Ye Knight Of Ye Golden Cyrcle.
A veray parfit gentil knight,
Thatte of ye Golden Cyrcle hight,
One day yridden forth;
But ne to finde a fayre mayde,
He went on errants of his trade,
To fight or filch ye North.
He was a wight of grisly fronte,
And muckle berd ther was upon 't,
His lockes farre down did laye:
Ful wel he setten on his hors,
Thatte fony felaws calléd Mors,
For len it was and grai.
Ilk knight he hadde ne vizor on,
His busynes were then undone,
All time was for attack;
More than, he hadde ne mail, either,
But arméd with a revolvér,
He like-Wise chawed toback.
He sayde his was a mightie hond,
Ne better in ye Southron lond
To yearn anly battail:
Mony a dewel hadde he fought,
And put his foe alway to rout,
Withouten ony fail.
Eke fro his sheld ther stroke the ee,
These letters golden, 'F.F.V.,'
Thatte mony a clerk did pain;
Which guessed it, 'Forte Fuor Vi!'
The people giggled, 'l' your ey;
It's Fume and Fight in Vain!'
Eftsoons hire cloke ye awful Night,
Yspreaden roun ilk warrihour wight,
Ye glasse of chivalrie;
But nothing daunt, he kept his course,
As well as mote his sorry hors,
Farre to the North countrée.
And thus in darkesse all yclad,
He hied him, gif he weren mad,
O'er feld and eke through thicket;
When 'Stop, by God!' some one began,
'You'er mine—'or any other man!''
Jesu! a Yankee picket!
'Gent knight, yclept of Golden Cyrcle!
Why in the devil don't one dirk all?
Where now's your chivalrie?'
'Goode sir,' quod he, 'twas ne for fight
I hied me out ilk murkie night,
It was for poulterie!'
'Wal, damn your 'poulterie'—and you!
Such deed no generous knight would do!
So I mote thee deter!
I'll show thee, though, the coop, sir knight,
Where chickens such as thee are blight—
You are my prisoner!'
Mony maydens weren grieved—
Cleopatras, slouchy-sleeved—
Darksome maydes of work all;
And mony felaws of much might
Ydrink the hades of ye Knight
Of ye grete Golden Cyrcle.
We much fear that it may be said of the chief cavalier of the Golden Circle, what the old German lanzknecht, in Rabelais, said of the Gascon adventurer: 'The knight pretends that he wants to fight, but is much more inclined to steal; therefore, good people, look out for your property.'
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The following story, it is averred, can be vouched for, to any reasonable extent, by a large crowd of witnesses.
DEAR CONTINENTAL: Possibly you would not give 'a Continental dime' for that which I am about to pen. Possibly, too, you may damn it into the waste-basket. I have often heard of a 'Continental damn'—it never occurred to me before what the article really was. Dante has, I know, provided a corner for those who were in-continentally condemned; but it was reserved for you to abridge the word, and so make a vice of a virtue!
I once lived in a village: to that village came an itinerant dramatic company; and that company advertised to play a grand moral temperance drama, entitled Down the Hill.
The principal actor called himself Eglantine Mowbray. I believe that the latter syllable of the last name was the only portion thereof to which he was really entitled. He did bray.
The bills appeared, with the following heading:
UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION.
On Monday Evening,
THE YOUTHFUL ROSCUSS!
EGLANTINE MOWBRAY!!
Will appear in his great rôle,
DOWN THE HILL.
Our simple villagers had seen circuses; but youthful Roscusses were entirely beyond their experience. Quite as unfamiliar was the word rôle, which, to their badly-lettered fancy, stood for movement, by 'turning on the surface, or with a circular motion, in which all parts of the surface are successively applied to a plane, 'as to roll a barrel or puncheon.' [You use Webster?]
So, when the 'show' opened, there was a large attendance, and in that vast multitude of two hundred and thirty men, women, and children, there was not one who did not anticipate an acrobatic performance.
The play pleased them, however. Temperance was rife among us in those days; it was 'in our midst,' as people ought not to say, and the drunken disgraces of John the Inebriate were appreciated. Still, there was an evident feeling of unsatisfied anticipation, which grew with every act, and in all the house there was not a soul who did not murmur to his or her neighbor, 'I wonder when he's goin' to roll down-hill.'
The play terminated. The Inebriate died, under a strong pressure of delirium tremens, groaning and braying loud enough to scare away the fiends which gathered around. But, to the amazement of all parties upon the stage and behind the scenes, the fall of the curtain was accompanied by a thunder-roar of disgust, and the rain-like sound of numerous hisses.
The audience voted the play a humbug. The village was disgusted. Eglantine Mowbray stock went down to nothing.
But the manager was a shrewd fellow. He found out what was wanting, and resolved to remedy it. So, the next morning's posters announced that on that evening Mr. Eglantine Mowbray would perform, at the conclusion, his terrific and unparalleled feat of rolling down the hill!
And he did. At the last moment, the Inebriate appeared, bottle in hand, agonizing and howling on the summit of a high rock, from which a slope, at an angle of forty-five degrees, went down to a mysterious craggy pit, thickly grown around with briers and shrubs, all bearing spiky thorns of the most fish-hooky and ten-penny nail description imaginable. The flat or back-scene, suddenly lighted up from behind, presented, as a transparency, that terrible collection of devils which you may have witnessed in a popular engraving entitled, 'Delirium Tremens.' The Inebriate, taking one parting drink, staggered—fell—rolled over and over down the hill into the abyss, from which flames burst forth, red, green, and blue, and the audience were wild with delight. Three times was Eglantine Mowbray compelled, by the rapturous encores, to roll down that hill into the fiery pit. No wonder that, at the last trial, there rose from the abyss a wild cry of 'I'll be blessed if I do it again.'
MORAL.—When in country villages, don't talk about rôle-ing, unless you mean to do it!
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Since the gilet de matin has superseded the robe de châmbre, or dressing-gown, it is marvelous to see with what wrath the fast men, club-men, and other highly civilized forms of humanity, pursue the ancient garment. One of the most vigorous assaults on the gabardine in question, comes to us as