COURT DAY.
To a northern traveller in the southern states, there is scarcely any thing more novel or entertaining than a Court Day. Familiar as the occasion and its scenes may be to a Virginian, there is something in the whole aspect of this monthly festival which rivets the attention of a stranger. And I have not been without my suspicions that the influence of this custom and its adjuncts upon society, manners, and character has never been appreciated. In our northern country there are no occasions upon which the whole population of a county, even as represented by its leading freeholders, convenes at one spot. County courts are attended by functionaries, litigants, and very near neighbors, but not, as in the south, by the gentry and yeomanry of a whole district.
The consequence of such an arrangement as that of the south is, that all the landholders and gentlemen of a neighborhood become mutually acquainted, and lay the foundation for friendly and hospitable reciprocities, which may be continued through life. The whole texture of society has a tincture from this intermingling. It is undeniable, that while aristocratic family pride, and chivalrous elevation of bearing, exist no where in greater vigor than at the south, there is a freer intercourse on the court-house-lawn between the richest planter and the honest poor man, than is ever witnessed in the manufacturing districts of Connecticut or Pennsylvania. This constant mingling of the aged with the young, tends to keep up national characteristics and to perpetuate ancient habits and sentiments. And let an old-fashioned man be allowed to whisper in the ear of this innovating age that all is not antiquated which is old, and that the hoary stream of tradition brings down with it not only prejudices, but wholesome predilections.
To enjoy a genuine and unsophisticated Court Day, one must select a county in the heart of the real Old Dominion, where emigration has not too much thinned the population, nor foreign settlers made the mass heterogeneous. It should be moreover in a region where the increase of villages has not modified the ancient character of the large estates.
I have in my mind's eye the very beau ideal of an old Virginia Court House. The edifice itself is neither large nor lofty, but “time-honored” and solid, and embosomed in a grove of locusts, which at the May Court fill the air with their balsamic odor. The lawn, which surrounds the house and grove, has not the deep green of our northern commons, nor is the earth so perfectly hidden by matted grass, but it is sufficiently soft and fresh to tempt many a group of loungers. But the scene becomes more lively as the day advances. Stalls and booths are rapidly erecting, and wagons of vendibles are disposed in rows; no doubt by pertinacious wanderers from New England. The porches of two or three plain-looking stores are filling rapidly with visiters who are arriving every moment. A northerner is amazed at the number of equestrians, and the ease and non-chalance with which even little boys manage their spirited horses. I must pass a thousand traits which in the hands of Irving or Kennedy would afford a tempting picture. The cordiality of greeting with which Virginians meet is delightful; and from ample trial I am able to pronounce it sincere and available. This heartiness is encouraged by such monthly gatherings. It is vain to object to this vehement shaking of hands and emphatic compellation. As my old pastor used to say, “The form without the power is better than neither;” and as Solomon says, “He that is a friend must show himself friendly.” By the time of dinner, a thousand morsels of business, postponed during the month, have been transacted; a thousand items of precious little family news have been exchanged; hundreds of clusters, under porch or tree, have discoursed of the reigning political topic; or mayhap, the mighty mass has all been moved toward some little eminence to hear the eloquence of a genuine “stump-speech.”
From my very heart, northman as I am, I admire and affect this good remnant of olden time. May no revised code ever disannul it, no sapient convention ever parcel out your counties into little municipal fragments!
I state it as an opinion very deliberately formed in my own mind, after some opportunities of comparison, that the elocution of southern men is more easy, more graceful, more natural, more vivacious, and more pathetic, than that of their northern compatriots. This is fairly to be traced to the influence of such occasions as the one which I describe. The moveable and excitable throng of a court-house-green is precisely the audience which awakens and inspires the orator. The tide of feeling comes back upon him at every happy appeal, and redoubles his energy. It was the Athenian populace, who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing,” (what a picture of a court day!) which made the Athenian orator. The practice of addresses to the literal and real constituency by every aspirant, brings into trial, very early, all the eloquence of the state. The manner of the best models is in some small degree perpetuated. The mere listening to such men as Patrick Henry, and John Randolph, not to mention the living, affords a school of eloquence to the youth of the country, and cultivates the taste of the people. And then in every little group upon yonder green, there is an ardor of conversation on political topics, which, as feeling rises, approaches to the character of harangue. I have never heard the impassioned conversation of southern men, in a tavern or by the way-side, without observing the natural tendency to a higher tone of elocution than would be tolerated in a similar circle at the north.
Whether the practice of “whittling,” during conversation, has any connexion with ease of utterance, is a question too abstruse for my present cursory investigation. The celebrated doctor Rush used jocosely to characterize some of his southern students, by their “R-phobia et Cacoethes secandi.” It may be noted as a token of the “free-and-easy” manner of certain courts, that we have seen advocates whittling during a defence, and judges whittling on the bench.
But finally, and most seriously, I trust no fanaticism of a faction at the north will ever so far prevail against the good sense and sound feeling of the community, as to interrupt the genial flow of hospitality, with which in every individual case I have known, northern men have been received by the gentlemen of old Virginia.
A NORTHERN MAN.