Part 6 (2/2)
”That a pair of handsome silk stockings, of one pistole value, be given to the handsomest young country maid that appears in the field--with many other whimsical and comical diversions too numerous to mention.
”And as this mirth is designed to be purely innocent and void of offense, all persons resorting there are desired to behave themselves with decency and sobriety.”
There is a delightful heartiness and simplicity about all this racing, and chasing, and dancing, and jigging, and fiddling. Folks had not learned to take their pleasure sadly. They still found clowns funny, and shouted with laughter over the efforts to climb greased poles and catch slippery pigs, and, above all, they delighted in the barbecue. At these great open-air feasts animals were roasted whole over enormous fires. Huge bowls of punch circled round the long tables spread under the trees, and when the feast was done the negroes gathered up the fragments and made merry, late into the night.
All the English holidays were observed in the Cavalier Colonies in addition to some local festivals. Eddis writes from Annapolis in old colony days: ”Besides our regular a.s.semblies, every mark of attention is paid to the patron saint of each parent dominion; and St. George, St.
Andrew, St. Patrick, and St. David are celebrated with every partial mark of national attachment. General invitations are given, and the appearance is always numerous and splendid. The Americans on this part of the continent have likewise a saint, whose history, like those of the above venerable characters, is lost in sable uncertainty. The first of May is, however, set apart to the memory of Saint _Tamina_ (Tammany); on which occasion the natives wear a piece of a buck's tail in their hats, or in some conspicuous situation. During the course of the evening, and generally in the midst of a dance, the company are interrupted by the sudden intrusion of a number of persons habited like Indians, who rush violently into the room, singing the war-song, giving the whoop, and dancing in the style of those people; after which ceremony, a collection is made, and they retire, well satisfied with their reception and entertainment.”
In addition to such festivities as these, the King's birthnight was celebrated with illuminations and joy-fires, and Christmas in Maryland and Virginia recalled the gayety of the dear old home festival. The halls were filled with holly and mistletoe, which refuse to grow in the chill New England air, but may be gathered in the woods of Virginia as freely as in England; the yule log was kindled on the hospitable hearth, and the evening ended with a dance.
It was a dancing age. None were too old or too dignified to join in the pastime. We have it on the authority of General Greene that on one occasion Was.h.i.+ngton danced for three hours without once sitting down.
Patrick Henry would close the doors of his office to betake himself to dancing or fiddling, and Jefferson dearly loved to rosin his bow for a merry jig. The story is told of him that once, when away from home, he received news of the burning of his father's house. ”Did you save any of my books?” he asked of the slave who brought him the tidings. ”No, Ma.s.sa,”
answered the negro, ”but we saved the fiddle!”
At the entertainments in the ”Palace” at Williamsburg, the Governor himself opened the ball, with the most distinguished lady present, in the stately figures of the minuet. Afterward young and old joined in the livelier motions of the _Virginia Reel_. This dance, in spite of its name, did not spring from Virginia soil, but was adopted from an old English dance known as ”The Hemp-Dressers,” whose figures represent the process of weaving, as its couples shoot from side to side, then over and under, like a shuttle, and finally unite, as the threads tighten and draw the cloth together.
The Governor's palace did not absorb all the gayety of Williamsburg. Who has not heard of the Raleigh Tavern, with its leaden bust of Sir Walter, and its crowning glory of ”The Apollo Room,” named doubtless for that famous ”Apollo Room” in the ”Devil's Tavern,” Fleet Street, where Shakespeare and Jonson held their bouts of wit and wine?
If we could have crept up to the Raleigh Tavern some night, early in the last half of the last century, and peeped through the small-paned windows of ”the Apollo,” we might have seen a party of gay collegians making merry with their sweethearts and friends. This tall youth, with sandy hair and gray eyes, is Tom Jefferson, who is offering his awkward homage at the shrine of Miss 'Becca Burwell. Near them is Jefferson's most intimate friend, Jack Page, dancing with his Nancy. Yonder, near the wide fireplace, between Sukey Potter and Betsy Moore, stands Ben Harrison, a mere boy still, though soon to enter the House of Burgesses, and over there in the corner, gravely surveying the dancers, is the uniformed figure of the young soldier, George Was.h.i.+ngton. Should we have read in these youthful faces a promise of the parts they were destined to play on the world's stage? Probably no more than we should have foreseen this gay ballroom turned into the hall of a political a.s.sembly, where the first birth-cry of American freedom is heard.
We can get whatever impression we choose of Williamsburg and its society by selecting our authority judiciously. Burnaby, who visited it in 1759, describes it as a pleasant little town, with wooden houses straggling along unpaved streets; while Hugh Jones writes, thirty years earlier, that many good families live here ”who dress after the same modes and behave themselves exactly as the Gentry in London.” ”Most families of any note,”
he adds, ”have a coach, chariot, Berlin or chaise.”
The city, so he says, is well stocked with rich stores, and ”at the Governor's House upon Birthnights and at b.a.l.l.s and a.s.semblies, I have seen as fine an appearance, as good diversion, and as splendid entertainments in Governor Spotswood's time as I have seen anywhere.”
When Governor Botetourt (p.r.o.nounced after the English fas.h.i.+on, _Bottatot_) came over to Virginia, he took the oath of office here at Williamsburg, and rode in state in a great coach drawn by six milk-white horses. After the oath had been administered, a grand supper was given in his honor at the Raleigh Tavern. _The Gazette_ gives a full account of the affair. An ode was sung, beginning:
”He comes! His Excellency comes To cheer Virginia's plains.
Fill, your brisk bowls, ye loyal sons, And sing your loftiest strains!
Be this your glory, this your boast, Lord Botetourt's the favorite toast.
Triumphant wreaths entwine!
Fill your b.u.mpers swiftly round, And make your s.p.a.cious rooms resound With music, joy and wine!”
The air being ended, the recitative took up the strain of effusive compliment:
”Search every garden, strip the shrubby bowers, And strew his path with sweet autumnal flowers!
Ye virgins, haste; prepare the fragrant rose And with triumphant laurels crown his brows!”
The virgins thus called forth, appeared from their ”shrubby bowers,”
bearing roses and laurel, and singing, as they advanced toward the hero of the evening:
”See, we've stripped each flowery bed-- Here's laurels for his lordly head, And while Virginia is his care, May he protect the virtuous fair!”
As I looked on Lord Botetourt's statue, and marked its moss-covered figure and its fatuously smiling face, robbed of its nose by the stone of contempt, I remembered this festival, and mused on the vicissitudes of fame.
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