecture seems supported by a passage in Gibbon's Miscellanies,[127] who discovers traces of this institution among the more ancient nations; and Huet imagined that he saw in the jubilee of the Hebrews some similar usages. It is to be regretted, that Gibbon does not afford us any new light on the cause in which originated the institution itself. The jubilee of the Hebrews was the solemn festival of an agricultural people, but bears none of the ludicrous characteristics of the Roman Saturnalia.

It would have been satisfactory to have discovered the occasion of the inconceivable licentiousness which was thus sanctioned by the legislator,--this overturning of the principles of society, and this public ridicule of its laws, its customs, and its feelings. We are told, these festivals, dedicated to Saturn, were designed to represent the natural equality which prevailed in his golden age; and for this purpose the slaves were allowed to change places with the masters. This was, however, giving the people a false notion of the equality of men; for, while the slave was converted into the master, the pretended equality was as much violated as in the usual situation of the parties. The political misconception of this term of natural equality seems, however, to have been carried on through all ages; and the political Saturnalia had lately nearly thrown Europe into a state of that worse than slavery, where slaves are masters.

The Roman Saturnalia were latterly prolonged to a week's debauchery and folly; and a diary of that week's words and deeds would have furnished a copious chronicle of _Facetiæ_. Some notions we acquire from the laws of the Saturnalia of Lucian, an Epistle of Seneca's,[128] and from Horace, who from his love of quiet, retired from the city during this noisy season.

It was towards the close of December, that all the town was in an unusual motion, and the children everywhere invoking Saturn; nothing now to be seen but tables spread out for feasting, and nothing heard but shouts of merriment: all business was dismissed, and none at work but cooks and confectioners; no account of expenses was to be kept, and it appears that one-tenth part of a man's income was to be appropriated to this jollity. All exertion of mind and body was forbidden, except for the purposes of recreation; nothing to be read or recited which did not provoke mirth, adapted to the season and the place. The slaves were allowed the utmost freedom of raillery and truth, with their masters;[129] sitting with them at the table, dressed in their clothes, playing all sorts of tricks, telling them of their faults to their faces, while they smutted them. The slaves were imaginary kings, as indeed a lottery determined their rank; and as their masters attended them, whenever it happened that these performed their offices clumsily, doubtless with some recollections of their own similar misdemeanors, the slave made the master leap into the water head-foremost. No one was allowed to be angry, and he who was played on, if he loved his own comfort, would be the first to laugh. Glasses of all sizes were to be ready, and all were to drink when and what they chose; none but the most skilful musicians and tumblers were allowed to perform, for those people are worth nothing unless exquisite, as the Saturnalian laws decreed. Dancing, singing, and shouting, and carrying a female musician thrice round on their shoulders, accompanied by every grotesque humour they imagined, were indulged in that short week, which was to repay the many in which the masters had their revenge for the reign of this pretended equality. Another custom prevailed at this season: the priests performed their sacrifices to Saturn bare-headed, which Pitiscus explains in the spirit of this extraordinary institution, as designed to show that time discovers, or, as in the present case of the bare-headed priests, uncovers, all things.

Such was the Roman Saturnalia, the favourite popular recreations of Paganism; and as the sports and games of the people outlast the date of their empires, and are carried with them, however they may change their name and their place on the globe, the grosser pleasures of the Saturnalia were too well adapted to their tastes to be forgotten. The Saturnalia, therefore, long generated the most extraordinary institutions among the nations of modern Europe; and what seems more extraordinary than the unknown origin of the parent absurdity itself, the Saturnalia crept into the services and offices of the Christian church. Strange it is to observe at the altar the rites of religion burlesqued, and all its offices performed with the utmost buffoonery. It is only by tracing them to the Roman Saturnalia that we can at all account for these grotesque sports--that extraordinary mixture of libertinism and profaneness, so long continued under Christianity.

Such were the feasts of the ass, the feast of fools or madmen, _fête des fous_--the feast of the bull--of the Innocents--and that of the _soudiacres_, which, perhaps, in its original term, meant only sub-deacons, but their conduct was expressed by the conversion of a pun into _saoudiacres_ or _diacres saouls_, drunken deacons. Institutions of this nature, even more numerous than the historian has usually recorded, and varied in their mode, seem to surpass each other in their utter extravagance.[130]

These profane festivals were universally practised in the middle ages, and, as I shall show, comparatively even in modern times. The ignorant and the careless clergy then imagined it was the securest means to retain the populace, who were always inclined to these pagan revelries.

These grotesque festivals have sometimes amused the pens of foreign and domestic antiquaries: for our own country has participated as keenly in these irreligious fooleries. In the feast of asses, an ass covered with sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the choir, where service was performed before the ass, and a hymn chanted in as discordant a manner as they could contrive; the office was a medley of all that had been sung in the course of the year; pails of water were flung at the head of the chanters; the ass was supplied with drink and provender at every division of the service; and the asinines were drinking, dancing, and braying for two days. The hymn to the ass has been preserved; each stanza ends with the burthen "Hez! Sire Ane, hez!" "Huzza! Seignior Ass, Huzza!" On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes to fume in the censers; ran about the church, leaping, singing, and dancing obscenely; scattering ordure among the audience; playing at dice upon the altar! while a _boy-bishop_, or a _pope of fools_, burlesqued the divine service. Sometimes they disguised themselves in the skins of animals, and pretending to be transformed into the animal they represented, it became dangerous, or worse, to meet these abandoned fools. There was a _precentor of fools_, who was shaved in public, during which he entertained the populace with all the balderdash his genius could invent. We had in Leicester, in 1415, what was called a _glutton-mass_, during the five days of the festival of the Virgin Mary. The people rose early to mass, during which they practised eating and drinking with the most zealous velocity, and, as in France, drew from the corners of the altar the rich puddings placed there.

So late as in 1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master, what he himself witnessed at Aix on the feast of the Innocents, says, "I have seen, in some monasteries in this province, extravagances solemnised, which the pagans would not have practised. Neither the clergy, nor the guardians, indeed, go to the choir on this day, but all is given up to the lay brethren, the cabbage-cutters, the errand-boys, the cooks and scullions, the gardeners; in a word, all the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that they perform the offices proper for the day. They dress themselves with all the sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out; they hold in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend to read with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the shells of scooped oranges, which renders them so hideous, that one must have seen these madmen to form a notion of their appearance; particularly while dangling the censers, they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns, nor psalms, nor masses; but mumble a certain gibberish, as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:--

Hæc est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
Hæc est festa dies, festarum festa dierum.[131]

These are scenes which equal any which the humour of the Italian burlesque poets have invented, and which might have entered with effect into the "Malmantile racquistato" of Lippi; but that they should have been endured amidst the solemn offices of religion, and have been performed in cathedrals, while it excites our astonishment, can only be accounted for by perceiving that they were, in truth, the Saturnalia of the Romans. Mr. Turner observes, without perhaps having a precise notion that they were copied from the Saturnalia, that "It could be only by rivalling the pagan revelries, that the Christian ceremonies could gain the ascendancy." Our historian further observes, that these "licentious festivities were called the _December liberties_, and seem to have begun at one of the most solemn seasons of the Christian year, and to have lasted through the chief part of January." This very term, as well as the time, agrees with that of the ancient Saturnalia:--

Age, _libertate Decembri_,
Quando ita majores voluerunt, utere: narra.
HOR. lib. ii. sat. 7.

The Roman Saturnalia, thus transplanted into Christian churches, had for its singular principle, that of inferiors, whimsically and in mockery, personifying their superiors, with a licensed licentiousness. This forms a distinct characteristic from those other popular customs and pastimes which the learned have also traced to the Roman, and even more ancient nations. Our present inquiry is, to illustrate that proneness in man, of delighting to reverse the order of society, and ridiculing its decencies.

Here we had our _boy-bishop_, a legitimate descendant of this family of foolery. On St. Nicholas's day, a saint who was the patron of children, the boy-bishop with his _mitra parva_ and a long crosier, attended by his school-mates as his diminutive prebendaries, assumed the title and state of a bishop. The child-bishop preached a sermon, and afterwards, accompanied by his attendants, went about singing and collecting his pence: to such theatrical processions in collegiate bodies, Warton attributes the custom, still existing at Eton, of going _ad montem_.[132] But this was a tame mummery, compared with the grossness elsewhere allowed in burlesquing religious ceremonies. The English, more particularly after the Reformation, seem not to have polluted the churches with such abuses. The relish for the Saturnalia was not, however, less lively here than on the Continent; but it took a more innocent direction, and was allowed to turn itself into civil life: and since the people would be gratified by mock dignities, and claimed the privilege of ridiculing their masters, it was allowed them by our kings and nobles; and a troop of grotesque characters, frolicsome great men, delighting in merry mischief, are recorded in our domestic annals.

The most learned Selden, with parsimonious phrase and copious sense, has thus compressed the result of an historical dissertation: he derives our ancient Christmas sports at once from the true, though remote, source. "Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same number of holy-days; then the master waited upon the servant, like the _lord of misrule_."[133] Such is the title of a facetious potentate, who, in this notice of Selden's, is not further indicated, for this personage was familiar in his day, but of whom the accounts are so scattered, that his offices and his glory are now equally obscure. The race of this nobility of drollery, and this legitimate king of all hoaxing and quizzing, like mightier dynasties, has ceased to exist.

In England our festivities at Christmas appear to have been more entertaining than in other countries. We were once famed for merry Christmases and their pies; witness the Italian proverb, "_Ha piu di fare che i forni di Natale in Inghilterra_:" "He has more business than English ovens at Christmas." Wherever the king resided, there was created for that merry season a Christmas prince, usually called "the _Lord of Misrule_;" and whom the Scotch once knew under the significant title of "the _Abbot of Unreason_." His office, according to Stowe, was "to make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholder." Every nobleman, and every great family, surrendered their houses, during this season, to the Christmas prince, who found rivals or usurpers in almost every parish; and more particularly, as we shall see, among the grave students in our inns of court.

The Italian Polydore Vergil, who, residing here, had clearer notions of this facetious personage, considered the Christmas Prince as peculiar to our country. Without venturing to ascend in his genealogy, we must admit his relationship to that ancient family of foolery we have noticed, whether he be legitimate or not. If this whimsical personage, at his creation, was designed to regulate "misrule," his lordship, invested with plenary power, came himself, at length, to delight too much in his "merry disports." Stubbes, a morose puritan in the days of Elizabeth, denominates him "a grand captaine of mischiefe," and has preserved a minute description of all his wild doings in the country; but as Strutt has anticipated me in this amusing extract, I must refer to his "Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," p. 254.[134] I prepare another scene of unparalleled Saturnalia, among the grave judges and serjeants of the law, where the Lord of Misrule is viewed amidst his frolicsome courtiers, with the humour of hunting the fox and the cat with ten couple of hounds round their great hall, among the other merry disports of those joyous days when sages could play like boys.

For those who can throw themselves back amidst the grotesque humours and clumsy pastimes of our ancestors, who, without what we think to be taste, had whim and merriment--there has been fortunately preserved a curious history of the manner in which "A grand Christmas" was kept at our Inns of Court, by the grave and learned Dugdale, in his "Origines Juridicales:" it is a complete festival of foolery, acted by the students and law-officers. They held for that season everything in mockery: they had a mock parliament, a Prince of _Sophie_, or Wisdom, an honourable order of Pegasus, a high constable, a marshal, a master of the game, a ranger of the forest, lieutenant of the Tower, which was a temporary prison for Christmas delinquents, all the paraphernalia of a court, burlesqued by these youthful sages before the boyish judges.

The characters personified were in the costume of their assumed offices. On Christmas-day, the constable-marshal, accoutred with a complete gilded "harness," showed that everything was to be chivalrously ordered; while the lieutenant of the Tower, in "a fair white armour," attended with his troop of halberdiers; and the Tower was then placed beneath the fire. After this opening followed the costly feasting; and then, nothing less than a hunt with a pack of hounds in their hall!

The master of the game dressed in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest in green satin, bearing a green bow and arrows, each with a hunting horn about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery (or hunting), they pace round about the fire three times. The master of the game kneels to be admitted into the service of the high-constable. A huntsman comes into the hall, with nine or ten couple of hounds, bearing on the end of his staff a pursenet, which holds a fox and a cat: these were let loose and hunted by the hounds, and killed beneath the fire.

These extraordinary amusements took place after their repast; for these grotesque Saturnalia appeared after that graver part of their grand Christmas. Supper ended, the constable-marshal presented himself with drums playing, mounted on a stage borne by four men, and carried round; at length he cries out, "a lord! a lord!" &c., and then calls his mock court every one by name.

Sir Francis Flatterer, of Fowlshurt.

Sir Randall Rackabite, of Rascal-hall, in the county of Rakehell.

Sir Morgan Mumchance, of Much Monkery, in the county of Mad Mopery.

Sir Bartholomew Bald-breech, of Buttock-bury, in the county of Break-neck.[135]

They had also their mock arraignments. The king's-serjeant, after dinner or supper, "oratour-like," complained that the constable-marshal had suffered great disorders to prevail; the complaint was answered by the common-serjeant, who was to show his talent at defending the cause. The king's-serjeant replies; they rejoin, &c.: till one at length is committed to the Tower, for being found most deficient. If any offender contrived to escape from the lieutenant of the Tower into the buttery and brought into the hall a manchet (or small loaf) upon the point of a knife, he was pardoned; for the buttery in this jovial season was considered as a sanctuary. Then began the _revels_. Blount derives this term from the French _reveiller_, to awake from sleep. These were sports of dancing, masking comedies, &c. (for some were called solemn revels,) used in great houses, and were so denominated because they were performed by night; and these various pastimes were regulated by a master of the revels.

Amidst "the grand Christmass," a personage of no small importance was "the Lord of Misrule." His lordship was abroad early in the morning, and if he lacked any of his officers, he entered their chambers to drag forth the loiterers; but after breakfast his lordship's power ended, and it was in suspense till night, when his personal presence was paramount, or, as Dugdale expresses it, "and then his power is most potent."

Such were then the pastimes of the whole learned bench; and when once it happened that the under-barristers did not dance on Candlemas day, according to the ancient order of the society, when the judges were present, the whole bar was offended, and at Lincoln's-Inn were by decimation put out of commons, for example sake; and should the same omission be repeated, they were to be fined or disbarred; for these dancings were thought necessary, "as much conducing to the making of gentlemen more fit for their books at other times," I cannot furnish a detailed notice of these pastimes; for Dugdale, whenever he indicates them, spares his gravity from recording the evanescent frolics, by a provoking _&c. &c. &c._

The dance "round about the coal-fire" is taken off in the _Rehearsal_. These revels have also been ridiculed by Donne in his Satires, Prior in his Alma, and Pope in his Dunciad. "The judge to dance, his brother serjeants calls."[136]

"The Lord of Misrule," in the inns of court, latterly did not conduct himself with any recollection of "_Medio tutissimus ibis_," being unreasonable; but the "sparks of the Temple," as a contemporary calls them, had gradually, in the early part of Charles the First's reign, yielded themselves up to excessive disorders. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his MS. diary in 1620, has noticed their choice of a lieutenant, or lord of misrule, who seems to have practised all the mischief he invented; and the festival days, when "a standing table was kept," were accompanied by dicing, and much gaming, oaths, execrations, and quarrels: being of a serious turn of mind, he regrets this, for he adds, "the sport, of itself, I conceive to be lawful."

I suspect that the last memorable act of a Lord of Misrule of the inns of court occurred in 1627, when the Christmas game became serious. The Lord of Misrule then issued an edict to his officers to go out at Twelfth-night to collect his rents in the neighbourhood of the Temple, at the rate of five shillings a house; and on those who were in their beds, or would not pay, he levied a distress. An unexpected resistance at length occurred in a memorable battle with the Lord Mayor in person:--and I shall tell how the Lord of Misrule for some time stood victor, with his gunner, and his trumpeter, and his martial array: and how heavily and fearfully stood my Lord Mayor amidst his "watch and ward:" and how their lordships agreed to meet half way, each to preserve his independent dignity, till one knocked down the other: and how the long halberds clashed with the short swords: how my Lord Mayor valorously took the Lord of Misrule prisoner with his own civic hand: and how the Christmas prince was immured in the Counter; and how the learned Templars insisted on their privilege, and the unlearned of Ram's-alley and Fleet-street asserted their right of saving their crown-pieces: and finally how this combat of mockery and earnestness was settled, not without the introduction of "a god," as Horace allows on great occasions, in the interposition of the king and the attorney-general--altogether the tale had been well told in some comic epic; but the wits of that day let it pass out of their hands.

I find this event, which seems to record the last desperate effort of a "Lord of Misrule," in a manuscript letter of the learned Mede to Sir Martin Stuteville; and some particulars are collected from Hammond L'Estrange's Life of Charles the First.

"_Jan._ 12, 1627-8.