The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
ancient belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered
with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves,
and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the character of Roast Beef, Plum
Pudding, and other worthies celebrated in ancient maskings. The whole
was under the control of the Oxonian in the appropriate character of
Misrule; and I observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with
his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant.
The irruption of this motley crew with beat of drum, according to
ancient custom, was the consummation of uproar and merriment. Master
Simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with which, as
Ancient Christmas, he walked a minuet with the peerless though giggling
Dame Mince Pie. It was followed by a dance of all the characters, which
from its medley of costumes seemed as though the old family portraits
had skipped down from their frames to join in the sport. Different
centuries were figuring at cross hands and right and left; the Dark
Ages were cutting pirouettes and rigadoons; and the days of Queen
Bess jigging merrily down the middle through a line of succeeding
generations.
The worthy squire contemplated these fantastic sports and this
resurrection of his old wardrobe with the simple relish of childish
delight. He stood chuckling and rubbing his hands, and scarcely hearing
a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the latter was discoursing
most authentically on the ancient and stately dance of the Pavon, or
peacock, from which he conceived the minuet to be derived.* For my
part, I was in a continual excitement from the varied scenes of whim
and innocent gayety passing before me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed
frolic and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills
and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy and catching
once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an interest
in the scene from the consideration that these fleeting customs were
posting fast into oblivion, and that this was perhaps the only family
in England in which the whole of them was still punctiliously observed.
There was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry that gave
it a peculiar zest: it was suited to the time and place; and as the old
manor-house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back
the joviality of long departed years.+
* Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon,
from pavo, a peacock, says, “It is a grave and majestic
dance; the method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen
dressed with caps and swords, by those of the long robe in
their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and by the
ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in
dancing, resembled that of a peacock.”--History of Music.
+ At the time of the first publication of this paper the
picture of an old-fashioned Christmas in the country was
pronounced by some as out of date. The author had afterwards
an opportunity of witnessing almost all the customs above
described, existing in unexpected vigor in the skirts of
Derbyshire and Yorkshire, where he passed the Christmas
holidays. The reader will find some notice of them in the
author’s account of his sojourn at Newstead Abbey.
But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause
in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the questions asked by my graver
readers, “To what purpose is all this? how is the world to be made
wiser by this talk?” Alas! is there not wisdom enough extant for the
instruction of the world? And if not, are there not thousands of abler
pens laboring for its improvement? It is so much pleasanter to please
than to instruct--to play the companion rather than the preceptor.
What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the mass
of knowledge! or how am I sure that my sagest deductions may be safe
guides for the opinions of others? But in writing to amuse, if I fail
the only evil is in my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any
lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow
of care or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now
and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a
benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good-humor
with his fellow-beings and himself--surely, surely, I shall not then
have written entirely in vain.
LONDON ANTIQUES.
----I do walk
Methinks like Guide Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,
Stealing to set the town o’ fire; i’ th’ country
I should be taken for William o’ the Wisp,
Or Robin Goodfellow.
FLETCHER.
I AM somewhat of an antiquity-hunter, and am fond of exploring London in
quest of the relics of old times. These are principally to be found in
the depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost in a wilderness of
brick and mortar, but deriving poetical and romantic interest from the
commonplace, prosaic world around them. I was struck with an instance of
the kind in the course of a recent summer ramble into the city; for the
city is only to be explored to advantage in summer-time, when free from
the smoke and fog and rain and mud of winter. I had been buffeting for
some time against the current of population setting through Fleet
Street. The warm weather had unstrung my nerves and made me sensitive to
every jar and jostle and discordant sound. The flesh was weary, the
spirit faint, and I was getting out of humor with the bustling busy
throng through which I had to struggle, when in a fit of desperation I
tore my way through the crowd, plunged into a by-lane, and, after
passing through several obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint
and quiet court with a grassplot in the centre overhung by elms, and
kept perpetually fresh and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet of
water. A student with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partly
reading, partly meditating on the movements of two or three trim
nursery-maids with their infant charges.
I was like an Arab who had suddenly come upon an oasis amid the panting
sterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and coolness of the place
soothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued my walk, and came,
hard by, to a very ancient chapel with a low-browed Saxon portal of
massive and rich architecture. The interior was circular and lofty and
lighted from above. Around were monumental tombs of ancient date on
which were extended the marble effigies of warriors in armor. Some had
the hands devoutly crossed upon the breast; others grasped the pommel of
the sword, menacing hostility even in the tomb, while the crossed legs
of several indicated soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to
the Holy Land.
I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangely
situated in the very centre of sordid traffic; and I do not know a more
impressive lesson for the many of the world than thus suddenly to turn
aside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit down
among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust, and
forget-fullness.
In a subsequent tour of observation I encountered another of these
relics of a “foregone world” locked up in the heart of the city. I had
been wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets, destitute
of anything to strike the eye or excite the imagination, when I beheld
before me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It opened into a
spacious quadrangle forming the courtyard of a stately Gothic pile, the
portal of which stood invitingly open.
It was apparently a public edifice, and, as I was antiquity-hunting, I
ventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting no one either to oppose
or rebuke my intrusion, I continued on until I found myself in a
great hall with a lofty arched roof and oaken gallery, all of Gothic
architecture. At one end of the hall was an enormous fireplace, with
wooden settles on each side; at the other end was a raised platform,
or dais, the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man in
antique garb with a long robe, a ruff, and a venerable gray beard.
The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and seclusion, and
what gave it a mysterious charm was, that I had not met with a human
being since I had passed the threshold.
Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of a large
bow window, which admitted a broad flood of yellow sunshine, checkered
here and there by tints from panes of colored glass, while an open
casement let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my head on my hand
and my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort of reverie about
what might have been the ancient uses of this edifice. It had evidently
been of monastic origin; perhaps one of those collegiate establishments
built of yore for the promotion of learning, where the patient monk,
in the ample solitude of the cloister, added page to page and volume to
volume, emulating in the productions of his brain the magnitude of the
pile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door in an arch at
the upper end of the hall was opened, and a number of gray-headed old
men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one, proceeding in
that manner through the hall, without uttering a word, each turning a
pale face on me as he passed, and disappearing through a door at the
lower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaks and
antiquated air comported with the style of this most venerable and
mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years, about
which I had been musing, were passing in review before me. Pleasing
myself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit of romance, to
explore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows existing in the
very centre of substantial realities.
My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts and corridors
and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice had many additions and
dependencies, built at various times and in various styles. In one open
space a number of boys, who evidently belonged to the establishment,
were at their sports, but everywhere I observed those mysterious
old gray men in black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimes
conversing in groups; they appeared to be the pervading genii of the
place. I now called to mind what I had read of certain colleges in
old times, where judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other
forbidden and magical sciences were taught. Was this an establishment of
the kind, and were these black-cloaked old men really professors of the
black art?
These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced into
a chamber hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouth
objects--implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffed
alligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece;
while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a human
skull, flanked on each side by a dried cat.
I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which seemed a
fitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I was startled at beholding
a human countenance staring at me from a dusky corner. It was that of a
small, shrivelled old man with thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry,
projecting eyebrows. I at first doubted whether it were not a mummy
curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that it was alive. It was
another of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I regarded his quaint
physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous and sinister objects by
which he was surrounded, I began to persuade myself that I had come upon