A

CHRISTMAS BANQUET

GARNISHED

WITH MANY PLEASANT AND DAINTY DISHES,

NEWLY PREPARED BY

THOMAS BECON.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR THOMAS NEVELLE, KNIGHT',

THOMAS BECON WISHETH LONG LIFE, CONTINUAL HEALTH,
AND PROSPEROUS FELICITY.

I FEAR lest some men will accuse me of temerity and rashness, seeing that so boldly I dare offer to your right honourable mastership this little lucubration and work, which I made now of late, and entitled a Christmas Banquet; inasmuch as I have been so seldom in your company, and have not attempted nor proved at any time perfectly by mutual confabulation how your mind is affected toward me. To this I answer, that I, sitting at your table before six months past, where it pleased you very benignly to talk with me, perceived in your mastership at that time, as at all other, so great humanity, gentleness, and affability toward all men, that it hath since that time greatly animated and encouraged me to excogitate and invent somewhat that I might dedicate to your name; trusting by this means that your benevolence toward me should not only be increased, but also made consummate and perfect. While I sought diligently an argument fit and worthy your benignity, among all other it came to my remembrance, that this time of the year men use customably to make feasts and banquets, and thereunto for to call their friends, lovers, and neighbours. When I considered this manner and custom, it did so much please me, seeing that mutual love is maintained thereby, that hereof I took an occasion also to make a Christmas banquet. For I thought, although I were poor, and not of ability to make such a feast or banquet as the custom requireth, yet I would, according to that kind of riches wherewith God hath endued me, prepare some banquet, and call unto it, not twenty or forty, but even so many as will come, that all men might commend Becon, having no house of his own, for his household-keeping and large maintenance of hospitality. And forasmuch as there shall not want universally which shall make feasts for the body at this time, I thought it best to make my banquet a banquet for the soul, that men, having their bodies fed of other, might also have their souls fed at my hand: I have therefore prepared a banquet, not such a banquet as the meat whereof perisheth, corrupteth, and John vi. cometh to nought, but that abideth into everlasting life. And because it may be a Christmas banquet indeed, and worthy whereat Christ should be present, I have garnished it with many delicious, pleasant, dainty, yea, and heavenly dishes of the most holy scriptures: so that whosoever eateth of this banquet, shall find in it much comfortable nourishment for his soul, and be occasioned thereby, I doubt not, to give God hearty thanks, which hath vouchedsafe of his divine clemency and unmeasurable good

[Sir Thomas Nevelle was of royal descent, being the great-grand-son of Ralph, first earl of Westmoreland, by his second wife Joan, daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, fourth son of king Edward III. His father, Sir George Neville, second (of the name) Lord Bergavenny, being with his father Sir Edward in that battle near Tewkesbury, on May 9, 1471, wherein the Lancastrians were entirely defeated, had then the honour of knighthood conferred on him by king Edward IV. at Burton near Tewkesbury. By his first wife, Margaret, daughter and heir of Sir Hugh Fenne, knight, sub-treasurer of England, he had six sons, of whom

Sir Thomas Neville was the 5th. Sir Thomas was
speaker of the parliament (1514), of the privy coun-
cil, and secretary of state to Henry VIII. It is to
the latter important station that Becon probably refers
in the end of the above preface. Sir Thomas died
May 29, 1542, and was buried at Mereworth in Kent.
He left issue by his wife Catharine, daughter of Lord
Dacres of the North, and widow of Lord Fitz-hugh,
an only daughter and heir, Margaret, married first to
Sir Robert Southwell of Mereworth (a manor he en-
joyed in her right), master of the rolls, and secondly
to William Plumbe, Esq.]

Prov. viii.

ness freely to call him to his celestial banquet. Would God that by this my banquet-
making I might excite and move other to use like communication at their table as
they shall find here; or at the least that they would interlace in some part of their
repast their talk with such honest and godly words as they shall here read, and utterly
reject and cast away all filthy and unclean communication, all jesting and railing, all
blaspheming and cursing! So should they have Christ more present with them at their
feasts than many have now-a-days, at whose table such kind of talk is used as may
justly seem not to be worthy of God and his son Jesus, but of Bacchus and Venus.
These be no Christmas banquets, but Christless and devilish banquets. They be no
feasts fit for christian men, but for gentiles and ethnicks. God banish once this great
absurdity from the tables of them that profess Christ! Now, forasmuch as at the begin-
ning of a new year the universal custom is to give gifts one to another, whereby they
protest their mutual good-will, love, and favour; I, because I will not seem to be
estranged from this point of humanity, do here humbly offer to your honourable master-
ship this my Christmas banquet for a new year's gift, most instantly desiring you
favourably to accept it as the gift of him, which wisheth to you from God the Father
long life, continual health, and prosperous felicity. Hereafter, God prospering me in
my studies, and directing my pen in the travail of his word, I trust to compile, unto
the glory of God and the immortality of your name, other works no less godly
and profitable to the readers. In the mean season, that God, whose blessed word
you must entirely favour and follow, mought preserve in safe estate your
good mastership to the avancement of his glory and the great quietness
of us all in this country, by executing on your behalf, according to your
office committed worthily unto you by the king's most gracious
highness, such justice and equity in your judgments as shall may
turn to the utter expulsion of all vice, and the high promotion
and furtherance of all virtue. In the travail whereof that
Lord mought assist you, by whom kings reign and
the makers of laws discern righteous things;

by whom also, as Salomon saith, “princes

bear rule, and the head officers

give judgment according
to justice."

Amen.

THE

CHRISTMAS BANQUET.

PHILEMON, THE MAKER OF THE BANQUET, THEOPHILE, EUSEBIUS,
AND CHRISTOPHER, THE GUESTS.

is the food of

Matt. iv.

Phil. I THINK it very long until my neighbours, whom I have bidden to this my Christmas banquet, do come. For I would be glad, that, before we feed our hungry bodies, we should sustain and feed also our hungry souls, which do no less hunger for the God's word word of God, being the only nourishment thereof, than the bodies do for corporal meat, the soul. as Christ witnesseth: "A man," saith he, "shall not live with bread alone, but with Deut. viii. every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Therefore, that it might be a Christmas banquet indeed, that is to say, such a feast as whereby Christ may be glorified, and our souls no less refreshed than the bodies; I desire very much to see my neighbours here shortly, that first we may taste, as it is convenient and right, of the celestial table of God's word unto the consolation of our souls' health, and afterward refresh our mortal bodies with such aliments and nourishings as we have received this day of God's great liberality. And behold, I pray you, where they come. Brothers and neighbours, welcome unto me. Theo. Brother Philemon, we thank you heartily. Eus. We are come hither this day to put you both to pain and cost. Phil. I pray you, think not so: it is to me neither pain nor cost, but rather comfort and pleasure, to see you thus friendly come and visit your neighbour; and I thank you right heartily that ye have not disdained to come at my request. I beseech you that ye will take the pains to come hither into my parlour. Chris. I am loth to go so soon out of this your hall, which feedeth mine eyes with so many godly and goodly spectacles. Phil. Why, is here any thing that you think worthy to be looked upon? Chris. Every thing is here so pleasant and comfortable to the eye of a christian man, that he being in this hall may justly seem to be in a delectable paradise, I had almost said, in another heaven. For here is nothing dumb, all thing speak. Theo. I pray you, what is there written upon your parclose' door? Phil. The saying of Christ: The door. "I am the door. By me if any man entereth in, he shall be safe, and shall go in John x. and out, and shall find pasture." This is done to put me and my household in remembrance, that Christ is the door by whom we must enter into the favour of God, and obtain the glory of heaven, as he himself witnesseth, saying: and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me." done. What is this that is written upon your chimney? prophet Esay: "The fire of them shall not be quenched." and hard saying. Phil. I have painted this sentence in that place, that, as the other fixed upon the door maketh me to rejoice and to put my whole affiance in Christ, so this in like manner should abster and fear me and mine from doing evil, when by looking on this text we consider with ourselves the unquenchable flames of hell-fire, and most grievous pains which are there prepared for the wicked transgressors and breakers of God's law. This doth incute3 and beat into our hearts the fear of God, which expelleth sin, and "is the beginning of wisdom." "For he that feareth God Psal. cxi. shall do good things," saith the scripture, "and shall have all his pleasure in the Lord's Ecclus. i. commandments." Eus. What have ye there written in your window? Phil. Christ's The window. saying in the gospel of St John: "I am the light of the world. He that followeth John viii. me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." This teacheth us that,

"I am the way, the truth, John xiv.
Eus. This is christianly
Phil. The saying of the The chim-
Chris. This is a terrible Isai. Ixvi.

ney.

Prov. i. ix.

Psal. cxii.

[ Parclose: parlour.]

[Abster deter.]

:

[ Incute strike in.]