Servant Man.
Some servant men doth eat
The very best of meat,
A cock, goose, capon, and swan;
After lords and ladies dine,
We'll drink strong beer, ale, and wine;
That's a diet for some servant man.
Old Father Christmas.
Don't tell I of the cock, goose, or capon, nor swan; let I have a good rusty piece of bacon, pickled pork, in the house, and a hard crust of bread and cheese once now and then; that's a diet for a good old honest husband man.
So we needs must confess
That your calling is the best,
And we will give you the uppermost hand;
So no more we won't delay,
But we will pray both night and day,
God bless the honest husband man. Amen.
[Exeunt Omnes.]
| CHAPTER XVIII A Christmas jest—Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas—Milton's Masque of Comus—Queen Elizabeth and the Masters of Defence. |
This is rather sorry stuff; but then in purely rural places, untouched by that great civiliser, the railroad, a little wit goes a great way, as we may see by the following story told in Pasquil's "Jests," 1604. "There was some time an old knight, who, being disposed to make himself merry on a Christmas time, sent for many of his tenants and poore neighbours, with their wives to dinner; when, having made meat to be set on the table, he would suffer no man to drinke till he that was master over his wife should sing a carrol; great niceness there was who should be the musician. Yet with much adoe, looking one upon another, after a dry hemme or two, a dreaming companion drew out as much as he durst towards an ill-fashioned ditty. When, having made an end, to the great comfort of the beholders, at last it came to the women's table, when, likewise, commandment was given that there should no drinkes be touched till she that was master over her husband had sung a Christmas carroll, whereupon they fell all to such a singing that there never was heard such a catterwauling piece of musicke. Whereat the knight laughed so heartily that it did him halfe as much good as a corner of his Christmas pie."
Of Masques I have already written, in describing Royal Christ-tides, but there is one, a notice of which must not be omitted, Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, as it was presented at Court 1616. The dramatis personæ are:—