Of the ceremonies attendant on Christenings, it will be necessary to mention two that prevailed at this period, and which have since fallen into disuse. Shakspeare, who generally transfers the customs of his own times to those periods of which he is treating, represents Henry VIII. saying to Cranmer, whom he had appointed Godfather to Elizabeth,

and again in the dialogue between the porter and his man:

In the days of Elizabeth and her predecessor, Mary, it was usual for the sponsors at christenings to present the child with silver spoons gilt, on the handles of which were engraved the figures of the apostles, whence they were commonly called apostle-spoons: thus Ben Jonson in Bartholomew Fair; "and all this for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to suffer."[230:C] The opulent frequently gave a complete set of spoons, namely, the twelve apostles; those less rich, selected the four evangelists, and the poorer class were content to offer a single spoon, or, at most, two, on which were carved their favourite saint or saints.

Among the higher ranks, in the reign of Henry VIII. the practice at christenings was to give cups or bowls of gold or silver. Accordingly Holinshed, describing the christening of Elizabeth, relates that "the archbishop of Canturburie gave to the princesse a standing cup of gold: the dutches of Norfolke gave to her a standing cup of gold, fretted with pearle: the marchionesse of Dorset gave three gilt bolles, pounced with a cover: and the marchionesse of Excester gave three standing bolles graven, all gilt with a cover."[230:D]

In the Harleian MS. Vol. 6395, occurs a scarce pamphlet, entitled Merry Passages and Jeasts, from which Dr. Birch transcribed the following curious anecdote, as illustrative both of the custom of offering spoons, and of the intimacy which subsisted between Shakspeare and Jonson. "Shakspeare," says the author of this collection, who names Donne as his authority for the story, "was godfather to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in deepe study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and ask'd him why he was so melancholy: No 'faith Ben, says he, not I; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved at last. I pr'ythee what? says he.—I'faith, Ben, I'll give him a douzen good latten (Latin) spoons, and thou shalt translate them."[231:A] It was not until the close of the seventeenth century, that this practice of spoon-giving at christenings ceased as a general custom.

Another baptismal ceremony, now laid aside, was the use of the chrisome, or white cloth, which was put on the child after the performance of the sacred rite. To this usage Dame Quickly alludes in describing the death of Falstaff, though, in accordance with her character, she corrupts the term: "'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child."[231:B]

Previous to the Reformation, oil was used, as well as water, in baptism, or rather a kind of mixture of oil and balsam, which in the Greek was called Χρισμα; hence the white cloth worn on this occasion, as an emblem of purity, was denominated the chrismale or chrism-cloth. During the era of using this holy unction, with which the priest made the sign of the cross, on the breast, shoulders, and head of the child, the chrismale was worn only for seven days, as symbolical, it is said, of the seven ages of life; but after the Reformation, the oil being omitted, it was kept on the child until the purification of the mother, when, after the ceremony of churching, it was returned to the minister, by whom it had been originally supplied. If the child died during the month of wearing the chrisome-cloth, it was buried in it, and children thus situated were called in the bills of mortality chrisoms. This practice, which was common in the days of Shakspeare, continued in use for nearly a century afterwards; for Blount in his Glossography, 1678, explains the word chrisoms as meaning such children as die within the month of birth, because during that time they use to wear the chrisom-cloth.[232:A]

We shall now proceed to consider some of the peculiarities accompanying the Funeral Rites of this period; and, in the first place, we shall notice the passing-bell. This was rung at an early era of the church, to solicit the prayers of all good christians for the welfare of the soul passing into another world: thus Durandus, who wrote towards the close of the twelfth century, says: "Verum aliquo moriente, campanæ debent pulsari, ut populus hoc audiens, oret pro illo:" "when any one is dying, the bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers for him."[232:B] This custom of ringing a bell for a soul just departing, which is now relinquished, the bell only tolling after death, we have reason to believe was still observed in Shakspeare's time; for he makes Northumberland in King Henry IV. remark on the "bringer of unwelcome news," that

Another benefit formerly supposed to be derived from the sounding of the passing-bell, and which, from the scene of Cardinal Beaufort's death, was probably a part of Shakspeare's creed, consisted in the discomfiture of the evil spirits, who were supposed to surround the bed of the dying person; and who, terrified by the tolling of the holy bell, were compelled to keep aloof; accordingly Durandus mentions it as one of the effects of bell-ringing, ut dæmones timentes[233:A] fugiant; and in the Golden Legende, printed by Wynkyn de Worde 1498, it is observed that "the evill spirytes that ben in the regyon of the ayre, doubte moche when they here the bells rongen: and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen—to the ende that the feindes and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee."[233:B]

That these opinions, indeed, relative to the passing-bell, continued to prevail, as things of general belief, during the greater part of the seventeenth century, is evident from the works of the pious Bishop Taylor, in which are to be found several forms of prayer for the souls of the departing, to be offered up during the tolling of the passing-bell. In these the violence of Hell is deprecated, and it is petitioned, that the spirits of darkness may be driven far from the couch of the dying sinner.[233:C]

So common, indeed, was this practice, that almost every individual had an exclamation or form of prayer ready to be recited on hearing the passing-bell, whence the following proverbial rhyme:

In the Vittoria Corombona of Webster, this custom is alluded to in a manner singularly wild and striking. Cornelia says:

Ancient British Drama, vol. iii. p. 41.

Even so late as the commencement of the eighteenth century, it appears that this custom of praying during the passing-bell still lingered in some parts of the country; for Mr. Bourne, the first edition of whose book was published in 1725, after vindicating the practice, adds,—"I know several religious families in this place (Newcastle), and I hope it is so in other places too, who always observe it, whenever the melancholy season offers; and therefore it will at least sometimes happen, when we put up our prayers constantly at the tolling of the bell, that we shall pray for a soul departing. And though it be granted, that it will oftener happen otherwise, as the regular custom is so little followed; yet that can be no harmful praying for the dead."[234:A]

Immediately after death a ceremony commenced, the most offensive part of which has not been laid aside for more than half a century. This was called the Licke or Lake-wake, a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon Lic a corpse, and Wæcce a wake or watching. It originally consisted of a meeting of the friends and relations of the deceased, for the purpose of watching by the body from the moment it ceased to breathe, to its exportation to the grave; a duty which was at first performed with solemnity and piety, accompanied by the singing of psalms and the recitation of the virtues of the dead. It speedily, however, degenerated into a scene of levity, of feasting, and intoxication; to such a degree, indeed, that it was thought necessary at a provincial synod held in London during the reign of Edward III. to issue a canon for the restriction of the watchers to the near relations and most intimate friends of the deceased, and only to such of these as offered to repeat a fixed number of psalms for the benefit of his soul.[235:A] To this regulation little attention, we apprehend, was paid; for the Lake-wake appears to have been observed as a meeting of revelry during the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and Mr. Bourne, so late as the year 1725, declares, that it was then "a scene of sport and drinking and lewdness."[235:B]

In Scotland during the period of which we are treating, and even down to the rebellion of 1745, the Lake-wake was observed with still greater form and effect than in England, though not often with a better moral result. Mr. Pennant describing it, when speaking of the Highland customs, under the mistaken etymology of Late-wake, says, that the evening after the death of any person, the relations or friends of the deceased met at the house, attended by a bag-pipe or fiddle; the nearest of kin, be it wife, son, or daughter, opened a melancholy ball, dancing and greeting, i. e. crying violently at the same time; and this continued till day-light, but with such gambols and frolics among the younger part of the company, that the loss which occasioned them was often more than supplied by the consequences of that night.[235:C] Mrs. Grant, however, in her lately published work on the Superstitions of the Highlanders, has given us a more favourable account of this ancient custom, which she has connected with a wild traditionary tale of much moral interest.

A peasant of Glen Banchar, a dreary and secluded recess in the central Highlands, "was fortunate in all respects but one. He had three very fine children, who all, in succession, died after having been weaned, though, before, they gave every promise of health and firmness. Both parents were much afflicted; but the father's grief was clamorous and unmanly. They resolved that the next should be suckled for two years, hoping, by this, to avoid the repetition of such a misfortune. They did so; and the child, by living longer, only took a firmer hold of their affections, and furnished more materials for sorrowful recollection. At the close of the second year, he followed his brothers; and there were no bounds to the affliction of the parents.

"There are, however, in the economy of Highland life, certain duties and courtesies which are indispensable; and for the omission of which nothing can apologise. One of those is, to call in all their friends, and feast them at the time of the greatest family distress. The death of the child happened late in spring, when sheep were abroad in the more inhabited straths; but, from the blasts in that high and stormy region, were still confined to the cot. In a dismal snowy evening, the man, unable to stifle his anguish, went out, lamenting aloud, for a lamb to treat his friends with at the Late-wake. At the door of the cot, however, he found a stranger standing before the entrance. He was astonished, in such a night, to meet a person so far from any frequented place. The stranger was plainly attired; but had a countenance expressive of singular mildness and benevolence, and, addressing him in a sweet, impressive voice, asked him what he did there amidst the tempest. He was filled with awe, which he could not account for, and said, that he came for a lamb. 'What kind of lamb do you mean to take?' said the stranger. 'The very best I can find,' he replied, 'as it is to entertain my friends; and I hope you will share of it.'—'Do your sheep make any resistance when you take away the lamb, or any disturbance afterwards?'—'Never,' was the answer. 'How differently am I treated!' said the traveller. 'When I come to visit my sheepfold, I take, as I am well entitled to do, the best lamb to myself; and my ears are filled with the clamour of discontent by these ungrateful sheep, whom I have fed, watched, and protected.'

"He looked up in amaze; but the vision was fled. He went however for the lamb, and brought it home with alacrity. He did more: It was the custom of these times—a custom, indeed, which was not extinct till after 1745—for people to dance at Late-wakes. It was a mournful kind of movement, but still it was dancing. The nearest relation of the deceased often began the ceremony weeping; but did, however, begin it, to give the example of fortitude and resignation. This man, on other occasions, had been quite unequal to the performance of this duty; but at this time he, immediately on coming in, ordered music to begin, and danced the solitary measure appropriate to such occasions. The reader must have very little sagacity or knowledge of the purport and consequences of visions, who requires to be told, that many sons were born, lived, and prospered afterwards in this reformed family."[237:A]

Some vestiges of the Lake-wake still remain at this day in remote parts of the north of England, especially at the period of laying out, or streeking the corpse, as it is termed; and here it may be remarked, that in the time of Shakspeare, the practice of winding the corse, or putting on the winding-sheet, was a ceremony of a very impressive kind, and accompanied by the solemn melody of dirges. Some lines strikingly illustrative of this pious duty, are to be found in the White Devil; or Vittoria Corombona of Webster, published in 1612. Francisco, Duke of Florence, tells Flaminio,

Cornelia, the Moor, and three other ladies, discovered WINDING Marcello's corse. A Song.

Another exquisite passage of this fine old poet alludes to the same practice—a villain of ducal rank, expiring from the effect of poison, exclaims,

After the funeral was over, it was customary, among all ranks, to give a cold, and sometimes a very ostentatious, entertainment to the mourners. To this usage Shakspeare refers, in the character of Hamlet:

a passage which Mr. Collins has illustrated by the following quotation from a contemporary writer: "His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church, and there sollemnly enterred, nothing omitted which necessitie or custom could claime; a sermon, a banquet, and like observations."[238:B]

The funeral feast is not yet extinct; it may occasionally be met with in places remote from the metropolis, and more particularly in the northern counties among some of the wealthy yeomanry. Mr. Douce considers the practice as "certainly borrowed from the cœna feralis of the Romans," and adds, "in the North this feast is called an arval or arvil supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor, arval-bread. Not many years since one of these arvals was celebrated in a village in Yorkshire at a public-house, the sign of which was the family arms of a nobleman whose motto is Virtus post funera vivit. The undertaker, who, though a clerk, was no scholar, requested a gentleman present to explain to him the meaning of these Latin words, which he readily and facetiously did in the following manner; Virtus, a parish clerk, vivit, lives well, post funera, at an arval. The latter word is apparently derived from some lost Teutonic term that indicated a funeral pile on which the body was burned in times of Paganism."[239:A]

A few observations must still be added on the pleasing, though now nearly obsolete, practice of carrying ever-greens and garlands at funerals, and of decorating the grave with flowers. There is something so strikingly emblematic, so delightfully soothing in these old rites, that though the prototype be probably heathen, their disuse is to be regretted. "The carrying of ivy, or laurel, or rosemary, or some of those ever-greens," says Bourne, "is an emblem of the soul's immortality. It is as much as to say, that though the body be dead, yet the soul is ever-green and always in life: it is not like the body, and those other greens which die and revive again at their proper seasons, no autumn nor winter can make a change in it, but it is unalterably the same, perpetually in life, and never dying.

"The Romans, and other heathens upon this occasion, made use of cypress, which being once cut, will never flourish nor grow any more, as an emblem of their dying for ever, and being no more in life. But instead of that, the antient Christians used the things before mentioned; they laid them under the corps in the grave, to signify, that they who die in Christ, do not cease to live. For though, as to the body they die to the world, yet as to their souls, they live to God.

"And as the carrying of these ever-greens is an emblem of the soul's immortality, so it is also of the resurrection of the body: for as these herbs are not entirely plucked up, but only cut down, and will, at the returning season, revive and spring up again; so the body, like them, is but cut down for a while, and will rise and shoot up again at the resurrection."[239:B]

The bay and rosemary were the plants usually chosen, the former as being said to revive from the root, when apparently dead, and the latter from its supposed virtue in strengthening the memory:

Shakspeare has frequently noticed these ever-greens, garlands, and flowers, as forming a part of the tributary rites of the departed, as elegant memorials of the dead: at the funeral of Juliet he adopts the rosemary:—

Garlands of flowers were formerly either hung up in country-churches, as a mark of honour and esteem, over the seats of those who had died virgins, or were remarkable for chastity and fidelity, or were placed in the form of crowns on the coffins of the deceased, and buried with them, for the same purpose. Of these crowns and garlands, which were in frequent use until the commencement of the last century, a very curious account has been given by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine.

"In this nation (as well as others)," he observes, "by the abundant zeal of our ancestors, virginity was held in great estimation; insomuch that those which died in that state were rewarded, at their deaths, with a garland or crown on their heads, denoting their triumphant victory over the lusts of the flesh. Nay, this honour was extended even to a widow that had enjoyed but one husband (saith Weever in his Fun. Mon. p. 12.) And, in the year 1733, the present clerk of the parish church of Bromley in Kent, by his digging a grave in that church-yard, close to the east end of the chancel wall, dug up one of these crowns, or garlands, which is most artificially wrought in fillagree work with gold and silver wire, in resemblance of myrtle (with which plant the funebrial garlands of the ancients were composed) whose leaves are fastened to hoops of large wire of iron, now something corroded with rust, but both the gold and silver remains to this time very little different from its original splendor. It was also lined with cloth of silver, a piece of which, together with part of this curious garland, I keep as a choice relic of antiquity.

"Besides these crowns, the ancients had also their depository garlands, the use of which were continued even till of late years, (and perhaps are still retained in many parts of this nation, for my own knowledge of these matters extends not above twenty or thirty miles round London,) which garlands at the funerals of the deceased, were carried solemnly before the corpse by two maids, and afterward hung up in some conspicuous place within the church, in memorial of the departed person, and were (at least all that I have seen) made after the following manner, viz. the lower rim or circlet, was a broad hoop of wood, whereunto was fixed, at the sides thereof, part of two other hoops crossing each other at the top, at right angles, which formed the upper part, being about one third longer than the width; these hoops were wholly covered with artificial flowers of paper, dyed horn, or silk, and more or less beauteous, according to the skill and ingenuity of the performer. In the vacancy of the inside, from the top, hung white paper, cut in form of gloves, whereon was wrote the deceased's name, age, &c. together with long slips of various coloured paper, or ribbons. These were many times intermixed with gilded or painted empty shells of blown eggs, as farther ornaments; or, it may be, as emblems of the bubbles or bitterness of this life; whilst other garlands had only a solitary hour-glass hanging therein, as a more significant symbol of mortality.

"About forty years ago, these garlands grew much out of repute, and were thought, by many, as very unbecoming decorations for so sacred a place as the church; and at the reparation, or new beautifying several churches, where I have been concerned, I was obliged, by order of the minister and churchwardens, to take the garlands down, and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden to hang up any more for the future. Yet, notwithstanding, several people, unwilling to forsake their ancient and delightful custom, continued still the making of them, and they were carried at the funerals, as before, to the grave, and put therein, upon the coffin, over the face of the dead; this I have seen done in many places." Bromley in Kent. Gentleman's Magazine for June 1747.

Shakspeare has alluded to these maiden rites in Hamlet, where the priest, at the interment of Ophelia, says,

The term crants, observes Johnson, on the authority of a correspondent, is the German word for garlands, and was probably retained by us from the Saxons.[242:B]

The strewments mentioned in this passage refer to a pleasing custom, which is still, we believe, preserved in Wales, of scattering flowers over the graves of the deceased.[242:C] It is manifestly copied from the funeral rites of the Greeks and Romans, and was early introduced into the Christian church; for St. Jerom, in an epistle to his friend Pammachius on the death of his wife, remarks, "whilst other husbands strawed violets and roses, and lilies, and purple flowers, upon the graves of their wives, and comforted themselves with such like offices, Pammachius bedewed her ashes and venerable bones with the balsam of alms[242:D];" and Mr. Strutt, in his Manners and Customs of England, tells us, "that of old it was usual to adorn the graves of the deceased with roses and other flowers (but more especially those of lovers, round whose tombs they have often planted rose trees): Some traces," he observes, "of this ancient custom are yet remaining in the church-yard of Oakley, in Surry, which is full of rose trees planted round the graves."[243:A]

Many of the dramas of our immortal bard bear testimony to his partiality for this elegantly affectionate tribute; a practice which there is reason to suppose was in the country at least not uncommon in his days: thus Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, observes,

and the Queen in Hamlet is represented as performing the ceremony at the grave of Ophelia:

It was considered, likewise, as a duty incumbent on the survivors, annually to plant shrubs and flowers upon, and to tend and keep neat, the turf which covered the remains of their beloved friends; in accordance with this usage, Mariana is drawn in Pericles decorating the tomb of her nurse:

and Arviragus, in Cymbeline, pathetically exclaims,

The only relic which yet exists in this country of a custom so interesting, is to be found in the practice of protecting the hallowed mound by twigs of osier, an attention to the mansions of the dead, which is still observable in most of the country-church-yards in the south of England.

We have thus advanced in pursuit of our object, namely, A Survey of Country Life during the Age of Shakspeare, as far as a sketch of its manners and customs, resulting from a brief description of rural characters, holidays, and festivals, wakes, fairs, weddings, and burials, will carry us; and we shall now proceed with the picture, by adding some account of those diversions of our ancestors which could not with propriety find a place under any of the topics that have been hitherto noticed; endeavouring in our progress to render the great dramatic bard the chief illustrator of his own times.

---

FOOTNOTES: