And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place,
With sun-burnt hands and ale-enliven'd face,
Refills the jug his honour'd host to tend,
To serve at once the master and the friend;
Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale,
His nuts, his conversation, and his ale.
Such were the days,——of days long past I sing."[186:B]
It will be necessary to enter a little more minutely into the rites and ceremonies which accompanied this annual feast in the days of Shakspeare, and fortunately we can appeal to a few curious documents on which dependence can be placed. Hentzner, a learned German who travelled through Germany, England, France, and Italy, towards the close of the sixteenth century, and whose Itinerary, as far as it relates to this country, has been translated by the late Lord Orford, says, "as we were returning to our inn (from Windsor), we happened to meet some country people celebrating their harvest-home; their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which, perhaps, they would signify Ceres; this they keep moving about, while men and women, men and maid servants, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn."[187:A] Dr. Moresin also, another foreigner, who published, in the reign of James I., an elaborate work on the "Origin and Increase of Depravity in Religion," relates that he saw "in England the country people bringing home, in a cart from the harvest field, a figure made of corn, round which men and women were promiscuously singing, preceded by a piper and a drum."[187:B]
To this custom of accompanying home the last waggon-load of corn, at the close of harvest, with music, Shakspeare is supposed to allude in the Merchant of Venice, where Lorenzo tells the musicians to pierce his mistress' ear with sweetest touches,
"And draw her home with musick."[187:C]