Plays acted—Displeasure of the Domine.
NOW the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple
good people, was approaching; for now the officers, encouraged by the
success of all their projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and
enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted
within the sphere of their influence; and, for this purpose, a private
theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play. Except
the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not, perhaps, one of
the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time,
the town, once so closely united by intermarriages and numberless other
ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided
into two factions; one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger
class, as, having a smattering of New-York education, and a little more
of dress and vivacity, or, perhaps, levity, than the rest, were eager to
mingle in the society, and adopt the manners of those strangers. It is
but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were
included in this number; these, however they might have been captivated
with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older
relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an
impious neglect of duties the most sacred, was generally imputed, and
whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the
control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the imputation of
cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to.
The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended,
notwithstanding the good Domine’s earnest charges to the contrary. It
was the Beaux Stratagem; no favourable specimen of the delicacy or
morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very
little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were
there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet
they “laughed consumedly,” as Scrub says, and actually did so, “because
they were talking of him.” They laughed at Scrub’s gestures and
appearance: and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young
ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans,
displaying great hoops, and with painted cheeks and coloured eyebrows,
sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level
to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but
lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to
their own habits, they laughed anew at the recollection of their late
masquerade. “It is much,” says Falstaff, “that a lie with a grave face,
and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow who never had the ache
in his shoulders.” One need only look back to the first rude efforts at
comic humour which delighted our fathers, to know what gross and feeble
jests amuse the mind, as yet a stranger to refinement. The loud and
artless mirth so easily excited in a good-humoured child, the naivete of
its odd questions and ignorant wonder, which delight us while associated
with innocence and simplicity, would provoke the utmost disgust if we
met with them where we look for intelligence and decorous observances.
The simplicity of primitive manners, in what regards the petty
amusements and minute attentions to which we have become accustomed, is
exactly tantamount to that of childhood; it is a thing which, in our
state of society, we have no idea of. Those who are, from their
depressed situation, ignorant of the forms of polished life, know, at
least, that such exist; and either awkwardly imitate them, or carefully
avoid committing themselves, by betraying their ignorance. Here, while
this simplicity, which, by the by, was no more vulgar than that of
Shakspeare’s Miranda, with its concomitant purity, continued unbroken by
foreign modes, it had all the charm of undesigning childhood; but when
half education and ill supported pretensions took place of this sweet
attraction, it assumed a very different aspect; it was no longer
simplicity but vulgarity. There are things that every one feels and no
one can describe, and this is one of them.
But to return to our Mirandas and their theatrical heroes: the fame of
their exhibitions went abroad, and opinions were formed of them no way
favourable to the actors or to the audience. In this region of reality,
where rigid truth was always undisguised, they had not learned to
distinguish between fiction and falsehood. It was said that the
officers, familiar with every vice and every disguise, had not only
spent a whole night in telling lies in a counterfeited place, the
reality of which had never existed, but that they were themselves a lie,
and had degraded manhood, and broke through an express prohibition in
Scripture, by assuming female habits; that they had not only told lies,
but cursed and swore the whole night; and assumed the characters of
knaves, fools, and robbers, which every wise and good man held in
detestation, and no one would put on unless they felt themselves easy in
them. Painting their faces, of all other things, seemed most to violate
the Albanian ideas of decorum, and was looked upon as a most flagrant
abomination. Great and loud was the outcry produced by it. Little
skilled in sophistry, and strangers to all the arts “that make the worst
appear the better reason,” the young auditors could only say, “that
indeed it was very amusing; made them laugh heartily, and did harm to
nobody.” So harmless, indeed, and agreeable did this entertainment
appear to the new converts to fashion, that the Recruiting Officer was
given out for another night, to the great annoyance of Domine
Freylinghausen, who invoked heaven and earth to witness and avenge this
contempt, not only of his authority, but, as he expressed it, of the
source from whence it was derived. Such had been the sanctity of this
good man’s life, and the laborious diligence and awful earnestness with
which he inculcated the doctrines he taught, that they had produced a
correspondent effect, for the most part, on the lives of his hearers,
and led them to regard him as the next thing to an evangelist.
Accustomed to success in all his undertakings, and to “honour, love,
obedience, troops of friends,” and all that gratitude and veneration can
offer to its most distinguished object, this rebellion against his
authority, and contempt of his opinion, once the standard by which every
one’s judgment was regulated, wounded him very deeply. The abhorrence
with which he inspired the parents of the transgressors, among whom were
many young men of spirit and intelligence, was the occasion of some
family disagreements, a thing formerly scarcely known. Those young
people, accustomed to regard their parents with implicit reverence, were
unwilling to impute to them unqualified harshness, and therefore removed
the blame of a conduct so unusual to their spiritual guide; “and while
he thought, good easy man, full surely his greatness was a ripening,
nipt his root.” Early one Monday morning, after the Domine had, on the
preceding day, been peculiarly eloquent on the subject of theatrical
amusements, and pernicious innovations, some unknown person left within
his door a club, a pair of old shoes, a crust of black bread, and a
dollar. The worthy pastor was puzzled to think what this could mean, but
had it too soon explained to him. It was an emblematic message, to
signify the desire entertained of his departure. The stick was to push
him away, the shoes to wear on the road, and the bread and money a
provision for his journey. These symbols, appear, in former days, to
have been more commonly used, and better understood than at present; for
instance, we find that when Robert Bruce, afterwards king of Scotland,
was in a kind of honourable captivity in the court of England; when his
friend, the Earl of Glocester, discovered that it was the intention of
the king to imprison him in the tower, lest he should escape to Scotland
and assert his rights, unwilling by word or writing to discover what had
passed in council, and at the same time desirous to save his friend, he
sent him a pair of gilt spurs and twelve crowns, and ordered the servant
to carry them to him as returning what he had formerly borrowed from
him. This mysterious gift and message was immediately understood, and
proved the means of restoring Bruce, and, with him, the laws and liberty
of his native kingdom. Very different, however, was the effect produced
by this mal a-propos symbol of dislike. Too conscious, and too fond of
popularity, the pastor languished under a sense of imaginary
degradation, grew jealous, and thought every one alienated from him,
because a few giddy young people were stimulated, by momentary
resentments, to express disapprobation in this vague and dubious manner.
Thus, insensibly, do vanity and self-opinion, mingle with our highest
duties. Had the Domine, satisfied with the testimony of a good
conscience, gone on in the exercise of his duty, and been above allowing
little personal resentments to mingle with his zeal for what he thought
right, he might have felt himself far above an insult of this kind; but
he found to his cost, that “a habitation giddy and unsure hath he, that
buildeth on the fickle heart” of the unsteady, wavering multitude.
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