Old Country Life

Some years ago a famous prize-fighter went about England on exhibition. He came to Taunton, but was there taken ill, and unable to show himself. The manager at once wrote or telegraphed to Jack Hannaford, and he went up with alacrity to supply his place. He was stripped, showed his muscles, and his mode of hitting, as the advertised pugilist. The Taunton people would have been none the wiser, but, as it happened, Lord Lundy was in the tent. Hannaford caught his eye, and saw that he was recognized; so he went over to his lordship and whispered, "Mum, my lord. The second best man in England was laid on the shelf, so they had to telegraph for the best man to take his place."

Hannaford would never give any pocket-money to his sons till they were strong enough to knock him down. Then each received a five-pound note, which he was considered at length to have deserved by having made proof of his manhood.

It is a fact that on market days, when Hannaford was seen on the platform with his ticket for the market town, the farmers would bribe the guard to put him into a carriage by himself and lock him in, so afraid were they of being in the same compartment with the parson, who would challenge and fight a man in a railway carriage as readily as anywhere else.

Though a hunting parson, of altogether different character was Jack Russell. He was a sporting man to the end of his fingers and toes, but a most worthy, kind-hearted, God-fearing, righteous man.

One story of Jack Russell that is not, I believe, told in his Life, is worth repeating. When he was over eighty, he started keeping a pack of harriers. The then Bishop of Exeter sent for him.

"Mr. Russell, I hear you have got a pack of hounds. Is it true?"

"It is. I won't deny it, my lord."

"Well, Mr. Russell, it seems to me rather unsuitable for a clergyman to keep a pack. I do not ask you to give up hunting, for I know it would not be possible for you to exist without that. But will you, to oblige me, give up the pack?"

"Do'y ask it as a personal favour, my lord?"

"Yes, Mr. Russell, as a personal favour."

"Very well, then, my lord, I will."

"Thank you, thank you." The Bishop, moved by his readiness, held out his hand. "Give me your hand, Mr. Russell; you are – you really are – a good fellow."

Jack Russell gave his great fist to the Bishop, who pressed it warmly. As they thus stood hand in hand, Jack said,

"I won't deceive you – not for the world, my lord. I'll give up the pack, sure enough – but Mrs. Russell will keep it instead of me."

The Bishop dropped his hand.

That men like Chowne and Hannaford were unpopular in their parishes I have never heard. I do not believe they were troubled with any aggrieved parishioners. The unpopular man in his parish is he who tries to raise the moral and spiritual tone of his people. They do not like to be made to think that all is not well with them, and it affords them satisfaction to think that they are not worse, if no better, than their pastor.

I know a parish in quite another part of England where the attendance at church was very thin, till the incumbent was one day accidentally, I believe, overtaken with drink, and was had up before the magistrates. After that his church filled, he became a popular man – he had come down to the level of his people.

But, as already said, it is of the bad parsons, as of the bad squires, that stories are told, and told from generation to generation; whereas those of spotless life – the vast bulk of them are such – drop year by year out of existence, and at the same time out of memory.

In the parish in which I live there was a rector, about seventy years ago, who in his old age went to the neighbouring town, nine miles off, to live, and when asked by the Bishop why he was non-resident, said that there was no barber nearer who could curl his wig.

That man held the living for a long term of years; he may have done good, – that he did evil I do not think, because the only thing remembered against him is, that he did not live in a place where his wig could not be curled. But is it not sad! – a long life's labour spent among the poor, preaching God's word, ministering to the sick and afflicted and broken-hearted, and all passing away without leaving the smallest trace, indeed the only reminiscence of the man being, that he hurt the amour propre of the parish by telling the Bishop there was no one in it competent to curl his wig.

CHAPTER VII

COUNTRY DANCES

CLISTHENES, tyrant of Sicyon, says Herodotus, had a beautiful daughter whom he resolved to marry to the most accomplished of the Greeks. Accordingly all the eligible young men of Greece resorted to the court of Sicyon to offer for the hand of the lovely Agarista. Among these, the most distinguished was Hippoclides, and the king decided to take him as his son-in-law.

Clisthenes had already invited the guests to the nuptial feast, and had slaughtered one hundred oxen to the gods to obtain a blessing on the union, when Hippoclides offered to exhibit the crown and climax of his many accomplishments.

He ordered a flute-player to play a dance tune, and when the musician obeyed, he (Hippoclides) began to dance before the king and court and guests, and danced to his own supreme satisfaction.

After the first bout, and he had rested awhile and recovered breath, he ordered a table to be introduced, and he danced figures on it, and finally set his head on the table and gesticulated with his legs.

When the applause had ceased, Clisthenes said – as the young man had reverted to his feet and stood expectantly before him – "You have danced very well, but I don't want a dancing son-in-law."

How greatly we should like to know what Herodotus does not tell us, whether the tyrant of Sicyon was of a sour and puritanical mind, objecting to dancing on principle, or whether he objected to the peculiar kind of dance performed by Hippoclides, notably that with his head on the table and his legs kicking in the air.

I do not think that such a thing existed at that period as puritanical objection to dancing, but I imagine that it was the sort of dance which offended Clisthenes. Lucian in one of his Dialogues introduces a philosopher who reproaches a friend for being addicted to dancing, whereupon the other replies that dancing was of Divine invention, for the goddess Rhæa first composed set dances about the infant Jupiter to hide him from the eyes of his father Saturn, who wanted to eat him. Moreover, Homer speaks with high respect of dancing, and declares that the grace and nimbleness of Merion in the dance distinguished him above the rest of the heroes in the contending hosts of Greeks and Trojans. He adds that in Greece statues were erected to the honour of the best dancers, so highly was the art held in repute, and that Hesiod places on one footing valour and dancing, when he says that "The gods have bestowed fortitude on some men, and on others a disposition for dancing!" Lastly, he puts the philosopher in mind that Socrates not only admired the saltatory exercise in others, but learned it himself when he was an old man.

On hearing this defence of dancing, the morose philosopher in Lucian's Dialogue professes himself a convert, and requests his friend to take him to the next subscription ball.

Steele, in the Spectator, declared that "no one ever was a good dancer that had not a good understanding," and that it is an art whereby mechanically, so to speak, "a sense of good-breeding and virtue are insensibly implanted in minds not capable of receiving it so well in any other rules."

I cannot help thinking that the dancing commended by the Spectator, learned in old age by Socrates, and that in which the Greeks won the honour of statues, was something far removed from that which incurred the displeasure of Clisthenes, and lost Hippoclides the hand of his beautiful mistress.

Here is a letter in the Spectator, given in Steele's article. It purports to be from a father, Philipater: "I am a widower, with one daughter; she was by nature much inclined to be a romp, and I had no way of educating her, but commanding a young woman, whom I entertained to take care of her, to be very watchful in her care and attendance about her. I am a man of business and obliged to be much abroad. The neighbours have told me, that in my absence our maid has let in the spruce servants in the neighbourhood to junketings, while my girl play'd and romped even in the street. To tell you the plain truth, I catched her once, at eleven years old, at chuck-farthing, among the boys. This put me upon new thoughts about my child, and I determined to place her at a boarding-school. I took little notice of my girl from time to time, but saw her now and then in good health, out of harm's way, and was satisfied. But by much importunity, I was lately prevailed with to go to one of their balls. I cannot express to you the anxiety my silly heart was in, when I saw my romp, now fifteen, taken out. I could not have suffered more, had my whole fortune been at stake. My girl came on with the most becoming modesty I had ever seen, and casting a respectful eye, as if she feared me more than all the audiency, I gave a nod, which, I think, gave her all the spirit she assumed upon it, but she rose properly to that dignity of aspect. My romp, now the most graceful person of her sex, assumed a majesty which commanded the highest respect. You, Mr. Spectator, will, better than I can tell you, imagine all the different beauties and changes of aspect in an accomplished young woman, setting forth all her beauties with a design to please no one so much as her father. My girl's lover can never know half the satisfaction that I did in her that day. I could not possibly have imagined that so great improvement could have been wrought by an art that I always held in itself ridiculous and contemptible. There is, I am convinced, no method like this, to give young women a sense of their own value and dignity; and I am sure there can be none so expeditious to communicate that value to others. For my part, my child has danced herself into my esteem, and I have as great an honour of her as ever I had for her mother, from whom she derived those latent good qualities which appeared in her countenance when she was dancing; for my girl showed in one quarter of an hour the innate principles of a modest virgin, a tender wife, and generous friend, a kind mother, and an indulgent mistress."

It is a curious fact that the beautiful and graceful dance, the dance as a fine art, is extinct among us. It has been expelled by the intrusive waltz. And if in the waltz any of that charm of modesty, grace of action, and dignity of posture can be found, which delighted our forefathers and made them esteem dancing, then let it be shown. It was not waltzing which made Merion to be esteemed among the heroes of the Trojan war; it was not waltzing certainly that Socrates acquired in his old age; and it most assuredly was not whilst she was waltzing that the correspondent of the Spectator admired in his daughter the modest virgin. It is possible that it was a sort of topsy-turvy waltz Hippoclides performed, and which lost him the daughter of Clisthenes.

The dance is not properly the spinning around of two persons of opposite sex hugging each other, and imitating the motion of a teetotum. The dance is an assemblage of graceful movements and figures performed by a set number of persons. There is singular beauty in the dance proper. The eye is pleased by a display of graceful and changing outline, by bringing into play the muscles of well-moulded limbs. But where many performers take part the enchantment is increased, just as part-singing is more lovely than solo-singing; for to the satisfaction derived from the graceful attitude of one performer is added that of beautiful grouping. A single well-proportioned figure is a goodly sight; several well-proportioned figures in shifting groups, now in clusters, now swinging loose in wreaths, now falling into line or circles; whilst an individual, or a pair, focus the interest, is very beautiful. It is the change in a concert from chorus to solo; and when, whilst the single dance, projected into prominence, attracts the delighted eye, the rest of the dancers keep rhythmic motion, subdued, in simple change, the effect is exquisite. It is the accompaniment on a living instrument to a solo.

A correspondent of the Times recently gave us an account of the Japanese ballet, which illustrates what I insist on. He tells us that the Maikos or Japanese ballet-dancers are girls of from sixteen to eighteen years of age; they wear long fine silk dresses, natural flowers in their hair, and hold fans in their hands. Their dance is perfectly decorous, exquisitely graceful, and of marvellous artistic beauty. It partakes of the nature of the minuet and the gavotte; it makes no violent demands on lungs and muscles; its object is to give pleasure to the spectators through the exhibition of harmony of lines, elegance of posture, beauty of dress, grace with which the folds of the long drapery fall, the play of light, and change of arrangement of colour. It is a dance full of noble and stately beauty, and has nothing in common with our European ballet, with its extravagance and indelicacy, and – it must be added – inelegance. It is a play without words, and a feast of pure delight to the artistic eye.

Æsthetically, the dance is, or may be, one of the most beautiful creations of man, an art, and an art of no mean order. In it each man and woman has to sustain a part, is one of many, a member of a company, enchained to it by laws which all must obey. And yet each has in his part a certain scope for individual expansion, for the exercise of liberty. It is a figure of the world of men, in which each has a part to perform in relation to all the rest. If the performer uses his freedom to excess, the dancers in the social ball are thrown into disorder, and the beauty and unity of the performance is lost.

Now all this beauty is taken from us. The waltz has invaded our ball-rooms, and drives all other dances out of it. Next to the polka, the waltz is the rudest and most elementary of step and figure-dances; it has extirpated before it the lovely and intricate dances, highly artistic, and of elaborate organization, which were performed a century ago. How is it now in a ball? Even the quadrille and lancers, the sole remnants of an art beautiful to lookers-on, are sat out, or, after having been entered on the list, are omitted, and a waltz substituted for it. "Valse, valse, toujours valse!" A book on dances, published in 1821, speaks of the introduction of the waltz as a new thing, and of the rarity of finding persons at a ball who could dance it.

"The company at balls having no partners who are acquainted with waltzing or quadrilles, generally become spectators of each other in a promenade round the rooms, so that the waltz or quadrille ball ends in country dances, sometimes not one of these dances being performed during the evening." That was a little over sixty years ago. Waltz and quadrille came in hand-in-hand, and displaced the old artistic and picturesque country dances, and then waltz prevailed, and kicked quadrille out at the door. The country dance is the old English dance – the dance of our forefathers – the dance which worked such wonders in the heart of the old father in Steele's paper in the Spectator.

The English have always been a dancing people, only during the Commonwealth did they kick their heels, dancing being unallowed; and at the beginning of this century dancing was discountenanced among the upper classes by the Evangelicals, and among villagers almost completely put down, or driven into low public-houses, by the Dissenters. In 1598 Hentzner describes the English as "excelling in dancing, and in the art of music;" and says that whilst a man might hope to become Lord Chancellor through dancing, without being bred to the law, like Sir Christopher Hatton, it was certainly worth while to endeavour to excel. According to Barnaby Rich, in 1581 the dances in vogue were measures – a grave and stately performance, like the minuet, galliards, jigs, braules, rounds, and hornpipes. In 1602 the Earl of Worcester writes to the Earl of Shrewsbury, "We are frolic here in Court, much dancing in the privy chamber of country dances before the Queen's Majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith." In the reign of James I., Waldon, sneering at Buckingham's kindred, observes that it is easier to put fine clothes on the back than to learn the French dances, and therefore that "none but country dances" must be used at Court. At Christmas, 1622-3, the Prince Charles "did lead the measures with the French ambassador's wife. The measures – braules, corrantoes, and galliards – being ended, the masquers with the ladies did dance two country dances."

In Pepys' Diary we read how he went to see the King dance in Whitehall. "By and by comes the King and Queen, the Duke (of York) and the Duchess, and all the great ones; and after seating themselves, the King takes out the Duchess of York; and the Duke, the Duchess of Buckingham; the Duke of Monmouth, my Lady Castlemaine; and so other lords other ladies; and they danced the Brantle. After that the King led a lady a single coranto; and then the rest of the lords, one after another, other ladies; very noble it was, and great pleasure to see. Then to country dances, the King leading the first, which he called for, which was, says he, 'Cuckolds all awry,' the old dance of England. Of the ladies that danced, the Duke of Monmouth's mistress, and my Lady Castlemaine, and a daughter of Sir Harry de Vicke's, were the best. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queen herself, stand up; and indeed, he dances rarely, and much better than the Duke of York. Having staid here as long as I thought fit, to my infinite content, it being the greatest pleasure I could wish now to see at Court, I went home, leaving them dancing."

All old ballads are set to dance tunes, and derive their name from ballet. Where no instruments were to be had, the dancers sang the ballad, and so gave the time to their feet. The fact of ballad tunes being dance tunes has been the occasion of their preservation; for in The Compleate Dancing Master, a collection of dance tunes, the first edition of which was published in 1650, and which went through eighteen editions to 1728, a great number have been preserved as dance tunes, with the titles of the ballads sung to them. In the old country dances the number of performers was unlimited, but could not consist of less than six.

What is the origin of our title for certain dances – "Country Dances"? I venture to think it has nothing to do with the country, though I have Chappell's weighty opinion against me. The designation was properly given to all those counter-dances, contre-dances, which were performed by the gentlemen standing on one side, and the ladies on the other, in lines, in contra-distinction to all round and square dances. As a general rule, foreign dances are circular or square. In Brittany is La Boulangère, and among the Basques, La Tapageuse, which are set in lines; but with a few exceptions, most continental dances were differentiated from the general type of English dances by being square or round. There were, no doubt, among our peasantry dances in a ring about the May-pole, but this was exceptional. A writer at the beginning of this century says, – "An English country dance differs from any other known dance in form and construction, except Ecossaise and quadrille country dances, as most others composed of a number of persons are either round, octagon, circular, or angular. The pastoral dances on the stage approximate the nearest to English country dances, being formed longways."

The song and the dance were closely associated; indeed, as already said, the word ballet is derived from "ballad," or vice-versâ; and all our old dance tunes had appropriate words set to them.

Dargason, a country dance older than the Reformation, found its way into Wales, where it was set to Welsh words; the English ballad to which it was usually sung was —

"It was a maid of my country,
As she came by a hawthorn tree,
As full of flowers as might be seen,
She marvelled to see the tree so green.
At last she asked of this tree
How came this freshness unto thee?
And every branch so fair and clean?
I marvel that you grow so green."