Nicholas’s clerks was, and still is, a cant term for highwaymen and robbers; but though the expression is very common, its origin is a matter of uncertainty. In “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 1) it is thus alluded to:
“Gadshill. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
Chamberlain. No. I’ll none of it: I pr’thee, keep that for the hangman: for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.”
Christmas. Among the observances associated with this season, to which Shakespeare alludes, we may mention the Christmas Carol, a reference to which is probably made in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), by Titania:
“No night is now with hymn or carol blest.”
Hamlet (ii. 2) quotes two lines from a popular ballad, entitled the “Song of Jephthah’s Daughter,” and adds: “The first row of the pious chanson will show you more.”[694]
In days gone by, the custom of carol-singing was most popular, and Warton, in his “History of English Poetry,” notices a license granted in 1562 to John Tysdale for printing “Certayne goodly carowles to be songe to the glory of God;” and again “Crestenmas Carowles auctorisshed by my lord of London.”[695]
In the “Taming of the Shrew” (Ind., sc. 2) Sly asks whether “a comonty[696] is not a Christmas gambold.” Formerly the sports and merry-makings at this season were on a most extensive scale, being presided over by the Lord of Misrule.[697] Again, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), Biron speaks of “a Christmas comedy.”
As we have noticed, too, in our chapter on Plants, a gilt nutmeg was formerly a common gift at Christmas, and on other festive occasions, to which an allusion is probably made in the same scene. Formerly, at this season, the head of the house assembled his family around a bowl of spiced ale, from which he drank their healths, then passed it to the rest, that they might drink too. The word that passed among them was the ancient Saxon phrase wass hael[698], i. e., to your health. Hence this came to be recognized as the wassail or wassel bowl; and was the accompaniment to festivity of every kind throughout the year. Thus Hamlet (i. 4) says:
“The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail.”