At that far-famed spot, the brow above Fairmead bottom, by twelve o’clock, there were not less than three thousand merry lieges then and there assembled. It was a beautiful set-out. Fair dames “in purple and in pall,” reposed in vehicles of all sorts, sizes, and conditions, whilst seven or eight hundred mounted members of the hunt wound in and out “in restless ecstasy,” chatting and laughing with the fair, sometimes rising in their stirrups to look out for the long-coming cart of the stag, “whilst, with off heel assiduously aside,” they “provoked the caper which they seemed to hide.” The green-sward was covered with ever-moving crowds on foot, and the pollard oaks which skirt the bottom on either side were filled with men and boys.
But where the deuce is the stag all this while? One o’clock, and no stag. Two o’clock, and no stag!—a circumstance easily accounted for by those who are in the secret, and the secret is this. There are buttocks of boiled beef and fat hams, and beer and brandy in abundance, at the Roebuck public-house low down in the forest; and ditto at the Baldfaced Stag, on the top of the hill; and ditto at the Coach and Horses, at Woodford Wells; and ditto at the Castle, at Woodford; and ditto at the Eagle, at Snaresbrook; and if the stag had been brought out before the beef, beer, bacon, and brandy, were eaten and drank, where would have been the use of providing so many good things? So they carted the stag from public-house to public-house, and showed him at threepence a head to those ladies and gentlemen who never saw such a thing before, and the showing and carting induced a consumption of eatables and drinkables, an achievement which was helped by a band of music in every house, playing hungry tunes to help the appetite; and then, when the eatables and drinkables were gone, and paid for, they turned out the stag.
Precisely at half-past two o’clock, the stag-cart was seen coming over the hill by the Baldfaced Stag, and hundreds of horsemen and gig-men rushed gallantly forward to meet and escort it to the top of Fairmead bottom, amidst such whooping and hallooing, as made all the forest echo again; and would have done Carl Maria Von Weber’s heart good to hear. And then, when the cart stopped and was turned tail about, the horsemen drew up in long lines, forming an avenue wide enough for the stag to run down. For a moment, all was deep, silent, breathless anxiety; and the doors of the cart were thrown open, and out popped a strapping four-year-old red buck, fat as a porker, with a chaplet of flowers round his neck, a girth of divers coloured ribbons, and a long blue and pink streamer depending from the summit of his branching horns. He was received, on his alighting, with a shout that seemed to shake heaven’s concave, and took it very graciously, looking round him with great dignity as he stalked slowly and delicately forward, down the avenue prepared for him; and occasionally shrinking from side to side, as some supervalorous cockney made a cut at him with his whip. Presently, he caught a glimpse of the hounds and the huntsmen, waiting for him at the bottom, and in an instant off he bounded, sideways, through the rank, knocking down and trampling all who crowded the path he chose to take; and dashing at once into the cover, he was out of sight before a man could say “Jack Robinson!” Then might be seen, gentlemen running about without their horses, and horses galloping about without their gentlemen; and hats out of number brushed off their owners’ heads by the rude branches of the trees; and every body asking which way the stag was gone, and nobody knowing any thing about him; and ladies beseeching gentlemen not to be too venturesome; and gentlemen gasping for breath at the thoughts of what they were determined to venture; and myriads of people on foot running hither and thither in search of little eminences to look from; and yet nothing at all to be seen, though more than enough to be heard; for every man, and every woman too, made as loud a noise as possible. Meanwhile the stag, followed by the keepers and about six couple of hounds, took away through the covers towards Woodford. Finding himself too near the haunts of his enemy, man, he there turned back, sweeping down the bottom for a mile or two, and away up the enclosures towards Chingford; where he was caught nobody knows how, for every body returned to town, except those who stopped to regale afresh, and recount the glorious perils of the day. Thus ended the Easter Hunt of 1826.
Minerva.
Minerva.
From a Chrysolite possessed by Lord Montague.
The Minervalia was a Roman festival in March, commencing on the 19th of the month, and lasting for five days. The first day was spent in devotions to the goddess; the rest in offering sacrifices, seeing the gladiators fight, acting tragedies, and reciting witticisms for prizes. It conferred a vacation on scholars who now, carried schooling money, or presents, called Minerval, to their masters.
According to Cicero there were five Minervas.
1. Minerva, the mother of Apollo.
2. Minerva, the offspring of the Nile, of whom there was a statue with this inscription:—“I am all that was, is, and is to come; and my veil no mortal hath yet removed.”