FOOTNOTES:
[25] This is his own language.
[26] Pip signified the spot on a card.
[27] Fiddles.
[28] The cry of the herald for silence at the beginning of the masque.
CHAPTER XV.
“Then help with your call
For a hall, a hall!
Stand up by the wall,
Both good-men and tall,
We are one man's all!”
The Gipsey Metamorphosea.
With the hope that a description of the sports and pastimes of their ancestors may meet with like favour from the reader, we subjoin the following account of this little masque which was prepared for the happy occasion by Alfred Bernard, aided by the grave chaplain, Arthur Hutchinson, and performed by some of the gay gallants and blooming damsels of old Jamestown. We flatly disclaim in the outset any participation in the resentment or contempt which was felt by these loyal Virginians towards the puritan patriots of the revolution.
The curtain rises and discovers the genius of True Liberty, robed in white, with a wreath of myrtle around her brow; holding in her right hand a sceptre entwined with myrtle, as the emblem of peace, and in her left a sprig of evergreen, to represent the fabled Moly[29] of Ulysses. As she advances to slow and solemn music, she kneels at an altar clothed with black velvet, and raising her eyes to heaven, she exclaims:—
“How long, oh Heaven! shall power with impious hand
In cruel bondage bind proud Britain's land,
Or heresy in fair Religion's robe
Usurp her empire and control the globe!—
Hypocrisy in true Religion's name
Has filled the land of Britain long with shame,
And Freedom, captive, languishes in chains,
While with her sceptre, Superstition reigns.
Restore, oh Heaven! the reign of peace and love,
And let thy wisdom to thy people prove
That Freedom too is governed by her rules,—
No toy for children, and no game for fools;—
Freed from restraint the erring star would fly
Darkling, and guideless, through the untravelled sky—
The stubborn soil would still refuse to yield
The whitening harvest of the fertile field;
The wanton winds, when loosened from their caves,
Would drive the bark uncertain through the waves
This magnet lost, the sea, the air, the world,
To wild destruction would be swiftly hurled!
And say, just Heaven, oh say, is feeble man
Alone exempt from thy harmonious plan?
Shall he alone, in dusky darkness grope,
Free from restraint, and free, alas! from hope?
Slave to his passions, his unbridled will,
Slave to himself, and yet a freeman still?
No! teach him in his pride to own that he
Can only in obedience be free—
That even he can only safely move,
When true to loyalty, and true to love.”
As she speaks, a bright star appears at the farther end of the stage, and ascending slowly, at length stands over the altar, where she kneels. Extending her arm towards the star, she rises and cries in triumph:—
“I hail the sign, pure as the starry gem,
Which rested o'er the babe of Bethlehem—
My prayer is heard, and Heaven's sublime decree
Will rend our chains, and Britain shall be free!”
Then enters the embodiment of Puritanism, represented in the peculiar dress of the Roundheads—with peaked hat, a quaint black doublet and cloak, rigidly plain, and cut in the straight fashion of the sect; black Flemish breeches, and grey hose; huge square-toed shoes, tied with coarse leather thongs; and around the waist a buff leather belt, in which he wears a sword. He comes in singing, as he walks, one of the Puritan versions, or rather perversions of the Psalms, which have so grossly marred the exquisite beauty of the original, and of which one stanza will suffice the reader:—
“Arise, oh Lord, save me, my God,
For thou my foes hast stroke,
All on the cheek-bone, and the teeth
Of wicked men hast broke.”[30]
Then standing at some distance from the altar, he rolls up his eyes, till nothing but the whites can be seen, and is exercised in prayer. With a smile of bitter contempt the genius of True Liberty proceeds:—
“See where he comes, with visage long and grim,
Whining with nasal twang his impious hymn!
See where he stands, nor bows the suppliant knee,
He apes the Publican, but acts the Pharisee—
Snatching the sword of just Jehovah's wrath,
And damning all who leave his thorny path.
Now by this wand which Hermes, with a smile,
Gave to Ulysses in the Circean isle,
I will again exert the power divine,
And change to Britons these disgusting swine.”
She waves the sprig of Moly over the head of the Puritan three or four times, who, sensible of the force of the charm, cries out:—
“Hah! what is this! strange feelings fill my heart;
Avaunt thee, tempter! I defy thy art—
Up, Israel! hasten to your tents, and smite
These sons of Belial, and th' Amalekite,—
Philistia is upon us with Goliah,
Come, call the roll from twelfth of Nehemiah,[31]
Gird up your loins and buckle on your sword,
Fight with your prayers, your powder, and the word.
How, General 'Faint-not,'[32] has your spirit sunk?
Let not God's soldier yield unto a Monk.”[33]
Then, as the charm increases, he continues in a feebler voice:
“Curse on the tempter's art! that heathenish Moly
Has in an instant changed my nature wholly;
The past, with all its triumphs, is a trance,
My legs, once taught to kneel, incline to dance,
My voice, which to some holy psalm belongs,
Is twisting round into these carnal songs.
Alas! I'm lost! New thoughts my bosom swell;
Habakuk, Barebones, Cromwell, fare ye well.
Break up conventicles, I do insist,
Sing the doxology and be dismissed.”
As he finishes the last line, the heavy roll of thunder is heard, and suddenly the doors of a dungeon in the background fly open, from which emerges the impersonation of Christmas, followed by the Queen of May. Christmas is represented by a jolly, round-bellied, red-nosed, laughing old fellow, dressed in pure white. His hair is thickly powdered, and his face red with rouge. In his right hand he holds a huge mince-pie, which ever and anon he gnaws with exquisite humour, and in his left is a bowl of generous wassail, from which he drinks long and deeply. His brows are twined with misletoe and ivy, woven together in a fantastic wreath, and to his hair and different parts of his dress are attached long pendants of glass, to represent icicles. As he advances to the right of the stage, there descends from the awning above an immense number of small fragments of white paper, substitutes for snow-flakes, with which that part of the floor is soon completely covered.
The Queen of May takes her position on the left. She is dressed in a robe of pure white, festooned with flowers, with a garland of white roses twined with evergreen upon her brow. In her hand is held the May-pole, adorned with ribbons of white, and blue, and red, alternately wrapped around it, and surmounted with a wreath of various flowers. As she assumes her place, showers of roses descend from above, envelope her in their bloom, and shed a fresh fragrance around the room.
The Genius of Liberty points out the approaching figures to the Puritan, and exclaims:
“Welcome, ye happy children of the earth,
Who strew life's weary way with guileless mirth!
Thus Joy should ever herald in the morn
On which the Saviour of the world was born,
And thus with rapture should we ever bring
Fresh flowers to twine around the brow of Spring.
Think not, stern mortal, God delights to scan,
With fiendish joy, the miseries of man;
Think not the groans that rend your bosom here
Are music to Jehovah's listening ear.
Formed by His power, the children of His love,
Man's happiness delights the Sire above;
While the light mirth which from his spirit springs
Ascends like incense to the King of kings.”
Christmas, yawning and stretching himself, then roars out in a merry, lusty voice:
“My spirit rejoices to hear merry voices,
With a prospect of breaking my fast,
For with such a lean platter, these days they call latter[34]
Were very near being my last.
“In that cursed conventicle, as chill as an icicle,
I caught a bad cold in my head,
And some impudent vassal stole all of my wassail,
And left me small beer in its stead.
“Of all that is royal and all that is loyal
They made a nice mess of mince-meat.
With their guns and gunpowder, and their prayers that are louder,
But the de'il a mince-pie did I eat.
“No fat sirloin carving, I scarce kept from starving,
And my bones have become almost bare,
As if I were the season of the gunpowder treason,
To be hallowed with fasting and prayer.
“If they fancy pulse diet, like the Jews they may try it,
Though I think it is fit but to die on.
But may the Emanuel long keep this new Daniel
From the den of the brave British Lion.
“In the juice of the barley I'll drink to King Charley,
The bright star of royalty risen,
While merry maids laughing and honest men quaffing
Shall welcome old Christmas from prison.”
As he thunders out the last stave of his song, the Queen of May steps forward, and sings the following welcome to Spring:
“Come with blooming cheek, Aurora,
Leading on the merry morn;
Come with rosy chaplets, Flora,
See, the baby Spring is born.
“Smile and sing each living creature,
Britons, join me in the strain;
Lo! the Spring is come to Nature,
Come to Albion's land again.
“Winter's chains of icy iron
Melt before the smile of Spring;
Cares that Albion's land environ
Fade before our rising king.
“Crown his brow with freshest flowers,
Weave the chaplet fair as May,
While the sands with golden hours
Speed his happy life away.
“Crown his brow with leaves of laurel,
Twined with myrtle's branch of peace—
A hero in fair Britain's quarrel,
A lover when her sorrows cease.
“Blessings on our royal master,
Till in death he lays him down,
Free from care and from disaster,
To assume a heavenly crown.”
As she concludes her lay, she places the May-pole in the centre of the stage, and a happy throng of gay young swains and damsels enter and commence the main dance around it. The Puritan watches them at first with a wild gaze, in which horror is mingled with something of admiration. Gradually his stern features relax into a grim smile, and at last, unable longer to restrain his feelings, he bursts forth in a most immoderate and carnal laugh. His feet at first keep time to the gay music; he then begins to shuffle them grotesquely on the floor, and finally, overcome by the wild spirit of contagion, he unites in the dance to the sound of the merry rebecks. While the dance continues, he shakes off the straight-laced puritan dress which he had assumed, and tossing the peaked hat high in the air, appears, amid the deafening shouts of the delighted auditory, in the front of the stage in the rich costume of the English court, and with a royal diadem upon his brow, the mimic impersonation of Charles the Second.