A WEDDING IN OLDEN DAYS.
Changes in the nuptial ceremony in Ireland—Description of the ancient formula—Throwing the stocking—A lucky hit—Reverse of the picture—Modern marriages—Coming of age—Nuptials of the author’s eldest brother—Personal description of the bride and bridegroom—Various preparations—Dresses of the different members of the wedding-party—The coach of ceremony—The travelling chaise—A turnpike dispute—Convenient temporary metamorphosis of the author and two of his brothers—Circumstances preceding the marriage in question—A desperate lover—Disasters and blunders—A “scene”—Major Tennyson Edwards—Marries a sister of the author—His fortunate escape from a ludicrous catastrophe.
There are few changes in the manners and customs of society in Ireland more observable than those relating to marriage. The day has been, within my recollection, when that ceremony was conducted altogether differently from the present mode. Formerly, no damsel was ashamed, as it were, of being married. The celebration was joyous, public, and enlivened by every species of merriment and good cheer. The bride and bridegroom, bridesmaids, and bridesmen (all dressed and decorated in gay and gallant costumes), vied in every effort to promote the pleasure they were themselves participating. When the ceremony was completed, by passing round a final and mystical word, “Amazement!”—every body kissed the bride. The company then all saluted each other: cordial congratulations went round, the music struck up, and plenty of plum cake and wine seemed to anticipate a christening. The bride for a moment whimpered and coloured; the mamma wept with gratification; the bridesmaids flushed with sympathy, and a scene was produced almost too brilliant for modern apathy even to gaze at. The substantial banquet soon succeeded; hospitality was all alive; the bottle circulated; the ball commenced; the bride led off, to take leave of her celibacy; men’s souls were softened; maidens’ hearts melted; Cupid slily stole in, and I scarce ever saw a joyous public wedding whereat he had not nearly expended his quiver before three o’clock in the morning. Every thing cheerful and innocent combined to show the right side of human nature, and to increase and perfect human happiness; a jovial hot supper gave respite to the dancers and time to escort Madam Bride to her nuptial-chamber—whither, so long as company were permitted to do so, we will attend her. The bed-curtains were adorned with festoons of ribbon. The chamber was well lighted; and the bridesmaids having administered to the bride her prescriptive refreshment of white-wine posset, proceeded to remove her left stocking and put it into her trembling hand: they then whispered anew the mystical word before mentioned; and having bound a handkerchief over her eyes, to ensure her impartiality, all the lovely spinsters surrounded the nuptial couch, each anxiously expecting that the next moment would anticipate her promotion to the same happy predicament within three hundred and sixty-five days at the very farthest. The bride then tossed the prophetic hosiery at random among her palpitating friends, and whichever damsel was so fortunate as to receive the blow was declared the next maiden in the room who would become devoted to the joys of Hymen; and every one in company—both ladies and gentlemen—afterward saluted the cheek of the lucky girl. The ball then recommenced; the future bride led off; night waned;—and Phœbus generally peeped again ere the company could be brought to separate. Good-humoured tricks were also on those happy occasions practised by arch girls upon the bridegroom. In short, the pleasantry of our old marriages in Ireland could not be exceeded. They were always performed in the house of the lady’s parents or of some relative. It would fill a volume were I to enumerate the various joyful and happy incidents I have witnessed at Irish weddings.[[46]]
[46]. How miserably has modern refinement reversed those scenes of happiness and hilarity—when the gentry of my native land were married in warm, cheerful chambers, and in the midst of animated beings, beloving and beloved! No gloom was there: every thing seemed to smile; and all thoughts of death or memoranda of mortality were discarded.
Now, those joyous scenes are shifted by sanctity and civilisation. Now, the female soul almost shudders—and it well may—on reaching the site of the connubial ceremony. The long, chilling aisle, ornamented only by sculptured tablets and tales of death and futurity, is terminated by the sombre chancel—whence the unpupilled eye and vacant stare of cold marble busts glare down on those of youth and animation, seeming to say, “Vain, hapless couple! see me—behold your fate!—the time is running now, and will not stop its course a single moment till you are my companions!” Under such auspices, the lovers’ vows are frozen ere they can be registered by the recording angel.
The cheerless ceremony concluded, the bridegroom solemnly hands the silent bride into her travelling chariot; hurries her to some country inn, with her pretty maid—perhaps destined to be a future rival; they remain there a few days, till yawning becomes too frequent, and the lady then returns to town a listless matron—to receive, on her couch of ennui, a string of formal congratulations, and predictions of connubial comfort, few of which are doomed to be so prophetic as the bridal stocking of her grandmother.
At one of the old class of weddings took place the most interesting incident of my early life, as I stated in a former volume. The spectacle and events of that union never can be erased from my memory, and its details furnish a good outline wherefrom those of other marriages of that period, in the same sphere of society, may be filled up.
In those days, so soon as an elder son came of age, the father and he united to raise money to pay off all family incumbrances. The money certainly was raised, but the incumbrances were so lazy, that in general they remained in statu quo. The estates were soon clipped at both ends; the father nibbling at one, the son pilfering at the other, and the attorney at both. The rent-roll became short; and it was decided that the son must marry to “sow his wild oats,” and make another settlement on younger children. Money, however, was not always the main object of Irish marriages:—first, because it was not always to be had; and next, because if it was to be had, it would so soon change masters, that it would be all the same after a year or two. Good family, good cheer, and beauty, when they could find it, were the chief considerations of a country gentleman, whose blood relatives, root and branch (as is still the case on the continent), generally attended the act of alliance, with all the splendour their tailors, milliners, and mantua-makers could or would supply.