So turns my memory to that brilliant sight
When wit and beauty held their festal night;
When the thronged hall its glittering groups displayed
Of Nature’s loveliness, by art arrayed;
Of graceful forms that mocked the sculptor’s art,
And eyes whose glances reached the coldest heart,
Of all that beauty loves or taste admires,
Of all that valor warms or genius fires.
While ideas for tableaux vivants, the "living pictures" that often opened a ball in the nineteenth century (or interrupted it, as at this ball in Heidelberg in the 1840s) are easy to come by, it's rare to find a detailed description of a whole series of them at a ball. The poem "The Fancy Ball", from which the above lines are excerpted, devotes over half its length to poetic descriptions of the tableaux vivants performed at a ball held in Savannah, Georgia, in 1837, three of which are easily identifiable scenes from the works of Lord Byron or Sir Walter Scott. I haven't been able to identify the other scenes, but hope to figure them out eventually.
The poem was written by Henry Bowen Anthony, a Rhode Island politician who spent some time working in Savannah as a young man. During that time, he attended a fancy dress ball held in mid-March of 1837 by Godfrey and Julia Barnsley at Scarborough House, Julia's family home, now in the possession of her and her husband. The ball was an extravagant one, and is quite well-documented. It certainly made an impression on Anthony!
After returning from Savannah, Anthony became a newspaper editor and eventually entered politics, serving as a U. S. Senator from Rhode Island for twenty-five years and dying in office.
"The Fancy Ball" was written when Anthony was only twenty-two and was privately published at the time. It was reprinted, unrevised, in an edition of only one hundred copies in 1875.
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The first four tableaux are generic, or at least do not include any characters I can identify. A bejeweled beauty with two maidens kneeling beside her, a novice nun taking her vows in the presence of a bishop and abbess. A brigand, first leaning "o'er the rocks" and then dying in the arms of a woman. A Scottish maiden dreaming of her faraway lover.
The dying brigand is a standard tableau vivant scene; an example of it was described in The Book of Tableaux and Shadow Pantomimes, by Sarah Annie Frost (New York, 1869):
WALTER, whose black hair and heavy moustache, dark complexion and large black eyes made a capital Italian face, personated the brigand. A full suit of green velvet—breeches with white stockings and gay garters, a short jacket, and peaked hat—made a good costume. He lay extended in the centre of foreground, his face well floured, his jacket open, displaying a bloody shirt; one hand clutched a pistol, the other pressed a handkerchief to his breast; his head was supported upon my knee. My dress consisted of a short, full crimson skirt, a white muslin bodice very full, with a corsage of black velvet laced over it, a white muslin flat cap falling on the neck behind.
After those four come the two Byronic scenes:
Again the scene is changed. Stern Seyd behold,
Flashing with gems and glittering in gold,
Fiercely on Gulnare, turn his jealous eye
And speak the sentence, “Conrad sure shall die!”
The palace fades; — the scene is changed again;
And Conrad, sleeping on the dungeon’s chain,
Dreams of the island o’er the deep blue sea,
Where dwell the lion-hearted and the free;
Dreams of the eye that watches every sail
To see his banner floating on the gale.
But other eyes are gazing on his sleep;
Gulnare, with purpose firm, with vengeance deep,
Bends o’er his couch, and whispers in his ear
A word, that, were he dead, he’d rouse to head; —
Raises a lamp unto his wildered sight,
Points to the dagger glittering in its light,
And says “I come, captive, I come to save;
Death to the tyrant! freedom to the brave!”
These are characters from Lord Byron's book-length poem The Corsair (1814). Conrad is the titular corsair, Seyd the pasha he tries to plunder, and Gulnare the pasha's slave. At this point in the poem, Seyd has captured Conrad, and Gulnare is sneaking into his cell to tell Conrad she will try to save him. The Corsair may be read online here.
Behold again the curtain slowly rise;
A fairer, softer scene now greets our eyes.
Two Lovers, from Albania’s classic land,
Are seated side by side, and hand in hand;
She, blushing as the rose she gazes on;
He, wondering how such beauty may be won.
Her hair is darker than a raven’s hue,
Her eyes as soft as Heaven’s own fount of blue.
Ne’er did Illissus’ stream reflect a face
Of fairer beauty, more bewitching grace;
Nor Nymph nor Muse e’er tread with step more light
In Tempe’s vale, or on Parnassus’ height.
Next Selim stands, and, kneeling at his side,
Zuleika, blooming as an Eastern bride;
Soft as the dying sunset’s parting beam,
Bright as the visions of a Poet’s dream.
These are more characters from Byron, this time from The Bride of Abydos (1813), which may be found online here. Selim and Zuleika are supposedly half-siblings, so their being in love is problematic, though it turns out that Selim is not actually her half-brother after all. They both die tragically by the end of the poem. I'm not sure whether the previous stanza, with the Albanian lovers, refers to these two or to some different pair; Selim and Zuleika are Turkish, not Albanian. I'm not familiar enough with Byron's complete works to know whether he ever set a poem or scene in Albania.
The next two scenes I have not been able to identify: a Spanish maiden being read to her by her duenna while her jealous lover waits beside her, and Obadiah, in love with and watching Deborah. I feel like I ought to be able to identify both of these scenes, but I've had no luck so far.
It's back to literature for the final scene:
The picture fades, behold another scene.
Fair Jeannie Deans, kneeling to England’s Queen,
With Beauty’s power and nature’s strength alone,
Pleads for a life, far dearer than her own;
While Scotland’s Duke, with anxious brow, stands by,
Hope in his heart, fear trembling in his eye.
Sure, rarer beauty never knelt to claim
A sovereign’s mercy for a sister’s shame.
Fear not, sweet suppliant, banish every pain;
Such lips as thine can never plead in vain.
Jeannie Deans is a famous character from Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian (1818), which may be read online here. She traveled to England to plead with the queen for the life of her sister, who was unjustly accused of murdering her child.
The poem continues with discussion of the dancers and their costumes, but I'll save that for another day and another post.
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A transcription of the first half, more-or-less, of "The Fancy Ball" follows. The remainder of the poem and some background on the ball it described will appear in later posts. For those too impatient to wait, the 1875 reprint edition of the poem is online and may be read here.
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THE FANCY BALL
As float the fancies of a gorgeous dream
That vanished with the morning’s earliest beam;
As haunts the ear some half-remembered strain
It once hath heard, and seems to hear again;
As flowers whose beauty and whose bloom hath fled,
Each bright leaf withered and each green one dead,
A grateful, an undying fragrance bear,
To tell what blushing beauty once was there; —
So turns my memory to that brilliant sight
When wit and beauty held their festal night;
When the thronged hall its glittering groups displayed
Of Nature’s loveliness, by art arrayed;
Of graceful forms that mocked the sculptor’s art,
And eyes whose glances reached the coldest heart,
Of all that beauty loves or taste admires,
Of all that valor warms or genius fires.
First raise yon curtain; view the scenes that pass
Like shadows floating o’er a magic glass.
No canvass here, no painter tries his skill
To fix the visions that his fancy fill;
But living pictures fast before us rise
And breathing loveliness salutes our eyes.
Behold that form, in queenly beauty stand,
Two graceful maidens kneeling at each hand;
Round her slight wrist the glittering jewels tie,
Jewels less brilliant than her own dark eye.
But change the scene. Blushing before us now
A Novice kneels to take her sacred vow;
Pure as the tear-drop glistening in her eye,
Fair as the roses at her feet that lie.
Close at her side a holy Bishop stands,
The Book of Truth spread open in his hands.
The mitred Abbess, bending o’er low,
Cuts the bright tresses clustering round her brow,
And, breathing to her patron saint one prayer,
She gives to Heaven a maid for earth too fair.
See the bold Brigand, leaning o’er the rocks
Whose cragged height the sunny vale o’er-tops,
Point the unerring rifle at the foe
Who dares intrude upon the plain below.
Or see him, wounded, as his life’s blood flows,
On beauty’s lap his fainting head repose.
The Brigand fades; the mountain passage falls;
And, in its place, behold the cottage walls.
A Scottish Maiden on a sofa liesl
Dull Somnus waves his sceptre o’er her eyes,
Round her sweet face a thousand graces play;
She dreams of one, her lover, far away;
But nearer than she thinks, he’s raised the latch,
And bends his lips, the long-wished kiss to snatch;
While she, poor girl, dreams of some unknown bliss,
Nor thinks such harmless pleasure in a kiss.
Again the scene is changed. Stern Seyd behold,
Flashing with gems and glittering in gold,
Fiercely on Gulnare, turn his jealous eye
And speak the sentence, “Conrad sure shall die!”
The palace fades; — the scene is changed again;
And Conrad, sleeping on the dungeon’s chain,
Dreams of the island o’er the deep blue sea,
Where dwell the lion-hearted and the free;
Dreams of the eye that watches every sail
To see his banner floating on the gale.
But other eyes are gazing on his sleep;
Gulnare, with purpose firm, with vengeance deep,
Bends o’er his couch, and whispers in his ear
A word, that, were he dead, he’d rouse to head; —
Raises a lamp unto his wildered sight,
Points to the dagger glittering in its light,
And says “I come, captive, I come to save;
Death to the tyrant! freedom to the brave!”
Behold again the curtain slowly rise;
A fairer, softer scene now greets our eyes.
Two Lovers, from Albania’s classic land,
Are seated side by side, and hand in hand;
She, blushing as the rose she gazes on;
He, wondering how such beauty may be won.
Her hair is darker than a raven’s hue,
Her eyes as soft as Heaven’s own fount of blue.
Ne’er did Illissus’ stream reflect a face
Of fairer beauty, more bewitching grace;
Nor Nymph nor Muse e’er tread with step more light
In Tempe’s vale, or on Parnassus’ height.
Next Selim stands, and, kneeling at his side,
Zuleika, blooming as an Eastern bride;
Soft as the dying sunset’s parting beam,
Bright as the visions of a Poet’s dream.
But changed again; once more the curtain raise
Spain’s loveliest Maiden meets the raptured gaze;
Demure the stands, while the Duenna reads
Many a long lesson that she never heeds;
Behind her chair, her listening Lover stands,
And hears, with beating heart and upraised hands,
Of broken vows and oaths the awful tale,
Of man deceived and woman ever frail.
But nothing cares she for his jealous pain,
Sure that one smile will win him back again.
Once more the curtain raise; —be drab the hue;
Banish the gayer red, the gaudy blue.
Yea, verily, friend Obadiah see,
With broad-brimmed hat, huge buckles on his knee,
Turning on Deborah many a loving glance,
Loath to recede, yet fearful to advance.
If outer signs the “inner man” can prove,
Heaven save thee Obadiah, thee’s in love.
The picture fades, behold another scene.
Fair Jeannie Deans, kneeling to England’s Queen,
With Beauty’s power and nature’s strength alone,
Pleads for a life, far dearer than her own;
While Scotland’s Duke, with anxious brow, stands by,
Hope in his heart, fear trembling in his eye.
Sure, rarer beauty never knelt to claim
A sovereign’s mercy for a sister’s shame.
Fear not, sweet suppliant, banish every pain;
Such lips as thine can never plead in vain.
(to be continued...)
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