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Into
this
festal
season
of
the
year
--
as
it
already
was
,
and
continued
to
be
during
the
greater
part
of
two
centuries
--
the
Puritans
compressed
whatever
mirth
and
public
joy
they
deemed
allowable
to
human
infirmity
;
thereby
so
far
dispelling
the
customary
cloud
,
that
,
for
the
space
of
a
single
holiday
,
they
appeared
scarcely
more
grave
than
most
other
communities
at
a
period
of
general
affliction
.
But
we
perhaps
exaggerate
the
gray
or
sable
tinge
,
which
undoubtedly
characterized
the
mood
and
manners
of
the
age
.
The
persons
now
in
the
market-place
of
Boston
had
not
been
born
to
an
inheritance
of
Puritanic
gloom
.
They
were
native
Englishmen
,
whose
fathers
had
lived
in
the
sunny
richness
of
the
Elizabethan
epoch
;
a
time
when
the
life
of
England
,
viewed
as
one
great
mass
,
would
appear
to
have
been
as
stately
,
magnificent
,
and
joyous
,
as
the
world
has
ever
witnessed
.
Had
they
followed
their
hereditary
taste
,
the
New
England
settlers
would
have
illustrated
all
events
of
public
importance
by
bonfires
,
banquets
,
pageantries
,
and
processions
.
Nor
would
it
have
been
impracticable
,
in
the
observance
of
majestic
ceremonies
,
to
combine
mirthful
recreation
with
solemnity
,
and
give
,
as
it
were
,
a
grotesque
and
brilliant
embroidery
to
the
great
robe
of
state
,
which
a
nation
,
at
such
festivals
,
puts
on
.
There
was
some
shadow
of
an
attempt
of
this
kind
in
the
mode
of
celebrating
the
day
on
which
the
political
year
of
the
colony
commenced
.
The
dim
reflection
of
a
remembered
splendour
,
a
colourless
and
manifold
diluted
repetition
of
what
they
had
beheld
in
proud
old
London
--
we
will
not
say
at
a
royal
coronation
,
but
at
a
Lord
Mayor
's
show
--
might
be
traced
in
the
customs
which
our
forefathers
instituted
,
with
reference
to
the
annual
installation
of
magistrates
.
The
fathers
and
founders
of
the
commonwealth
--
the
statesman
,
the
priest
,
and
the
soldier
--
seemed
it
a
duty
then
to
assume
the
outward
state
and
majesty
,
which
,
in
accordance
with
antique
style
,
was
looked
upon
as
the
proper
garb
of
public
and
social
eminence
.
All
came
forth
to
move
in
procession
before
the
people
's
eye
,
and
thus
impart
a
needed
dignity
to
the
simple
framework
of
a
government
so
newly
constructed
.
Then
,
too
,
the
people
were
countenanced
,
if
not
encouraged
,
in
relaxing
the
severe
and
close
application
to
their
various
modes
of
rugged
industry
,
which
at
all
other
times
,
seemed
of
the
same
piece
and
material
with
their
religion
.
Here
,
it
is
true
,
were
none
of
the
appliances
which
popular
merriment
would
so
readily
have
found
in
the
England
of
Elizabeth
's
time
,
or
that
of
James
--
no
rude
shows
of
a
theatrical
kind
;
no
minstrel
,
with
his
harp
and
legendary
ballad
,
nor
gleeman
with
an
ape
dancing
to
his
music
;
no
juggler
,
with
his
tricks
of
mimic
witchcraft
;
no
Merry
Andrew
,
to
stir
up
the
multitude
with
jests
,
perhaps
a
hundred
years
old
,
but
still
effective
,
by
their
appeals
to
the
very
broadest
sources
of
mirthful
sympathy
.
All
such
professors
of
the
several
branches
of
jocularity
would
have
been
sternly
repressed
,
not
only
by
the
rigid
discipline
of
law
,
but
by
the
general
sentiment
which
give
law
its
vitality
.
Not
the
less
,
however
,
the
great
,
honest
face
of
the
people
smiled
--
grimly
,
perhaps
,
but
widely
too
.
Nor
were
sports
wanting
,
such
as
the
colonists
had
witnessed
,
and
shared
in
,
long
ago
,
at
the
country
fairs
and
on
the
village-greens
of
England
;
and
which
it
was
thought
well
to
keep
alive
on
this
new
soil
,
for
the
sake
of
the
courage
and
manliness
that
were
essential
in
them
.
Wrestling
matches
,
in
the
different
fashions
of
Cornwall
and
Devonshire
,
were
seen
here
and
there
about
the
market-place
;
in
one
corner
,
there
was
a
friendly
bout
at
quarterstaff
;
and
--
what
attracted
most
interest
of
all
--
on
the
platform
of
the
pillory
,
already
so
noted
in
our
pages
,
two
masters
of
defence
were
commencing
an
exhibition
with
the
buckler
and
broadsword
.
But
,
much
to
the
disappointment
of
the
crowd
,
this
latter
business
was
broken
off
by
the
interposition
of
the
town
beadle
,
who
had
no
idea
of
permitting
the
majesty
of
the
law
to
be
violated
by
such
an
abuse
of
one
of
its
consecrated
places
.
It
may
not
be
too
much
to
affirm
,
on
the
whole
,
(
the
people
being
then
in
the
first
stages
of
joyless
deportment
,
and
the
offspring
of
sires
who
had
known
how
to
be
merry
,
in
their
day
)
,
that
they
would
compare
favourably
,
in
point
of
holiday
keeping
,
with
their
descendants
,
even
at
so
long
an
interval
as
ourselves
.
Their
immediate
posterity
,
the
generation
next
to
the
early
emigrants
,
wore
the
blackest
shade
of
Puritanism
,
and
so
darkened
the
national
visage
with
it
,
that
all
the
subsequent
years
have
not
sufficed
to
clear
it
up
.
We
have
yet
to
learn
again
the
forgotten
art
of
gaiety
.
The
picture
of
human
life
in
the
market-place
,
though
its
general
tint
was
the
sad
gray
,
brown
,
or
black
of
the
English
emigrants
,
was
yet
enlivened
by
some
diversity
of
hue
.
A
party
of
Indians
--
in
their
savage
finery
of
curiously
embroidered
deerskin
robes
,
wampum-belts
,
red
and
yellow
ochre
,
and
feathers
,
and
armed
with
the
bow
and
arrow
and
stone-headed
spear
--
stood
apart
with
countenances
of
inflexible
gravity
,
beyond
what
even
the
Puritan
aspect
could
attain
.
Nor
,
wild
as
were
these
painted
barbarians
,
were
they
the
wildest
feature
of
the
scene
.
This
distinction
could
more
justly
be
claimed
by
some
mariners
--
a
part
of
the
crew
of
the
vessel
from
the
Spanish
Main
--
who
had
come
ashore
to
see
the
humours
of
Election
Day
.
They
were
rough-looking
desperadoes
,
with
sun-blackened
faces
,
and
an
immensity
of
beard
;
their
wide
short
trousers
were
confined
about
the
waist
by
belts
,
often
clasped
with
a
rough
plate
of
gold
,
and
sustaining
always
a
long
knife
,
and
in
some
instances
,
a
sword
.
From
beneath
their
broad-brimmed
hats
of
palm-leaf
,
gleamed
eyes
which
,
even
in
good-nature
and
merriment
,
had
a
kind
of
animal
ferocity
.
They
transgressed
without
fear
or
scruple
,
the
rules
of
behaviour
that
were
binding
on
all
others
:
smoking
tobacco
under
the
beadle
's
very
nose
,
although
each
whiff
would
have
cost
a
townsman
a
shilling
;
and
quaffing
at
their
pleasure
,
draughts
of
wine
or
aqua-vitae
from
pocket
flasks
,
which
they
freely
tendered
to
the
gaping
crowd
around
them
.
It
remarkably
characterised
the
incomplete
morality
of
the
age
,
rigid
as
we
call
it
,
that
a
licence
was
allowed
the
seafaring
class
,
not
merely
for
their
freaks
on
shore
,
but
for
far
more
desperate
deeds
on
their
proper
element
.
The
sailor
of
that
day
would
go
near
to
be
arraigned
as
a
pirate
in
our
own
.
There
could
be
little
doubt
,
for
instance
,
that
this
very
ship
's
crew
,
though
no
unfavourable
specimens
of
the
nautical
brotherhood
,
had
been
guilty
,
as
we
should
phrase
it
,
of
depredations
on
the
Spanish
commerce
,
such
as
would
have
perilled
all
their
necks
in
a
modern
court
of
justice
.
But
the
sea
in
those
old
times
heaved
,
swelled
,
and
foamed
very
much
at
its
own
will
,
or
subject
only
to
the
tempestuous
wind
,
with
hardly
any
attempts
at
regulation
by
human
law
.
The
buccaneer
on
the
wave
might
relinquish
his
calling
and
become
at
once
if
he
chose
,
a
man
of
probity
and
piety
on
land
;
nor
,
even
in
the
full
career
of
his
reckless
life
,
was
he
regarded
as
a
personage
with
whom
it
was
disreputable
to
traffic
or
casually
associate
.
