The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 2 (of 3) / or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

December 10.

A Welsh Baptism.

For the Every-Day Book.

On the 10th of December, 1813, in passing through the small village of Llangemuch, in Carmarthenshire, I observed several of the villagers assembled round the door and windows of one of the cottages, and heard within the loud tones of what proved to be one of their preachers. I entered, and found them employed in the baptism of a child. The font was a pint basin, placed on a small plate; the humble table was covered with a clean napkin. The minister, a brawny, round-shouldered young man, with deep-cut features and overhanging brows, his eyes closed, and his body moving in every direction, roared out in the most discordant and deafening din; his voice then suddenly fell—then rose, and fell again, with most surprising, but most inharmonious modulation. The child he then proceeded to cross, “in the name, &c.,” the whole being in the Welsh language: the name of the child (Henry) was the only English sound which caught my ear. Next followed, what appeared to me, an address to the parents. The scene was picturesque. The cottage rude, and but half illumined by the dim light—the vehement contortions of the preacher—the mother and the child, with several young women, whose cheeks were as ruddy as the Welsh cloaks with which they were adorned, sitting beside the fire—the father, in his countenance a mixture of rudeness and of puritanism, leaning against the wall in an attitude of the profoundest attention—two or three old women coughing and groaning around the preacher—some labourers standing in a group, in a dark corner, scarcely discernible—and the chubby children, half wishing, but not daring, to continue their sports: these, and the other features of this unstudied scene, would have formed an admirable subject for the pencil of a Wilkie. At length the preacher approached to a conclusion, and wound up his address in a peroration, distinguished by increased energy of manner, by more hideous faces, by accelerated motions of his limbs, and by louder vociferation. He suddenly sat down: the religious part of the ceremony was over, and I was invited to partake of the rustic fare which had been provided for the occasion. J. D.

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