[Footnote 1: The prince and duke travelled under the assumed names of
John and Thomas Smith. King James wrote a poem on this expedition, of
which the first and last verses are as follow. A copy is preserved among
the Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library:--
"What sudden change hath darked of late
The glory of the Arcadian state?
The fleecy flocks refuse to feed,
The lambs to play, the ewes to breed;
The altars smoke, the offerings burn,
Till Jack and Tom do safe return.
"Kind shepherds that have loved them long,
Be not too rash in censuring wrong;
Correct your fears, leave off to mourn,
The heavens shall favour their return!
Commit the care to Royal Pan,
Of Jack his son, and Tom his man."
]
[Footnote 2: In MS. Harl., 6987, is preserved Buckingham's letter to
James I, describing the first interview. Speaking of the prince, he
says, "Baby Charles is himself so touched at the heart, that he
confesses all he ever yet saw is nothing to her, and swears, that if he
want her, there shall be blows."]
[Footnote 3: Though Buckingham and Charles were _exigeant_ of jewels for
presents, the king was equally profuse in sending until he had exhausted
his store. Considerably more than 150,000_ l._ worth were consigned to
Spain. In a letter from Newmarket, March 17, 1623, preserved in Harleian
MS. 6987, he enumerates a large quantity to be presented to the Infanta;
and he is equally careful that Prince Charles should be well supplied;
"As for thee, my sweet gossip, I send thee a fair table diamond for
wearing in thy hat." The king ingeniously prompts them to present the
Infanta with a small looking-glass to hang at her girdle, and to assure
her that "by art magic, whensoever she shall be pleased to look in it,
she shall see the fairest lady that either her brother's or your
father's dominions can afford."]
[Footnote 4: On his first coming to court he was made cup-bearer to the
king, then Master of the Horse, then ennobled, made Lord High Admiral,
Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Windsor Castle, Ranger of Royal
Parks, &c. &c. A list of the public plunderings of himself and family is
given in Sloane MS. 826, amounting to more than 27,000 _l._ per annum in
rents of manors, irrespective of 50,000 _l._ "paid to the duke by privie
seale of free guifts, but alleged to be intended for the navie." Many
pensions and customs were also made over to his use.]
[Footnote 5: King James delighted in calling the Duke of Buckingham
"Steenie," as has been already instanced in the letter quoted, p. 463,
Vol. I. This was not the duke's Christian name, but was invented for him
by his royal master, who fancied his features resembled those usually
given to St. Stephen, and whose face was usually depicted in accordance
with the description in Acts vi. 15, "as it had been the face of an
angel."]
[Footnote 6: The great exhibition of fireworks at Rome, at the castle of
St. Angelo, during the festivities of the Holy Week, preserve the
character of the displays of fireworks adopted on great occasions in the
seventeenth century. An enormous explosion of squibs, crackers, and
rockets was the _tour de force_ in such celebrations. The volume
describing the entry of Louis XIII. to Lyons in 1624, contains an
engraving of the fireworks constructed on barges in the river on that
occasion; a blazing crowned sun, surrounded by a wheel of stars, squibs,
star-rockets, and water-serpents flying about it, composed the _feu
d'artifice_. In the volume descriptive of the rejoicings in the same
city on the ratification of peace between France and Spain in 1660, are
several engravings in which fireworks are shown, but they exhibit no
novelties, being restricted to rockets and pots of fire bursting into
coloured stars. Henry Van Etten's "Mathematical Recreations," 1633,
notes the principal "artificial fireworks" then in use, and gives
engravings of several, and instructions to make them. Rockets,
fire-balls, stars, golden-rain, serpents, and Catharine wheels are the
principal noted. "Fierie dragons combatant" running on lines, and filled
with fireworks, were the greatest stretch of invention at this time; and
our author says they may be made "to meete one another, having lights
placed in the concavity of their bodies, which will give great grace to
the action."]
[Footnote 7: Specimens of most of these modes of writing may be seen at
the British Museum. No. 3478, in the Sloanian library, is a Nabob's
letter, on a piece of bark, about two yards long, and richly ornamented
with gold. No. 3207 is a book of Mexican hieroglyphics, painted on bark.
In the same collection are various species, many from the Malabar coast
and the East. The latter writings are chiefly on leaves. There are
several copies of Bibles written on palm leaves. The ancients,
doubtless, wrote on any leaves they found adapted for the purpose.
Hence, the _leaf_ of a _book_, alluding to that of a tree, seems to be
derived. At the British Museum we have also Babylonian _tiles_, or
_broken pots_, which the people used, and made their contracts of
business on; a custom mentioned in the Scriptures.]
[Footnote 8: This speech was made by Claudius (who was born at Lyons),
when censor, A.D. 48, and was of the highest importance to the men of
Lyons, inasmuch as it led to the grant of the privileges of Roman
citizenship to them. This important inscription was discovered in 1528,
on the heights of St. Sebastian above the town.]
[Footnote 9: The paintings discovered at Pompeii give representations of
these books and implements.]
[Footnote 10: The use of the table-book was continued to the reign of
James I. or later. Shakspeare frequently alludes to them--
"And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
And keep no tell-tale to his memory."
They were in the form of a modern pocket-book, the leaves of asses'
skin, or covered with a composition, upon which a silver or leaden style
would inscribe memoranda capable of erasure.]
[Footnote 11: A box containing such written rolls is represented in one
of the pictures exhumed at Pompeii.]
[Footnote 12: See note to Vol. I. p. 5.]
[Footnote 13: The ink of old manuscripts is generally a thick solid
substance, and sometimes stands in relief upon the paper. The red ink is
generally a body-colour of great brilliancy.]
[Footnote 14: This was, in fact, a realization of the traditional
representations of the Flight into Egypt, in which the Virgin, having
the Saviour in her lap, is always depicted seated on an ass, which is
led by Joseph.]
[Footnote 15: See Article _Ancient and Modern Saturnalia_, in this
Volume.]
[Footnote 16: In the romances and poems of the Middle Ages, the heroines
are generally praised for the abundance and beauty of their "yellow
hair"--
Her yellow haire was braided in a tresse
Behinde her backe, a yarde longe, I guesse.
CHAUCER'S _Knight's Tale_.
Queen Elizabeth had yellow hair, hence it became the fashion at her
court, and ladies dyed their hair of the Royal colour. But this dyeing
the hair yellow may be traced to the classic era. Galen tells us that in
his time women suffered much from headaches, contracted by standing
bare-headed in the sun to obtain this coveted tint, which others
attempted by the use of saffron. Bulwer, in his "Artificiall
Changeling," 1653, says--"The Venetian women at this day, and the
Paduan, and those of Verona, and other parts of Italy, practice the same
vanitie, and receive the same recompense for their affectation, there
being in all those cities open and manifest examples of those who have
undergone a kind of martyrdome, to render their haire yellow."]
[Footnote 17: That is, carriages of the modern form, and such as became
common toward the end of Elizabeth's reign; but _waggons_ and _chares_,
covered with tapestry, and used by ladies for journeys, may be seen in
illuminated MSS. of the fourteenth century. There is a fine example in
the Loutterell Psalter, published in "Vetusta Monumenta."]
[Footnote 18: The use of censers or firepans to "sweeten" houses by
burning coarse perfumes is noted by Shakespeare. His commentator,
Steevens, points out a passage in a letter of the Earl of Shrewsbury,
who when keeping Mary Queen of Scots under his surveillance, notes "That
her Majesty was to be removed for 5 or 6 dayes to clense her chamber,
being kept very unclenly." That annoyances of a very disagreeable kind
were constantly felt, he instances in a passage from the Memoir of Anne,
Countess of Dorset, who relates that a noble party were infested with
insects not now to be named, though named plainly by the lady, and all
this "by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskine's chamber."]
[Footnote 19: He gives this piece of autobiography in his first sermon
preached before Edward VI., 1549:--"My father was a yeoman, and had no
lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or foure pound by year at
the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men.
He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He
kept me to school. He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty
nobles a piece; so that he brought them up in godliness."]
[Footnote 20: Lower's "English Surnames; an Essay on Family
Nomenclature," may be profitably studied in connexion with this curious
subject.]
[Footnote 21: Fortunate names, the _bona nomina_ of Cicero, were chiefly
selected in accordance with the classic maxim, _bonum nomen, bonum
omen_.]
[Footnote 22: "Plautus thought it quite enough to damn a man that he
bore the name of Lyco, which is said to signify a greedy-wolf; and Livy
calls the name Atrius Umber _abominandi ominis nomen_, a name of
horrible portent."--Nares' _Heraldic Anomalies_.]
[Footnote 23: The names adopted by the Romans were very significant. The
_Nomen_ was indicative of the branch of the family distinguished by the
_Cognomen_; while the _Prenomen_ was invented to distinguish one from
the rest. Thus, a man of family had three names, and even a fourth was
added when it was won by great deeds.]
[Footnote 24: Edgar Poe's account of the regular mode by which he
designed and executed his best and most renowned poem, "The Raven," is
an instance of the use of methodical rule successfully applied to what
appears to be one of the most fanciful of mental works.]
[Footnote 25: The old poet is the most fresh and powerful in his words.
The passage is thus given in Wright's edition:--
The busy lark, messenger of day,
Saluteth in her song the morrow gray;
And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright,
That all the orient laugheth of the light.
Leigh Hunt remarks with justice that "Dryden falls short of the
freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His lines are beautiful, but
they do not come home to us with so happy and cordial a face."]
[Footnote 26: This use of what most persons would consider waste paper,
obtained for the poet the designation of "paper-sparing Pope."]
[Footnote 27: Dr. Johnson, in noticing the MSS. of Milton, preserved at
Cambridge, has made, with his usual force of language, the following
observation: "Such reliques show how excellence is acquired: what we
hope ever to do with ease, we may learn first to do with diligence."]
[Footnote 28: _Silent_ in the MS. (observes a critical friend) is
greatly superior to _secret_, as it appears in the printed work.]
[Footnote 29: The great feature of the modern stage within the last
twenty years has been the Classical Burlesque Drama, which, though
originating in the last century in such plays as _Midas_, really reached
its culmination under the auspices of Madame Vestris.]
[Footnote 30: Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distinguishes
as the most curious, turns the passage thus: "I wish you well, good
people: drive on to act your play, for in my very childhood I loved
_shows_, and have been a great admirer of _dramatic representations_."
Part II. c. xi. The other translators have nearly the same words. But in
employing the generic term they lose the species, that is, the thing
itself; but what is less tolerable, in the flatness of the style, they
lose that delightfulness with which Cervantes conveys to us the
recollected pleasures then busying the warm brain of his hero. An
English reader, who often grows weary over his Quixote, appears not
always sensible that one of the secret charms of Cervantes, like all
great national authors, lies concealed in his idiom and style.]
[Footnote 31: The author of the descriptive letter-press to George
Cruikshank's illustrations of _Punch_ says he "saw the late Mr. Wyndham,
then one of the Secretaries of State, on his way from Downing-street to
the House of Commons, on the night of an important debate, pause like a
truant boy until the whole performance was concluded, to enjoy a hearty
laugh at the whimsicalities of the 'motley hero.'"]
[Footnote 32: Rich, in his "Companion to the Latin Diction," has an
excellent illustration of this passage:--"This art was of very great
antiquity, and much practised by the Greeks and Romans, both on the
stage and in the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large
assemblies in the open air, where it would have been impossible for the
majority to comprehend what was said without the assistance of some
conventional signs, which enabled the speaker to address himself to the
eye, as well as the ear of the audience. These were chiefly made by
certain positions of the hands and fingers, the meaning of which was
universally recognised and familiar to all classes, and the practice
itself reduced to a regular system, as it remains at the present time
amongst the populace of Naples, who will carry on a long conversation
between themselves by mere gesticulation, and without pronouncing a
word." That many of these signs are similar to those used by the
ancients, is proved by the same author, who copies from an antique vase
a scene which he explains by the action of the hands of the figures,
adding, "A common lazzaroni, when shown one of these compositions, will
at once explain the purport of the action, which a scholar with all his
learning cannot divine." The gesture to signify love, employed by the
ancients and modern Neapolitans, was joining the tips of the thumb and
fore-finger of the left hand; an imputation or asseveration by holding
forth the right hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the
fingers. In mediæval works of art, a particular attitude of the fingers
is adopted to exhibit malicious hate: it is done by crossing the
fore-finger of each hand, and is generally seen in figures of Herod or
Judas Iscariot.]
[Footnote 33: Tacitus, Annals, lib. i. sect. 77, in Murphy's
translation.]
[Footnote 34: This measure of "restrictive policy," which gave to the
patent theatres the sole right of performing the legitimate drama
properly, led to the construction of plays for the minor theatres,
entirely carried on by action, occasionally aided by inscriptions
painted on scrolls, and unrolled and exhibited by the actor when his
power of expressing such words failed. This led to the education of a
series of pantomimists, who taught action conventionally to represent
words. At the close of the last century, there were many such; and the
reader who may be curious to see the nature of these dumb dramas, may do
so in two volumes named "Circusiana," by J.C. Cross, the author of very
many that were performed at the Royal Circus, in St. George's Fields.
The whole action of the drama was performed to music composed expressly
to aid the expression of the performers, among the best of whom were
Bologna and D'Egville. It is a class of dramatic art which has now
almost entirely passed away; or is seen, but in a minor degree, in the
pantomimic action of a grand ballet at the opera.]
[Footnote 35: L'Antiq. Exp. v. 63.]
[Footnote 36: Louis Riccoboni, in his curious little treatise, "Du
Théâtre Italien," illustrated by seventeen prints of the Italian
pantomimic characters, has duly collected the authorities. I give them,
in the order quoted above, for the satisfaction of more grave inquirers.
Vossius, Instit. Poet, lib. ii. 32, § 4. The Mimi blackened their faces.
Diomedes, de Orat. lib. iii. Apuleius, in Apolog. And further, the
patched dress was used by the ancient peasants of Italy, as appears by a
passage in Varro, De Re Rust, lib. i. c. 8; and Juvenal employs the term
_centunculus_ as a diminutive of _cento_, for a coat made up of patches.
This was afterwards applied metaphorically to those well-known poems
called _centos_, composed of shreds and patches of poetry, collected
from all quarters. Goldoni considered Harlequin as a poor devil and
dolt, whose coat is made up of rags patched together; his hat shows
mendicity; and the hare's tail is still the dress of the peasantry of
Bergamo. Quadrio, in his learned _Storia d'ogni Poesia_, has diffused
his erudition on the ancient _Mimi_ and their successors. Dr. Clarke has
discovered the light lath sword of Harlequin, which had hitherto baffled
my most painful researches, amidst the dark mysteries of the ancient
mythology! We read with equal astonishment and novelty, that the
prototypes of the modern pantomime are in the Pagan mysteries; that
_Harlequin_ is _Mercury_, with his short sword called _herpe_, or his
rod the _caduceus_, to render himself invisible, and to transport
himself from one end of the earth to the other; that the covering on his
head was his _petasus_, or winged cap; that _Columbine_ is _Pysche_, or
the _Soul_; the _Old Man_ in our pantomimes is _Charon_; the _Clown_ is
_Momus_, the buffoon of heaven, whose large gaping mouth is an imitation
of the ancient masks. The subject of an ancient vase engraven in the
volume represents Harlequin, Columbine, and the Clown, as we see them on
the English stage. The dreams of the learned are amusing when we are not
put to sleep. Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 459. The Italian
antiquaries never entertained any doubt of this remote origin. It may,
however, be reasonably doubted. The chief appendage of the Vice or
buffoon of the ancient moralities was a _gilt wooden sword_, and this
also belonged to the old Clown or Fool, not only in England but abroad.
"The wooden sword directly connects Harlequin with the ancient Vice and
more modern Fool," says the author of the letter-press to Cruikshank's
_Punch_, apparently with the justest derivation.]
[Footnote 37: This statue, which is imagined to have thrown so much
light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved
in Ficoroni's amusing work on _Maschere sceniche e le figure coniche
d'antichi Romani_, p. 48. It is that of a Mime called _Maccus_ by the
Romans; the name indicates a simpleton. But the origin of the more
modern name has occasioned a little difference, whether it be derived
from the _nose_ or its _squeak_. The learned Quadrio would draw the name
_Pullicinello_ from _Pulliceno_, which Spartianus uses for _il pullo
gallinaceo_ (I suppose this to be the turkey-cock) because Punch's
hooked nose resembles its _beak_. But Baretti, in that strange book the
"Tolondron," gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar
squeaking nasal sound. He says, "_Punchinello_, or Punch, as you well
know, speaks with a squeaking voice that seems to come out at his nose,
because the fellow who in a puppet-show manages the puppet called
Punchinello, or Punch, as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a
tin whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of
voice. But the English word _Punchinello_ is in Italian _Pulcinella_,
which means a _hen-chicken_. Chickens' voices are _squeaking_ and
_nasal_; and they are _timid_, and _powerless_, and for this reason my
whimsical countrymen have given the name of _Pulcinella_, or
hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that
speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and
weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always
boasts of victory after they are gone."--_Tolondron_, p. 324. In
Italian, _Policinello_ is a little flea, active and biting and skipping;
and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's
proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot
decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea"
of the lady, who, however, was herself a scholar.]
[Footnote 38: How the Latin _Sannio_ became the Italian _Zanni_, was a
whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at
his ease; for he, having discovered this classical origin of his
favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious
tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives
his vote for the Greek _Sannos_, from whence the Latins borrowed their
_Sannio_. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all
verbal disturbers of human quiet.
_Sanna_ is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by
grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and
_Sannio_ is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for
they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they
turned _Sannio_ into _Zanno_, and then into _Zanni_, and we caught the
echo in our _Zany_.]
[Footnote 39: Riccoboni, Histoire du Théàtre Italien, p. 53; Gimma,
Italia Letterata, p. 196.]
[Footnote 40: There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing
the following title--"Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par
Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597," consisting of twenty-four plates
of Carnival masquers.]
[Footnote 41: Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263.]
[Footnote 42: Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281.]
[Footnote 43: Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284.]
[Footnote 44: I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The
Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important
narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of
character: "_Silvio Fiorillo, che appetter si facea il Capitano
Matamoros_, INVENTO _il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia
molto_ AGGIUNSE _Andrea Calcese dello Ciuccio por soprannome_."--Gimma,
Italia Letterata, p. 196. There is a very curious engraving by Bosse,
representing the Italian comedians about 1633, as they performed the
various characters on the Parisian stage. The cracked voice and
peculiarities of this "great invention" are declared by Fiorillo and
Signorelli to be imitations of the peculiarities of the peasants of
Acerra, an ancient city in the neighbourhood of Naples. For a curious
dissertation on this popular character, see the volume so admirably
illustrated by Cruikshank, quoted on a previous page.]
[Footnote 45: John Rich was the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, and
spent large sums over his favourite pantomimes. He was also the
fortunate producer of the "Beggar's Opera," which was facetiously said
to have made Rich _gay_, and Gay _rich_. He took so little interest in
what is termed the "regular drama," that he is reported to have
exclaimed, when peeping through the curtain at a full house to witness a
tragedy--"What, you are _there_, you fools, are you!" He died wealthy,
in 1761; and there is a costly tomb to his memory in Hillingdon
churchyard, Middlesex.]
[Footnote 46: Some of the ancient _Scenarie_ were printed in 1661, by
Flaminius Scala, one of their great actors. These, according to
Riccoboni, consist of nothing more than the skeletons of Comedies; the
_canevas_, as the French technically term a plot and its scenes. He
says, "They are not so short as those we now use to fix at the back of
the scenes, nor so full as to furnish any aid to the dialogue: they only
explain what the actor did on the stage, and the action which forms the
subject, nothing more."]
[Footnote 47: The passage in Livy is, "Juventus, histrionibus fabellarum
actu relicto, ipsa inter se, more antiquo, ridicula intexta versibus
jactitare cæpit." Lib. vii. cap. 2.]
[Footnote 48: As these _Atellanæ Fabulæ_ were never written, they have
not descended to us in any shape. It has, indeed, been conjectured that
Horace, in the fifth Satire of his first Book, v. 51, has preserved a
scene of this nature between two practised buffoons in the "Pugnam
Sarmenti Scurræ," who challenges his brother Cicerrus, equally ludicrous
and scurrilous. But surely these were rather the low humour of the
Mimes, than of the Atellan Farcers.]
[Footnote 49: Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. lett. 20; in
Grævius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16.]
[Footnote 50: This passage also shows that our own custom of annexing a
Farce, or _petite pièce_, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among
the Romans: the introduction of the practice in our country seems not to
be ascertained; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the
Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators
of only a single drama.]
[Footnote 51: Storia Critica del Teatri de Signorelli, tom. iii.
258.--Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas, made by
Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies. He allows that
in tragedies his nation is inferior to the English and the French; but
"_no nation_," he adds, "_can be compared with us for pleasantry and
humour in comedy._" Some of the greatest names in Italian literature
were writers of comedy. Ital. Lib. 119.]
[Footnote 52: Altieri explains _Formica_ as a crabbed fellow who acts
the butt in a farce.]
[Footnote 53: I refer the reader to Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. ii.
p. 495, for a sight of these literary curiosities.]
[Footnote 54: The commencement of the "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly
Sinnes," believed to be a production of the famous Dick Tarleton, will
sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole. The
original is preserved at Dulwich, and is written in two columns, on a
pasteboard about fifteen inches high, and nine in breadth. We have
modernised the spelling:--
"A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth; he in it asleep.
To him the lieutenant, and a pursuivant (R. Cowley, Jo. Duke), and one
warder (R. Pallant). To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Covetousness at
one door; at another door Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. The three put back
the four, and so exeunt.
"Henry awaking, enter a keeper (J. Sincler), to him a servant (T. Belt),
to him Lidgate and the keeper. Exit, then enter again--then Envy passeth
over the stage. Lidgate speakes."]
[Footnote 55: Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about
1560--it was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time.]
[Footnote 56: That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the
play-goers of the era of Elizabeth, is clear from a passage in Meres'
"Palladis Tamica," 1598; who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power,
adding a compliment to "our witty Wilson, who, for learning and
extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer; as to his
great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the
Swan, on Bank-side." The Swan was one of the theatres so popular in the
era of Elizabeth and James I., situated on the Bankside, Southwark.]
[Footnote 57: Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 56.]
[Footnote 58: In the poem on the entrenchment of New Ross, in Ireland,
in 1265 (Harl. MS., No. 913), is a similar account of the minstrelsy
which accompanied the workers. The original is in Norman French; the
translation we use is that by the late Miss Landon (L.E.L.):--
Monday they began their labours,
Gay with banners, flutes, and labours;
Soon as the noon hour was come,
These good people hastened home,
With their banners proudly borne.
Then the youth advanced in turn,
And the town, they make it ring,
With their merry carolling;
Singing loud, and full of mirth,
A way they go to shovel earth."
]
[Footnote 59: Deip. lib. xiv. cap. iii.]
[Footnote 60: The Lords of the Admiralty a few years ago issued a
revised edition of these songs, for the use of our navy. They embody so
completely the idea "of a true British sailor," that they have developed
and upheld the character.]
[Footnote 61: In Durfey's whimsical collection of songs, "Wit and
Mirth," 1682, are several trade songs. One on the blacksmiths begins:--
Of all the trades that ever I see,
There's none to a blacksmith compared may be,
With so many several tools works he;
Which nobody can deny!"
The London companies also chanted forth their own praises. Thus the
Mercers' Company, in 1701, sang in their Lord Mayor's Show, alluding to
their arms, "a demi-Virgin, crowned":--
"Advance the Virgin--lead the van--
Of all that are in London free,
The mercer is the foremost man
That founded a society;
Of all the trades that London grace,
We are the first in time and place."
]
[Footnote 62: Dr. Burney subsequently observed, that "this rogue
Autolycus is the true ancient Minstrel in the old Fabliaux;" on which
Steevens remarks, "Many will push the comparison a little further, and
concur with me in thinking that our _modern minstrels_ of the opera,
like their predecessor Autolycus, are _pickpockets_ as well as singers
of _nonsensical_ ballads."--_Steevens's Shakspeare_, vol. vii. p. 107,
his own edition, 1793.]
[Footnote 63: Mr. Roscoe has printed this very delightful song in the
Life of Lorenzo, No. xli. App.]
[Footnote 64: The late Rowland Hill constantly sang at the Surrey Chapel
a hymn to the tune of "Rule Britannia," altered to "Rule Emmanuel."
There was published in Dublin, in 1833, a series of "Hymns written to
favourite tunes." They were the innocent work of one who wished to do
good by a mode sufficiently startling to those who see impropriety in
the conjunction of the sacred and the profane. Thus, one "pious chanson"
is written to _Gramachree_, or "The Harp that once through Tara's
Halls," of Moore. Another, describing the death of a believer, is set to
"The Groves of Blarney."]
[Footnote 65: The festival of St. Blaize is held on the 3rd of February.
Percy notes it as "a custom in many parts of England to light up fires
on the hills on St. Blaize's Night." Hone, in his "Every-day Book," Vol.
I. p. 210, prints a detailed account of the woolcombers' celebration at
Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1825, in which "Bishop Blaize" figured with the
"bishop's chaplain," surrounded by "shepherds and shepherdesses," but
personated by one John Smith, with "very becoming gravity."]
[Footnote 66: The custom was made the subject of an Essay by Gregory, in
illustration of the tomb of one of these functionaries at Salisbury.
They were elected on St. Nicholas' Day, from the boys of the choir, and
the chosen one officiated in pontificals, and received large donations,
as the custom was exceedingly popular. Even royalty listened favourably
to "the chylde-bishop's" sermon.]
[Footnote 67: Alexander Necham, abbot of Cirencester (born 1157, died
1217), has left us his idea of a "noble garden," which should contain
roses, lilies, sunflowers, violets, poppies, and the narcissus. A large
variety of roses were introduced between the fourteenth and sixteenth
centuries. The Provence rose is thought to have been introduced by
Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI. The periwinkle was common in
mediæval gardens, and so was the gilly-flower or clove-pink. The late
Mr. Hudson Turner contributed an interesting paper on the state of
horticulture in England in early times to the fifth volume of the
"Archæological Journal." Among other things, he notes the contents of
the Earl of Lincoln's garden, in Holborn, from the bailiff's account, in
the twenty-fourth year of Edward I.--"We learn from this curious
document that apples, pears, nuts, and cherries were produced in
sufficient quantities, not only to supply the earl's table, but also to
yield a profit by their sale. The vegetables cultivated in this garden
were beans, onions, garlic, leeks, and others." Vines were also grown,
and their cuttings sold.]
[Footnote 68: This is, however, an error. Mr. Turner, in the paper
quoted, p. 154, says, "It may fairly be presumed that the cherry was
well known at the period of the Conquest, and at every subsequent time.
It is mentioned by Necham in the twelfth century, and was cultivated in
the Earl of Lincoln's garden in the thirteenth."]
[Footnote 69: The _quince_ comes from Sydon, a town of Crete, we are
told by Le Grand, in his Vie privée des François, vol. i. p. 143; where
may be found a list of the origin of most of our fruits.]
[Footnote 70: Peacham has here given a note. "_The filbert_, so named of
_Philibert_, a king of France, who caused by arte sundry kinds to be
brought forth: as did a gardener of Otranto in Italie by
cloue-gilliflowers, and carnations of such colours as we now see them."]
[Footnote 71: The queen-apple was probably thus distinguished in
compliment to Elizabeth. In Moffet's "Health's Improvement," I find an
account of apples which are said to have been "graffed upon a
mulberry-stock, and then wax thorough red as our queen-apples, called by
Ruellius, _Rubelliana_, and _Claudiana_ by Pliny." I am told the race is
not extinct; but though an apple of this description may yet be found,
it seems to have sadly degenerated.]
[Footnote 72: The Court of Wards was founded in the right accorded to
the king from the earliest time, to act as guardian to all minors who
were the children of his own tenants, or of those who did the sovereign
knightly service. They were in the same position, consequently, as the
Chancery Wards of the present day; but much complaint being made of the
private management of themselves and their estates by the persons who
acted as their guardians, and who were responsible only to the king's
exchequer, King Henry VIII., in the thirty-second year of his reign,
founded "the Court of Wards" in Westminster Hall, as an open court of
trial or appeal, for all persons under its jurisdiction. In the
following year, a court of "liveries" was added to it; and it was always
afterwards known as the "Court of Wards and Liveries." By "liveries" is
meant, in old legal phraseology, "the delivery of seisin to the heir of
the king's tenant in ward, upon suing for it at full age," the
investiture, in fact, of the ward in his legal right as heir to his
parents' property. This court was under the conduct of a very few
officers who enriched themselves; and one of the first acts of the House
of Lords, when the great changes were made during the troubles of
Charles I., was to suppress the court altogether. This was done in 1645,
and confirmed by Cromwell in 1656. At the restoration of Charles II. it
was again specially noted as entirely suppressed.]
[Footnote 73: D'Ewes's father lost a manor, which was recovered by the
widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this
loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that
he had purchased that manor with the _interests_ accumulating from the
money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of
that _controversial sin_." This expression shows that even in that age
there were rational political economists. Jeremy Bentham, in his little
treatise on Usury, offers just views, cleared from the indistinct and
partial ones so long prevalent. Jeremy Collier has an admirable Essay on
Usury, vol. iii. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon, that he would
have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns,
because the merchant is best able to afford the highest.]
[Footnote 74: In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, is an amusing
description of the usurer, who binds his clients in "worse bonds and
manacles than the Turk's galley-slaves." And in Decker's "Knights'
Conjuring," 1607, we read of another who "cozen'd young gentlemen of
their land, had acres mortgaged to him by wiseacres for three hundred
pounds, payde in hobby-horses, dogges, bells, and lutestrings; which, if
they had been sold by the drum, or at an outrop (public auction), with
the cry of 'No man better,' would never have yielded £50."]
[Footnote 75: "The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in
Powles," 1603, is the title of a rare tract in the Malone collection,
now in the Bodleian Library. It is a curious picture of the manners of
the day.]
[Footnote 76: Games with cards. Strutt says _Primero_ is one of the most
ancient games known to have been played in England, and he thus
describes it:--"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the
highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which
counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the
same; but the 2, the 3, and the 4 for their respective points only. The
knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the
player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were
of different suits, the highest number won the _primero_; if they were
all of one colour, he that held them won the flush." _Gleek_ is
described in "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, as "a game on the cards
wherein the ace is called _Tib_, the knave _Tom_, the 4 of trumps
_Tiddy_. _Tib_ the ace is 15 in hand and 18 in play, because it wins a
trick; _Tom_ the knave is 9, and _Tiddy_ is 4; the 5th _Towser_, the 6th
_Tumbler_, which, if in hand, _Towser_ is 5 and _Tumbler_ 6, and so
double if turned up; and the King or Queen of trumps is 3. Now, as there
can neither more nor less than 3 persons play at this game, who have 12
cards a-piece dealt to them at 4 at a time, you are to note that 22 are
your cards; if you win nothing but the cards that were dealt you, you
lose 10; if you have neither _Tib_, _Tom_, _Tiddy_, _King_, _Queen_,
_Mournival_, nor _Gleek_, you lose, because you count as many cards as
you had in tricks, which must be few by reason of the badness of your
hand; if you have _Tib_, _Tom_, _King_ and _Queen_ of trumps in your
hand, you have 30 by honours, that is, 8 above your own cards, besides
the cards you win by them in play. If you have _Tom_ only, which is 9,
and the King of trumps, which is 3, then you reckon from 12, 13, 14, 15,
till you come to 22, and then every card wins so many pence, groats, or
what else you play'd for; and if you are under 22, you lose as many."]
[Footnote 77: A note to Singer's edition of "Hall's Satires," says the
phrase originated from the popular belief that the tomb of Sir John
Beauchamp, in old St. Paul's, was that of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester.
Hence, to walk about the aisles dinnerless was termed _dining with Duke
Humphrey_; and a poem by Speed, termed "The Legend of his Grace," &c.,
published 1674, details the popular idea--
Nor doth the duke his invitation send
To princes, or to those that on them tend,
But pays his kindness to a hungry maw;
His charity, his reason, and his law.
For, to say truth, _Hunger_ hath hundreds brought
_To dine with him_, and all not worth a groat.
]
[Footnote 78: Let not the delicate female start from the revolting
scene, nor censure the writer, since that writer is a woman--suppressing
her own agony, as she supported on her lap the head of the miserable
sufferer. This account was drawn up by Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a
Catholic lady, who, amidst the horrid execution, could still her own
feelings in the attempt to soften those of the victim: she was a
heroine, with a tender heart.
The subject was one of the executed Jesuits, Hugh Green, who often went
by the name of Ferdinand Brooks, according to the custom of these
people, who disguised themselves by double names: he suffered in 1642;
and this narrative is taken from the curious and scarce folios of Dodd,
a Roman Catholic Church History of England.
"The hangman, either through unskilfulness, or for want of sufficient
presence of mind, had so ill-performed his first duty of hanging him,
that when he was cut down he was perfectly sensible, and able to sit
upright upon the ground, viewing the crowd that stood about him. The
person who undertook to quarter him was one Barefoot, a barber, who,
being very timorous when he found he was to attack a living man, it was
near half an hour before the sufferer was rendered entirely insensible
of pain. The mob pulled at the rope, and threw the Jesuit on his back.
Then the barber immediately fell to work, ripped up his belly, and laid
the flaps of skin on both sides; the poor gentleman being so present to
himself as to make the sign of the cross with one hand. During this
operation, Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby (the writer of this) kneeled at the
Jesuit's head, and held it fast beneath her hands. His face was covered
with a thick sweat; the blood issued from his mouth, ears, and eyes, and
his forehead burnt with so much heat, that she assures us she could
scarce endure her hand upon it. The barber was still under a great
consternation."--But I stop my pen amidst these circumstantial horrors.]
[Footnote 79: Harl. MSS. 36. 50.]
[Footnote 80: This pathetic poem has been printed in one of the old
editions of Sir Walter Rawleigh's Poems, but could never have been
written by him. In those times the collectors of the works of a
celebrated writer would insert any fugitive pieces of merit, and pass
them under a name which was certain of securing the reader's favour. The
entire poem in every line echoes the feelings of Chidiock Titchbourne,
who perished with all the blossoms of life and genius about him in the
May time of his existence.]
[Footnote 81: Foreign authors who had an intercourse with the English
court seem to have been better informed, or at least found themselves
under less restraint than our home-writers. In Bayle, note x. the reader
will find this mysterious affair cleared up; and at length in one of our
own writers, Whitaker, in his "Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated," vol. ii.
p. 502. Elizabeth's Answer to the first Address of the Commons, on her
marriage, in Hume, vol. v. p. 13, is now more intelligible: he has
preserved her fanciful style.]
[Footnote 82: A curious trait of the neglect Queen Mary experienced,
whose life being considered very uncertain, sent all the intriguers of a
court to Elizabeth, the next heir, although then in a kind of state
imprisonment.]
[Footnote 83: This despatch is a meagre account, written before the
ambassador obtained all the information the present letter displays. The
chief particulars I have preserved above.]
[Footnote 84: By Sir Symonds D'Ewes's Journal it appears, that the
French ambassador had mistaken the day, Wednesday the 16th, for Thursday
the 17th of October. The ambassador is afterwards right in the other
dates. The person who moved the house, whom he calls "_Le Seindicque de
la Royne_," was Sir Edward Rogers, comptroller of her majesty's
household. The motion was seconded by Sir William Cecil, who entered
more largely into the particulars of the queen's charges, incurred in
the defence of _New-Haven,_ in France, the repairs of her navy, and the
Irish war with O'Neil. In the present narrative we fully discover the
spirit of the independent member; and, at its close, that part of the
secret history of Elizabeth which so powerfully developes her majestic
character.]
[Footnote 85: The original says, "ung subside de quatre solz pour
liure."]
[Footnote 86: This gentleman's name does not appear in Sir Symonds
D'Ewes's Journal. Mons. Le Mothe Fenelon has, however, the uncommon
merit, contrary to the custom of his nation, of writing an English name
somewhat recognisable; for Edward Basche was one of the general
surveyors of the victualling of the queen's ships, 1573, as I find in
the Lansdowne MSS., vol. xvi. art. 69.]
[Footnote 87: In the original, "Ils avoient le nez si long qu'il
s'estendoit despuis Londres jusques au pays d'West."]
[Footnote 88: This term is remarkable. In the original, "La Royne ayant
_impetré,"_ which in Congrave's Dictionary, a contemporary work, is
explained by,--"To get by praier, obtain by suit, compass by intreaty,
procure by request." This significant expression conveys the real notion
of this venerable Whig, before Whiggism had received a denomination, and
formed a party.]
[Footnote 89: The French ambassador, no doubt, flattered himself and his
master, that all this "parlance" could only close in insurrection and
civil war.]
[Footnote 90: In the original, "A ung tas de cerveaulx si legieres."]
[Footnote 91: The word in the original is _insistance_; an expressive
word as used by the French ambassador; but which _Boyer_, in his
Dictionary, doubts whether it be French, although he gives a modern
authority; the present is much more ancient.]
[Footnote 92: The Duke of Norfolk was, "without comparison, the first
subject in England; and the qualities of his mind corresponded with his
high station," says Hume. He closed his career, at length, the victim of
love and ambition, in his attempt to marry the Scottish Mary. So great
and honourable a man could only be a criminal by halves; and, to such,
the scaffold, and not the throne, is reserved, when they engage in
enterprises, which, by their secrecy, in the eyes of a jealous
sovereign, assume the form and the guilt of a conspiracy.]
[Footnote 93: Hume, vol, v. c. 39; at the close of 1566.]
[Footnote 94: Dr. Birch's Life of this Prince.]
[Footnote 95: Harleian MS., 6391.]
[Footnote 96: La Vie de Card. Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le
Clerc, 1695, vol. i. pp. 116-125.]
[Footnote 97: "A Detection of the Court and State of England," vol. i.
p. 13.]
[Footnote 98: Stowe's Annals, p. 824.]
[Footnote 99: I give the title of this rare volume. "Finetti
Philoxensis: Some choice Observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and
Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings; touching the reception
and precedence, the treatment and audience, the punctilios and contests
of forren ambassadors in England. _Legati ligant Mumdum_. 1656." This
very curious diary was published after the author's death by his friend
James Howell, the well-known writer; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity
scarcely anything in our domestic literature has escaped, has analysed
the volume with his accustomed care. He mentions that there was a
manuscript in being, more full than the one published, of which I have
not been able to learn farther.--_British Librarian_, p. 163.]
[Footnote 100: Charles I. had, however, adopted them, and long preserved
the stateliness of his court with foreign powers, as appears by these
extracts from manuscript letters of the time:
Mr. Mead writes to Sir M. Stuteville, July 25, 1629.
"His majesty was wont to answer the French ambassador in his own
language; now he speaks in English, and by an _interpreter_. And so doth
Sir Thomas Edmondes to the French king; contrary to the ancient custom:
so that altho' of late we have not equalled them in arms, yet now we
shall equal them in ceremonies."
Oct. 31, 1628.
"This day fortnight, the States' ambassador going to visit my lord
treasurer about some business, whereas his lordship was wont always to
bring them but to the stairs' head, he then, after a great deal of
courteous resistance on the ambassador's part, attended him through the
hall and court-yard, even to the very boot of his coach."--_Sloane MSS_.
4178.]
[Footnote 101: Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 160.]
[Footnote 102: The Diary of William Raikes, Esq., has only recently been
published: it relates to the first half of the present century, and
proves that the race of diarists are not extinct among ourselves.]
[Footnote 103: Ashmole noted every trifle, even to the paring of his
nails; and being as believer in astrology, and a student in the occult
sciences, occasionally mentions his own superstitious observances. Thus,
April 11, 1681, he notes--"I took, early in the morning, a good dose of
elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague
away. Deo Gratias!"]
[Footnote 104: This diary has been published since the above was
written.]
[Footnote 105: It is a thin book, simply lapped in parchment, and filled
with brief memorandums written in a remarkably neat and minute hand.]
[Footnote 106: This has also been published in a handsome quarto volume
since the above was written. Roberta's collection of Anglo-Gallic coins
are now in the British Museum.]
[Footnote 107: Sir Thomas Crew's Collection of the Proceedings of the
Parliament, 1628, p. 71.]
[Footnote 108: The consequence of this prohibition was, that our own men
of learning were at a loss to know what arms the enemies of England, and
of her religion, were fabricating against us. This knowledge was
absolutely necessary, as appears by a curious fact in Strype's Life of
Whitgift. A license for the importation of foreign books was granted to
an Italian merchant, with orders to collect abroad this sort of libels;
but he was to deposit them with the archbishop and the privy council. A
few, no doubt, were obtained by the curious, Catholic or
Protestant.--Strype's "Life of Whitgift," p. 268.]
[Footnote 109: The author, with his publisher, who had their right hands
cut off, was John Stubbs of Lincoln's Inn, a hot-headed Puritan, whose
sister was married to Thomas Cartwright, the head of that faction. This
execution took place upon a scaffold, in the market-place at
Westminster. After Stubbs had his right hand cut off, with his left he
pulled off his hat, and cried with a loud voice, "God save the Queen!"
the multitude standing deeply silent, either out of horror at this new
and unwonted kind of punishment, or else out of commiseration of the
undaunted man, whose character was unblemished. Camden, a witness to
this transaction, has related it. The author, and the printer, and the
publisher were condemned to this barbarous punishment, on an act of
Philip and Mary, _against the authors and publishers of seditious
writings_. Some lawyers were honest enough to assert that the sentence
was erroneous, for that act was only a temporary one, and died with
Queen Mary; but, of these honest lawyers, one was sent to the Tower, and
another was so sharply reprimanded, that he resigned his place as a
judge in the Common Pleas. Other lawyers, as the lord chief justice, who
fawned on the prerogative far more then than afterwards in the Stuart
reigns, asserted that Queen Mary was a king; and that an act made by any
king, unless repealed, must always exist, because the King of England
never dies!]
[Footnote 110: A letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, July 19,
1628. Sloane MSS. 4178.]
[Footnote 111: See "Calamities of Authors," vol. ii. p. 116.]
[Footnote 112: It is a quarto tract, entitled "Mr. John Milton's
Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641;
omitted in his other works, and never before printed, and very
seasonable for these times. 1681." It is inserted in the uncastrated
edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. It is a retort on the
_Presbyterian_ Clement Walker's History of the _Independents_; and
Warburton, in his admirable characters of the historians of this period,
alluding to Clement Walker, says--"Milton was even with him in the fine
and severe character he draws of the Presbyterian administration."]
[Footnote 113: Southey, in his "Doctor," has a whimsical chapter on
Anagrams, which, he says, "are not likely ever again to hold so high a
place among the prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the
seventeenth century, when Louis XIII. appointed the Provençal, Thomas
Billen, to be his royal anagrammatist, and granted him a salary of
12,000 livres."]
[Footnote 114: Two of the luckiest hits which anagrammatists have made,
were on the Attorney-General _William Noy_--"I moyl in law;" and _Sir
Edmundbury Godfrey_--"I find murdered by rogues." But of unfitting
anagrams, none were ever more curiously unfit than those which were
discovered in Marguerite de Valois, the profligate Queen of
Navarre--"Salve, Virgo Mater Dei; ou, de vertu royal image."--Southey's
_Doctor_.]
[Footnote 115: Drummond of Hawthornden speaks of anagrams as "most idle
study; you may of one and the same name make both good and evil. So did
my uncle find in _Anna Regina_, 'Ingannare,' as well of _Anna
Britannorum Regina_, 'Anna regnantium arbor;' as he who in _Charles de
Valois_ found 'Chasse la dure loy," and after the massacre found
'Chasseur desloyal.' Often they are most false, as _Henri de Bourbon_
'Bonheur de Biron.' Of all the anagrammatists, and with least pain, he
was the best who out of his own name, being _Jaques de la Chamber_,
found 'La Chamber de Jaques,' and rested there: and next to him, here at
home, a gentleman whose mistress's name being _Anna Grame_, he found it
an 'Anagrame' already."]
[Footnote 116: See _ante_, LITERARY FOLLIES, what is said on _Pannard_.]
[Footnote 117: An allusion probably to Archibald Armstrong, the fool or
privileged jester of Charles I., usually called _Archy_, who had a
quarrel with Archbishop Laud, and of whom many _arch_ things are on
record. There is a little jest-book, very high priced, and of little
worth, which bears the title of _Archie's Jests_.]
[Footnote 118: The writer was Bancroft, who, in his _Two Books of
Epigrams_, 1639, has the following addressed to the poet--
Thou hast so us'd thy pen, or _shooke thy speare_,
That poets startle, nor thy wit come neare.
]
[Footnote 119: There can be little doubt now, after a due consideration
of evidence, that the proper way of spelling our great dramatist's name
is Shakespeare, in accordance with its signification; but there is good
proof that the pronunciation of the first syllable was short and sharp,
and the Warwickshire _patois_ gave it the sound of _Shaxpere_. In the
earliest entries of the name in legal records, it is written
Schakespere; the name of the great dramatist's father is entered in the
Stratford corporation books in 1665 as _John_ _Shacksper_. There are
many varieties of spelling the name, but that is strictly in accordance
with other instances of the looseness of spelling usual with writers of
that era; as a general rule, _the printed form_ of an author's name
seldom varied, and may be accepted as the correct one.]
[Footnote 120: The term seems to have been applied to the article from
the pointed or _peaked_ edges of the lace which surrounded the stiff
pleated ruffs, and may be constantly seen in portraits of the era of
Elizabeth and James.]
[Footnote 121: Nat. Hist. lib. ix. 56. Snails are still a common dish in
Vienna, and are eaten with eggs.]
[Footnote 122: Dr. Lister published in the early part of the last
century an amusing poem, "The Art of Cookery, in imitation of 'Horace's
Art of Poetry.'"]
[Footnote 123: Genial. Dierum, II. 283, Lug. 1673. The writer has
collected in this chapter a variety of curious particulars on this
subject.]
[Footnote 124: The commentators have not been able always to assign
known names to the great variety of fish, particularly sea-fish, the
ancients used, many of which we should revolt at. One of their dainties
was a shell-fish, prickly like a hedgehog, called _Echinus_. They ate
the dog-fish, the star-fish, porpoises or sea-hogs, and even seals. In
Dr. Moffet's "Regiment of Diet," an exceeding curious writer of the
reign of Elizabeth, republished by Oldys, may be found an ample account
of the "sea-fish" used by the ancients.--Whatever the _Glociscus_ was,
it seems to have been of great size, and a shell-fish, as we may infer
from the following curious passage in Athenæus. A father, informed that
his son is leading a dissolute life, enraged, remonstrates with his
pedagogue:--"Knave! thou art the fault! hast thou ever known a
philosopher yield himself so entirely to the pleasures thou tellest me
of?" The pedagogue replies by a Yes! and that the sages of the Portico
are great drunkards, and none know better than they _how to attack a
Glociscus_.]
[Footnote 125: Ben Jonson, in his "Staple of News," seems to have had
these passages in view when he wrote:--
A master cook! Why, he's the man of men
For a professor, he designes, he drawes.
He paints, he carves, he builds, he fortifies;
Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish.
Some he dry-dishes, some moats round with broths,
Mounts marrow-bones, cuts fifty-angled custards,
Bears bulwark pies, and for his outerworks
He raiseth ramparts of immortal crust;
And teacheth all the tactics at one dinner:
What rankes, what files to put his dishes in;
The whole art military. Then he knows
The influence of the stars upon his meats,
And all their seasons, tempers, qualities;
And so to fit his relishes and sauces,
He has Nature in a pot, 'bove all the chemists,
Or airy brethren of the rosy-cross.
He is an architect, an ingineer,
A soldier, a physician, a philosopher,
A general mathematician!
]
[Footnote 126: Sat. iv. 140.]
[Footnote 127: Miscellaneous Works, vol. v. 504.]
[Footnote 128: Seneca, Ep. 18.]
[Footnote 129: Horace, in his dialogue with his slave Davus, exhibits a
lively picture of this circumstance. Lib. ii. Sat. 7.]
[Footnote 130: A large volume might be composed on these grotesque,
profane, and licentious feasts. Du Cange notices several under different
terms in his Glossary--Festum Asinorum, Kaleudæ, Cervula. A curious
collection has been made by the Abbé Artigny, in the fourth and seventh
volumes of his "Mémoires d'Histoire," &c. Du Radier, in his "Récréations
Historiques," vol. i. p. 109, has noticed several writers on the
subject, and preserves one on the hunting of a man, called Adam, from
Ash-Wednesday to Holy-Thursday, and treating him with a good supper at
night, peculiar to a town in Saxony. See "Ancillon's Mélange Critique,"
&c., i. 39, where the passage from Raphael de Volterra is found at
length. In my learned friend Mr. Turner's second volume of his "History
of England," p. 367, will be found a copious and a curious note on this
subject.]
[Footnote 131: Thiers. Traite des Jeux, p. 449. The _fête Dieu_ in this
city of Aix, established by the famous _Rene d'Anjou_, the Troubadour
king, was re markable for the absurd mixture of the sacred and profane.
There is a curious little volume devoted to an explanation of those
grotesque ceremonies, with engravings. It was printed at Aix in 1777.]
[Footnote 132: The custom is now abolished.]
[Footnote 133: Selden's "Table Talk."]
[Footnote 134: It may save the trouble of a reference to give here a
condensation of Stubbes' narrative. He says that the Lord of Misrule, on
being selected takes twenty to sixty others "lyke hymself" to act as his
guard, who are decorated with ribbons, scarfs, and bells on their legs.
"Thus, all things set in order, they have their hobby-horses, their
dragons, and other antiques, together with their gaudie pipers, and
thunderyng drummers, to strike up the devill's dance withal." So they
march to the church, invading it, even though service be performing,
"with such a confused noyse that no man can heare his own voice." Then
they adjourn to the churchyard, where booths are set up, and the rest of
the day spent in dancing and drinking. The followers of "My Lord" go
about to collect money for this, giving in return "badges and
cognizances" to wear in the hat; and do not scruple to insult, or even
"duck," such as will not contribute. But, adds Stubbes, "another sort of
fantasticall fooles" are well pleased to bring all sorts of food and
drink to furnish out the feast.]
[Footnote 135: A rare quarto tract seems to give an authentic narrative
of one of these grand Christmas keepings, exhibiting all their
whimsicality and burlesque humour: it is entitled "Gesta Grayorum; or
the History of the high and mighty Prince Henry, Prince of Purpoole,
Arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia (Staple's and Bernard's Inns), Duke
of High and Nether-Holborn, Marquess of St. Giles and Tottenham, Count
Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell, Great Lord of the Cantons of
Islington, Kentish Town, &c., Knight and Sovereign of the most heroical
Order of the Helmet, who reigned and died A.D. 1594." It is full of
burlesque speeches and addresses. As it was printed in 1688, I suppose
it was from some manuscript of the times; the preface gives no
information. Hone, in his "Year-Book," has reprinted this tract, which
abounds with curious details of the mock-dignity assumed by this
_pseudo_-potentate, who was ultimately invited, with all his followers,
to the court of Queen Elizabeth, and treated by her as nobly as if he
had been a real sovereign.]
[Footnote 136: On the last Revels held, see _Gent. Mag._ 1774, p. 273.]
[Footnote 137: Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote, by Edmund Gayton, Esq.,
folio, 1654, p. 24.]
[Footnote 138: The universities indulged in similar festivities. An
account of the Christmas Prince, elected by the University of Oxford in
1607, was published in 1816, from a manuscript preserved in St. John's
College, where his court was held. His rule commenced by the issuing of,
"an act for taxes and subsidies" toward the defrayment of expenses, and
the appointment of a staff of officers. After this the revels opened
with a banquet and a play. The whole of his brief reign was conducted in
"right royal" style. His mandates were constructed in the manner of a
king; he was entitled "Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord of St. John's,
Duke of St. Giles', Marquess of Magdalen's," &c. &c.; and his affairs
were similarly dignified with burlesque honours. "His privy chamber was
provided and furnished with a chair of state placed upon a carpet, with
a cloth of state hang'd over it, newly made for the same purpose." At
banquetings and all public occasions he was attended by his whole court.
The whole of the sports occupied from the 21st of December until Shrove
Tuesday, when the entertainments closed with a play, being one of eight
performed at stated times during the festivities, which were paid for by
the contributions of the collegians and heads of the house.]
[Footnote 139: Foote's amusing farce has immortalised this popular piece
of folly; but those who desire to know more of the peculiarities and
eccentricities of the election, will find an excellent account in Hone's
"Every-Day Book," vol. ii., with some engravings illustrative of the
same, drawn by an artist who attended the great mock election of 1781.]
[Footnote 140: Their "brevets," &c., are collected in a little volume,
"Recueil des Pièces du Regiment de la Calotte; à Paris, chez Jaques
Colombat, Imprimeur privilégié du Regiment. L'an de l'Ere Calotine
7726." From the date, we infer that the true _calotine_ is as old as the
creation.]
[Footnote 141: The lady is buried at Hollingbourne, near Maidstone,
Kent. The monument in Westminster Abbey is merely "in memoriam." She
died 1697.]
[Footnote 142: Was this thought, that strikes with a sudden effect, in
the mind of Hawkesworth, when he so pathetically concluded his last
paper?]
[Footnote 143: The first edition was "printed for W. Taylor, at the
Ship, in Paternoster Row," as an octavo volume, in the early part of the
year 1719. The title runs thus:--"The Life, and strange surprising
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner," and has a full-length
picture of Crusoe, as a frontispiece, "Clarke and Pine, _sc._"; which is
the type of all future representations of the hero, who is depicted in
his skin-dress upon the desolate island. It is a very wretched work of
art; the hook was brought out in a common manner, like all De Foe's
works.]
[Footnote 144: Eccl. Hist., book vii. p. 399.]
[Footnote 145: Collier's "Annals of the Stage," i. 144.]
[Footnote 146: Bale's play, _God's Promises_, and that called _New
Custome_, reprinted in the first volume of Dodsley's collection, are
examples of the great license these dramatists allowed themselves.]
[Footnote 147: It has been preserved by Hawkins in his "Origin of the
English Drama," vol. i.]
[Footnote 148: Macrobius, Saturn., lib. iii. 1, 14.]
[Footnote 149: Several of them have been reprinted by the Shakespeare
Society since the above was written. Particularly the work of Gosson
here alluded to.]
[Footnote 150: The "Historica Histrionica" notes Stephen Hammerton as "a
most noted and beautiful woman-actor," in the early part of the
seventeenth century. Alexander Goffe, "the woman-actor at Blackfriars,"
is also mentioned as acting privately "in Oliver's time."]
[Footnote 151: One actor, William Kynaston, continued to perform female
characters in the reign of Charles II., and his performances were
praised by Dryden, and preferred by many to that of the ladies
themselves. He was so great a favourite with the fair sex, that the
court ladies used to take him in their coaches for an airing in Hyde
Park.]
[Footnote 152: Ben Jonson was one of their hardest enemies; and his
_Zeal-of-the-Land-busy, Justice Over-doo,_ and _Dame Pure-craft_, have
never been surpassed in masterly delineation of puritanic cant. The
dramatists of that era certainly did their best to curb Puritanism by
exposure.]
[Footnote 153: The title of this collection is "THE WITS, or Sport upon
Sport, in select pieces of Drollery, digested into scenes by way of
Dialogue. Together with variety of Humours of several nations, fitted
for the pleasure and content of all persons, either in Court, City,
Country, or Camp. The like never before published. Printed for H. Marsh,
1662:" again printed for F. Kirkman, 1672. To Kirkman's edition is
prefixed a curious print representing the inside of a Bartholomew-fair
theatre (by some supposed to be the Red Bull Theatre in Clerkenwell).
Several characters are introduced. In the middle of the stage, a figure
peeps out of the curtain; on a label from his mouth is written "Tu
quoque," it represents Bubble, a silly person in a comedy, played so
excellently by an actor named Green, that it was called "Green's
Tu-quoque." Then a changeling and a simpleton, from plays by Cox; a
French dancing-master, from the Duke of Newcastle's "Variety;" Clause,
from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Beggar's Bush;" and Sir John Falstaff and
hostess. Our notion of Falstaff by this print seems very different from
that of our ancestors: their Falstaff is in extravaganza of obesity, not
requiring so much "stuffing" as ours does.]
[Footnote 154: PYM was then at the head of the Commons, and was usually
deputed to address personally the motley petitioners. We have a curious
speech he made to the _tradesmen's wives_ in Echard's "History of
England," vol. ii. 290.]
[Footnote 155: Prynne's tract entitled "Health's Sicknesse" is full of
curious allusions to the drinking-customs of the era of Charles the
First. His paradoxical title alludes to the sickness that results from
too freely drinking "healths."]
[Footnote 156: Camden's "History of Queen Elizabeth," Book III. Many
statutes against drunkenness, by way of prevention, passed in the reign
of James the First. Our law looks on this vice as an aggravation of any
offence committed, not as an excuse for criminal misbehaviour. See
"Blackstone," book iv. c. 2, sec. 3. In Mr. Gifford's "Massinger," vol.
ii. 458, is a note to show that when we were young scholars, we soon
equalled, if we did not surpass, our masters. Mr. Gilchrist there
furnishes an extract from Sir Richard Baker's Chronicle, which traces
the origin of this exotic custom to the source mentioned; but the whole
passage from Baker is literally transcribed from Camden.]
[Footnote 157: Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse," 1595, sig. F 2.]
[Footnote 158: These barbarous phrases are Dutch, Danish, or German. The
term _skinker_, a filler of wine, a butler or cup-bearer, according to
Phillips; and in taverns, as appears by our dramatic poets, a _drawer_,
is Dutch, or, according to Dr. Nott, purely Danish, from _skenker_.
_Half-seas over_, or nearly drunk, is likely to have been a proverbial
phrase from the Dutch, applied to that state of ebriety by an idea
familiar with those water-rats. Thus _op-zee_, Dutch, means literally
_over-sea_. Mr. Gifford has recently told us in his "Jonson," that it
was a name given to a stupifying beer introduced into England from the
Low Countries; hence _op-zee_, or over-sea; and _freezen_ in German,
signifies to _swallow greedily_: from this vile alliance they compounded
a harsh term, often used in our old plays. Thus Jonson:
I do not like the dulness of your eye,
It hath a heavy cast, 'tis _upsee Dutch_.
_Alchemist_, A. iv. S. 2.
And Fletcher has "upse-freeze;" which Dr. Nott explains in his edition
of Decker's "Gull's Hornbook," as "a tipsy draught, or swallowing liquor
till drunk." Mr. Gifford says it was the name of Friesland beer; the
meaning, however, was "to drink swinishly like a Dutchman."
We are indebted to the Danes for many of our terms of jollity, such as a
_rouse_ and a _carouse_. Mr. Gifford has given not only a new but very
distinct explanation of these classical terms in his "Massinger." "A
_rouse_ was a large glass, in which a health was given, the drinking of
which by the rest of the company formed a _carouse_. Barnaby Rich
notices the _carouse_ as an invention for which the first founder
merited hanging. It is necessary to add, that there could be no _rouse_
or _carouse_, unless the glasses were emptied." Although we have lost
the terms, we have not lost the practice, as those who have the honour
of dining in public parties are still gratified by the animating cry of
"Gentlemen, charge your glasses."
According to Blount's "Glossographia," _carouse_ is a corruption of two
old German words, _gar_ signifying _all_, and _ausz, out_; so that to
drink _garauz_ is to drink _all out_: hence _carouse_.]
[Footnote 159: "Pierce Pennilesse," sig. F 2, 1595.]
[Footnote 160: When Christian IV. of Denmark was at the court of our
James I. on a visit, drinking appears to have been carried to an excess;
there is extant an account of a court masque, in which the actors were
too tipsy to continue their parts; luckily, their majesties were not
sufficiently sober to find fault.]
[Footnote 161: These inventions for keeping every thirsty soul within
bounds are alluded to by Tom Nash; I do not know that his authority will
be great as an antiquary, but the things themselves he describes he had
seen. He tells us, that "King Edgar, because his subjects should not
offend in swilling and bibbing as they did, caused certain _iron cups_
to be chained to every fountain and well-side, and at every vintner's
door, with _iron pins in them_, to stint every man how much he should
drink; and he who went _beyond one of those pins_ forfeited a penny for
every draught."
Pegge, in his "Anonymiana," has minutely described these _peg-tankards_,
which confirms this account of Nash, and nearly the antiquity of the
custom. "They have in the inside a row of eight pins one above another,
from top to bottom; the tankard holds two quarts, so that there is a
gill of ale, _i.e._, half a pint of Winchester measure between each pin.
The first person that drank was to empty the tankard to the first peg or
pin; the second was to empty to the next pin, &c.; by which means the
pins were so many measures to the compotators, _making them all drink
alike_, or the same quantity: and as the distance of the pins was such
as to contain a large draught of liquor, _the company would be very
liable by this method to get drunk_, especially when, if they drank
short of the pin or beyond it, they were obliged to drink again. In
Archbishop Anselm's Canons, made in the council at London in 1102,
priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor _to drink to
pegs_. The words are--"_Ut Presbyteri non, eant ad potationes_, nec AD
PINNAS bibant." (Wilkins, vol. i. p. 388.) This shows the antiquity of
this invention, which at least was as old as the Conquest.]
[Footnote 162: And yet a _drawer-on too_; i.e. an incitement to
appetite: the phrase is yet in use. This drawer-on was also technically
termed a _puller-on_ and a _shoeing-horn_ in drink.
On "the Italian delicate oil'd mushrooms," still a favourite dish with
the Italians, I have to communicate some curious knowledge. In an
original manuscript letter dated Hereford, _15th November 1659_, the
name of the writer wanting, but evidently the composition of a physician
who had travelled, I find that the dressing of MUSHROOMS was then a
novelty. The learned writer laments his error that he "disdained to
learn the cookery that occurred in my travels, by a sullen principle of
mistaken devotion, and thus declined the great helps I had to enlarge
and improve human diet." This was an age of medicine, when it was
imagined that the health of mankind essentially depended on diet; and
Moffet had written his curious book on this principle. Our writer, in
noticing the passion of the Romans for mushrooms, which was called "an
Imperial dish," says, "he had eaten it often at Sir Henry Wotton's table
(our resident ambassador at Venice), always dressed by the inspection of
his Dutch-Venetian Johanna, or of Nic. Oudart, and truly it did deserve
the old applause as I found it at his table; it was far beyond our
English food. Neither did any of us find it of hard digestion, for we
did not eat like Adamites, but as modest men would eat of musk-melons.
If it were now lawful to hold any kind of intelligence with Nic. Oudart,
I would only ask him _Sir Henry Wotton's art of dressing mushrooms_, and
I hope that is not high treason,"--_Sloane MSS._ 4292.]
[Footnote 163: See Mr. Douce's curious "Illustrations of Shakspeare,"
vol. i. 457; a gentleman more intimately conversant with our ancient and
domestic manners than, perhaps, any single individual in the country.]
[Footnote 164: This term is used in Bancroft's "Two Books of Epigrams
and Epitaphs," 1639. I take it to have been an accepted one of that
day.]
[Footnote 165: "A delicate Diet for daintie mouthed Dronkardes, wherin
the fowle Abuse of common carowsing and quaffing with hartie Draughtes
is honestlie admonished." By George Gascoigne, Esquier. 1576.]
[Footnote 166: I shall preserve the story in the words of Whitelocke; it
was something ludicrous, as well as terrific.
"From Berkshire (in May, 1650) that five drunkards agreed to drink the
king's health in their blood, and that each of them should cut off a
piece of his buttock, and fry it upon the gridiron, which was done by
four of them, of whom one did bleed so exceedingly, that they were fain
to send for a chirurgeon, and so were discovered. The wife of one of
them hearing that her husband was amongst them, came to the room, and
taking up a pair of tongs laid about her, and so saved the cutting of
her husband's flesh."--_Whitelocke's Memorials_, p. 453, second
edition.]
[Footnote 167: Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale.]
[Footnote 168: Calamities of Authors, vol. ii. p. 313.]
[Footnote 169: It first appeared in a review of his "Memoirs."]
[Footnote 170: The words are, "Une derrière la scène." I am not sure of
the-meaning, but an _Act behind the scenes_ would be perfectly in
character with this dramatic bard.]
[Footnote 171: The exact reasoning of Sir Fretful, in the _Critic_, when
Mrs. Dangle thought his piece "rather too long," while he proves his
play was "a remarkably short play."--"The first evening you can spare me
three hours and a half, I'll undertake to read you the whole, from
beginning to end, with the prologue and epilogue, and allow time for the
music between the acts. The watch here, you know, is the critic."]
[Footnote 172: Again, Sir Fretful; when Dangle "ventures to suggest that
the interest rather falls off in the fifth act;"--"Rises, I believe you
mean, sir."--No, I don't, upon my word."--"Yes, yes, you do, upon my
soul; it certainly don't fall off; no, no, it don't fall off."]
[Footnote 173: See _ante_. vol. i. p. 71.]
[Footnote 174: The plates of the original edition are in the quarto
form; they have been poorly reduced in the common editions in twelves.]
[Footnote 175: The establishment could originally accommodate no more
than six lunatics. In 1644, the number had only increased to forty-four;
and the building had nearly perished for want of funds, when the city
raised a subscription and repaired it. After the great fire, it was
re-established on a much larger scale in Moorfields.]
[Footnote 176: Stowe's "Survey of London," Book i.]
[Footnote 177: "The Academy of Armory," Book ii. c. 3, p. 161. This is a
singular work, where the writer has contrived to turn the barren
subjects of heraldry into an entertaining Encyclopædia, containing much
curious knowledge on almost every subject; but this folio more
particularly exhibits the most copious vocabulary of old English terms.
It has been said that there are not more than twelve copies extant of
this very rare work, which is probably not true. [It is certainly not
correct; the work is, however, rare and valuable.]]
[Footnote 178: In that curious source of our domestic history, the
"English Villanies" of Decker, we find a lively description of the
"Abram cove," or Abram man, the impostor who personated a Tom o' Bedlam.
He was terribly disguised with his grotesque rags, his staff, his
knotted hair, and with the more disgusting contrivances to excite pity,
still practised among a class of our mendicants, who, in their cant
language, are still said "to sham Abraham." This impostor was,
therefore, as suited his purpose and the place, capable of working on
the sympathy, by uttering a silly _maunding_, or demanding of charity,
or terrifying the easy fears of women, children, and domestics, as he
wandered up and down the country: they refused nothing to a being who
was as terrific to them as "Robin Good-fellow," or "Raw-head and
Bloody-bones." Thus, as Edgar expresses it, "sometimes with lunatic
bans, sometimes with prayers," the gestures of this impostor were "a
counterfeit puppet-play: they came with a hollow noise, whooping,
leaping, gambolling, wildly dancing, with a fierce or distracted look."
These sturdy mendicants were called "Tom of Bedlam's band of mad-caps,"
or "Poor Tom's flock of wild geese." Decker has preserved their "Maund,"
or begging--"Good worship master, bestow your reward on a poor man that
hath been in Bedlam without Bishopsgate, three years, four months, and
nine days, and bestow one piece of small silver towards his fees, which
he is indebted there, of 3_l._ 13_s._ 7½_d._" (or to such effect).
Or, "Now dame, well and wisely, what will you give poor Tom? One pound
of your sheep's-feathers to make poor Tom a blanket? or one cutting of
your sow's side, no bigger than my arm; or one piece of your salt meat
to make poor Tom a sharing-horn; or one cross of your small silver,
towards a pair of shoes; well and wisely, give poor Tom an old sheet to
keep him from the cold; or an old doublet and jerkin of my master's;
well and wisely, God save the king and his council." Such is a history
drawn from the very archives of mendicity and imposture; and written
perhaps as far back as the reign of James the First: but which prevailed
in that of Elizabeth, as Shakspeare has so finely shown in his Edgar.
This _Maund_, and these assumed manners and _costume_, I should not have
preserved from their utter penury, but such was the rude material which
Shakspeare has worked up into that most fanciful and richest vein of
native poetry, which pervades the character of the wandering Edgar,
tormented by "the foul fiend" when he
---- bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast.
And the poet proceeds with a minute picture of "Bedlam beggars." See
_Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 3.]
[Footnote 179: Aubrey's information is perfectly correct; for those
impostors who assumed the character of Tom o' Bedlams for their own
nefarious purposes used to have a mark burnt in their arms, which they
showed as the mark of Bedlam. "The English Villanies" of Decker, c 17.
1648.]
[Footnote 180: I discovered the present in a very scarce collection,
entitled "Wit and Drollery," 1661; an edition, however, which is not the
earliest of this once fashionable miscellany.]
[Footnote 181: Harman, in his curious "Caveat, a warning for Common
Cursitors, vulgarly called Vagabones," 1566, describes the "Abraham Man"
as a pretended lunatic, who wandered the country over, soliciting food
or charity at farm-houses, or frightening and bullying the peasantry for
the same. They described themselves as cruelly treated in Bedlam, and
nearly in the words of Shakspeare's Edgar.]
[Footnote 182: Dr. James, the translator of "Pauli's Treatise on Tea,"
1746, says: "According to the Chinese, tea produces an appetite after
hunger and thirst are satisfied; therefore, the drinking of it is to be
abstained from." He concludes his treatise by saying: "As Hippocrates
spared no pains to remove and root out the Athenian plague, so have I
used the utmost of my endeavours to destroy the raging epidemical
madness of importing tea into Europe from China."]
[Footnote 183: _Edinburgh Review_, 1816, p. 117.]
[Footnote 184: Modern collectors have gone beyond this, and exhibited
"Elizabethan tea-pots," which are just as likely to be true. There is no
clear proof of the use of tea in England before the middle of the
seventeenth century. This ante-dating of curiosities is the weakness of
collectors.]
[Footnote 185: Aubrey, speaking of this house, then in other hands, says
that Bowman's Coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, established 1652, was
the first opened in London. About four years afterwards, James Farr, a
barber, opened another in Fleet-street, by the Inner Temple gate.
Hatton, in his "New View of London," 1708, says it is "now the Rainbow,"
and he narrates how Farr "was presented by the Inquest of St.
Dunstan's-in-the-West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called
coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the neighbourhood." The
words of the presentment are, that "in making the same he annoyeth his
neighbours by evill smells." Hatton adds, with _naïveté_, "Who would
then have thought London would ever have had near 3000 such nuisances,
and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the best of
quality and physicians." It is, however, proper to note that
coffee-houses had been opened in Oxford at an earlier date. Anthony Wood
informs us that one Jacob, a Jew, opened a coffee-house in the parish of
St. Peter-in-the-East, at Oxford, as early as 1650.]
[Footnote 186: This witty poet was not without a degree of prescience;
the luxury of eating spiders has never indeed become "modish," but Mons.
Lalande, the French astronomer, and one or two humble imitators of the
modern philosopher, have shown this triumph over vulgar prejudices, and
were epicures of this stamp.]
[Footnote 187: "Not only tea, which we have from the East, but also
chocolate, which is imported from the West Indies, _begins to be
famous_."--Dr. James's "Treatise on Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, and
Chocolate." 1746.]
[Footnote 188: Gerbier was in Antwerp at Rubens' death, and sent over an
inventory of his pictures and effects for the king's selection.]
[Footnote 189: Sloane MSS. 5176, letter 367.]
[Footnote 190: See Gregorio Panzani's Memoirs of his agency in England.
This work long lay in manuscript, and was only known to us in the
Catholic Dodd's "Church History," by partial extracts. It was at length
translated from the Italian MS. and published by the Rev. Joseph
Berington; a curious piece of our own secret history.]
[Footnote 191: Hume's "History of England," vii. 842. His authority is
the "Parl. Hist." xix. 88.]
[Footnote 192: Whitelocke's "Memorials."]
[Footnote 193: Harl. MSS. 4898.]
[Footnote 194: One of these pictures, "A Concert," is now in our
National Gallery.]
[Footnote 195: They were secured by Cromwell, who had intended to
reproduce the designs at the tapestry-factory established in Mortlake,
but the troubles of the kingdom hindered it. Charles II. very nearly
sold them to France; Lord Danby intercepted the sale; when they were
packed away in boxes, until the time of William III., who built the
gallery at Hampton Court expressly for their exhibition.]
[Footnote 196: This picture is now one of the ornaments of Windsor
Castle.]
[Footnote 197: These would appear to be copies of Andrea Mantegna's
"Triumphs of Julius Cæsar," the cartoons of which are still in the
galleries of Hampton Court.]
[Footnote 198: Some may be curious to learn the price of gold and silver
about 1650. It appears by this manuscript inventory that the silver sold
at 4s. 11d. per oz. and gold at £3 10s.; so that the value of these
metals has little varied during the last century and a half.]
[Footnote 199: This poem is omitted in the great edition of the king's
works, published after the Restoration; and was given by Burnet from a
manuscript of his "Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton;" but it had been
previously published in Perrenchief's "Life of Charles the First." It
has been suspected that this poem is a pious fraud, and put forth in the
king's name--as likewise was the "Eikon Basilike." One point I have
since ascertained is, that Charles did write verses, as rugged as some
of these. And in respect to the book, notwithstanding the artifice and
the interpolations of Gauden, I believe that there are some passages
which Charles only could have written.]
[Footnote 200: This article was composed without any recollection that a
part of the subject had been anticipated by Lord Orford. In the
"Anecdotes of Painting in England," many curious particulars are
noticed: the story of the king's diamond seal had reached his lordship,
and Vertue had a mutilated transcript of the inventory of the king's
pictures, &c., discovered in Moorfields; for, among others, more than
thirty pages at the beginning relating to the plate and jewels were
missing. The manuscript in the Harleian Collection is perfect. Lord
Orford has also given an interesting anecdote to show the king's
discernment in the knowledge of the hands of the painters, which
confirms the little anecdote I have related from the Farrars. But for a
more intimate knowledge of this monarch's intercourse with artists, I
beg to refer to the third volume of my "Commentaries on the Life and
Reign of Charles the First," chapter the sixth, on "The Private Life of
Charles the First.--Love of the Arts."]
[Footnote 201: Hume, vol. vi. p. 234. Charles seems, however, to have
constantly consulted his favourite minister, the Duke of Buckingham, on
the subject, though his letters express clearly his own determination.
In Harleian MSS., 6988, is a letter written to Buckingham, dated Hampton
Court, 20th November, 1625, he declares, "I thought I would have cause
enough in short time to put away the Monsieurs," from the quarrels they
would ferment between himself and his wife, or his subjects, and begs of
him to acquaint "the queen-mother (Mary de Medicis) with my intention;
for this being an action that may have a show of harshness, I thought it
was fit to take this way, that she to whom I have had many obligations
may not take it unkindly." In another long letter, preserved among the
Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library, he enters minutely into his
domestic grievances--"What unkindnesses and distastes have fallen
between my wife and me"--which he attributes to the "crafty counsels" of
her servants. On 7th August, 1626, he writes a final letter to the duke,
ordering him to send them all away, "if you can by fair means (but stick
not long in disputing), otherwise force them away, driving them away
like so many wild beasts, until ye have shipped them, and so the devil
go with them."]
[Footnote 202: Lord Hardwicke's State-papers, II. 2, 3.]
[Footnote 203: Sloane MSS. 4176.]
[Footnote 204: Harl. MSS. 646.]
[Footnote 205: Ambassades du Maréchal de Bassompierre, vol. iii. p. 49.]
[Footnote 206: A letter from Dr. Meddus to Mr. Mead, 17th Jan. 1625.
Sloane MSS. 4177.]
[Footnote 207: Sir S. D'Ewes's "Journal of his Life," Harl. MS. 646. We
have seen our puritanic antiquary describing the person of the queen
with some warmth; but "he could not abstain from deep-fetched sighs, to
consider that she wanted the knowledge of true religion," a circumstance
that Henrietta would have as zealously regretted for Sir Symonds
himself!]
[Footnote 208: A letter to Mr. Mead, July 1, 1625. Sloane MSS. 4177.]
[Footnote 209: At Hampton Court there is a curious picture of Charles
and Henrietta dining in the presence. This regal honour, after its
interruption during the Civil Wars, was revived in 1667 by Charles the
Second, as appears by "Evelyn's Diary." "Now did his majesty again _dine
in the presence_, in ancient style, with music and all the court
ceremonies."]
[Footnote 210: The author of the Life of this Archbishop and Lord
Keeper, a voluminous folio, but full of curious matters. Ambrose
Phillips the poet abridged it.]
[Footnote 211: A letter from Mr. Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, October,
1625. Sloane MSS. 4177.]
[Footnote 212: There is a very rare print, which has commemorated this
circumstance.]
[Footnote 213: Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead, July, 1626. Harl. MSS. No. 383. The
answer of the king's council to the complaints of Bassompierre is both
copious and detailed in vol. iii., p. 166, of the "Ambassades" of this
marshal.]
[Footnote 214: A letter from Mr. Pory to Mr. Mead contains a full
account of this transaction. Harl. MSS. 383.]
[Footnote 215: A letter among Tanner's MS. in the Bodleian Library
notes--"When they were turned away from Somerset House the passage was
somewhat rough;" and adds, "I know not what revilings took place betwixt
them and the king's guard, but one of the soldiers told me that for
furious speech, he would rather have taken common thieves to prison." A
stanza of a popular song of the day testifies to the joy of the Commons
of England on the event:--
Harke! I'll tell you news from court;
Marke, these things will make you good sport.
All the French that lately did prance
There, up and downe in bravery,
Now are all sent back to France,
King Charles hath smelt some knavery.
]
[Footnote 216: A letter from the Earl of Dorchester, 27th May, 1630.
Harl. MSS. 7000 (160).]
[Footnote 217: The letters he sent to Buckingham are full of tender
respect for the queen, lamenting her (certainly unwarrantable) neglect
of reciprocity of attention, and silly squabbles in favour of her
servants.]
[Footnote 218: Clarendon details the political coquetries of Monsieur La
Ferté; his "notable familiarity with those who governed most in the two
houses;" ii. 93.]
[Footnote 219: Hume seems to have discovered in "Estrades' Memoirs" the
real occasion of Richelieu's conduct. In 1639 the French and Dutch
proposed dividing the Low Country provinces; England was to stand
neuter. Charles replied to D'Estrades, that his army and fleet should
instantly sail to prevent these projected conquests. From that moment
the intolerant ambition of Richelieu swelled the venom of his heart, and
he eagerly seized on the first opportunity of supplying the Covenanters
in Scotland with arms and money. Hume observes, that Charles here
expressed his mind with an imprudent candour; but it proves he had
acquired a just idea of national interest, vi. 337. See on this a very
curious passage in the Catholic Dodd's "Church History," iii. 22. He
apologises for his cardinal by asserting that the same line of policy
was pursued here in England "by Charles I. himself, who sent fleets and
armies to assist the Huguenots, or French rebels, as he calls them; and
that this was the constant practice of Queen Elizabeth's ministry, to
foment differences in several neighbouring kingdoms, and support their
rebellious subjects, as the forces she employed for that purpose both in
France, Flanders, and Scotland, are an undeniable proof." The
recriminations of politicians are the confessions of great sinners.]
[Footnote 220: "Grotii Epistolæ," 375 and 380, fo. Ams. 1687. A volume
which contains 2500 letters of this great man.]
[Footnote 221: "La Vie du Cardinal Duc de Richelieu," anonymous, but
written by Jean le Clerc, vol. i. 507. An impartial but heavy life of a
great minister, of whom, between the panegyrics of his flatterers and
the satires of his enemies, it was difficult to discover a just medium.]
[Footnote 222: Mem. Rec. vol. vi. 131.]
[Footnote 223: It is quoted in the "Remarques Critiques sur le
Dictionnaire de Bayle," Paris, 1748. This anonymous folio volume was
written by Le Sieur Joly, a canon of Dijon, and is full of curious
researches, and many authentic discoveries. The writer is no
philosopher, but he corrects and adds to the knowledge of Bayle. Here I
found some original anecdotes of Hobbes, from MS. sources, during that
philosopher's residence at Paris, which I have given in "Quarrels of
Authors."]
[Footnote 224: Montresor, attached to the Duke of Orleans, has left us
some very curious memoirs, in two small volumes; the second preserving
many historical documents of that active period. This spirited writer
has not hesitated to detail his projects for the assassination of the
tyrannical minister.]
[Footnote 225: At page 154 of this work is a different view of the
character of this extraordinary man: those anecdotes are of a lighter
and satirical nature; they touch on "the follies of the wise."]
[Footnote 226: In "The Disparity." to accompany "The Parallel" of Sir
Henry Wotton; two exquisite cabinet-pictures, preserved in the _Reliquiæ
Wottonianæ;_ and at least equal to the finest "Parallels" of Plutarch.]
[Footnote 227: The singular openness of his character was not
statesmanlike. He was one of those whose ungovernable sincerity "cannot
put all their passions in their pockets." He told the Count-Duke
Olivarez, on quitting Spain, that "he would always cement the friendship
between the two nations; but with regard to you, sir, in particular, you
must not consider me as your friend, but must ever expect from me all
possible enmity and opposition." The cardinal was willing enough, says
Hume, "to accept what was proffered, and on these terms the favourites
parted." Buckingham, desirous of accommodating the parties in the
nation, once tried at the favour of the puritanic party, whose head was
Dr. Preston, master of Emanuel College. The duke was his generous
patron, and Dr. Preston his most servile adulator. The more zealous
puritans were offended at this intimacy; and Dr. Preston, in a letter to
some of his party, observed that it was true that the duke was a vile
and profligate fellow, but that there was no other way to come at him
but by the lowest flattery; that it was necessary for the glory of God
that such instruments should be made use of; and more in this strain.
Some officious hand conveyed this letter to the duke, who, when Dr.
Preston came one morning as usual, asked him whether he had ever
disobliged him, that he should describe him to his party in such black
characters. The doctor, amazed, denied the fact; on which the duke
instantly produced the letter, then turned from him, never to see him
more. It is said that from this moment he abandoned the puritan party,
and attached himself to Laud. This story was told by Thomas Baker to W.
Wotton, as coming from one well versed in the secret history of that
time.--_Lansdowne MSS_. 872, fo. 88.]
[Footnote 228: A well-known tract against the Duke of Buckingham, by Dr.
George Eglisham, physician to James the First, entitled "The Forerunner
of Revenge," may be found in many of our collections. Gerbier, in his
manuscript memoirs, gives a curious account of this political libeller,
the model of that class of desperate scribblers. "The falseness of his
libels," says Gerbier, "he hath since acknowledged, though too late.
During my residence at Bruxelles, this Eglisham desired Sir William
Chaloner, who then was at Liege, to bear a letter to me, which is still
extant: he proposed, if the king would pardon and receive him into
favour again, with some competent subsistence, that he would recant all
that he had said or written to the disadvantage of any in the court of
England, confessing that he had been urged thereunto by some combustious
spirits, that for their malicious designs had set him on work."
Buckingham would never notice these and similar libels. Eglisham flew to
Holland after he had deposited his political venom in his native
country, and found a fate which every villanous factionist who offers to
recant for "a competent subsistence" does not always; he was found dead,
assassinated in his walks by a companion. Yet this political libel, with
many like it, are still authorities. "George Duke of Buckingham," says
Oldys, "will not speedily outstrip Dr. Eglisham's 'Forerunner of
Revenge.'"]
[Footnote 229: The misery of prime ministers and favourites is a portion
of their fate which has not always been noticed by their biographers;
one must be conversant with secret history to discover the thorn in
their pillow. Who could have imagined that Buckingham, possessing the
entire affections of his sovereign, during his absence had reason to
fear being supplanted? When his confidential secretary, Dr. Mason, slept
in the same chamber with the duke, he would give way at night to those
suppressed passions which his unaltered countenance concealed by day. In
the absence of all other ears and eyes he would break out into the most
querulous and impassioned language, declaring that "never his despatches
to divers princes, nor the great business of a fleet, of an army, of a
siege, of a treaty, of war and peace both on foot together, and all of
them in his head at a time, did not so much break his repose as the idea
that some at home under his majesty, of whom he had well deserved, were
now content to forget him." So short-lived is the gratitude observed to
an absent favourite, who is most likely to fall by the creatures his own
hands have made.]
[Footnote 230: Sloane MSS. 4181.]
[Footnote 231: Gerbier gives a curious specimen of Grondomar's pleasant
sort of impudence. When James expressed himself with great warmth on the
Spaniards, under Spinola, taking the first town in the Palatinate, under
the eyes of our ambassador, Gondomar, with Cervantic humour, attempted
to give a new turn to the discussion, for he wished that Spinola had
taken the whole Palatinate at once, for "then the generosity of my
master would be shown in all its lustre, by restoring it all again to
the English ambassador, who had witnessed the whole operations." James,
however, at this moment was no longer pleased with the inexhaustible
humour of his old friend, and set about trying what could be done.]
[Footnote 232: Hacket's Life of Lord Keeper Williams, p. 115, pt. 1,
fo.]
[Footnote 233: The narrative furnished by Buckingham, and vouched by the
prince to the parliament, agrees in the main with what the duke told
Gerbier. It is curious to observe how the narrative seems to have
perplexed Hume, who, from some preconceived system, condemns Buckingham
"for the falsity of this long narrative, as calculated entirely to
mislead the parliament." He has, however, in the note [T] of this very
volume, sufficiently marked the difficulties which hung about the
opinion he has given in the text. The curious may find the narrative in
Frankland's Annals, p. 89, and in Rushworth's Hist. Col. I. 119. It has
many entertaining particulars.]
[Footnote 234: Letter from J. Mead to Sir M. Stuteville, June 5, 1628.
Harl. MSS. 7000.]
[Footnote 235: Memoirs of James II. vol. ii. p. 163.]
[Footnote 236: This was afterwards reduced to the sum of 1500 marks, and
was collected by an assessment and fine. The old account-books of the
City companies afford many items of the monies thus paid to the general
fund. The Carpenters' Company, for instance, have this entry in their
books: "Paid in January, 1632, for an assessment imposed on our
Companie, by reason of the death of Dr. Lambe ... V. li."]
[Footnote 237: Rushworth has preserved a burthen of one of these
songs:--
Let Charles and George do what they can,
The duke shall die like Doctor Lambe.
And on the assassination of the Duke, I find two lines in a MS.
letter.--
The shepherd's struck, the sheep are fled!
For want of _Lambe_ the _wolf_ is dead!
There is a scarce tract entitled "A brief Description of the notorious
Life of John Lambe, otherwise called Dr. Lambe," with a curious wood
print of the mob pelting him in the street.]
[Footnote 238: A series of these poems and songs, all remarkable for the
strength of their expressions against Buckingham, were edited by F.W.
Fairholt, F.S.A., for the Percy Society, and published by them in 1850.
Here is a specimen from Sloane MS. No. 826.
Of British beasts the _Buck_ is king,
His game and fame through Europe ring,
His home exalted keepes in awe
The lesser flocks; his will's a law.
Our _Charlemaine_ takes much delight
In this great beast so fair in sight,
With his whole heart affects the same,
And loves too well _Buck-King_ of _Game_.
When he is chased, then 'gins the sport;
When nigh his end, who's sorry for't?
And when he falls the hunter's glad,
The hounds are flesh'd, and few are sadd!
]
[Footnote 239: In the notes to a previous article on Buckingham in Vol.
I. will be found an account of his offices and emoluments. An epitaph
made after his murder thus expresses the popular sense of his
position:--
This little grave embraces
One Duke and _twenty_ places.
]
[Footnote 240: There is a picture of Buckingham, mounted on a charger by
the sea-shore, crowded with Tritons, &c. As it reflects none of the
graces or beauty of the original, and seems the work of some wretched
apprentice of Rubens (perhaps Gerbier himself), these contradictory
accompaniments increased the suspicion that the picture could not be the
duke's: it was not recollected generally, that the favourite was both
admiral and general; and that the duke was at once Neptune and Mars,
ruling both sea and land.]
[Footnote 241: This machine seems noticed in _Le Mercure François_,
2627, p. 803.]
[Footnote 242: Gerbier, a foreigner, scarcely ever writes an English
name correctly, while his orthography is not always intelligible. He
means here Lady Davies, an extraordinary character and supposed
prophetess. This Cassandra hit the time in her dark predictions, and was
more persuaded than ever that she was a prophetess! See a remarkable
anecdote of her in a preceding article, "Of Anagrams."]
[Footnote 243: The correct title is "The copie of his Grace's most
excellent Rotomontados, sent by his servant the Lord Grimes, in answer
to the Lower House of Parliament, 1628." It is preserved in the Sloane
MS. No. 826 (British Museum), and begins thus:--
Avaunt you giddy-headed multitude
And do your worst of spite; I never sued
To gain your votes, though well I know your ends
To ruin me, my fortune, and my friends.
]
[Footnote 244: The duke was buried among the royal personages in Henry
the Seventh's chapel. His heart was placed in a monument erected in
Portsmouth church, which, "greatly in contravention of religious
decorum, usurped the place of the altar-piece," until a few years since,
when it was very properly removed to one of the side aisles.]
[Footnote 245: Sloane MSS. 4178, letter 519.]
[Footnote 246: Harl. MSS. 646.]
[Footnote 247: One of the poems written at the time begins:--
The Duke is dead!--and we are rid of strife
By Felton's hand that took away his life.