Old Times in the Colonies. Charles Carleton Coffin
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Roast Heron,
Costards.
Boast Venison.
Barred Capon.
Hot pasty of Venison.
Roast Turkey.
Barred Veal.
Roast Swan.
Hot Chicken-pie.
Cold Rabbits.
Jiggets of boiled Mutton.
Snipe-pie.
Boiled Breast of Veal.
Roast Capon.
Cold Tongue-pie.
Boiled Sprod.
Roast Pig.
Second Course.
Hot Pheasant.
Quails.
Partridges.
Poults.
Roast Pigeon.
A made Dish.
Turkey-pie.
Hogs Cheeks, dried.
Cold Turkey.
Artichoke-pie.
Chicken.
Roast Curlew.
Battered Pease.
Rabbits.
Ducks.
Burred Chicken.
Pea Taits.
Plovers.
Red Deer-pie.
Burred Pig.
Hot Roast Heron.
Roast Lamb.
Gammon of Bacon.
Pullets and Greens.
Dried Tongue.
Pheasant Tarts.
A great deal of meat, and not much besides.
After dinner the servants presented a petition to the king, requesting permission to engage in sports and games on Sunday afternoon. The king gave them liberty to wrestle, run races, play ball, pitch quoits, throw-iron bars; but they were not to set cocks to fighting, or worry bulls with dogs on Sundays. On week-days they might attend cock-fights, or engage in any other brutal sport. He had a cockpit of his own near the palace, and took great delight in seeing the cocks peck one another to pieces.
James took great pleasure in attending the theatres, although many of the plays were very indecent. The theatres were foul places. The king, the ladies and gentlemen of the court, the noblemen, occupied the boxes, but down in the pit there was a dirty crowd, sitting on benches that had no backs. Between the acts they guzzled beer, which was drawn from a barrel in the centre of the pit. The language of the plays was vile, and interlarded with oaths and ribaldry. There were indecent scenes; but the king, queen, lords, and ladies witnessed them without blushing.
Writers record the thoughts of the age in which they live, and the spirit of any period will ever be seen in the literature of the time. Ben Jonson tells us how vile the drama was in the time of James.
“In dramatic or stage poetry,” he says, “nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemies, all license of offence toward God and man is pictured. Nothing but filth of mire is uttered.”
The actors ridiculed the Bible, called Moses a juggler, and maintained that religion was a farce. Many ladies and gentlemen thought it an accomplishment to use profane language; and if a person did not interlard his conversation with oaths, he was set down as being a Puritan, and subjected to all manner of ridicule.
“Every stage and every table,” wrote Lucy Hutchinson, “belched forth profane scoffs upon the Puritans. The drunkards made the songs, and all fiddlers and musicians learned to abuse them.”
Shakespeare never ridiculed the honest convictions of men. He wrote nothing against the Puritans, perhaps because his daughter Judith, as is supposed, was a Puritan; perhaps because he never forgot the Sundays of his boyhood, when he walked beneath the stately trees in the church-yard at Stratford, on the green banks of the Avon, and listened to the sermons preached in the old stone church. Either from the sermons or from the Bible, he obtained such a comprehension of duty, obligation, conscience, and retribution, that when, in after years, he sat down to write, he produced plays which portray vice in its hatefulness and virtue in all its loveliness.
James had married Anne of Denmark, and when her father, the King of Denmark, came to make a visit, Ben Jonson, the poet-laureate, wrote a dramatic poem which represented the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.
James gave a grand entertainment in his palace to all the ladies and gentlemen of the court, some of whom were selected to perform Jonson’s play. Unfortunately, the noble lady who personated the Queen of Sheba had drunk so much wine, that when she kneeled: before the King of Denmark, who personated Solomon, to present a tray containing a goblet of wine, a dish of custard, a pitcher of cream, and a plate of cakes, she lost her balance and spilt them in his lap. The King of Denmark was in a sorry plight, but the servants came with napkins and wiped him off. He attempted to dance, hut was so tipsy that he lost his footing and tumbled upon the floor. Three ladies, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity, had drunk so much wine that they could not speak their parts. Ben Jonson had prepared a part for Victory, but the wine had gone to her head, and she became crazy for the time being, slapped the lords and ladies in the face with her olive-branch of peace, and made so much disturbance that the servants were obliged to put her out of the hall.
The people loved games, and on market-days, in the country towns, there was cock-fighting, worrying of bulls by dogs, and games in which women and girls took part — running for prizes, or seeing which could make the broadest grin or loudest yawn; noblemen, courtiers, and many ministers spent much of their time in gambling with cards and dice in the tobacco-shop, for the people were learning to smoke.
The Puritans believed that life was not a holiday, but that men were in this world for a grand purpose; that they were accountable to God for every act; that it was the duty of everybody to live soberly and righteously. They brought the power of the world to come to bear upon every thought and act. No person had a right to be idle. A frivolous life was a wasted life.
Such ideas were distasteful to the crowd of courtiers, who ridiculed the sober-minded men and women who were ever talking of duty and obligation. Thus it came about that society was divided into two classes: the king, nobility, courtiers, bishops, the ministers who had fat livings and who loved their ease, the rich tradesmen, the play-actors, those who loved sports on Sunday, on one side; on the other were many farmers and peasants, some tradesmen and mechanics, some ministers, not many of the nobility, and very few of the courtiers. Only a small portion of the people were Puritans while James was king, but their numbers increased as the years rolled on; not altogether because people became more religious, but because of the arbitrary acts of James and his son Charles. Political questions made men Puritans.
James wanted more money than Parliament was willing to grant, and obtained it by selling titles. If a man wished to be a viscount, he must pay one hundred thousand dollars; if an earl, one hundred and fifty thousand.
“Why not create a new title and raise more money?” suggested Sir Thomas Shirley. James acted upon the hint, and created the title of baronet, and reaped a harvest of a million dollars.
Parliament had granted the king duties on all goods brought into or sent from England, at a fixed rate; but James discovered a way to put money in his pockets by increasing the rates. Vessels, for instance, which came from Greece brought cargoes of dried currants, which paid two shillings sixpence on every hundred pounds; James raised it to seven shillings sixpence without consulting Parliament; and so with everything else — putting all into his own pocket.
The judges of the Star-chamber and the bishops of the court of High Commission