Chapter 1

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.