THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 作者：华盛顿·欧文投票推荐加入书签留言反馈

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Lo, now is e our joyfulst feast!

 Let every man be jolly.

 Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest,

 And every post with holly.

 Now all our neighbours eys smoke,

 And Christmas blocks are burning;

 Their ovens they with bakt meats choke

 And all their spits are turning.bbr>藏书网</abbr>

 Without the door let sorrow lie,

 And if, for cold, it hap to die,

 Weel bury t in a Christmas pye,

 And evermore be merry.

 WITHERS, Jnveilia.

 I HAD ?nished my toilet, and was l with Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwag sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dihe squire kept up old s in kit as well as hall, and the rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summohe servants to carry in the meats.

 Just in this nick the cook knockd thrice,

 And all the waiters in a trice

 His summons did obey;

 Each serving-man, with dish in hand,

 Marchd boldly up, like our train-band,

 Presented and away.*

 * Sir John Sug.

 The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the squire always held his Christmas ba. A blazing crag ?re of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the ?ame went sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed ey.

 The great picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with greens for the occasion, and holly and ivy had like-wise beehed round the helmet and ons on the opposite wall, which I uood were the arms of the same warrior. I must own, by the by, I had strong doubts about the authenticity of the painting and armor as having beloo the crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more ret days; but I was told that the painting had been so sidered time out of mind; and that as to the armor, it had been found in a lumber-room and elevated to its present situation by the squire, who at oermi to be the armor of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such subjects in his own household, the matter had passed into current acceptation. A sideboard was set out just uhis chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with Belshazzars parade of the vessels of the temple: "?agons, s, cups, beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers," the geous utensils of good panionship that had gradually accumulated through many geions of jovial housekeepers. Before these stood the two Yule dles, beaming like two stars of the ?rst magnitude; hts were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered like a ?rmament of silver.

 We were ushered into this baing se with the sound of minstrelsy, the old harper beied on a stool beside the ?replad twanging, his instrument with a vast deal more power than melody. Never did Christmas board display a moodly and gracious assemblage of tehose who were not handsome were at least happy, and happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favored visage. I always sider an old English family as well worth studying as a colle of Holbeins portraits or Albert Durers prints. There is much antiquarian lore to be acquired, muowledge of the physiognomies of former times. Perhaps it may be from having tinually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits, with which the mansions of this try are stocked; certain it is that the quaiures of antiquity are often most faithfully perpetuated in these a lines, and I have traced an old family hrough a whole picture-gallery, legitimately handed down from geion to geion almost from the time of the quest. Something of the kind was to be observed in the worthy pany around me. Many of their faces had evidently inated in a Gothic age, and been merely copied by succeeding geions; and there was otle girl in particular, of staid demeanor, with a high Roman nose and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great favorite of the squires, being, as he said, a Bracebridge all over, and the very terpart of one of his aors who ?gured in the court of Henry VIII.

 The parson said grace, which was not a short familiar one, such as is only addressed to the Deity in these unceremonious days, but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the a school.

 There was noause, as if something was expected, when suddenly the butler ehe hall with some degree of bustle:

 he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish on which was an enormous pigs head decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which laced with great formality at the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its appearahe harper struck up a ?ourish; at the clusion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave, with an air of the most ic gravity, an old carol, the ?rst verse of which was as follows

 Caput apri defero

 Reddens laudes Domino.

 The boars head in hand bring I,

 With garlands gay and rosemary.

 I pray you all synge merily

 Qui estis in vivio.

 Though prepared to witness many of these little etricities, from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host, yet I fess the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced someerplexed me, until I gathered from the versation of the squire and the parson that it was meant to represent the bringing in of the boars head, a dish formerly served up with much ceremony and the sound of minstrelsy and song at great tables on Christmas Day. "I like the old ," said the squire, "not merely because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the college at Oxford at which I was educated. When I hear the old song ted it brings to mind the time when I was young and gamesome, and the noble old college hall, and my fellow-students l about it>..t> black gowns; many of whom, poor lads! are now in their graves."

 The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such associations, and who was always more taken up with the text than the se, objected to the Oxonians version of the carol, which he af?rmed was different from that sung at college. He went on, with the dry perseverance of a entator, to give the college reading, apanied by sundry annotations, addressing himself at ?rst to the pany at large; but, ?nding their attention gradually diverted to other talk and other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of auditors diminished, until he cluded his remarks in an under voice to a fat-headed old gentlema him who was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plateful of turkey.*

 * The old ceremony of serving up the boars head on Christmas Day is still observed in the hall of Queens College, Oxford. I was favored by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as it may be acceptable to suy readers as are curious in these grave and learned matters, I give it entire:

 The boars head in hand bear I,

 Bodeckd with bays and rosemary The table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented aome of try abundan this season of over?owing larders. A distinguished post was allotted to "a sirloin,"

 as mine host termed it, being, as he added, "the standard of old English hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of expectation." There were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently something traditional in their embellishments, but about which, as I did not like to appear overcurious, I asked no questions.

 I could not, however, but notice a pie magly decorated with peacocks feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a siderable tract of the table. This, the squire fessed with some little hesitation, heasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.*

 And I pray you, my masters, be merry

 Quot estis in vivio

 Caput apri defero,

 Reddens laudes domino.

 The boars head, as I uand,

 Is the rarest dish in all this land,

 Which thus bedeckd with a gay garland

 Let us servire tico.

 Caput apri defero, etc.

 Our steward hath provided this

 In honor of the King of Bliss,

 Whi this day to be served is

 In Reginensi Atrio.

 Caput apri defero, etc., etc., etc.

 * The peacock was aly i demand for stately eais. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed.

 Such pies were served up at the solemn bas of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to uake any perilous enterprise, whence came the a oath, used by Justice Shallow, "by cod pie."

 The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast; and Massinger, in his "City Madam," gives some idea of the extravagah which this, as well as other dishes, repared for the geous revels of the olden times:

 Men may talk of try Christmasses, Their thirty pound butterd eggs, their pies of carps toheir pheasants drenchd with ambergris: the carcases of three fat wethers bruised fravy to make sauce for a single peacock!

 It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which I am a little given, were I to mentioher makeshifts or this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeav to follow up, though at humble distahe quaint s of antiquity. I leased, however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his children aives; who, indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed all well versed in their parts, having doubtless bee at many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, at the air of profound gravity with which the butler and other servants executed the duties assighem, however etric. They had an old-fashioned look, having, for the most part, been brought up in the household and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion and the humors of its lord, and most probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the established laws of honorable housekeeping.

 When the cloth was removed the butler brought in a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed before the squire. Its appearance was hailed with acclamation, being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christmas festivity. The tents had been prepared by the squire himself; for it was a beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided himself, alleging that it was too abstruse and plex for the prehension of an ordinary servant. It otation, ihat might well make the heart of a toper leap within him, being posed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.*

 * The Wassail Bowl was sometimes posed of ale instead of wine, with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families and round the hearths of substantial farmers at Christmas. It is also called Lambs Wool, and is celebrated by Herri his "Twelfth Night":

 e the bowle full

 With gentle Lambs Wool;

 Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

 With store of ale too,

 And thus ye must doe

 To make the Wassaile a swinger.

 The old gentlemans whole tenance beamed with a serene look of indwelling delight as he stirred this mighty bowl. Having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry Christmas to all present, he sent it brimming round the board, for every oo follow his example, acc to the primitive style, pronoung it "the a fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met together."+ + "The of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each having his cup. Wheeward came to the doore with the Wassel, he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and then the chappell (chaplain) was to answer with a song."--Archoeologia.

 There was much laughing and rallying as the ho emblem of Christmas joviality circulated and was kissed rather coyly by the ladies. When it reached Master Simon, he raised it in both hands, and with the air of a boon panion struck up an old Wassail son:

 The brown bowle,

 The merry brown bowle,

 As it goes round-about-a,

 Fill

 Still,

 Let the world say what it will,

 And drink your ?ll all out-a.

 The deep e,

 The merry deep e,

 As thou dost freely quaff-a,

 Sing

 Fling,

 Be as merry as a king,

 And sound a lusty laugh-a.*

 * From Poor Robins Almanack.

 Much of the versation during diurned upon family topics, to which I was a strahere was, however, a great deal of rallying of Master Simon about some gay ith whom he was accused of having a ?irtation. This attack was enced by the ladies, but it was tihroughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentlemahe parson with the persevering assiduity of a slow hound, being one of those long-winded jokers who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled for their talents in hunting it down. At every pause in the general versation he renewed his bantering iy much the same terms, winking hard at me with both eyes whenever he gave Master Simon what he sidered a home thrust. The latter, indeed, seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to be, aook occasion to inform me, in an uohat the lady iion rodigiously ?ne woman and drove her own curricle.

 The diime passe away in this ?ow of i hilarity, and, though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a se of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it ever witnessed more ho and genuine enjoyment. How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him! and how truly is a ki a fountain of gladness, making everything in its viity to freshen into smiles! The joyous disposition of the worthy squire erfectly tagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to make all the world happy, and the little etricities of his humor did but season, in a mahe sweetness of his philanthropy.

 When the ladies had retired, the versation, as usual, became still more animated; many good things were broached which had been thought of during dinner, but which would ly do for a ladys ear; and, though I ot positively af?rm that there was much wit uttered, yet I have certainly heard many tests of rare wit produce much less laughter. Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pu ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but ho good-humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial panionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.

 The squire told several long stories of early college pranks and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a sharer, though in looking at the latter it required some effort of imagination to ?gure such a little dark anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. Ihe two college chums presented pictures of what men may be made by their different lots in life. The squire had left the uy to live lustily on his paternal domains in the vigorous enjoyment of prosperity and sunshine, and had ?ourished on to a hearty and ?orid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the trary, had dried and withered away among dusty tomes in the silend shadows of his study. Still, there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished ?re feebly glimmering itom of his soul; and as the squire hi a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid whom they o on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an "alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter; indeed, I have rarely met with an old gentleman that took absolute offe the imputed gallantries of his youth.

 I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry land of sober judgment. The pany grew merrier and louder as their jokes grew duller. Master Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper ?lled with dew; his old songs grew of a warmer plexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the widow. He even gave a long song about the wooing of a hich he informed me he had gathered from an excellent black-letter work entitled Cupids Solicitor for Love, taining store of good advice for bachelors, and which he promised to lehe ?rst verse was to effect.

 He that will woo a widow must not dally

 He must make hay while the sun doth shine;

 He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I,

 But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine.

 This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made several attempts to tell a rather broad story out of Joe Miller that at to the purpose; but he always stu the middle, everybody recolleg the latter part excepting himself. The parson, too, began to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. Just at this juncture we were summoo the drawing r99ｌｉｂ?oom, and I suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of de.

 After the diable was removed the hall was given up to the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old walls ring with their merriment as they played at romping?. games. I delight in witnessing the gambols of children, and particularly at this happy holiday season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of laughter. I found them at the game of blindmans-buff. Master Simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to ful?ll the of?ce of that a potehe Lord of Misrule,* was blinded in the midst of the hall. The little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about Falstaff, ping him, plug at the skirts of his coat, and tig him with straws.

 One ?ne blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her ?axen hair all iiful fusion, her frolic fa a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a plete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and, from the slyness with which Master Simon avoided the smaller game and hemmed this wild little nymph in ers, and obliged her to jump shrieking over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blihan was ve.

 * At Christmasse there was in the Kinges house, wheresoever hee was lodged, a lorde of misrule or mayster of merie disportes, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor, ood worshipper were he spirituall or temporall.--STOW.

 When I returo the drawing-room I found the paed round the ?re listening to the parson, who was deeply ensced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some ing arti?cer of yore, which had been brought from the library for his particular aodation. From this venerable piece of furniture, with which his shadowy ?gure and dark weazen fairably accorded, he was dealing out strange ats of the popular superstitions and legends of the surrounding try, with which he had bee acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches. I am half ined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the try and pore over black-letter tracts, so often ?lled with the marvelous and supernatural. He gave us several aes of the fancies of the neighb peasantry ing the ef?gy of the crusader which lay oomb by the church altar. As it was the only mo of the kind in that part of the try, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by the good wives of the village. It was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered; and one old woman, whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it through the windows of the church, when the moon shone, slowly pag up and down the aisles. It was the belief that some wrong had bee unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble alessness. Some talked of gold and jewels buried iomb, over which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current of a sexton in old times who endeavored to break his way to the at night, but just as he reached it received a violent blow from the marble hand of the ef?gy, which stretched him senseless on the pavement. These tales were often laughed at by some of the sturdier among the rustics, yet when night came on there were many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing alone in the footpath that led across the churchyard.

 From these and other aes that followed the crusader appeared to be the favorite hero of ghost-stories throughout the viity. His picture, which hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to have something supernatural about it; for they remarked that in whatever part of the hall you went the eyes of the warrior were still ?xed on you. The old porters wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid-servants, af?rmed that in her young days she had often heard say that on Midsummer Eve, when it was well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and fairies bee visible and walk abroad, the crusader used to mount his horse, e down from his picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on which occasion the churost civilly swung open of itself; not that he , for he rode through closed gates, and even stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids to pass between two bars of the great park gate, making himself as thin as a sheet of paper.

 All these superstitions I found had been very much tenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He listeo every goblin tale of the neighb gossips with in?nite gravity, ahe porters wife in high favor on at of her talent for the marvellous.

 He was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and often lamehat he could not believe in them; for a superstitious persohought, must live in a kind of fairy-land.

 Whilst we were all attention to the parsons stories, our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall, in which were mingled something like the g of rude minstrelsy with the uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter. The door suddenly ?ew open, and a train came trooping into the room that might almost have been mistaken for the breaking up of the court of Faery. That iigable spirit, Master Simon, in the faithful discharge of his duties as lord of misrule, had ceived the idea of a Christmas mummery or masking; and having called in to his assistahe Oxonian and the young of?cer, who were equally ripe for anything that should occasion romping and merriment, they had carried it into instant effect. The old housekeeper had been sulted; the antique clothespresses and wardrobes rummaged and made to yield up the relics of ?hat had not seen the light for several geions; the younger part of the pany had been privately vened from the parlor and hall, and the whole had been bedizened out into a burlesque imitation of an antique mask.*

 * Maskings or mummeries were favorite sports at Christmas in old times, and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid under tribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the idea of his from Ben Jonsons "Masque of Christmas."

 Master Simohe van, as "A Christmas," quaintly apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the aspect of one of the old housekeepers petticoats, and a hat that might have served for a village steeple, and must indubitably have ?gured in the days of the anters. From uhis his nose curved boldly forth, ?ushed with a frost-bitten bloom that seemed the very trophy of a December blast. He was apanied by the blue-eyed romp, dished up, as "Dame Mince Pie," in the venerable magni?ce of a faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and high-heeled shoes. The young of?cer appeared as Robin Hood, in a sp dress of Kendal green and a fing cap with a gold tassel.

 The e, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep research, and there was an evideo the picturesque, natural to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress. The fair Julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress as "Maid Marian." The rest of the train had beeamorphosed in various ways; the girls trussed up in the ?nery of the a belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the character of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in a maskings.

 The whole was uhe trol of the Oxonian in the appropriate character of Misrule; and I observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant.

 The irruption of this motley crew with beat of drum, acc to a , was the mation of uproar and merriment.

 Master Simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as A Christmas, he walked a mi with the peerless though giggling Dame Mince Pie. It was followed by a dance of all the characters, which from its medley of es seemed as though the old family portraits had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport. Differeuries were ?guring at cross hands and right a; the Dark Ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of Queen Bess jigging merrily down the middle through a line of succeeding geions.

 The worthy squire plated these fantastic sports and this resurre of his old wardrobe with the simple relish of childish delight. He stood chug and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the latter was disc most authentically on the a and stately dance of the Pavon, or peacock, from which he ceived the mio be derived.* For my part, I was in a tinual excitement from the varied ses of whim and i gayety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolid warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy and catg once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an i in the se from the sideration that these ?eeting s were posting fast into oblivion, and that this erhaps the only family in England in which the whole of them was still punctiliously observed. There was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry that gave it a peculiar zest: it was suited to the time and place; and as the old manor-house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed eg back the joviality of loed years.+ * Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, from pavo, a peacock, says, "It is a grave and majestice; the method of dang it aly was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in dang, resembled that of a peacock."--History of Music.

 + At the time of the ?rst publication of this paper the picture of an old-fashioned Christmas in the try ronounced by some as out of date. The author had afterwards an opportunity of witnessing almost all the s above described, existing in ued vigor in the skirts of Derbvshire and Yorkshire, where he passed the Christmas holidays. The reader will ?nd some notice of them ihors at of his sojourn at ead Abbey.

 But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To urpose is all this? how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?" Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the instru of the world?

 And if not, are there not thousands of abler pens lab for its improvement? It is so much pleasao please than to instruct--to play the panion rather than the preceptor.

 What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the mass of knowledge! or how am I sure that my sagest deduay be safe guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail the only evil is in my own disappoi. If, however, I by any lucky ce, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care uile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I ow and therate through the gathering ?lm of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good-humor with his fellow-beings and himself--surely, surely, I shall not then have writteirely in vain.

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