His Amusements. ‘Let your Recreations Be Manful/not Sinful.’

Of all the amusements of the Colonial Cavalier, none was so popular as gambling. The law strove in vain to break it up. This statute in the Colonial Record, tells its own story: “Against gaming at dice and cardes, be it ordained by this present assembly that the winners and loosers shall forfaicte ten shillings a man, one ten shillings thereof to go to the discoverer, and the rest to pious uses.” I fear very little was ever collected for pious uses. The difficulty lay in the fact that, as every one played, there was no one to act the spy.

This passion for gaming in the colonies was only a reflection of the craze in England. For more than a century after the return of Charles the Second, the rattle of the dice-box, and the shuffling of cards were the most familiar sounds in every London chocolate-house. Young sinners and old spent their fortunes, and misspent their lives, playing for money at Brooke’s or Boodle’s. When a man fell dead at the door of White’s, he was dragged into the hall amid bets as to whether he were dead or alive, and the surgeon’s aid was violently opposed, on the ground of unfairness to those betting on the side of death. The Duke of St. Albans, at eighty, too blind to see the cards, went regularly to a gambling-house with an attendant. Lady Castlemaine lost twenty-five thousand pounds in one night’s play. General Braddock’s sister, having gamed away her fortune at Bath, finished the comedy by hanging herself. When her affectionate brother heard the news, he remarked jocularly, “Poor Fanny, I always thought she would play till she was forced to tuck herself up.”

I offer all this testimony to show that our Colonial Cavalier was only the child of his age, when he too shook the dice, and shuffled the cards. Being short of cash, his bets were generally made in tobacco, or, failing that, in flesh and blood. Many a slave found a new master in the morning, because his old master had been unlucky at play the night before.

In a community so absorbed in the excitement of hazard, the lottery of course took deep hold. The first plantation in America was aided by a grand “standing lottery,” with along list of “welcomes, prises and rewards,” amounting to more than ten thousand crowns. The declaration sets forth that “all prises, welcomes and rewards drawne wherever they dwell, shall of the treasurer have present pay, and whosoever under one name or poesie payeth three pound in ready money, shall receive six shillings and eight pence, or a silver spoone of that value at his choice.”

“The money for the Adventurers is to be paid to Sir Thomas Smith, Knight, and Treasurer for Virginia, or such officers as he shall appoint in City or Country, under the common seale of the company for the receit thereof.”

The example thus set, was followed whenever the colonies felt a pressure for money. In Virginia a lottery was established to meet the expenses of the French and Indian War—the drawing directed to be “in the Burgesses’ Room of the Capital at Williamsburgh at ten in the morning. Prizes current money from £5 to £2000. The lucky numbers to be published in the Gazette.”

In Maryland, in the eighteenth century, a “Scheme of Lottery is humbly proposed to the Public for Raising the sum of 510 pounds, current money, to be applied towards completeing the Market-House in Baltimore-Town in Baltimore Co., buying two Fire-Engines and a parcel of Leather-Buckets for the use of the said Town, enlarging the present Public Wharf and Building a new one.”If gambling was a favorite pastime and the lottery a popular excitement, the Cavalier was not a stranger to manlier sports. Of a brave and ardent temper, and a fine physique, he found at once his work and play in the hardy amusements of the chase. He had learned from the Indian to stalk the deer, walking stealthily behind his horse till a good chance offered to shoot close at hand, and lay the unsuspecting deer at his feet. Sometimes, in the bright October weather, the air would be blue with the smoke of the fires built to start the game. Now, in his heavy leather boots, he would start afoot after wild hare, or by the light of the moon, with a band of servants and dogs, he would hunt the ’possum and the coon. This habit of hunting was so universal that the Colonial Cavalier well merited the sarcasm of The Spectator, which described the English country gentleman as lying under the curse pronounced in the words of Goliath, “I will give thee to the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.” Hunting as a sport may not be spiritualizing, but it certainly is not brutalizing, and as much cannot be said for all the sports of that day, in the Southern colonies of America.

The cock-fight and the gouging-match never lacked as eager a throng of spectators, as gathers to-day at a football game; yet both were brutal and disgusting. They roused the amazement of every foreigner, that such things should be tolerated in a civilized country. The gouging-match was simply a fight of the lowest order. Not only were fists freely used, but the test of success was the ability of the stronger bully to gouge out the eye of his adversary. The under man could only save his sight by humiliating himself to cry out, “Kings Cruse!” or “Enough!”

Anbury, who witnessed several of these matches, says: “I have seen a fellow, reckoned a great adept in gouging, who constantly kept the nails of both his thumb and second finger long and pointed; nay, to prevent their breaking or splitting, he hardened them every evening in a candle.”

So familiar was this brutal practice that it supplied a Southern orator in after years with a rhetorical climax when, inciting his countrymen to make war on the mercantile interests of Great Britain, he exclaimed: “Commerce is the apple of England’s eye. There let us gouge her!”

The cock-fight was scarcely less degrading than the gouging-match. When a fight was announced, the news spread like lightning, and from all over the country people came thronging, some bringing cocks to be entered in the match, but all with money or tobacco to bet on the result. The scene was one of wild excitement. Men and boys cheered on their favorites, and watched with delight, while the furious cocks thrust at each other with their long spurs of cruel steel.

It is pleasant to turn away from such scenes and sports as these, to read of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe riding up into the wild fastnesses of the Blue Ridge Mountains with Governor Spotswood. It was a right knightly expedition, and one of the most picturesque in American history. They wound through the forest, and forded the rivers, and climbed rocky mountains, and took possession of peak after peak in the name of “His Majesty George the Third.” Their horses were shod with iron, which was not usual in those days, and on their return, Governor Spotswood presented each of the Cavaliers as a memento of the journey, with a tiny gold horse-shoe, set with jewels, and bearing the legend, “Sic juvat transcendere montes.” The thrifty old king disapproved of this extravagance, and left the Governor to pay for the mementoes out of his own pocket.

Riding on horseback was the chief recreation, as well as the chief mode of getting about, at the South. As the planters grew richer, they delighted to own fine horses and outfits. Washington’s letter-book contains an order sent to London for elaborate equipments: “1 man’s riding saddle, hogskin seat, large plated stirrups, double-reined bridle and Pelham bit plated. A very neat and fashionable Newmarket saddle-cloth. A large and best portmanteau, saddle, bridle and pillion, cloak-bag, and surcingle. A riding-frock of a handsome drab-coloured broadcloth with plain double gilt buttons. A riding waistcoat of superfine scarlet cloth and gold lace, with buttons like those of the coat. A blue surtout coat. A neat switch whip, silver cap. Black velvet cap for servant.”

Washington, as methodical in private affairs as in public, kept in his household books, a register of the names and ages of his horses and his dogs. Here we may read the entire family history of Ajax and Blueskin, Valiant and Magnolia, or of the foxhounds Vulcan, Singer, Ringwood, Music, and True Love.

There was a peculiar intimacy between the foxhounds and their master, for they were associated with some of the happiest hours of his life, and when they came in from a field-day, torn by the briars through which they had struggled or limping from thorns in the foot, they were tenderly cared for, bandaged, and looked after. No amusement so delighted Washington as riding across country with Lord Fairfax in one of the hunts which that gentleman and sportsman was so fond of organizing at Greenaway Court. On a brisk yet soft autumn morning, through the blue Virginia haze, the gentry for miles around came to the “meet.” The huntsmen might be heard urging on the dogs with cries of “Yoicks! Yoicks! Have at him! Push him up!” till the fox, which had doubled on its tracks, round and round the thick covert, at length broke away, and the cry was raised of “Tally-ho! Gone away!” The huntsman blew his horn, the whipper-in cracked his whip, the hounds were in full cry, and the entire field of scarlet-coated riders broke in, in a mad gallop, through brush and briar. A strong fox will “live” before hounds on an average of an hour, but sometimes the hunt lasted all day, and covered thirty miles or more. The lessons of endurance, of woodcraft, and of hardy strength, which the Virginia gentlemen learned in these hunts, stood them in good stead in the life-and-death struggle on sterner fields.

A great lover of animals was Charles Lee, who was always surrounded by a troop of dogs, and who made himself somewhat unwelcome as a visitor, by insisting on bringing them into the house with him wherever he went. “I must have some object to embrace,” he once wrote to a friend. “When I can be convinced that men are as worthy objects as dogs, I shall transfer my benevolence, and become as staunch a philanthropist as the canting Addison affected to be.”

Apparently he never changed his mind, but died still devoted to his dogs and his horses. Men who loved horses, of course loved horse-racing as well. The Carolina Jockey Club was a famous institution. Its annual races drew crowds from the neighboring country, and the population gave itself up to several days’ festivity, ending in a ball. In Virginia, the sport was no less popular. The Gazette of October, 1737, announces that “On St. Andrew’s Day, there are to be horse-races and several other Diversions for the entertainment of the Gentlemen and Ladies at the Old Field.” The programme of this entertainment recalls the days of Merrie England. Besides the race of twenty horses for a prize of five pounds, the advertisement gives notice:

“That a hat of the value of 20s. be cudgelled for, and that after the first challenge be made, the Drums are to beat every quarter of an hour for 3 challenges round the Ring, and none to play with their left hand.

“That a violin be played for by 20 Fiddles, no person to have the liberty of playing unless he bring his fiddle with him. After the prize is won, they are all to play together, and each a different tune, and to be treated by the company.

“That 12 Boys of 12 years of age do run 112 yds, for a hat of the cost of 12 shillings.

“That a flag be flying on said Day, 30 feet high.“That a handsome entertainment be provided for the subscribers and their wives; and such of them as are not so happy as to have wives, may treat any other lady.

“That drums, trumpets and hautboys be provided to play at said entertainment.

“That after dinner the Royal Health, His Honor the Governor’s, etc., are to be drunk.

“That a Quire of Ballads be sung for, by a number of songsters, all of them to have liquor sufficient to clear their wind-pipes.

“That a pair of silver buckles be wrestled for, by a number of brisk young men.

“That a pair of handsome shoes be danced for.

“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 assemblies, 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 Washington 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, Massa,” 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 Washington. 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 assembly, 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 Balls and Assemblies, 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 (pronounced after the English fashion, 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 bumpers swiftly round,
And make your spacious 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.

In the year 1752 a new delight was opened to the provincials. Hallam’s company of comedians came over in The Charming Sally to act for them. A playbill of that year announces that “at the new theatre in Annapolis by the company of comedians, on Monday next, being the sixth of this instant July, will be performed The Busy Body, likewise a farce called The Lying Valet. To begin precisely at 7 o’clock. Tickets to be had at the printing-office. No persons to be admitted behind the scenes. Box seats 10s., pit 7s. 6d, gallery 5s.” A later bill announces that “children in laps will not be admitted.”

The favorite plays given by Hallam’s Company seem to have been—“The Suspicious Husband,” “Othello,” “The Mock Doctor,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Devil To Pay,” “A Bold Stroke for a Wife,” and “Miss In Her Teens; or, A Medley of Lovers.”

Our squeamish age would find much to shock, and perhaps little to amuse, in many of those old plays. Congreve’s shameless muse set the pace, and the Nell Gwynns of the stage kept it. If we wonder that our ancestors could listen and look, will not our descendants wonder equally at us?

Before Hallam and his company came over to set up a professional standard, amateur theatricals were the rage. The Virginia Gazette in 1736 announces a performance of “The Beaux’ Stratagem by the gentlemen and ladies of this county,” and also that the students of the college are to give The Tragedy of Cato at the theatre. Somehow, Addison’s tragedies seem further removed from our sympathies than Congreve’s comedies, and we turn with relief to a form of amusement always in fashion and forever modern, the time-honored entertainment of feasting.

In 1744, a grand dinner was given by Governor Gooch to visiting statesmen at Annapolis. William Black, who was present, records in his journal that “Punch was served before dinner, which was sumptuous, with wines in great abundance, followed by strawberries and ice-cream, a great rarity.” These public banquets were momentous affairs, demanding a sound digestion and a steady head in those guests who wished to live to dine another day. Chastellux gives a vivid account of their customs. “The dinner,” he writes, “is served in the American or, if you will, in the English fashion, consisting of two courses, one comprehending the entrÉes, the roast meat and the warm side-dishes; the other, the sweet pastry and confectionery. When this is removed, the cloth is taken off, and apples, nuts, and chestnuts are served. It is then that healths are drunk.” This custom of drinking healths, he finds pleasant enough, inasmuch as it serves to stimulate and prolong conversation. But he says, “I find it an absurd and truly barbarous practice, the first time you drink, and at the beginning of the dinner, to call out successively to each individual, to let him know you drink his health. The actor in this ridiculous comedy is sometimes ready to die with thirst, whilst he is obliged to inquire the names, or catch the eyes, of twenty-five or thirty persons.”

The woes of the diner and winer do not, it seems, end with this general call, for he is constantly called, and having his sleeve pulled, to attract his attention, now this way, now that. “These general and partial attacks end in downright duels. They call to you from one end of the table to the other: ‘Sir, will you permit me to drink a glass of wine with you?’”

Allowing for some exaggeration on the part of the lively Frenchman, it is easy to see what quantities of Madeira and “Phyall” must have been drunk in those tournaments of courtesy, and I do not wonder to read in the journal of a young woman of the eighteenth century: “The gentlemen are returned from dinner. Both tipsy!”

“The Tuesday Club,” of Maryland, had many a jovial supper together. Their toasts always began with “The Ladies,” followed by “The King’s Majesty,” and after that “The Deluge.” I find a suggestive regulation made by this club, that each member should bring his own sand-box, “to save the carpet.”

Parson Bacon sanctified these convivial meetings by his presence and was, by all accounts, the ringleader of the boisterous revels. Jonathan Boucher, another clergyman, but of a very different type, was a great clubman too. He was one of the leading spirits of “The Hommony Club,” whose avowed object was “to promote innocent mirth and ingenious humor.”

The days of women’s clubs were still in the far future, and the chief excitement of the ladies was an occasional ball. The Maryland assemblies began at six o’clock in the evening, and were supposed to end at ten, though the young folks often coaxed and cajoled the authorities into later hours. Card parties were part of the entertainment, and whist was enlivened by playing for money. The supper was often furnished from the ladies’ kitchens and the gentlemen’s gamebags, and was a tempting one. The costumes were rich and imposing. A witness of one of these Maryland balls writes: “The gentlemen, dressed in short breeches, wore handsome knee-buckles, silk stockings, buckled pumps, etc. The ladies wore—God knows what; I don’t!”

Dancing and music were the chief branches of the eighteenth-century maiden’s education. I can fancy, as I read that “Patsy Custis and Milly Posey are gone to Colonel Mason’s to the dancing-school,” how they held up their full petticoats, and pointed out the toes of their red-heeled shoes, and dreamed of future conquests, although for one of them the tomb was already preparing its chill embrace.

For women, life in town was pleasant enough with its tea-drinkings, its afternoon visits, and its evening assemblies, but on the plantations far from neighbors time must often have hung heavy on their hands. Yet even there, pleasures could be found, or made. When evening shut down over the lonely manor-houses along the Chesapeake, the myrtleberry candles were lighted, the slender-legged mahogany tables drawn out, and the Colonial dames seated themselves to an evening of cards. Small stakes were played for to heighten the interest of “Triumph, Ruff and Honors,” “Gleke,” or “Quadrille;” and when these lost their charm, there was the spinet to turn to.

Spinet.

In those primitive days people still loved melody. “A little music” was called for with enthusiasm, and given without hesitation. There was no scientific criticism to be feared when the young men and maidens “raised a tune.” Their list of songs was not long; but familiarity lent a deeper charm than novelty. “Gaze not on Swans” was a favorite in the seventeenth century. “Push about the Brisk Bowl,” while well enough at the hunt supper table, was banished from the drawing-room in favor of “Beauty, Retire!” a song beginning—

“Beauty, retire! thou dost my pitty move;
Believe my pitty and then trust my love.”

The writer does not make it quite clear why he wishes Beauty to retire, nor why she moves his pity. In fact, the case seems quite reversed in the last stanza:

“With niew and painfulle arts
Of studied warr I breake the hearts
Of half the world; and shee breakes mine;
And shee, and shee, and shee breakes mine!”

Through the lapse of more than one century, we hear the echo of those young voices, rising and falling in the air and counter of the quaint old melodies.

Oh, those shadowy corners of candle-lighted rooms, those spinets, those duos and trios, those ruffled squires and brocaded dames!—where are they now?