In Spite Of All, However, And Notwithstanding Its
Decline, The Feast Of The Madonna Is Even Now One Of Those
Rare
gatherings - the only one, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of Biella -
to which the pious Christian and the curious idler
Are alike
attracted, and where they will alike find appropriate amusement."
{25}
How Miltonic, not to say Handelian, is this attitude towards the
Pagan tendencies which, it is clear, predominated at the festa of
St. Mary of the Snow. In old days a feast was meant to be a time
of actual merriment - a praising "with mirth, high cheer, and wine."
{26} Milton felt this a little, and Handel much. To them an
opportunity for a little paganism is like the scratching of a mouse
to the princess who had been born a cat. Off they go after it -
more especially Handel - under some decent pretext no doubt, but as
fast, nevertheless, as their art can carry them. As for Handel, he
had not only a sympathy for paganism, but for the shades and
gradations of paganism. What, for example, can be a completer
contrast than between the polished and refined Roman paganism in
Theodora, {27} the rustic paganism of "Bid the maids the youths
provoke" in Hercules, the magician's or sorcerer's paganism of the
blue furnace in "Chemosh no more," {28} or the Dagon choruses in
Samson - to say nothing of a score of other examples that might be
easily adduced? Yet who can doubt the sincerity and even fervour
of either Milton's or Handel's religious convictions?
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