There was a loud laugh and
huzza when the doors were opened; but, contrary to what might have
been expected, no crowd of enraged assailants rushed into the church.
On the contrary, there was a cry of "A halt!-a halt--to order, my
masters! and let the two reverend fathers greet each other, as beseems
them."
The appearance of the crowd who were thus called to order, was
grotesque in the extreme. It was composed of men, women, and children,
ludicrously disguised in various habits, and presenting groups equally
diversified and grotesque. Here one fellow with a horse's head painted
before him, and a tail behind, and the whole covered with a long
foot-cloth, which was supposed to hide the body of the animal, ambled,
caracoled, pranced, and plunged, as he performed the celebrated part
of the hobby-horse,
[Footnote: This exhibition, the play-mare of Scotland, stood high
among holyday gambols. It must be carefully separated from the wooden
chargers which furnish out our nurseries. It gives rise to Hamlet's
ejaculation,--
But oh, but oh, the hobby-horse is forgot!
There is a very comic scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "Woman
Pleased," where Hope-on-high Bombye, a puritan cobbler, refuses to
dance with the hobby-horse. There was much difficulty and great
variety in the motions which the hobby-horse was expected to exhibit.
The learned Mr. Douce, who has contributed so much to the illustration
of our theatrical antiquities, has given us a full account of this
pageant, and the burlesque horsemanship which it practised.
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