Part 32 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DRUID PRIESTESS BEARING MISTLETOE.]

Tumbling and feats of agility were also fas.h.i.+onable during the Christmas festival at this period, for in one of the _Tatlers_ (No.

115, dated January 3, 1709) the following pa.s.sage occurs: ”I went on Friday last to the Opera, and was surprised to find a thin house at so n.o.ble an entertainment, 'till I heard that the tumbler was not to make his appearance that night.” The sword-dance--dancing ”among the points of swords and spears with most wonderful agility, and even with the most elegant and graceful motions”--rope-dancing, feats of balancing, leaping and vaulting, tricks by horses and other animals, and bull-baiting and bear-baiting were also among the public amus.e.m.e.nts. And _Hot c.o.c.kles_ was one of the favourite indoor amus.e.m.e.nts of Christmastide. Strutt, in his ”Sports and Pastimes,”

says, _Hot c.o.c.kles_ is from the French _hautes-coquilles_, ”a play in which one kneels, and covering his eyes, lays his head in another's lap and guesses who struck him.” John Gay, a poet of the time, thus pleasantly writes of the game:--

”As at Hot c.o.c.kles once I laid me down, And felt the weighty hand of many a clown, Buxoma gave a gentle tap, and I Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On the death of Queen Anne (August 11, 1714) Prince George Louis of Hanover was proclaimed King of England as

GEORGE THE FIRST.

There was little change in the Christmas festivities in this reign, for, as Mr. Thackeray says in his lively sketch of George I.: ”He was a moderate ruler of England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was in Hanover.” The most important addition to the plays of the period was

THE CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NEST OF FOOLS]

In his ”English Plays,” Professor Henry Morley thus records the introduction of the modern English pantomime, which has since been the great show of Christmastide:--

”The theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which Christopher Rich had been restoring, his son, John Rich, was allowed to open on the 18th of December, 1714. John Rich was a clever mimic, and after a year or two he found it to his advantage to compete with the actors in a fas.h.i.+on of his own. He was the inventor of the modern English form of pantomime, with a serious part that he took from Ovid's Metamorphosis or any fabulous history, and a comic addition of the courts.h.i.+p of harlequin and columbine, with surprising tricks and transformations.

He introduced the old Italian characters of pantomime under changed conditions, and beginning with 'Harlequin Sorcerer' in 1717, continued to produce these entertainments until a year before his death in 1761.

They have since been retained as Christmas shows upon the English stage.”

In a note to ”The Dunciad,” Pope complains of ”the extravagancies introduced on the stage, and frequented by persons of the first quality in England to the twentieth and thirtieth time,” and states that ”_all_ the extravagances” in the following lines of the poem actually appeared on the stage:--

”See now, what Dulness and her sons admire!

See what the charms, that smite the simple heart Not touch'd by nature, and not reach'd by art.

His never-blus.h.i.+ng head he turn'd aside, (Not half so pleased when Goodman prophesied) And look'd, and saw a sable Sorcerer rise, Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies: All sudden, gorgons hiss, and dragons glare, And ten-horn'd fiends and giants rush to war.

h.e.l.l rises, Heaven descends, and dance on earth: G.o.ds, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth, A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball, Till one wide conflagration swallows all.

Thence a new world, to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent, with a heaven its own: Another Cynthia her new journey runs, And other planets circle other suns.

The forests dance, the rivers upward rise, Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies; And last, to give the whole creation grace, Lo! one vast egg produces human race.”

David Garrick, the eminent actor, wrote in a similar strain, finding it hard to hold his own against the patrons of the pantomime:--

”They in the drama find no joys, But doat on mimicry and toys.

Thus, when a dance is in my bill, n.o.bility my boxes fill; Or send three days before the time, To crowd a new-made pantomime.”

”OLD MERRY PLENTIFUL CHRISTMAS,”