Merrie England in the Olden Time. George Daniel
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Merrie England in the Olden Time - George Daniel страница 4
Название: Merrie England in the Olden Time
Автор: George Daniel
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 4064066389666
isbn:
* “The Lamentable Complaints of Nick Froth the Tapster, and
Ruleroast the Cook,” 4to. 1641.
* The magical properties of the mistletoe are mentioned both
by Virgil and Ovid; and Apuleius has preserved some verses
of the poet Lelius, in which he mentions the mistletoe as
one of the things necessary to make a magician. In the dark
ages a similar belief prevailed, and even to the present day
the peasants of Holstein, and some other countries, call the
mistletoe the “Spectre's Wand,” from a supposition that
holding a branch of mistletoe in the hand will not only
enable a man to see ghosts, but to force them to speak to
him! The mistletoe is peculiar to Christmas.
Rampant were those times, when crop-ear'd Jack Presbyter was as blythe as shepherd at a wake. * Down tumbled the Maypoles **—no more music
* “We'll break the windows which the whore Of Babylon hath
planted,
And when the Popish saints are down,
Then Burges shall be sainted;
We'll burn the fathers' learned books,
And make the schoolmen flee;
We'll down with all that smells of wit,
And hey, then, up go we!”
** The downfall of May-games, 4to. 1660. By Thomas Hall, the
canting parson of King's-Norton.—Hear the caitiff,
“There's not a knave in all the town,
Nor swearing courtier, nor base clown,
Nor dancing lob, nor mincing quean,
Nor popish clerk, be't priest or dean,
Nor Knight debauch'd nor gentleman,
That follows drab, or cup, or can,
That will give thee a friendly look,
If thou a May-pole canst not brook.”
On May 1, 1517, the unfortunate shaft, or May-pole, gave
rise to the insurrection of that turbulent body, the London
apprentices, and the plundering of the foreigners in the
city, whence it got the name of Evil May-day. From that time
the offending pole was hung on a range of hooks over the
doors of a long row of neighbouring houses. In the 3rd of
Edward VI. an over-zealous fanatic called Sir Stephen began
to preach against this May-pole, which inflamed his audience
so greatly, that the owner of every house over which it hung
sawed off as much as depended over his premises, and
committed piecemeal to the flames this terrible idol!
The “tall May-pole” that “onee o'erlooked the Strand,”
(about the year 1717,) Sir Isaac Newton begged of the
parish, and it was carried to Wanstead in Essex, where it
was erected in the park, and had the honour of raising the
greatest telescope then known. The New Church occupies its
site.
“But now (so Anne and piety ordain),
A church collects the saints of Drury Lane.”
and dancing! * For the disciples of Stubbes and Prynne having discovered by their sage oracles, that May-games were derived from the Floralian Feasts and interludes of the pagan Romans, which were solemnised on the first of May; and that dancing round a May-pole, adorned with garlands of flowers, ribbons, and other ornaments, was idolatry, after the fashion of Baal's worshippers, who capered about the altar in honour of their idol; resolved that the Goddess Flora should no longer receive the gratulations of Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, and Robin Hood's merry men, on a fine May morning; a superstition derived from the Sibyl's books, horribly papistical and pagan.
* “Good fellowes must go learne to daunce
The brydeal is full near a:
There is a brail come out of Fraunce,
The fyrst ye harde this yeare a.
For I must leape, and thou must hoppe,
And we must turne all three a;
The fourth must bounce it like a toppe,
And so we shall agree a.
praye the mynstrell make no stoppe,
For we wyll merye be a.”
From an unique black letter ballad, printed in 1569,
“Intytuled, 'Good Fellowes must go learne to Daunce.'”
Nor was the “precise villain” less industrious in confiscation and sacrilege. * Painted windows—Lucifer's Missal drawings!—he took infinite pains to destroy; and with his long pike did the devil's work diligently. He could endure no cross ** but that on silver; hence the demolition of those beautiful edifices that once adorned Cheapside, and other remarkable sites in ancient times.
* Sir Robert Howard has drawn an excellent picture of a
Puritan family, in his comedy of “The Committee.” The
personages are Mr. Day, chairman to the committee of
sequestrations; Mrs. Day, “the committee-man's utensil,”
with “curled hair, white gloves, and Sabbath-day's cinnamon
waistcoat;” Abel, their booby son, a fellow “whose heart is
down in his breeches at every turn and Obadiah, chief clerk,
dull, drawling, and heinously given to strong waters. We are
admitted into the sanctum sanctorum, of pious fraud, where
are seated certain honourable members, whose names cannot
fail to enforce respect. Nehemiah Catch, Joseph Blemish,
СКАЧАТЬ