of his nobles and courtiers; but in the later part of this period the fashion of duelling was driven out by the circumstances of the time. When the civil war broke out the most pugnacious had fighting enough of a more serious sort; and when peace was restored the practice of private combat was no longer tolerated by the puritanical government that was now established. Before the commencement of the civil wars the citizens of London were carefully trained in the use of the pike and musket. The general muster of this civic militia was at first once a-year; the training and exercise of individual companies took place four times a-year, and lasted two days each time. These trainings were originally very irksome to weary artisans and thrifty shopkeepers, as, independently of the weight of back and breast-plate, scull-cap, sword, musket, and bandoliers, with which they were obliged to repair to the muster, the military discipline was of such a complex character, that it both imposed much labour and consumed a great deal of time. The ponderous matchlock, or carbine, of those days, had to be put through a long succession of manœuvres before it could be loaded, primed, and discharged. In learning to shoot with it, the soldier-citizen was obliged to gather courage, and accustom himself to the recoil of his piece, by flashing a little powder in the pan; the use of wadding for the ball not being as yet understood, he could only shoot effectually breast-high; and his fire was delivered in the act of advancing, lest he should become himself a mark to the enemy, while taking a standing aim. As for the pike, it was a stout heavy weapon of pliant ash, about sixteen feet long, and dexterity in the use of it could only be acquired by frequent practice. The Puritans at first regarded these warlike musters in the Artillery Gardens with abhorrence, as an absolute mingling with the profane; but when they were taught from the pulpits that their projected • Grose's Military Antiquities, chap. v. reformation could only be accomplished by carnal weapons, they crowded to the exercise with alaerity. In the mean time the proud cavaliers, who were still blind to the political signs of the times, laughed scornfully at these new displays of cockney chivalry, and were wont to declare that it took a Puritan two years to learn how to discharge a musket without winking. But the laugh was turned against themselves after the civil wars commenced, when the pikes and guns of the civic militia scattered the fiery cavalry of Prince Rupert and bore down all before them. When these Puritans were converted into actual soldiers they "marched to the field in high-crowned hats, collared bands, great loose coats, long tucks under them, and calves' leather boots: they used to sing a psalm, fall on, and beat all opposition to the devil." It is worthy of remark, too, that the long active service and military renown of these campaigners gave them no disrelish, after the war had ended, for their former peaceful and humble occupations. On the contrary, the soldier resumed his mechanical implements, and the officer returned to his shop or warehouse, while the cavaliers still went about with belts and swords, swearing, swaggering, and breaking into houses, and stealing whatever they could find. "Letter of Samuel Butler in Somers's Tracts, vol. iv. p. 582. PIKEMAN, 1635. Ibid. The chief amusements of the court of King James were masques and emblematic pageants; and as these were chiefly the production of Ben Jonson, they were greatly superior to those of the preceding period. Still, however, the pedantry of James, and the frivolity of his queen, required those accommodations on the part of the poet which his own good taste would have rejected. In one of these representations, called the Masque of Blackness, twelve Ethiopian nymphs, taking a voyage to Britain, to have their complexions made white, were represented by the queen and twelve ladies of the court, whose faces and arms were besmeared for the occasion with black paint. At the end of the masque a banquet was set out, and, as the courtiers were hungry, the feast was "so furiously assaulted, that down went tables and tressels before one bit was touched."* A more detailed account, however, of a court pageant, exhibited before James and the King of Denmark at Theobalds, gives an astounding view both of the taste and moral character of the English court of this period. "One day," writes Sir John Harrington, in a letter to a friend in the country, during the visit of Christian IV., King of Denmark, in the summer of 1606," a great feast was held, and after dinner the representation of Solomon his Temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or, I may better say, was meant to have been made, before their majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But, alas! as all earthly things do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The lady who did play the queen's part did carry most precious gifts to both their majesties, but, forgetting the steps arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish majesty's lap, and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down, and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a little defiled with the presents of the queen which had been bestowed on his garments, such as wine, cream, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear in rich dress Faith, Hope, and Charity: Hope did essay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble, that she withdrew, and hoped the king would excuse her brevity: Faith was then alone, for I am certain she was not joined with good works, and left the court in a staggering condition Charity came to the king's feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had committed; in some sort she made obeisance, and brought gifts, but said she would return home again, as there was no gift which heaven had not already given to his majesty. She then returned to Faith and Hope, who were both sick. in the lower hall. Next came Victory in bright armour, and, by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the king. But Victory did not triumph long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the ante-chamber. Now Peace did make entry, and strive to get foremost to the king; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants, and, much contrary to her semblance, most rudely made war with her olivebranch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming."* The whole of this description seems so incredible, that many might think the translator of Ariosto had in this instance assumed the licence of his Italian original; but the testimony of other contemporaries will not allow us to suppose that Harrington's account is at all exaggerated. While the masculine and original character of the national mind was gradually emancipating dramatic poetry equally from the trammels of the classical school and that of the middle ages, the pedantic predilections of James tended to prevent this improvement from fully overtaking the court plays and royal pageants, so that during his whole reign the heathen gods or Christian virtues conNuga Antiquæ. tinued to figure among the leading personages in such exhibitions. Not only the courtiers, however, but grave matter-of-fact citizens, acquiesced in the royal humour; so that in 1610, when Prince Henry repaired to Whitehall, to be created Prince of Wales, he was met at Chelsea by the lord mayor and corporation of London, attended by Neptune riding on a dolphin, and a sea-goddess mounted on a whale, which deities addressed him in complimentary speeches. But with the succeeding reign all this pedantry had so completely disappeared, that a royal masque or pageant was a fair transcript from the world of reality. A description of one of these exhibitions, which was presented before the king, queen, and court at Whitehall, in 1633, by the members of the inns of court, will best illustrate the magnitude of this change. It consisted of a masque and an anti-masque. The first was arrayed and marshalled after the fashion of a Roman triumph, the figures composing which consisted of the comeliest men in England, dressed in the most splendid and becoming costume; the dresses, the chariots, and steeds were covered with ornaments of gold and silver, and blazed in the light of countless torches, while the whole solemn procession moved with measured steps to accompanying bands of music. No puppet or impersonation, whether of the classical, allegorical, or romantic world, intruded to mar the chasteness of the exhibition-all was real, modern, and of the choicest and happiest selection. Something more, however, was still necessary for the gratification of the popular taste; and the anti-masque, which followed, was an avowed but good-humoured parody upon the first part of the procession. It was formed of cripples, beggars, and other squalid figures, mounted upon miserable jades, and moving along to the music of keys, tongs, and bones. The whole exhibition was designed originally to express the devotedness of the inns of court to Charles I. and his measures, and their abhorrence of Puritanism, Prynne, and his Histrio-mastrix; but, in the anti-masque, a sly opportunity was also taken of ridiculing the subject of patents, one of the chief political abuses of the day. Thus one man appeared mounted upon a little horse, with a great bit in his mouth, and a head-stall and reins about his ears: this was a projector wanting a patent that none should be allowed to ride their horses except with such bits as they should buy of him. After him came another fellow with a bunch of carrots on his head and a capon upon his fist: he wanted a patent of monopoly as the first inventor of the art of feeding capons with carrots, and that none but himself should have the privilege of the said invention for fourteen years, according to the statute. projectors were ridiculed in a similar manner; and this part of the pageant "pleased the spectators the more, because by it an information was covertly given to the king of the unfitness and ridiculousness of those projects against the law." Nor was the hint taken in ill part by the court, Other for the queen was so highly delighted with the procession, that she caused it to be repeated. At the close the whole party repaired to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, where dancing continued till morning, when a sumptuous banquet closed the entertainments. The expense of this rich pageant amounted to 21,000/.* The chief In the retinues and domestic attendance of the nobles of this period everything proclaimed that the era of feudal authority and magnificence had departed. Accordingly, when the civil wars had commenced, no peer, however wealthy or high in rank, could drag after him a regiment, or even a company, of unwilling vassals to the field: on the contrary, the meanest hind was free to choose between king and parliament. Something, however, of the mere pomp of feudalism was still maintained in the domestic establishments of the nobility and the wealthier gentry. The father of John Evelyn, when he was sheriff of the counties of Surrey and Sussex,† had a hundred and sixteen servants in liveries of green satin doublets, besides several gentlemen and persons of quality who waited on him, dressed in the same garb. One of the largest, if not the largest, of English establishments at this time, was that of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Dorset, the Lord Buckhurst and well-known poet of the court of Elizabeth. It consisted of two hundred and twenty servants, besides workmen attached to the house, and others that were hired occasionally. servants of the nobility (so they were called, but they were rather followers or clients) were still the younger sons of respectable or even noble families, who attached themselves to the fortunes of a powerful patron, and served him either in court or military affairs, for which they were allowed separate retinues of men and horses, with gratuities in money and promises of promotion.§ The progress of improvement, that had banished minstrels, jugglers, and tumblers from princely households, had naturally introduced the drama in their room; and accordingly we sometimes find company of actors classed among the servants of the chief noblemen, as well as a family musician, or even a whole band. A steward, distinguished by a velvet jacket and a gold chain about his neck, presided as marshal of the household, and next to him was the clerk of the kitchen. But these cumbrous appendages were daily lessening, as domestic comfort came to be better understood. This improvement, however, had commenced still earlier among those of less rank and pretension. All who had their fortune still to seek in the court or the army, and all who repaired to the metropolis in quest of pleasure, found, so early as the time of Elizabeth, that the bustle and the scramble of new and stirring times made a numerous train of at tendants an uncomfortable appendage: the gallant and the courtier, therefore, like Sir John Falstaff, studied "French thrift," and contented himself with a single "skirted page," who walked behind him carrying his cloak and rapier. In consequence of the extravagant living introduced during this period, the spendthrift gentleman often sank into the serving-man, as we may see from the frequent occurrence of such a transformation in the old plays. When servants were out of place, we learn, from the same authentic pictures of the real life of the times, that they sometimes repaired to St. Paul's churchyard, the great place of public lounge, and there stood against the pillars, holding before them a written placard stating their particular qualifications, and their desire of employ ment.* But whatever retrenchment might be making in household expenditure by a diminished attendance was more than counterbalanced by an extravagance in dress and personal ornament that had now become an absolute frenzy. The caterpillar does not more eagerly burst into a butterfly upon the approach of sunshine than did the clumsy, ungainly figure of James into a gilded coxcomb, as soon as he was transported from the scantily furnished halls of Holyrood to the plentiful palaces of the south. It is said that he almost daily figured in a new suit, a humour that soon became prevalent among the courtiers. Still more generally influential than James's own example was that of his several handsome favourites, all of whom having been indebted for the royal favour mainly to their personal attractions, as might be expected, spared no pains and cost to give these natural advantages their full effect. When Buckingham was sent ambassador to the court of France to bring the Princess Henrietta to England, he provided for this important mission a suit of white uncut velvet and a cloak, both set all over with diamonds valued at eighty thousand pounds, besides a feather made of great diamonds; his sword, girdle, hat-band, and spurs were also set thick with diamonds. Another suit, which he prepared for the same occasion, was of purple satin embroidered all over with pearls, and valued at twenty thousand pounds. In addition to these he had twenty-five other dresses of great richness. As a throng of nobles and gentlemen attended him, we may conceive how their estates must have been impoverished by the purchase of chains of gold, ropes of pearl, and splendid dresses, befitting the retinue of such an ambassador. Even a court festival of the time of James I. must have made a perilous inroad upon a year's amount of the largest income. Thus, at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Palatine, Lady Wotton wore a gown profusely ornamented with embroidery that cost fifty pounds a-yard; and Lord Montague spent fifteen hundred pounds on the dresses of his two daughters, that they might be fit to appear at court on the same Peck's Curiosa.-Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury-Evelyn's Diary, Shirley's Plays, 4 M |