SAINT DISTAFF'S DAY. 7TH JANUARY. CONCLUSION. THE day which precedes this is, as we have already informed our readers, the last of the twelve days which constitute what is, emphatically, the Christmas season ;—and with the revelries of Twelfth-night, the general holiday is, in strictness, considered to be at an end. As, however, we found it necessary to approach the throng of its celebrations with some degree of preparationto pass through some of its lighted antechambers, before we ventured to trust our eyes amid the blaze of the temple itselfso also, we dare not step, at once, from its thousand lights, into the common air of the every-day world, without a previous subjecting of our imaginations to the diminished glare of the outer chambers which lie on this other side. And this it is the more incumbent on us to do—because the revellers, whose proceedings it is our business to describe, take the same course, in returning to the business of life. It is not, as we have said, to be expected that, after the full chorus of increased mirth which hath swelled up anew for the last of these celebrations, the ear should all at once accustom itself to a sudden and utter silence-should endure the abrupt absence of all festival sound :-nor can all the laughing spirits of the season, who were engaged, in added numbers, for the revelries of last night, be got quietly laid at rest, in the course of a single day. One or other of them are, accordingly, found lurking about the corners of our chambers, after the ceremonies, for which they are called up, are over-encouraged to the neglect of the order for their dismissal, by the young hearts who have formed a merry alliance with the imps, which they are by no means willing to terminate thus suddenly. And, sooth to say, those youngsters are often able to engage heads who are older-and, we suppose, should know better-in the conspiracies which are, day by day, formed, for the detention of some one or more of these members of the train of Momus. Even in rural districts-where the necessary preparations in aid of the returning season are, by this time, expected to call men abroad to the labors of the field-our benevolent ancestors admitted the claim for a gradual subsiding of the Christmas mirth, in favor of the children of toil. Their devices for letting themselves gently down were recognized ;—and a sort of compromise was sanctioned between the spirit of the past holyday, and the sense of an important coming duty to be performed. The genius of mirth met the genius of toil, on neutral ground, for a single day; and the two touched hands, in recognition of the rightful dominion of each other-ere they, severally, set forth, in their own separate directions. Thus, on the day which followed Twelfth-night, the implements of labor were prepared, and the team was even yoked, for a space ;--but the business of turning the soil was not required to be laboriously engaged in, until the Monday which followedand which, therefore, bore (and bears) the title of Plough Monday. After a few hours of morning labor, a sort of half-holiday was the concluding privilege of this privileged season ;—and the husbandman laid aside his plough, and the maiden her distaff, to engage in certain revels which were peculiar to the day, and to the country districts. From the partial resumption of the spinning labors of the women, on this morning, the festival in question takes its name;—and it is (or was) sometimes called, also, "Rockday," in honor of the rock,-which is another name for the distaff. It is described as being "a distaff held in the hand, from whence wool is spun, by twirling a ball below.” Of the sports by which this day was enlivened, we doubt if there are any remains. These seem to have consisted in the burning-by the men who had returned from the field-of the flax and tow belonging to the women-as a sort of assertion of the supremacy of the spirit of fun over his laborious rival, for this one day more-and a challenge into his court :—and this challenge was answered by the maidens, and the mischief retorted, by sluicing the clowns with pails of water. It was, in fact, a merry contest between these two elements, of water and of fire;—and may be looked upon as typical of that more matter-of-fact extinction, which was about to be finally given to the lights of the season, when the sports of this day should be concluded. Herrick's poem, on the subject-which we must quote from the " Hesperides,❞—includes all that is known of the ancient observances of St. Distaff's day.— OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED;-and our Christmas prince must abdicate. In flinging down his wand of misrule, we trust there is no reason why he should-like Prospero, when his charms were over, and he broke his staff-drown this, his book, "deeper than did ever plummet sound." The spells which it contains are, we believe, all innocent ;—and we trust it may survive, to furnish the directions for many a future scheme of Christmas happiness. And now Father Christmas has, at length, departed ;—but not till the youngsters had got from the merry old man his last bonbon. The school-boy, too, has clung to the skirts of the patriarch's coat, and followed him as far as he could. And farther had he gone-but for a clear and undoubted vision of a dark object, which has been looming suspiciously through the gloom for some weeks past. He first caught a glimpse of it, on stepping out from amongst the lights of Twelfth-night; but he turned his head, resolutely, away-and has since looked as little in that direction as he could. But there is no evading it now! There it stands-right in his way-plain, and distinct, and portentous !— the gloomy portal of this merry season-on whose face is inscribed, in characters which there is no mystifying, its own appropriate and unbeloved name-BLACK MONDAY! And, behold! at the gloomy gate a hackney coach (more like a mourning coach!-Black Monday visible in all its appointments -and black Friday (looking blacker than ever this black Monday) frowning from its foot-board! And, lo! through its windows, just caught in the distance, the last flutter of the coat-tails of old Father Christmas !OUR REVELS ARE, indeed, ENDED! THE END. |