It was the custom in the houses of the country-gentlemen to retire after dinner, which generally took place about eleven in the morning, to the garden-bower, or an arbour in the orchard, in order to partake of the banquet or dessert; thus Shallow, addressing Falstaffe after dinner, exclaims, “Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways, and so forth.” From the banquet it was usual to retire to evening prayer, and thence to supper, between five and six o’clock; for, in Shakspeare’s time, there were seldom more than two meals—dinner and supper; “heretofore,” remarked Harrison, “there hath beene much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonlie is in these daies; for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoone, beverages or nuntions after dinner, and thereto reare suppers generallie when it was time to go to rest. Now these od repasts, thanked be God, are verie well left, and ech one in manner (except here and there some yoonge hungrie stomach that cannot fast till dinner time) contenteth himselfe with dinner and supper onelie. The nobilitie, gentlemen, and merchantmen, especiallie at great meetings, doo sit commonlie till two or three of the clocke at afternoone, so that with manie it is an hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening praier, and returne from thence to come time enough to supper.”
The supper, which, on days of festivity, was often protracted to a late hour, and often, too, as substantial as the dinner, was succeeded, especially at Christmas, by gambols of various sorts; and sometimes the squire and his family would mingle in the amusements, or, retiring to the tapestried parlour, would leave the hall to the more boisterous mirth of their household; then would the blind harper, who sold his fit of mirth for a groat, be introduced, either to provoke the dance, or to rouse their wonder by his minstrelsy; his “matter being, for the most part, stories of old time,—as the tale of sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rimes, made purposely for recreation of the common people, at Christmas dinners and brideales.”
The posset, at bed-time, closed the joyous day—a custom to which Shakspeare has occasionally alluded: thus Lady Macbeth says of the “surfeited grooms,” “I have drugg’d their possets;” Mr. Quickly tells Rugby, “Go; and we’ll have a posset for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire;” and Page, cheering Falstaffe, exclaims, “Thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house.” Thomas Heywood, a contemporary of Shakspeare, has particularly noticed this refection as occurring just before bed-time: “Thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding; and my daughter Nell shall pop a posset upon thee when thou goest to bed.”[537]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 39·35.
[537] Dr. Drake.