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SAINT GEORGE'S DAY.

We do not know the precise date of William Shakespeare's birth. That of his baptism is recorded in the parish register at Stratford as the 26th of April, 1564. It was a common practice then to baptize infants when they were three days old, and it has therefore been assumed that William was born on the 23d of April; but the rule, if rule it can be called, was often varied from, and we have not a particle of evidence that it was followed in this instance. It should, moreover, be understood that the 23d of April, as dates were then reckoned in England, corresponded to our 3d of May.

It would be pleasant to think that the poet made his first appearance on the stage of human life on that particular day, for it was Saint George's day, a great holiday and time of feasting throughout the kingdom, Saint George being the patron saint of England.

There is a book with which Shakespeare was doubtless familiar when he grew up—a collection of ancient stories made by Richard Johnson—in which Saint George figures as one of the "Seven Champions of Christendom."

From this book, as Mr. A. H. Wall tells us, we learn "how Saint George was imprisoned by the black King of Morocco, after he had fought so miraculously against the Saracens, and slain a frightful dragon, which had destroyed entire cities by the poison of its breath, and had every day devoured a beautiful virgin. Escaping from prison, he carried off a princess he had rescued from the monster, whom neither sword nor spear could pierce, and brought her to England, where the twain 'lived happily ever after,' in Warwickshire, where, sometime in the third century they died. The war-cry of England was 'Saint George!' as that of France was 'Montjoye Saint Denis!'; and to this day 'by George!' is an exclamation derived from the ancient custom of swearing by that Saint.

"The ancient ballad of Saint George and the Dragon (printed in the Percy Reliques) tells us that the shire in which he died was that in which he first saw the light; that his mother expired while giving him birth; that a weird lady of the woods stole him when an infant and educated him by magic power to become a great warrior; and that on his person, prophetic of his future career and greatness, were three very mysterious marks—on one shoulder a cross, on the breast a dragon, and round one leg a garter. Their meanings were revealed when he fought so astoundingly as a crusader in the Holy Land, when he killed the magic dragon in Egypt, and rescued the King's daughter, Silene or Sabra, and, after his death, when Edward III. founded the knightly Order of the Garter, and made Saint George its patron.

"Centuries before that, the soldiers had adopted him as their special patron, as had also not a few of the old trade guilds. In some of the provincial towns and cities regulations for the annual ceremony of 'Riding the George' were enforced by penalties more or less severe. An ancestor of Shakespeare's, John Arden, of Warwickshire, 'bequethed his white harneis complete to the church of Ashton for a George to were it.' This was in the reign of the seventh Harry.... There was also an ancient play called 'The Holy Martyr St. George,' which, sadly degenerated in modern times, used to be played by rustics as a piece of coarse buffoonery."

The "Riding of Saint George" was forbidden by Henry VIII., but the custom was nevertheless kept up in out-of-the-way places even after Edward VI. had made more stringent laws against it.

It appears from the ancient records of the Guild that Stratford was one of the very last places in which the celebration was finally suppressed. Shakespeare in his boyhood doubtless saw it carried out with all its antique splendor. Mr. Wall gives the following description of the festival:—

"How great would be the preparations! Old arms and armor from the Guild's collection would be burnished up to be used by the town watch and the archers. All sorts of choice dishes and rare wines would be in demand for mighty feasting. The suit of white armor, of an antique pattern, which hung above the altar of Saint George, would be taken down and cleaned with reverential care, and from all the surrounding towns and villages, castles and mansions, guests would come flocking in, day after day, filling the numerous inns to overflowing.

"On the day, gravel would be spread along the procession's route, and barricades erected; house fronts would be adorned with plants and tapestry. Chambers (small cannon) would be fired at daybreak, and great shouts of 'Saint George!' would drown the echoes of their explosions. The Master of the Guild, its schoolmaster (a truly learned man), with the monitors and scholars of the Grammar School in their long blue gowns and flat caps, with the priests of the Guild Chapel, would all walk in the procession, with their Guild brothers and sisters, with representatives of the trades practised in the town, and even with the old Almshouse people, smiling and chattering and wagging their ancient heads. Nobody would be forgotten who had a fair claim to be conspicuously remembered then. The 'Bedals' would be there of course in all their native dignity, solemn and severe. The town 'waits' would 'discourse most excellent music' with drums and fifes and other cheek-distending wind-instruments. The bells in the church and chapel tower would be ringing out right jovial peals. Then would come the town trumpeters marching before the High Bailiff, Aldermen, and Chamberlains, with their long furred scarlet robes, their chains of office, and the newly-gilded maces borne before them.

"Then, riding on horseback, his armor and drawn sword flashing back the rays of a fitful sun, would be seen the living representative of Saint George, with his great white plume floating from his white helm, as the soft, sweet, playing wind tossed it to and fro. Behind him, creating as he came such a roar of honest irrepressible laughter as would have done your heart good to hear, would waddle the dragon (oh! such a dragon!) a 'property' one, with two boys inside it, led in chains, with the spear of Saint George down its throat. And then the vicar, his curates, and the gentry, in all the grandeur of silk and satin lace and spangles, would do the 'Riding' honor, with gold and silver chains about their necks, spurs at their heels, and swords by their sides, the Lord and Lady of the Manor riding before them. And these last-named were indeed dignitaries of great consequence, being, you must know, no lesser personages than Ambrose Dudley, 'the Good Earl' and his good lady, patrons of learning and rewarders of virtue, from their great castle at Warwick.

"But there is one feature of the Riding which must not on any account be forgotten. This was the Egyptian Princess, personated by the prettiest girl in Stratford (where pretty girls were always found, and are still not few). She came on a raised wheeled platform with a golden crown upon her head (made of gilded pasteboard), and by her side a pretty pet lamb, garlanded with the earliest flowers of the spring, blushing (she, not the lamb) and smiling, and looking down very charming—as I tenderly imagine.

"And all the time they were passing, the bells would ring out right merrily, and the people shout most lustily; and from every throat, blending thunderously, would come the cry, the cry that England's foes had trembled at in many a desperate fight: 'Saint George for England, Saint George for Merry England!'

"It was customary to announce this Riding by sound of trumpet from the Market Cross some time before it took place. And so I can fancy John Shakespeare, the glover, with all his clever work-people, men and women, artists and mechanics, joining the crowd that listens to the town trumpeter's loud-ringing voice here at the Cross, and opposite the Cage, where once lived Judith Shakespeare. By John, stands—in my fancy—Mary, his wife, with little Willie holding tightly to her hand, in a state of intense excitement; and almost before the crier has spoken his lines this laughing little fellow, who has been looking on with such wide-open wondering brown eyes, is suddenly lifted into the air and from above his father's head cries, in his childishly treble voice, 'Saint George for England!' for his mother had said, ''T is his right to lead the shouting here to-day, dear neighbors all, for on Saint George's day my boy was born.'"

EASTER.

The festival of Easter would generally come before Saint George's day. When Shakespeare was a boy the Reformation had somewhat mitigated the ancient rigor and austerity of Lent, but Easter was none the less a joyous and jubilant anniversary.

"Surely," as Mr. Charles Knight remarks, "there was something exquisitely beautiful in the old custom of going forth into the fields before the sun had risen on Easter-day, to see him mounting over the hills with a tremulous motion, as if it were an animate thing bounding in sympathy with the redeemed of mankind. The young poet [Shakespeare] might have joined his simple neighbors on this cheerful morning, and yet have thought with Sir Thomas Browne, 'We shall not, I hope, disparage the Resurrection of our Redeemer if we say that the sun doth not dance on Easter-day.' But one of the most glorious images of one of his early plays [Romeo and Juliet] has given life and movement to the sun:—

Saw he not the sun dance—heard he not the expression of the undoubting belief that the sun danced—as he went forth into Stratford meadows in the early twilight of Easter-day?"

Sir John Suckling, in his Ballad upon a Wedding, alludes prettily to this old superstition in the description of the bride:—

Perhaps Shakespeare had this bit of folk-lore in mind when he wrote these lines in Coriolanus (v. 4. 52):—

Easter was a favorite time for games of ball and many of the athletic sports described in the preceding pages.

THE PERAMBULATION OF THE PARISH.

On the road to Henley-in-Arden, a few hundred yards from John Shakespeare's house in Henley Street, there stood until about fifty years ago an ancient boundary-tree—an elm to which reference is made in records of the 16th century. From that point the boundary of the borough continued to "the two elms in Evesham highway"; and so on, from point to point, round to the tree first mentioned. Once a year, in Rogation Week (six weeks after Easter), the clergy, the magistrates and public officers, and the inhabitants, including the boys of the Grammar School, assembled under this elm for the perambulation of the boundaries. They marched in procession, with waving banners and poles crowned with garlands, over the entire circuit of the parish limits. Under each "gospel-tree," as at the first boundary elm, a passage from Scripture was read, a collect recited, and a psalm sung.

These parochial processions were kept up after the Reformation. In 1575 a form of devotion for the "Rogation Days of Procession" was prescribed, "without addition of any superstitious ceremonies heretofore used"; and it was subsequently ordered that the curate on such occasions "shall admonish the people to give thanks to God in the beholding of God's benefits," and enforce the scriptural denunciations against those who remove their neighbors' landmarks. Izaak Walton tells how the pious Hooker encouraged these annual ceremonies: "He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of love and their parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his perambulation; and most did so: in which perambulation he would usually express more pleasant discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the boys and young people; still inclining them, and all his present parishioners, to meekness and mutual kindnesses and love, because love thinks not evil, but covers a multitude of infirmities."

"And so," remarks Mr. Knight, after quoting this passage, "listening to the gentle words of some venerable Hooker of his time, would the young Shakespeare walk the bounds of his native parish. One day would not suffice to visit its numerous gospel-trees. Hours would be spent in reconciling differences among the cultivators of the common fields; in largesses to the poor; in merry-making at convenient halting-places. A wide parish is this of Stratford, including eleven villages and hamlets. A district of beautiful and varied scenery is this parish—hill and valley, wood and water.... For nearly three miles from Welcombe Greenhill the boundary lies along a wooded ridge, opening prospects of surpassing beauty. There may the distant spires of Coventry be seen peeping above the intermediate hills, and the nearer towers of Warwick lying cradled in their surrounding woods.... At the northern extremity of the high land, which principally belongs to the estate of Clopton, and which was doubtless a park in early times, we have a panoramic view of the valley in which Stratford lies, with its hamlets of Bishopton, Little Wilmecote, Shottery, and Drayton. As the marvellous boy of the Stratford Grammar School then looked upon that plain, how little could he have foreseen the course of his future life! For twenty years of his manhood he was to have no constant dwelling-place in that his native town; but it was to be the home of his affections. He would be gathering fame and opulence in an almost untrodden path, of which his young ambition could shape no definite image; but in the prime of his life he was to bring his wealth to his own Stratford, and become the proprietor and the contented cultivator of the loved fields that he now saw mapped out at his feet. Then, a little while, and an early tomb under that grey tower—a tomb so to be honored in all ages to come

MAY-DAY AND THE MORRIS-DANCE.

The first of May was in the olden time one of the most delightful of holidays; but its harmless sports were an abomination in the eyes of the Puritans. Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses (1583) says: "Against May, every parish, town, and village assemble themselves together, both men, women, and children, old and young, even all indifferently: and either going all together, or dividing themselves into companies, they go, some to the woods and groves, some to the hills and mountains, some to one place, some to another, where they spend all the night in pastimes; and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch boughs and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal.... But their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their May pole, which they bring home with great veneration, as thus:—They have twenty or forty yoke of oxen, every ox having a sweet nosegay of flowers tied on the tip of his horns, and these oxen draw home this May pole, which is covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound round about with strings, from the top to the bottom, and sometime painted with variable colors, with two or three hundred men, women, and children following it, with great devotion. And thus being reared up, with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, they strew the ground about, bind green boughs about it, set up summer halls, bowers, and arbors hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leap and dance about it, as the heathen people did at the dedication of their idols, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or rather the thing itself."

Milton, though a Puritan, writes in a different vein in his Song on May Morning:—

Kings and queens did not disdain to join in these rural sports. Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine enjoyed them; and he, in the early part of his reign, rose on May Day very early and went with his courtiers to the wood to "fetch May," or green boughs. In the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iv. 1.) Theseus, Hippolyta, and their train are in the wood in "the vaward of the day," and find the pairs of lovers sleeping under the influence of Puck's magic; and Theseus says:—

The boys and girls, as the sour Stubbes has told us, were not slack to observe this rite of May. In a manuscript in the British Museum, entitled The State of Eton School, and dated 1560, we read that "on the day of Saint Philip and Saint James [May 1st], if it be fair weather, and the master grants leave, those boys who choose it may rise at four o'clock, to gather May branches, if they can do it without wetting their feet: and that on that day they adorn the windows of the bedchamber with green leaves, and the houses are perfumed with fragrant herbs."

The May-pole was often kept standing from year to year on the village green or in some public place in town or city, and in such cases was usually painted with various colors. One described by Tollet was "painted yellow and black in spiral lines." In the Midsummer-Night's Dream (iii. 2. 296), Hermia sneers at the taller Helena as a "painted May-pole."

In Henry VIII. (v. 4. 15) when the Porter is angry at the crowds that have made their way into the palace yard, and calls for "a dozen crab-tree staves" to drive them out, a man says to him:—

Of course the day was a holiday in the Stratford school, and we may be sure that William made the most of it.

An important feature in the May-day games in Shakespeare's time was the Morris-Dance, in which a group of characters associated with the stories of Robin Hood were the chief actors. These were Robin himself; his faithful companion, Little John; Friar Tuck, to whom Drayton alludes as

Maid Marian, the mistress of Robin; the Fool, who was like the domestic buffoon of the time, with motley dress, the cap and bells, and additional bells tied to his arms and ankles; the Piper, sometimes called Tom Piper, the musician of the troop; and the Hobby-horse, represented by a man equipped with a pasteboard frame forming the head and hinder parts of a horse, with a long mantle or footcloth reaching nearly to the ground, to hide the man's legs; and the Dragon, another pasteboard device, much like the one in the Riding of Saint George described above (page 169). In addition to these characters there were a number of common dancers, in fantastic costume, with bells about their feet.

The forms and number of the characters varied much with time and place. Sometimes only one or two of those just mentioned were introduced in the dance, and sometimes others were added.

During the reign of Elizabeth the Puritans, by their sermons and invectives, did much to interfere with this feature of the May-day games. Friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery, and the Hobby-horse an impious superstition. The opposition to them became so bitter that they were generally omitted from the sport. Allusions to the omission of the Hobby-horse are frequent in the plays of the time; as in Love's Labour's Lost (iii. 1. 30): "The hobby-horse is forgot;" and Hamlet (iii. 2. 142): "or else he shall suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is, 'For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.'" This "epitaph" (which is also referred to in Love's Labour's Lost) appears to be a quotation from some popular song of the time. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Women Pleased (iv. 1.) we find: "Shall the hobby-horse be forgot then?" and in Ben Jonson's Entertainment at Althorp: "But see, the hobby-horse is forgot."

Friar Tuck is alluded to by Shakespeare in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (iv. 1. 36), where one of the Outlaws who have seized Valentine exclaims:—

That he kept his place in the morris-dance in the reign of Elizabeth is evident from Warner's Albion's England, published in 1586: "Tho' Robin Hood, little John, friar Tuck, and Marian deftly play"; but he is not heard of afterwards. In Ben Jonson's Masque of the Gipsies, written about 1620, the Clown notes his absence from the dance: "There is no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them."

Maid Marian also officiated as the Queen or Lady of the May, who had figured in the May-day festivities long before Robin Hood was introduced into them. She was probably at first the representative of the goddess Flora in the ancient Roman festival celebrated at the same season of the year.

Maid Marian was sometimes personated by a young woman, but oftener by a boy or young man in feminine dress. Later, when the morris-dance had degenerated into coarse foolery, the part was taken by a clown. In 1 Henry IV. (iii. 3. 129), Falstaff refers contemptuously to "Maid Marian" as a low character, which she had doubtless become by the time (1596 or 1597) when that play was written.

The connection of the morris-dance with May-day is alluded to in All's Well that Ends Well (ii. 2. 25): "as fit ... as a morris for May-day"; but it came to be a feature of many other holidays and festivals, and was often one of the sports introduced to amuse the crowd at fairs and similar gatherings.

Mr. Knight gives us this fancy picture of the May-day games as they probably were in Shakespeare's boyhood:—

These latter quotations are from William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (book ii. published in 1616), and the poet goes on to tell how the Lady

WHITSUNTIDE.

Whitsuntide, the season of Pentecost, or the week following Whitsunday (the seventh Sunday after Easter), was another period of festivity in old English times.

The morris-dance was commonly one of its features, as of the May-day sports. In Henry V. (ii. 4. 25) the Dauphin alludes to it:—

Another custom connected with the festival was the "Whitsun-ale." Ale was so common a drink in England that it became a part of the name of various festal meetings. A "leet-ale" was a feast at the holding of a court-leet; a "lamb-ale" was a sheep-shearing merry-making; a "bride-ale" was a bridal, as we now call it—always a festive occasion; and a "church-ale" was connected with some ecclesiastical holiday.

John Aubrey, the eminent antiquary, writing in the latter part of the 17th century, says that in his grandfather's days the church-ale at Whitsuntide furnished all the money needed for the relief of the parish poor. He adds: "In every parish is, or was, a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, etc., utensils for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people were there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, without scandal."

The Puritan Stubbes, in the book before quoted (page 176, above), took a different view of these social gatherings. He says: "In certain towns, where drunken Bacchus bears sway, against Christmas and Easter, Whitsuntide, or some other time, the churchwardens of every parish, with the consent of the whole parish, provide half a score or twenty quarters of malt, whereof some they buy of the church stock, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his ability; which malt, being made into very strong ale or beer, is set to sale, either in the church or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then when this is set abroach, well is he that can get the soonest to it, and spend the most at it."

Old parish records show that considerable money was obtained at these festivals, not only by the sale of ale and food, but from the charges made for certain games, among which "riffeling" (raffling) is included. Neighboring parishes often united in these church picnics, as they might be called. Richard Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall (1602), says: "The neighboring parishes at these times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankly spend their money together."

Whitsuntide was also a favorite time for theatrical performances. Long before Shakespeare's day the miracle-plays and moralities had been popular at this season; and these, as we have seen (page 17), were still kept up when he was a boy, together with "pastorals" and other "pageants" such as Perdita alludes to in The Winter's Tale (iv. 4. 134):—

and such as the disguised Julia describes in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (iv. 4. 163):—

This is in one of the earliest of his plays, and may be a reminiscence of some simple attempt at dramatic representation which he had seen at Stratford.

MIDSUMMER EVE.

The Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, or the evening before the day (June 24) dedicated to that Saint, was commonly called Midsummer Eve, and was observed with curious ceremonies in all parts of England. On that evening the people used to go into the woods and break down branches of trees, which they brought home and fixed over their doors with great demonstrations of joy. This was originally done to make good the Scripture prophecy concerning the Baptist, that many should rejoice in his birth.

It was also customary on this occasion for old and young, of both sexes, to make merry about a large bonfire made in the street or some open place. They danced around it, and the young men and boys leaped over it, not to show their agility, but in compliance with an ancient custom. These diversions they kept up till midnight, and sometimes later.

According to some old writers these fires were made because the Saint was said in Holy Writ to be "a shining light." Others, while not denying this, added that the fires served to drive away the dragons and evil spirits hovering in the air; and one asserts that in some countries bones were burnt in this "bone-fire," or bonfire, "for the dragons hated nothing more than the stench of burning bones."

In the Ordinary of the Company of Cooks at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1575, we read among other regulations: "And also that the said Fellowship of Cooks shall yearly of their own cost and charge maintain and keep the bone-fires, according to the ancient custom of the town on the Sand-hill; that is to say, one bone-fire on the Even of the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Even, and the other on the Even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle, if it shall please the mayor and aldermen of the town for the time being to have the same bone-fires."

In a manuscript record of the expenses of the royal household for the first year of the reign of Henry VIII. (1513), under date of July 1st is the entry: "Item, to the pages of the hall, for making of the King's bone-fire upon Midsummer Eve, xs."

There were many popular superstitions connected with Midsummer Eve. It was believed that if any one sat up fasting all night in the church porch, he would see the spirits of those who were to die in the parish during the ensuing twelve months come and knock at the church door, in the order in which they were to die.

It was customary on this evening to gather certain plants which were supposed to have magical properties. Fern-seed, for instance, being on the back of the leaf and in some species hardly discernible, was thought to have the power of rendering the possessor invisible, if it was gathered at this time. In some places it was believed that the seed must be got at midnight by letting it fall into a plate without touching the plant.

We find many allusions to fern-seed in Elizabethan writers. In 1 Henry IV. (ii. 1. 95) Gadshill says: "We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible"; to which the Chamberlain replies: "Nay, by my faith, I think ye are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible." In Ben Jonson's New Inn (i. 1) one of the characters says:—

In Plaine Percevall, a tract of the time of Elizabeth, we read: "I think the mad slave hath tasted on a fern-stalk, that he walks so invisible."

Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), directs us, as protection against witches, to "hang boughs (hallowed on Midsummer Day) at the stall door where the cattle stand."

St. John's wort, vervain, orpine, and rue were among the plants gathered on Midsummer Eve on account of their supernatural virtue. Each was supposed to have its peculiar use in popular magic. Orpine, for instance, was set in clay upon pieces of slate, and called a "Midsummer man." According as the stalk was found next morning to incline to the right or the left, the anxious maiden knew whether her lover would prove true to her or not. Young women also sought at this time for what they called pieces of coal, but in reality hard, black, dead roots, often found under the living mugwort; and these they put under their pillows that they might dream of their lovers. Lupton, in his Notable Things (1586), says: "It is certainly and constantly affirmed that on Midsummer Eve there is found, under the root of mugwort, a coal which saves or keeps them safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, the quartan ague, and from burning, that bear the same about them." He also says it is reported that the same remarkable "coal" is found at the same time of the year under the root of plantain; and he adds that he knows this "to be of truth," for he has found it there himself!

Midsummer Eve was also thought to be a season productive of madness. In Twelfth Night (iii. 4. 61) Olivia says of Malvolio's eccentric behavior, "Why, this is very midsummer madness." Steevens, the Shakespearian critic, believed that the Midsummer-Night's Dream owed its title to this association of mental vagaries with the season. John Heywood, writing in the latter part of the 16th century, alludes to the same belief when he says:—

It is not improbable, however, that the Midsummer-Night's Dream was so called because it was to be first represented at Midsummer, or because it was like the plays commonly performed in connection with the festivities of that season. A drama in which fairies were leading characters was in keeping with the time of year when fairies and spirits were supposed to manifest themselves to mortal vision either in vigils or in dreams.

CHRISTMAS.

Passing by sundry minor festivals of the year, we come to Christmas, which is a day of feasting and merrymaking in England even now, though but a "starveling Christmas" compared with that of the olden time. "Where now," as Mr. Knight asks, "is the real festive exhilaration of Christmas; the meeting of all ranks as children of a common father; the tenant speaking freely in his landlord's hall; the laborers and their families sitting at the same great oak table; the Yule Log brought in with shout and song? 'No night is now with hymn or carol blest.' There are singers of carols even now at a Stratford Christmas. Warwickshire has retained some of its ancient carols. But the singers are wretched chorus-makers, according to the most unmusical style of all the generations from the time of the Commonwealth.... But in an age of music we may believe that one young dweller in Stratford gladly woke out of his innocent sleep, after the evening bells had rung him to rest, when in the stillness of the night the psaltery was gently touched before his father's porch, and he heard, one voice under another, these simple and solemn strains:—

London has perhaps this carol yet, among its halfpenny ballads. A man who had a mind attuned to the love of what was beautiful in the past has preserved it; but it was for another age. It was for the age of William Shakespeare. It was for the age when superstition, as we call it, had its poetical faith....

"Such a night was a preparation for a 'happy Christmas.' The Cross of Stratford was garnished with the holly, the ivy, and the bay. Hospitality was in every house; but the hall of the great landlord of the parish was a scene of rare conviviality. The frost or the snow will not deter the principal tenants and friends from the welcome of Clopton. There is the old house, nestled in the woods, looking down upon the little town. Its chimneys are reeking; there is bustle in the offices; the sound of the trumpeters and the pipers is heard through the open door of the great entrance; the steward marshals the guests; the tables are fast filling. Then advance, courteously, the master and the mistress of the feast. The Boar's head is brought in with due solemnity; the wine-cup goes round; and perhaps the Saxon shout of Waes-hael and Drink-hael may still be shouted. The boy-guest who came with his father, the tenant of Ingon, has slid away from the rout; for the steward, who loves the boy, has a sight to make him merry. The Lord of Misrule and his jovial attendants are rehearsing their speeches; and the mummers from Stratford are at the porch. Very sparing are the cues required for the enactment of this short drama. A speech to the esquire, closed with a merry jest; something about ancestry and good Sir Hugh; the loud laugh; the song and the chorus; and the Lord of Misrule is now master of the feast. The Hall is cleared.... There is dancing till curfew; and then a walk in the moonlight to Stratford, the pale beam shining equally upon the dark resting-place in the lonely aisle of the Clopton who is gone, and upon the festal hall of the Clopton who remains, where some loiterers of the old and young still desire 'to burn this night with torches.'"

This is a fancy picture, but it is in keeping with the life of the time. Whether the boy Shakespeare spent a Christmas in just this manner or not, we may be sure that he enjoyed the merriment of the season to the full.

There are a few allusions to Christmas in the plays, besides the beautiful one in Hamlet already quoted (page 138) in another connection. In Love's Labour's Lost (v. 2. 462) "a Christmas comedy" is alluded to; and in The Taming of the Shrew (ind. 2. 140), when Sly the tinker learns that a comedy is to be played for his entertainment, he asks whether a "comonty" is "like a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick."

SHEEP-SHEARING.

Our English ancestors had other holidays than those associated with the ecclesiastical year, but only one or two of them can be mentioned here.

The time of sheep-shearing was celebrated by a rural feast such as Shakespeare has introduced in The Winter's Tale. The shearing took place in the spring as soon as the weather became warm enough for the sheep to lay aside their winter clothing without danger. John Dyer, in his poem entitled The Fleece (1757), fixes the proper time thus:—

"If verdant elder spreads

Her silver flowers, if humble daisies yield

To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass,

Gay shearing-time approaches."