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SOME ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CANADIAN AND ENGLISH MAPLE. 



[1855. 



on its silver rim is the date 1493, and this appropriate verse 

 from the CXLIV. Psalm, according to the Vulgate : " OccuU 

 omnium in te sperant Doniine, et tu das escam illorwn in iein- 

 jwre oppoHimo." 



A few of the notices of the mazer by our earlier poets will 

 suffice to illustrate the familiar use of the maple-bowl in ancient 

 times. The earliest mention of it which has come under my 

 notice occurs in an English metrical version of " Wace's Brut d' 

 Ano-leterre," executed by Robert Maunying, or Robert de 

 Brunne, in the reign of Edward III. Maister Wace's De 

 Brut," which he finished in the year 1155, is a French metrical 

 version of G-eoffrey of Monmouth's History of Britain, from 

 the time of the imaginary Brutus to the reign of Cadwalladcr, 

 A.D. 689. As a historic document it is, of course, valueless; 

 but, like most of the old romances, it furnishes valuable illus- 

 trations of the manners and customs of the age in which it was 

 written. The passage referred to occurs in the account of 

 King Arthur's coronation. The ceremony, with all its feastings 

 and jousts, being over, the King dismisses his guests with 

 suitable gifts. To Knights and Nobles he gives burghs and 

 cities; to Abbots and Bishops, rents and tithes; and to those — 



"That of other landes were, 



That for love came there, 



He gave steeds and cups of gold, 



None richer aboun mould ; 



Some gave he hauberks, some greyhounds, 



Some rich robes worth many pounds, 



Some mantels with veir and gris, 



And some Mazers of rich price." 



In Chaucer's "Rime of Sire Thopas," in the Canterbury 

 Tales, when the Knight is preparing for the combat with Sire 

 Oliphant, the giant with three heads, his merry men are com- 

 manded to make him both game and glee, to rouse him for the 

 fio-ht ; and along with other cheering restoratives : — 



" They fetch him first the sweet wine, 

 And mede eke in a mazelin, 

 And real spicery." 



Spenser furnishes a beautiful description of a highly-wrought 

 emblematical mazer cup, in his Shepherd's Callenckr, evidently 

 suo'o-ested by the bowl for which the shepherds contend in 

 Virgil's Third Pastoral : — 



"Lo Perigot the pledge which I plight, 



A mazer ywrought of the maple ware, 

 Whereon is enchased many a fayre sight, 



Of bears and tigers that maken fiers war ; 

 And over them spread a goodly wild vine, 



Entrailed with a wanton ivy twine. 



"Thereby is a lamb in the wolf's jaws ; 



But see how fast runneth the shepherd swain 

 To save the innocent from the beaste's paws, 



And here with his sheep hook hath him slain. 

 Tell me, such a cup hast thou ever seen ? 



Well might it become any harvest Queen." 



Dryden, in rendering the corresponding passage from Virgil, 

 adheres to the Classic designation of a beechen bowl, though 

 he refers to it elsewhere as a mazer. Nor were the virtues of 

 the maple, the "acerque coloribus impar" of Ovid, unappreci- 

 ated by the ancients. Virgil constructs his throne for the 

 cood Evander, of maple inlaid with ivory. Pliny enlarges on 

 its virtues, and frequent notices occur of its use by the Romans 

 in the construction and enlarging of their costliest furniture. 

 Its ancient British repute partakes more of the social character 

 of the Anglo-Saxon. The favourite wassail drink of our ances- 

 tors, made of roasted apples, sugar, and ale, appears to have 



been specially associated with the maple bowl. The old Eng- 

 lish wassail quatrain indeed runs thus : — 



"Wassail ! wassail ! all over the town, 

 Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown ; 

 Our bowl it is made of a maplin tree, 

 We be good fellows all ; I drink to thee." 



One of the quaint entries in Pepys's Gossiping Diary is : "On 

 the 4th January, 1667, Mrs. Pepys had company to dinner, 

 and at night to sup, and then to cards, and last of all to have 

 a flagon of ale and apples, drunk out of a wood cup, as a 

 Christmas draught, which made all merry." The Christmas 

 mirth of the old diarist, while it recalls, may serve to illustrate 

 the practical jests of "That shrewd and knavish sprite called 

 Robin Good-fellow," as narrated by himself in the "Midsummer 

 Night's Dream :"— 



"And sometimes lurk I in a gossips bowl. 

 In very likeness of a roasted crab ; 

 And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, 

 And on her withered dew-lap pour the ale." 



The mazer is more distinctly referred to by Shakspeare's co- 

 temporaries, Beaumont and Fletcher, in the beautiful song of 

 Maximus, introduced in the last scene of " Valentinian:" — 



" Good Lyreus ever young. 

 Ever honored ever sung ; 

 Stained with blood of lusty grapes, 

 In a thousand lusty shapes, 

 Dance upon the Mazer's brim, 

 In the crimson liquor swim ; 

 From thy jjlenteous hand divine 

 Let a river run with wine." 



Such illustrations from the poets, as well as the notices n 

 ancient inventories and deeds, might readily be extended, with 

 a little research, but I shall only quote one other metrical 

 reference to the Mazer, which occui's in the old Scottish Bal- 

 lad of Gill Morice. Lord Bernard, roused to wrath by the 

 message brought by Gill Morice's page to his lady, is thus 

 described in the homely but graphic language of the old min- 

 strel : 



" Then up and spak the bauld baron, 



An angry man was he ; 

 He's taen the table wi' his foot, 



Sae has he wi' his knee, 

 Till siller cup and mazer dish 

 In flinders he garr'd flee." 



From the pious legends frequently inscribed on many of these 

 ancient cups, they have been occasionally described by modern 

 writers as sacred vessels designed only for religious uses. The 

 use of wooden vessels as chalices, was, however, for obvious 

 reasons, abandoned at an early period, so that the calices lignei 

 became in later times a proverbial illustration of the obsolete 

 simplicity of primitive ages. The old Scottish Jurist, Foun- 

 tainhall, in moralizing in his " Historical Notes," on the wealth 

 first acquired by the church iu the seventh century, exclaims : 

 " We may now take up that old regrait : when there were 

 calices lignei there were then sacerdotes aurei, but now when 

 our chalices are of gold and silver, we have got lignens sacer- 

 dotes." Another old Scottish writer revives the idea of the 

 calices lignei, in a quaint, but very beautiful allusion to the 

 Mazer cup, referred to metaphorically as a sacramental chalice. 

 It occurs in Zacharie Boyd's " Last Battell of the Soule," 

 published at Edinburgh in 1629 : " Take now," says he, "the 

 cup of salvation, the great Mazer of his mercy, and call upon 

 the name of the Lord." The character of the inscrijitions on 

 the ancient Mazers, whether of wood, or the jjrecious metals, 

 notwithstanding the quaint piety of some of these legends. 



