Suspend for one day your cares and your labours,
And come to this wedding, kind friends and good neighbours.
NOTICE is hereby given that the marriage of ISAAC PEARSON with FRANCES ATKINSON will be solemnized in due form in the parish church of Lamplugh, in Cumberland, on Tuesday next, the 30th of May inst.; immediately after which the bride and bridegroom with their attendants will proceed to Lonefoot, in the said parish, where the nuptials will be celebrated by a variety of rural entertainments.
Then come one and all
At Hymen’s soft call
From Whitehaven, Workington, Harrington, Dean,
Hail, Ponsonby, Blaing and all places between,
From Egremont, Cockermouth, Barton, St Bee’s,}
Cint, Kinnyside, Calder and parts such as these;}
And the country at large may flock in if they please.}
Such sports there will be as have seldom been seen,
Such wrestling, and fencing and dancing between,
And races for prizes, for frolick and fun,}
By horses, and asses, and dogs will be run}
That you’ll all go home happy—as sure as a gun.}
In a word, such a wedding can ne’er fail please;
For the sports of Olympus were trifles to these.
Nota Bene.—You’ll please to observe that the day
Of this grand bridal pomp is the thirtieth of May,
When ’tis hop’d that the sun, to enliven the sight,
Like the flambeau of Hymen, will deign to burn bright.
These invitations were at this period far from rare, and another, calling folk to a similar festival, appeared in the same paper in 1789:—
BRIDEWAIN.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe and taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask and antic pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream,
On summer eves by haunted stream.
GEORGE HAYTON, who married ANNE, the daughter of Joseph and Dinah Colin, of Crosby Mill, purposes having a BRIDEWAIN at his house, at Crosby near Maryport, on Thursday the 7th day of May next, where he will be happy to see his friends and well-wishers, for whose amusement there will be a variety of races, wrestling matches, etc. etc. The prizes will be—a saddle, two bridles, a pair of gands d’amour gloves, which whoever wins is sure to be married within the twelvemonth; a girdle (ceinture de Venus) possessing qualities not to be described; and many other articles, sports and pastimes too numerous to mention, but which can never prove tedious in the exhibition.
From fashion’s laws and customs free,
We follow sweet variety;
By turns we laugh and dance and sing;
Time’s for ever on the wing;
And nymphs and swains of Cumbria’s plain
Present the golden age again.
A similar advertisement appears in the Pacquet in 1803, and contains some verses of a kind superior to that generally met in these appeals. It is called