Christmas fireside, there are several allusions in Chaucer's tales; and
Aubrey, in reference thereto, mentions some of the tricks by which they
contributed to the entertainments of the season. The exhibitions of such
gentry in modern times are generally of a more public kind, and it is
rarely that they find their way to our firesides. But we have still the
galantee-showman wandering up and down our streets and squares, with his
musical prelude and tempting announcement sounding through the sharp
evening air, and summoned into our warm rooms to display the shadowy
marvels of his mysterious box to the young group, who gaze in great
wonder and some awe from their inspiring places by the cheerful hearth.
Not that our firesides are altogether without domestic fortune-tellers
or amateur practitioners in the art of sleight-of-hand. But the
prophecies of the former are drawn from, and the feats of the other
performed with the cards. Indeed we must not omit to particularize cards
as furnishing in all their uses one of the great resources at this
season of long evenings and in-door amusements, as they appear also to
have formed an express feature of the Christmas entertainments of all
ranks of people in old times. We are told that the squire of three
hundred a-year in Queen Anne's time "never played at cards but at
Christmas, when the family pack was produced from the mantel-piece;" and
Stevenson, an old writer of Charles the Second's time, in an enumeration
of the preparations making for the mirth of the season, tells us that
"the country-maid leaves half her market and must be sent again, if she
forgets a pack of cards on Christmas Eve." And who of us all has not
shared in the uproarious mirth which young and unclouded spirits find,
amid the intrigues and speculations of a round game! To the
over-scrupulous on religious grounds, who, looking upon cards as the
"devil's books," and to the moral alarmist who, considering card-playing
to be in itself gaming, would each object to this species of recreation
for the young and innocent, it may be interesting to know that the
practice has been defended by that bishop of bishops, Jeremy Taylor
himself, and that he insists upon no argument against the innocence of a
practice being inferred from its abuse.
We have before alluded to the bards and harpers who assembled in ancient
days at this time of wassail, making the old halls to echo to the voice
of music, and stirring the blood with the legends of chivalry or
chilling it with the wizard tale. And the tale and the song are amongst
the spirits that wait on Christmas still, and charm the long winter
evenings with their yet undiminished spells. Many a Christmas evening
has flown over our heads on the wings of music, sweeter, far sweeter,
dearer, a thousand times dearer, than ever was played by wandering
minstrel or uttered by stipendiary bard; and we have formed a portion of
happy groups, when some thrilling story has sent a chain of sympathetic
feeling through hearts that shall beat in unison no more, and tales of
the grave and its tenants have sent a paleness into cheeks that the
grave itself hath since made paler still.
The winter hearth is the very land of gossip-red. There it is that
superstition loves to tell her marvels, and curiosity to gather them.
The gloom and desolation without, with the wild, unearthly voice of the
blast, as it sweeps over a waste of snows and cuts sharp against the
leafless branches, or the wan sepulchral light that shows the dreary
earth as it were covered with a pall, and the trees like spectres rising
from beneath it, alike send men huddling round the blazing fire, and
awaken those impressions of the wild and shadowy and unsubstantial, to
which tales of marvel or of terror are such welcome food. But other
inspirations are born of the blaze itself; and the jest and the laugh
and the merry narration are of the spirits that are raised within the
magic circles that surround it.
"They should have drawn thee by the high heap't hearth,
Old Winter! seated in thy great armed-chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth;
Or circled by them, as thy lips declare
Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,
Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night;
Pausing at times to move the languid fire,
Or taste the old October, brown and bright."
The song and the story, the recitation and the book read aloud are, in
town and in village, mansion and farmhouse, amongst the universal
resources of the winter nights now, as they or their equivalents have at
all times been. The narratives of "old adventures, and valiaunces of
noble knights, in times past," the stories of Sir Bevys of Southampton
and Sir Guy of Warwick, of Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough, and William
of Cloudesley, with other ancient romances or historical rhymes, which
formed the recreation of the common people at their Christmas dinners
and bride-ales long ago, may have made way for the wild legend of the
sea, or fearful anecdote--
"Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,
That walks at dead of night, or takes its stand
O'er some new opened grave, and, strange to tell,
Evanishes at crowing of the cock;"
and for the more touching ballads which sing of the late repentance of
the cruel Barbara Allan,--
"O mither, mither, mak my bed,
O mak it saft and narrow;
Since my love died for me to-day,
I'll die for him to morrow;"
or how the
"Pretty babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and down;
But never more could see the man
Returning from the town;"
or how "there came a ghost to Margaret's door," and chilled the
life-blood in her veins, by his awful announcement,--
"My bones are buried in a kirk-yard,
Afar beyond the sea;
And it is but my sprite, Marg'ret,
That's speaking now to thee;"
or may have been replaced, in higher quarters, by the improved narrative
literature of the present day, and the traditions or memories which
haunt all homes. But the spirit of the entertainment itself is still the
same, varied only by circumstances in its forms.
[Illustration: STORY TELLING.--_Page 239._]
It is apparently by a group of the latter kind that this branch of the
Christmas amusements is illustrated in the plate. The youthful members
of a family are listening, in all probability, to some tale of their
sires, related by the withered crone, who, grown old in that service,
links those young beings with a generation gone by, and stands, as it
were, prophesying "betwixt the living and the dead." If we may judge
from the aspect of the aged sybil herself, and the pale and earnest
faces that surround her, the narrative which she is imparting is one of
the fearful class, and not to be listened to beyond the cheering
inspirations of that bright fire; although the moving shadows which it
flings upon the old walls are amongst the terrors which are born of her
story. For the scene of these emotions, the artist has chosen, as
artists still love to do, the chamber of an ancient mansion, with its
huge chimney and oriel-window. And it may be that for picturesque
effects which are to address themselves to the eye, artists are right in
so doing. No doubt, the high chronicles of chivalry, and the mysterious
traditions of the past, comport well with the gloom of the gothic
gallery;--and, certainly, the long rambling passages of an old house
afford at once room for the wandering of ghosts, and that dim, shadowy
light by which imagination sees them best. But the true poetry of life
is not confined to ancient dwellings; and every house, in every crowded
thoroughfare of every city, has its own tales to tell around the
Christmas fire. The most pert-looking dwelling of them all, that may
seem as if it were forever staring out of its sash windows into the
street, has its own mysteries, and is, if it have been tenanted
sufficiently long, as closely haunted by recollections as the baron's
castle, or the squire's old manor-house. Like them,--
"_Its_ stones have voices, and _its_ walls do live;
It is the house of memory!"
Within its neat parlors and light saloons, the lyre of human passions
has been struck on all its chords. Birth and death, marriage and
separation, joy and grief, in all their familiar forms, have knocked at
its painted door, and crossed its narrow threshold; and the hearts
within have their own traditions of the past, and their own reckonings
to take, and their own anecdotes to revise, and their own ghosts to
bring back, amid the commemorations of this festal time.
And--whatever may be said for the ancient ghost stories, which are fast
losing ground--fitting it is that, amid the mirth of this pleasant time,
such thoughts should be occasionally stirred, and those phantoms of the
heart brought back. Not that the joy of the young and hopeful should be
thereby darkened, but that they may be duly warned that "youth's a stuff
will not endure," and taught in time the tenure upon which hope is held.
That was a beautiful custom of the Jews which led them, when they built
houses, to leave ever some part unfinished, as a memento of the ruin and
desolation of their city. Not that they, therefore, built the less, or
the less cheerfully; but that in the very midst of their amplest
accommodations they preserved a perpetual and salutary reference to the
evil of their condition,--a useful check upon their worldly thoughts.
And thus should mirth be welcomed and hopes built up, wherever the
materials present themselves; but a mark should, notwithstanding, be
placed upon the brightest of them all, remembrances ever let in, which
may recall to us the imperfect condition of our nature here, and speak
of the certain decay which must attend all hopes erected for mere
earthly dwellings.
But _thou_ shouldst speak of this, thou for whom the following lines
were written long ago, though they have not yet met thine eye, thou who
hast learnt this lesson more sternly than even I, and speakest so well
of _all_ things! Many a "Winter's Tale" have we two read together
(Shakspeare's among the rest--and how often!), and many a written lay
has linked our thoughts in a sympathy of sentiment, on many an evening
of Christmas. It may be that on some night of that which is approaching,
these lines may meet thy notice, and through them, _one more_ winter's
eve may yet be spent by thee and me, in a communion of thought and
feeling. No fear that joy should carry it all, with us! No danger that
the ghosts of the past should fail to mingle with our Christmas
feelings, in that hour! There can be no future hope built up for thee or
me, or for most others who have passed the first season of youth, to
which something shall not be wanting; which shall not, like the houses
of the Jews, be left imperfect in some part; and for the same
reason,--even for the memories of the ruined past!
Farewell! I do not bid thee weep;
The hoarded love of many years,
The visions hearts like thine must keep,
May not be told by tears!
No! tears are but the spirit's showers,
To wash its _lighter_ clouds away,
In breasts where sun-bows, like the flowers,
Are born of rain and ray;
But gone from thine is all the glow
That helped to form life's promise-bow!
Farewell! I know that never more
Thy spirit, like the bird of day,
Upon its own sweet song shall soar
Along a sunny way!
The hour that wakes the waterfall
To music, in its far-off flight,
And hears the silver fountains call,
Like angels through the night,
Shall bring thee songs whose tones are sighs
From harps whose chords are memories!
Night! when, like perfumes that have slept,
All day, within the wild-flower's heart,
Steal out the thoughts the soul has kept
In silence and apart;
And voices we have pined to hear,
Through many a long and lonely day,
Come back upon the dreaming ear,
From grave-lands, far away;
And gleams look forth, of spirit-eyes,
Like stars along the darkening skies!
When fancy and the lark are still--
Those riders of the morning gale!
And walks the moon o'er vale and hill
With memory and the nightingale;
The moon that is the daylight's ghost
(As memory is the ghost of hope),
And holds a lamp to all things lost
Beneath night's solemn cope,
Pale as the light by memory led
Along the cities of the dead!
Alas, for thee! alas for thine!
Thy youth that is no longer young!
Whose heart, like Delphi's ruined shrine,
Gives oracles--oh! still divine!--
But never more in song!
Whose breast, like Echo's haunted hall,
Is filled with murmurs of _the past_,
Ere yet its "gold was dim," and all
Its "pleasant things" laid waste!
From whose sweet windows never more
Shall look the sunny soul of yore!
Farewell! I do not bid thee weep,
The smile and tear are past for thee;
The river of thy thoughts must keep
Its solemn course, too still and deep
For idle eyes to see!
Oh! earthly things are all too far
To throw their shadows o'er its stream!
But, now and then, a silver star,
And, now and then, a gleam
Of glory from the skies be given,
To light its waves with dreams of heaven!
To the out-door sports of this merry time which arise out of the natural
phenomena of the season itself, we need do no more than allude here,
because every school-boy knows far more about them than we are now able
to tell him, though we too reckoned them all amidst the delights of our
boyhood. The rapid motions and graceful manœuvres of the skilful amongst
the skaters, the active games connected with this exercise (such as the
Golf of our northern neighbors, not very commonly practised in England),
the merry accidents of the sliders, and the loud and mischievous laugh
of the joyous groups of snowballers,--are all amongst the picturesque
features by which the Christmas time is commonly marked in these
islands. To be sure, the kind of seasons seems altogether to have
abandoned us in which the ice furnished a field for those diversions
during a period of six weeks; and the days are gone when fairs were held
on the broad Thames, and books were printed and medals struck on the
very pathway of his fierce and daily tides. Even now as we write
however, in this present year of grace, old Winter stands without the
door in something like the garb in which as boys we loved him best, and
that old aspect of which we have such pleasant memories, and which
Cowper has so well described:
"O Winter! ruler of the inverted year!
Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled;
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips; thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds;
A leafless branch thy sceptre; and thy throne
A sliding car indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along thy slippery way!"
In looking over a description of London we have met with a quotation of
a passage from Fitz-Stephen, an old historian of that city, in which he
gives a quaint description of these familiar sports, as they were
practised in King Henry the Second's day on the large pond or marsh
which then occupied the site of what is now Moorfields. The passage is
short and we will quote it.
"When that vast lake," he says, "which waters the walls of the city
towards the north is hard frozen, the youth in great numbers go and
divert themselves on the ice. Some, taking a small run for increment of
velocity, place their feet at a proper distance and are carried sliding
sideways a great way. Others will make a large cake of ice, and seating
one of their companions upon it, they take hold of one another's hands
and draw him along; when it happens that, moving so swiftly on so
slippery a place, they all fall headlong. Others there are who are still
more expert in these amusements on the ice; they place certain bones,
the leg bones of animals, under the soles of their feet by tying them
round their ankles, and then, taking a pole shod with iron into their
hands, they push themselves forward by striking it against the ice, and
are carried on with a velocity equal to the flight of a bird or a bolt
discharged from a cross-bow."
But amongst all the amusements which in cities contribute to make the
Christmas time a period of enchantments for the young and happy, there
is another, which must not be passed over without a word of special
notice; and that one is the theatre,--a world of enchantment in itself.
We verily believe that no man ever forgets the night on which as a boy
he first witnessed the representation of a play. All sights and sounds
that reached his senses before the withdrawing of the mysterious
curtain, all things which preceded his introduction to that land of
marvels which lies beyond, are mingled inextricably with the memories of
that night, and haunt him through many an after year. The very smell of
the lamps and orange-peel, the discordant cries, the ringing of the
prompter's bell, and above all the heavy dark green curtain itself,
become essential parts of the charm in which his spirit is long after
held. It was so with ourselves; and though many a year is gone by since
that happy hour of our lives, and most of the spells which were then
cast have been long since broken, yet we felt another taken from us when
at Drury Lane an attempt was made to substitute a rich curtain of
crimson and gold for the plain dark fall of green. And then the
overture! the enchanting prelude to all the wonders that await us! the
unearthly music leading us into fairy land! the incantation at whose
voice, apparently, the mysterious veil on which our eyes have been so
long and so earnestly rivetted rises, as if by its own act, and reveals
to us the mysteries of an enchanted world! From that moment all things
that lie on this side the charmed boundary are lost sight of, and all
the wonders that are going on beyond it are looked on with the most
undoubting faith. It is not for a moment suspected that the actors
therein are beings of natures like ourselves, nor is there any
questioning but that we are gazing upon scenes and doings separated from
the realities of life. Verily do we believe that never again in this
life are so many new and bewildering and bewitching feelings awakened in
his breast, as on the first night in which the boy is spectator of a
theatrical performance, if he be old enough to enjoy and not quite old
enough clearly to understand what is going on.
At this holiday period of the year the boxes of our theatres are filled
with the happy faces, and their walls ring with the sweet laughter of
children. All things are matters of amazement and subjects of
exclamation. But in London above all things,--far, far beyond all other
things (though it does not begin for some days later than this) is the
pantomime with its gorgeous scenery and incomprehensible transformations
and ineffable fun. "Ready to leap out of the box," says Leigh Hunt,
"they joy in the mischief of the clown, laugh at the thwacks he gets for
his meddling, and feel no small portion of contempt for his ignorance in
not knowing that hot water will scald, and gunpowder explode; while with
head aside to give fresh energy to the strokes, they ring their little
palms against each other in testimony of exuberant delight." The
winter pantomimes are introduced on the evening next after Christmas
night; and some account of this entertainment seems, as a feature of the
season, due to our Christmas readers.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME.--_Page 249._]
From Italy, then, we appear to have derived our pantomime,--the
legitimate drama of Christmas, and to pagan times and deities the origin
of our pantomimical characters may be directly referred. The nimble
harlequin of our stage is the Mercury of the ancients, and in his magic
wand and charmed cap may be recognized that god's caduceus and petasus.
Our columbine is Psyche, our clown Momus, and our pantaloon is
conjectured to be the modern representative of Charon,--variously
habited indeed, according to Venetian fancy and feelings. Even Punch,
the friend of our childhood, the great-headed, long-nosed, hump-backed
"Mister Pōnch," it seems, was known to the Romans, under the name of
Maccus.
Our pantomime, however, is an inferior translation, rather than a good
copy, from its Italian original. The rich humor, the ready wit, the
exquisite raciness of the Italian performance have all evaporated, and
with us are burlesqued by the vapid joke, the stale trick, and acts of
low buffoonery. We read of the pantomimic actors, Constantini and
Cecchini, being ennobled; of Louis XIII. patronizing the merits of
Nicholas Barbieri, and raising him to fortune; that Tiberio Fiurilli,
the inventor of the character of Scaramouch, was the early companion of
Louis XIV., and that the wit of the harlequin Dominic made him a
favored guest at the same monarch's table. These instances of
distinction are alone sufficient proof of the superior refinement of the
actors of Italian pantomime, above our vulgar tribe of tumblers. The
Italian artists were fellows "of infinite jest," whose ready wit enabled
them to support extempore dialogue, suiting "the action to the word, and
the word to the action;" for the Arlequino of Italy was not a mute like
his English representative. Many of the Italian harlequins were authors
of considerable reputation; Ruzzante, who flourished about 1530, may be
regarded as the Shakspeare of pantomime. "Till his time," says
D'Israeli, "they had servilely copied the duped fathers, the wild sons,
and the tricking valets of Plautus and Terence; and perhaps, not being
writers of sufficient skill but of some invention, were satisfied to
sketch the plots of dramas, boldly trusting to extempore acting and
dialogue. Ruzzante peopled the Italian stage with a fresh, enlivening
crowd of pantomimic characters. The insipid dotards of the ancient
comedy were transformed into the Venetian Pantaloon, and the Bolognese
Doctor; while the hare-brained fellow, the arch knave, and the booby,
were furnished from Milan, Bergamo, and Calabria. He gave his newly
created beings new language and a new dress. From Plautus, he appears to
have taken the hint of introducing all the Italian dialects into one
comedy, by making each character use his own,--and even the modern
Greek, which, it seems, afforded many an unexpected play on words for
the Italian. This new kind of pleasure, like the language of Babel,
charmed the national ear; every province would have its dialect
introduced on the scene, which often served the purpose both of
recreation and a little innocent malice. Their masks and dresses were
furnished by the grotesque masqueraders of the Carnival, which,
doubtless, often contributed many scenes and humors to the quick and
fanciful genius of Ruzzante."
To the interesting essay, by the author of the "Curiosities of
Literature," from whence this extract is derived, we beg leave to refer
the reader for an anecdotical history of pantomime. Mr. D'Israeli in
conclusion observes, that "in gesticulation and humor our Rich appears
to have been a complete mime; his genius was entirely confined to
pantomime, and he had the glory of introducing Harlequin on the English
stage, which he played under the feigned name of Lun. He could describe
to the audience by his signs and gestures, as intelligibly as others
could express by words. There is a large caricature print of the triumph
which Rich had obtained over the severe muses of tragedy and comedy,
which lasted too long not to excite jealousy and opposition from the
_corps dramatique_.
"Garrick, who once introduced a speaking Harlequin, has celebrated the
silent but powerful language of Rich:--
"When LUN appeared, with matchless art and whim,
He gave the power of speech to every limb,
Tho' mask'd and mute, convey'd his quick intent,
And told in frolic gestures what he meant;
But now the motley coat and sword of wood
Require a tongue to make them understood!'"
Foote, it was, we think, who attempted to get a standing for a Harlequin
with a wooden leg upon the English stage; and though he was supported by
a clown upon crutches, these and other efforts to effect a witty reform
in the mechanism of an English pantomime proved unsuccessful. "Why is
this burlesque race here," inquires Mr. D'Israeli, "privileged to cost
so much, to do so little, and repeat that little so often?" In 1827,
according to a statement which we believe to be tolerably correct, the
"getting up," as it is termed, of the pantomimes produced on the 26th of
December, in London, cost at--
Covent Garden £1,000
Drury Lane 1,000
Surrey 500
Adelphi 200
Olympic 150
Sadler's Wells 100
West London 100
------
Making the total of £3,050