Merlin and King Arthur fell on their knees, and the rest of their party followed the example.
“Great Bacchus and mighty Pan,” said Merlin, “pity our ignorance and take us under your protection, for if you banish us from this happy shore, our vessel must wander over the seas for ever, like the Flying Dutchman that is to be, and we are very ill victualled for such a navigation.”
“Speak,” said Bacchus,
Will you drink, and join with me
In midnight feast and revelry,
And songs whose notes shall take their pace
From an Olympic chariot-race,
Till Echo from our social mirth
Shall learn there still are souls on earth,
And with her hundred tongues repeat
The tale to Jove’s own mountain seat?”
“That will we,” exclaimed King Arthur and Merlin.
“That will we,” shouted the knights of the round table.
“That will we,” vociferated the butler, with a voice like the voice of three.
“Speak,” said Pan,
“Will ye dance and bound with me
At evening round the old oak tree
Or round the tall and tufted pine,
With woodbine wreathed and eglantine,
While Fauns shall pipe, and wood nymphs sweet,
The cymbals clash, the timbrels beat;
Knights and damsels fair and free,
Will ye join these sports with me?”
“That will we,” exclaimed the ladies of King Arthur’s court.
“That will we,” exclaimed the king and the knights and Merlin and the butler.
“Rise, then,” said Bacchus: “rise, then,” said Fan, courteously assisting the ladies.
“Mercury came flying from the clouds on Olympus and presently alighted among them. “I come” said he, “to propose a treaty of holy alliance between the powers of Olympus and those of Fairyland. What says Merlin?”
“It is my dearest wish,” said Merlin.
“Then stretch forth your wand.” — Merlin stretched forth his wand: Bacchus touched it with his thyrsus: a vessel immediately appeared in the offing, from which landed Oberon and Titania, and the whole of the fairy court. Pan blew his horn, and a chorus of Fauns, Satyrs, Nymphs and Genii came dancing from the woods. Apollo and Venus came down from Olympus. The happy alliance was concluded immediately. Oberon raised on the spot a palace for King Arthur. Bacchus made a fountain of wine spring up in the hall and gave it in charge to the butler Bedevere. Pan spread a sumptuous banquet: and the whole assembly of Gods, Nymphs, Genii, Fairies, Knights, and Ladies, entered at once into the full spirit of festal harmony, feasting, singing and dancing till Iris came down to inform Apollo that the Hours were looking for him, as it was near the time of sunrise.
It was the virtue of this island that its inhabitants were exempt from age and mortality: but they did not as a great philosopher has conjectured that persons similarly circumstanced would do, “cease to propagate”: on the contrary, the ladies deemed themselves bound in loyalty to raise an army for King Arthur, that when the time should come for him to revisit his kingdom, he might do so with glory and power. Merlin assuming (by means of a pure anticipated cognition, as the transcendentalists express it) the figure of Mr. Malthus, made them an oration on the evils that might result from a too rapid increase of population, in an island where no one could die, and where they might possibly be under the necessity of remaining some ages, expatiating with great eloquence on the virtue of moral restraint; but his eloquence was thrown away: les choses alloient leur train: and one morning, being thrown into a panic by the squeal of a newborn child, Merlin called his flying chariot, and waited upon Jupiter to entreat his interference in checking the impending dangers of a superabundant population. Jupiter consulted with Juno, and sent Mercury with a message to Necessity, the Queen of the World. On the return of Mercury, Jupiter assured Merlin that there should be only three children to a marriage, and that no marriage should take place before the parties were twenty years of age: and he might satisfy himself by an easy calculation that this judicious arrangement would restrain the population of the island within the capacity of its produce, for a much longer period of ages than King Arthur and his followers were likely to inhabit it.
Thus the islanders increased in numbers only by slow and regular gradations, and lived much the same kind of life as Pindar, in his tenth Pythian, ascribes to the Hyperboreans, a life eternally diversified by songs and festal dances, the breathing of pipes and the resonance of lyres, and banquets of protracted festivity, at which they bound their hair with golden laurel in honour of Apollo. Our islanders were less exclusive in their garlands, and forgot neither “the myrtle of Venus nor Bacchus’s vine.” Bacchus became so fond of them that he was almost a stranger in Olympus, and seldom sight of King Arthur; and in turn the butler Bedevere seldom lost sight of Bacchus.
But, as Ulysses grew weary in the island of Calypso, and cast a longing look towards the shores of Ithaca, so King Arthur often found himself much too comfortable where he was, and longed for the time to come when he should return to his kingdom, and flourish again his good sword Escalabor. It would sometimes happen, at long and rare intervals, that there was an odd male child; and as it could not be expected that this unfortunate person should live without a wife, and be held up as a solitary and shining example of the beauty of moral restraint, Merlin deemed it more prudent, when he arrived at the marriageable age, to provide him with a fairy boat, and send him, under restrictions of secrecy, to England, to choose a wife for himself. On these occasions King Arthur enjoined him to examine accurately the state of the country, that he might judge from his report if there were a good opening for his return. Merlin took the same opportunity of procuring all remarkable philosophical books, that he might have an accurate view of the progress of human knowledge: and the ladies were always most unmerciful in their commissions for trinkets and jewellery. To detail the results of all these expeditions would lead us too far from our present subject. On one occasion King Arthur was informed that England was at that time governed by a cowardly braggadocio, whom his barons had just pent up in a little island in the Thames, and were making him do and say just whatever they pleased.
“They must treat kings with more ceremony,” said King Arthur, “before I trust myself among them.”
On another occasion he heard that the people’s faces had grown longer by an inch an a half; that they were always psalm-singing an “seeking the Lord,” and not finding him so readily as they expected, had amused themselves en attendant with cutting off the king’s head, and that a French wag had made this epigram on this occasion: —
The English, in their way of managing things,
Dock the tails of their horses, the heads of their kings;
But the French, among whom more politeness prevails,
Let their kings wear their heads and their horses their tails.
Very facetious indeed,” said King Arthur, “but I have a great aversion to long faces, and have too much regard for my horse’s tail to trust it among them at present.”
On another occasion he was told that the people had risen with one voice against the doctrine of divine right, had turned out a legitimate fanatical Scotchman, and imported a grave Dutchman, to whom, and his lawful heirs, they had made over themselves and all their posterity for ever, and that this they called a glorious revolution.
“I see,” said King Arthur, “ I bestir myself speedily, or my legitimacy will stand but a poor chance.”
“Wait a little,” said Merlin, “and you will see the doctrine of divine right rise from its ashes in the shape of a plump French Phœnix, and fatten itself on the blood and treasure of England, to the great delight and glory of the nation.”
Many years now passed by without an odd male child; and they would have remained in total ignorance of what was passing in the old world but for an accident which never before had happened on those shores — a s
hipwreck. King Arthur and his knights were leading the midnight revelry, in company with Bacchus and Pan, in the royal palace, careless of the roar of the midnight storm; when the butler Bedevere entered and informed them that a vessel had been cast away on the shore, and only one person had escaped, who was soliciting shelter and refreshment. “Refresh him,” said King Arthur, “then bring him in and let us see him.”
“I will soon set him to rights,” said Bacchus.
All eyes were fixed on the door, and when Bedevere reopened it the whole party recoiled in surprise and alarm from the strange apparition that entered. A thin figure, in a close suit of black, which stuck to him the closer from being wet through with salt water; a face artificially stretched into preposterous elongation; eyes of which little more than the whites were visible long straight hair that hung like ends of black rope on each side of a hollow and saffron-coloured face; compounded altogether such a phaenomenon as none of the party had ever before seen or imagined. The apparition paused on the threshold, and stretching out his hands and spreading his long thin fingers, exclaimed:-”Satan avaunt! Hast thou spread thy snares for me in the wilderness? Sons and daughters of Belial! leave your abominations and lewd meetings and revelries, and fall on your knees and humble yourselves before the Lord with fasting and mortification and godly groans.”
“Leave your grimaces,” said King Arthur, “and eat, drink, and be merry.”
“If any be merry,” said the apparition, “let him sing psalms.”
“Drink,” said Bacchus. “Here is a cup of Chian for you. I am the roaring Bacchus.”
“Avaut! Beelzebub!” said the spectre. “Tempt me not. Children of Belial, I say unto you—”
“Stop—” said Arthur —
“Now say what manner of man art thou,
And whither would’st thou rove,
And why hast thou that clouded brow,
And is it for some evil vow
Or for thy lady love?”
“I am one,” said the stranger, “whose feet are joyful on the mountains, for he bringeth good tidings.”
“So it should seem,” said Sir Launcelot, “by your pleasant physiognomy.”
“I am a missionary of the New Light,” pursued the stranger. “The spirit has moved me to wander and call back the stray sheep, the heathen and the gentile into the fold of sanctification. But the wind hath whirled me about, and the sea hath cast me forth among you. You are the children of Belial, and shall be cast into outer darkness.”
“I understand this fellow,” said Bacchus. “He is one of same cast as the old lamenters, whose dismal faces and frightful noises compelled us, as a mere matter of taste; to forsake the ancient world. Let me talk to him. You are a missionary of the new Light.”
“Verily I am a chosen vessel.”
We are all staunch Heathens here. You would like to convert us?”
“Truly I would baptise you in Jordan, and whitewash your inward man.”
Very well. There is a prophetess who lives just by in a cavern in the wood. She is an oracle. Convert her, and we will all follow. You have only to get the best of the argument with her, and your victory is complete.”
“I will buckle on the armour of controversy and beat down Satan under my feet.”
Pan undertook to shew him the way, and conducted him to the cave of a beautiful wood-nymph, with whom he left him.
A month passed away, and they heard nothing of him, till one night, while the palace was resounding with the sounds of music and the feet of the dancers, the wood-nymph appeared among them, followed by the chosen vessel. It was with difficulty that they recognised him, for he was in the dress of a Bacchanal; his hair was curling and bound with a wreath of vine-leaves; his face was round; his eyes sparkled; his right hand brandished a thyrsus, and in his left he carried a goblet, which he held out with a significant Bacchic gesture to Bedevere. Bedevere filled it with wine, and the missionary, advancing to Bacchus, poured a libation before him and knelt on one knee. Bacchus raised him up, embraced him with delight and said: “The nymph, I see, had the best of the argument.”
She has converted me, I confess,” said the missionary.
By what process of logic,” said Bacchus, “we will not enquire too closely.”
The proselyte smiled: the nymph blushed, and, taking him by the hand, led him into the mazes of the dance, where he frolicked the gayest of the gay.
“I protest,” said Queen Guenever, “he is really handsome fellow. Who would have thought it?”
Such is the difference,” said Bacchus, “ between cheerful and gloomy creeds. Cheerfulness is the great source and fountain of beauty: but the ugliest object in nature is a human visage distorted by a fanatical faith.”
King Arthur learned from this new-comer that all Europe was in an uproar; that the swinish multitude had broken loose, and was playing a cup and ball with sceptres and crowns. “Well,” said King Arthur to Merlin, “what say you now?”
“I say,” said Merlin, “as I have always said:— ‘Patience!’”
“You have said so,” said King Arthur, “any time these thousand years.”
“But you see very clearly,” said Merlin, “things are continually getting better.”
“I maintain,” said King Arthur, “they are continually getting worse: for I am certain that though in my time there were in Britain many monsters, whom I and my good knights did slay,’ there were no such monsters as these chosen vessels, of whom it seems there are swarms in that country now.”
“That is an oscillation,” said Merlin, “an accidental variation, or, to speak more correctly, a secular moral equation, as I will prove — ;” and Merlin being a perfectivitive and King Arthur a deteriorationist, they immediately lapsed into an argument on a point which they had argued for a thousand years, and were of the same opinions still.
The chosen vessel became a new light among the Gentiles, and an especial darling of Bacchus and Pan. The first-fruit of his theological controversy with the wood-nymph was our hero Calidore: and the year which placed Calidore on the marriageable list, the number of males exceeding that of females by one, the lot fell on him to set sail in the fairy-boat and choose a wife for himself in England. He was charged with the usual commissions from the ladies and Merlin, with this addition from the latter, that being desirous to understand the progress of things viva voce from a philosopher, he commissioned him to bring over, on any terms, the finest philosopher he could buy.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST OBJECT of Calidore on arriving in London was to change some of his gold Arthurs into the circulating medium of the country, and on making inquiry at his hotel, he was directed, for this purpose, to a spacious stone building with high walls and no windows. Alighting from his hackney-coach, with a money-box in his hand, he wandered through a labyrinth of paved courts and spacious rooms filled with smoky-faced clerks and solid globes of Jews, through some of which he had great difficulty in forcing his way. After some time, he discovered the office he wanted, presented his gold, which was duly tried, weighed, and carefully removed from his sight. The sum was enounced with very distinct articulation, and a piece of paper was given to him, with which he was sent to another place.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 101