206 Winter 



races regarded as the crowning humour of disguising 

 sex, a humour still in favour by-the-by with the 

 Lincolnshire devotees of Ceres. 



With the entry of the next character Paganism 

 disappears. Over this one's clothes is cast a white 

 shirt, which probably is a heritage from the time when 

 the miracle-play with all its seeming foolery and irre- 

 verence was played in church by mummers who put 

 on sham priestly vestments. St. George has also a 

 wall-paper helmet on his head, and a thick cudgel 

 which we are to fancy a spear in his hand, and on his 

 face are false whiskers, the effect of which is en- 

 hanced by a lavish use of burnt cork. In a treble 

 that would fain be a thundering bass, he boldly 

 advances, exclaiming : 



Here comes in St. George, 

 Who never came before : 

 He will do the best he can, 

 And the best can do no more. 



The thing being English, there must, of course, be 

 a fight, and old folks remember when all the seven 

 champions of Christendom came in and showed some 

 pretty play at single-stick, but time has hopelessly 

 muddled the business, and in some districts the patron 

 Saint is a Crusader and kills a Turkish knight, while 

 the foe appointed for him to-night is, with a fine dis- 

 regard of the unities, Goliath the giant, as if this were 

 a miracle-play and George were David. The Philis- 

 tine is the biggest boy and the most fiercely whiskered. 



