WHITSUNTIDE.
This is the only ancient religious festival that has become a popular
one since the Reformation, through the addition of a modern
circumstance. Clubs, or Friendly Societies, have substituted for the old
church ceremonies, a strong motive to assemble in the early days of this
week as their anniversary; and the time of the year being so delightful,
this holiday has, in fact, become more than any other, what May-day was
to the people. Both men and women have their Friendly Societies, in
which every member pays a certain weekly or monthly sum, and on
occasions of sickness or misfortune, claims a weekly stipend, or a sum
of money to bury their dead. These Societies were very prudential
things, especially before the institution of Savings’ Banks, which are
still better; and in the vicinity of towns have become most important
resources for the working class, and especially servants. In the
country, Friendly Societies still do, and will probably long remain,
because Savings’ Banks are not easily introduced there. In a Savings’
Bank, whatever a person deposits he receives with interest. It is safe,
and may be demanded any time. On the other hand, a man may contribute
for years to a club, and not want a penny for himself on account of
sickness, and at his death, with the exception of a fixed sum to bury
him, and one for his widow, all his fund goes from his family; or, what
is worse, he may pay for many years, and just when he wants help, he
finds the box empty, through the great run upon it by the sickness or
accidental disabling of his fellows; or the steward has proved dishonest
and has decamped; or he has failed. Many such cases have occurred,
especially during the violent changes of the last twenty years. In some
particular cases the capital of a dozen Friendly Societies has, by some
strange infatuation or artifice, been lodged in the hands of the same
man, who has proved bankrupt and ruined them all. These are the
drawbacks on Friendly Societies; and yet with these, they were better
than nothing for the poor, and some of them have, in many cases, been
remedied by the members sharing their fund amongst them once every seven
years. They were, and are often, the poor man’s sole resource and refuge
against the horror of falling on the parish, and have helped him through
his time of affliction without burthening his mind with a sense of shame
and dependence.
Well then may they come together on one certain day or days throughout
the country, to hold a feast of fellowship and mutual congratulation in
a common hope. Their wealthier neighbours have encouraged them in this
bond of union and mutual help, and have become honorary members of their
clubs. It is a friendly and christian act. Accordingly, on Whit-Monday,
the sunshiny morning has broke over the villages of England with its
most holiday smile. All work has ceased. There has been, at first, a
Sabbath stillness, a repose, a display of holiday costume. Groups of men
have met here and there in the streets in quiet talk; the children have
begun to play, and make their shrill voices heard through the hamlets.
There have been stalls of sweetmeats and toys set out in the little
market-place on the green, by the shady walk, or under the well-known
tree. Suddenly the bells have struck up a joyous peal, and a spirit of
delight is diffused all over the rustic place, ay, all over every rustic
place in merry England. Forth comes streaming the village procession of
hardy men or comely women, all arrayed in their best, gay with ribbons
and scarfs, a band of music sounding before them; their broad banner of
peace and union flapping over their heads, and their wands shouldered
like the spears of an ancient army, or used as walking-staves. Forth
they stream from their club-room at the village alehouse.
’T is merry Whitsuntide, and merrily
Holiday goes in hamlet and green field;
Nature and men seem joined, for once, to try
The strength of Care, and force the carle to yield:
Summer abroad holds flow’ry revelry:
For revelry, the village bells are pealed;
The season’s self seems made for rural pleasure,
And rural joy flows with o’erflowing measure.
Go where you will through England’s happy valleys,
Deep grows the grass, flowers bask, and wild bees hum;
And ever and anon, with joyous sallies,
Shouting, and music, and the busy drum
Tell you afar where mirth her rustics rallies,
In dusty sports, or ’mid the song and hum
Of Royal Oak, or bowling-green enclosure,
With bower and bench for smoking and composure.
May’s jolly dance is past, and hanging high,
Her garlands swing and wither in the sun;
And now abroad gay posied banners fly,
Followed by peaceful troops, and boys that run
To see their sires go marching solemnly,
Shouldering their wands; and youths with ribbons won
From fond fair hands, that yielded them with pride,
And proudly worn this merry Whitsuntide.
And then succeeds a lovelier sight,--the dames,
Wives, mothers, and arch sigh-awakening lasses,
Filling each gazing wight with wounds and flames,
Yet looking each demurely as she passes,
With flower-tipped wand, and bloom that flower outshames;
And, in the van of these sweet, happy faces
Marches the priest, whose sermon says, “be merry,”
The frank, good squire, and sage apothecary.
W. H.
Forth stream these happy bands from their club-room, making the
procession of the town before they go to church, and then again after
church and before going to dinner, for then begins the serious business
of feasting, too important to admit of any fresh holiday parade for the
rest of the day. Nothing can be more joyously picturesque than this
rural holiday. The time of the year--the latter end of May, or early
part of June, is itself jubilant. The new leaves are just out in all
their tender freshness: the flowers are engoldening the fields, and
making odorous the garden: there are sunshine and brightness to gladden
this festival of the lowly. In my mind are associated with this time,
from the earliest childhood, sunshine, flowers, the sound of bells, and
village bands of music. I see the clubs, as they are called, coming down
the village; a procession of its rustic population all in their best
attire. In front of them comes bearing the great banner, emblazoned with
some fitting scene and motto, old Harry Lomax the blacksmith, deputed to
that office for the brawny strength of his arms, and yet, if the wind be
stirring, evidently staggering under its weight, and finding enough to
do to hold it aloft. There it floats its length of blue and yellow, and
on its top nods the huge posy of peonies, laburnum flowers, and lilachs,
which our own garden has duly furnished. Then comes sounding the band of
drums, bassoons, hautboys, flutes, and clarionets: then the honorary
members--the freeholders of the place--the sage apothecary, and the
priest whose sermon says “be merry”--literally, for years, his text
being on this the words of Solomon--“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die.”--and then the simple sons of the hamlet, walking as stately and
as gravely as they can for the nods and smiles of all their neighbours
who do not join in the procession, but are all at door and window to see
them go by. There they go, passing down the shady lane with all the
village children at their heels, to the next hamlet half a mile off,
which furnishes members to the club, and must therefore witness their
glory. Now the banner and the gilded tops of their wands are seen
glancing between the hedge-row trees; their music comes merrily up the
hill; and as it dies away at the next turn, the drumming of distant
villages becomes audible in half a dozen different quarters. Then come,
one after another, the clubs of the neighbouring hamlets, as the old
ballad of the Earl of Murray very expressively says, “sounding through
the town;” giving occasion to a world of criticism and comparison to
the village gossips, no doubt always terminating in favour of their own
folk.
But the most beautiful sight is that of the women’s clubs, which in some
places walk on the same day with those of the men, but more commonly on
Tuesday. Here the contrast between the band and banner-bearer, and the
female array that follows them, gives great effect. In some places they
are graced with the presence of some of the ladies of the neighbourhood
who are honorary members, and their cultivated countenances, and style
of bearing, again contrast with the simple elegance or showy finery of
the rustic train which succeeds, consisting of the sedate matrons and
blooming damsels of the village. Their light dresses, their gay ribbons
and bonnets, their happy, and often very handsome faces, cannot be seen
without feeling with Wordsworth, that
Their beauty makes you glad.
In all the pageants and processions that were ever seen, there is
nothing more beautiful than those light wands with which they walk, each
crowned with a nosegay of fresh flowers. These posied wands were worthy
of the most chastely graceful times of Greece; and amongst the youthful
forms are often such as Stothard would have gloried in seizing upon to
figure in his charming procession pieces. Indeed a Whitsuntide
procession in his hands would have formed altogether a picture equal to
his Canterbury Pilgrimage, and the Procession of the Flitch of Bacon. It
has never had justice done it, and Stothard is gone; but we have artists
remaining from whose pencil it may, and I trust will, receive honour
due. Why not Leslie add it to his Sir Roger Coverley going to church, or
Sir Roger and the Gipsies? I can see the painting already in my mind’s
eye. The village church is in one extremity; the banner of the men’s
club is stooping at the porch as the train is about to enter, and the
women’s club is advancing up the street in the foreground: the band
composed of figures full of strong character; the female figures full of
simple elegance and arch beauty,--their posied wands depicted with the
force of reality; the village street in perspective; the village
alehouse with depending sign; booths and stalls, and all round merry
faces and holiday forms.
These love-feasts of the Friendly Societies seem very appropriately
celebrated at this festival, which was originally derived from the
AGAPAI, or love-feasts of the early Christians. It is, indeed, a great
improvement on the Whitsun-Ales, which succeeded the Agapai in the Roman
church. It is, as I have before observed, the happiest and almost sole
adaptation of a modern institution to an ancient custom by the Church of
England; a policy, on the contrary, so closely studied and extensively
practised by the Catholic church. The Whitsun-Ales were so called from
the churchwardens buying, and laying in from presents also, a large
quantity of malt, which they brewed into beer, and sold out in the
church or elsewhere. The profits, as well as those from Sunday
games--there being no poor-rates--were given to the poor, for whom this
was one mode of provision, according to the Christian rule, that all
festivities should be rendered innocent by alms. “In every parish,” says
Aubrey, “was a church-house, to which belonged spits, crocks, and other
utensils for dressing provisions. Here the housekeepers met. The young
people were there too; and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts,
etc., the ancients sitting gravely by, and looking on.”
King James, to check the progress of nonconformity, and keep people to
church, published his “Book of Sports,” and _commanded_ attendance on
Whitsun-ales, church-ales, etc.; but he soon found that forced sport is
no sport at all. These Friendly Societies, however, by adopting this
day, have revived the Agapai in a more popular shape, and long may they
continue, refined indeed, and made more temperate by better information,
and a better morality. These being held at public-houses, and their
monthly nights, on which they pay their contributions, being held there
too, has made many persons object to them; and the utilitarian spirit,
especially during periods of general distress, has induced many of them
to give up their bands, banners, and ribbons, and to throw the money
thus saved into the general stock: but if we are to retain any rustic
festival at all, we cannot, I think, have a more picturesque one, or at
a pleasanter time. Let all means be used to preserve a day of relaxation
and good-fellowship from gross intemperance, but let not the external
grace and rustic pageantry be shorn away. As I have met these
Whitsuntide processions in the retired villages of Staffordshire, or as
I saw them in the summer of 1835 at Warsop in Nottinghamshire, I would
wish to see them as many years hence as I may live. In the latter
village, Miss Hamilton, a lady of poetical taste, and author of several
poetical works, had painted the banner for this rural fête with her own
hands, and the flowers with which the wands were crowned were selected
and disposed in a spirit of true poetry. Long, I say, may this bright
day of rejoicing come to the hamlet; and the musing poet stop in the
glades of the near woodlands, and exclaim with Kirk White:
Hark how the merry bells ring jocund round,
And now they die upon the veering breeze;
Anon they thunder loud,
Full on the musing ear.
Wafted in varying cadence, by the shore
Of the still twinkling river, they bespeak
A day of jubilee,
An ancient holiday.
And lo! the rural revels are begun,
And gaily echoing to the laughing sky,
On the smooth-shaven green
Resounds the voice of mirth.
Mortals! be gladsome while ye have the power,
And laugh, and seize the glittering lapse of joy;
In time the bell will toll
That warns ye to your graves.