In a popular song called Chummie's Wedding, it is said of the merry-makers—
"The fiddler did stop, and he struck up a hop,
Whilst seated on top of a trunk,
But not one of the batch could come up to the scratch,
They were all so outrageously drunk."
Very quaint old tunes were played; as the space for dancing in cottages was extremely limited, the performance was often confined to one couple, sometimes to a single performer—a man, who took off his shoes and went through really marvellous steps. The step-dance is now gone, or all but gone, but was at one time much cultivated among the peasantry of the west of England. Much depended on the fiddler, who played fast or slow, and changed his air, the dancer altering his pace and step, and the whole character of his dance, to suit the music.
The village clerk was generally the great musical authority in the parish; he led the orchestra in the church, and not unusually also played at merry-makings. It may be remembered that in Doctor Syntax is a plate representing the parson in his black cocked hat and bushy wig performing on his violin to the rustics as they dance about the May-pole; and again, fiddling, he leads the harvest-home procession. Such conduct would be regarded as highly indecorous now; but was there harm in it? Was it not well that the parson should be associated with the merry-makings of his flock? that he should lead and direct their music?
Those old orchestras were, I fear, subject to outbreaks of discord, and that was one reason why they were displaced first by the barrel organ, then by the harmonium. Well, but the solar envelope is always torn by tempests, and yet it diffuses a light in which we live and enjoy ourselves, regardless of these storms. The very necessity for living together in some sort of agreement, in order that they might be able to perform concerted pieces, was of educative advantage to the old musicians. It taught them to subdue their individuality to the common welfare. And so, not only because it gave more persons an interest in the conduct of Divine worship than at present is the case, but also because the orchestra was a great educative school of self-control, its disappearance from every village is to be regretted.
