Pope Night--the anniversary of the discovery of the Papal incendiary Guy
Fawkes, booted and spurred, ready to touch fire to his powder-train under
the Parliament House--was celebrated by the early settlers of New
England, and doubtless afforded a good deal of relief to the younger
plants of grace in the Puritan vineyard. In those solemn old days, the
recurrence of the powder-plot anniversary, with its processions, hideous
images of the Pope and Guy Fawkes, its liberal potations of strong
waters, and its blazing bonfires reddening the wild November hills, must
have been looked forward to with no slight degree of pleasure. For one
night, at least, the cramped and smothered fun and mischief of the
younger generation were permitted to revel in the wild extravagance
of a Roman saturnalia or the Christmas holidays of a slave plantation.
Bigotry--frowning upon the May-pole, with its flower wreaths and sportive
revellers, and counting the steps of the dancers as so many steps towards
perdition--recognized in the grim farce of Guy Fawkes's anniversary
something of its own lineaments, smiled complacently upon the riotous
young actors, and opened its close purse to furnish tar-barrels to roast
the Pope, and strong water to moisten the throats of his noisy judges and
executioners.
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