Sabrina's early haunt."[185:B]
That one of the principal seasons of rejoicing should take place on securely collecting the fruits of the field, it is natural to expect; and accordingly, in almost every country, a Harvest-Home, or Feast, has been observed on this occasion.
Much of the festivity and jocular freedom however, which subsisted formerly at this period, has been worn away by the increasing refinements and distinctions of society. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and, indeed, during a part of the eighteenth, the Harvest, or Mell, Supper, as it was sometimes called, from the French word Mesler, to mingle or mix together, was a scene not only remarkable for merriment and hospitality, but for a temporary suspension of all inequality between master and man. The whole family sate down at the same table, and conversed, danced, and sang
together during the entire night without difference or distinction of any kind; and, in many places indeed, this freedom of manner subsisted during the whole period of getting in the Harvest. Thus Tusser, recommending the social equality of the Harvest-tide, exclaims,
"In harvest time, harvest folke, servants and al,
should make altogither, good cheere in the hal:
And fil out the blacke bol, of bleith to their song,
and let them be merrie, al harvest time long."[186:A]
Of this ancient convivial licence, a modern rural poet has drawn a most pleasing picture, lamenting, at the same time, that the Harvest-Feast of the present day is but the phantom of what it was:—
"The aspect only with the substance gone.