The figure of the founder occupies a prominent place in the foreground. He used to appear in clothes that had belonged to King James, and it is said wore them with much greater dignity than did the King. Dover seems to have been a remarkable person in more ways than one, as may be gathered from the following quaint note, to be found in one of the editions of the _Annalia_:—“He was bred an Attorney, who never try’d but two causes, _always made up the Difference_.”
The next in order of the country celebrations in which ale formed the principal drink, were the sheep-shearing feasts, formerly so common, but now in most places things of the past. Many songs have been preserved which record these old merry-makings when the day’s work was done, and the farm labourers were gathered round their master’s hospitable board. One of these, taken from the Sussex Archæological Collections, is given below. It is a sample of many.
Come all my jolly boys, and we’ll together go Abroad with our masters, to shear the lamb and ewe.
And there we must work hard, boys, until our backs do ache, And our master he will bring us beer whenever we do lack.
And then our noble captain doth unto our master say, “Come, let us have one bucket of your good Ale, I pray” He turns unto our captain, and makes him this reply { 252}
“You shall have the best of beer, I promise, presently,” Then out with the bucket pretty Bess she doth come, And master says “Mind, mind and see that every man has some.”
This is some of our pastime while the sheep we do shear, And though we are such merry boys, we work hard, I declare; And when ’tis night, and we have done, our master is more free, And stores us well with good strong beer, and pipes and tobaccee So we do sit and drink, we smoke, and sing and roar, Till we become more merry far than e’er we were before, When all our work is done, and all our sheep are shorn, Then home to our Captain, to drink the Ale that’s strong. ’Tis a barrel, then, of _hum cup_, which we call the _black ram_, And we do sit and swagger, and swear that we are men; But yet before ’tis night, I’ll stand you half a crown, That if you ha’nt a special care, the _ram_ will knock you down.
The Pleaſant Paſtime betwixt a Jolly Shepherd and a Country Damſel on a Midſummer-Day in the Morning.