interdiction of theatric exhibitions on Thursdays, (inasmuch as they interfered with the public bear-baitings,) was successful: an order of the privy council in July, 1591, grants the application; and an injunction to that effect was sent to the lord-mayor, wherein it is stated, that," in divers places, the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting, and like pastimes, which are maintained for her Majesty's pleasure.”

The author of the novel of Kenilworth, with a due observance of the manners and customs of its epoch, has touched these peculiar features of them, the popular amusements, with much spirit and accuracy; so that a very good general idea may be formed of the pageant, and the masque, the bear-baiting, the bride-ale, the quintain, and the Hocktide, which afforded such high gratification to the august circle assembled at Leicester's castle.

The very soul of the pageant was motley allegory. Personifications of virtues, vices, and abstract ideas, made up most of its cha

racters; whilst its plan or story combined together fragments of the ancient mystery, and incidents and persons of the romantic ages, mingled with the mummery of old superstitions, and the newly-imported fictions of pagan mythology. Its zenith may properly be attributed to the reign of Henry VIIIth, when it first acquired its incongruous classical adjuncts; but during the Elizabethan age it maintained much of its splendour, and all its popularity. The entertaining chronicles of Hall, Hollinshed, and other early English writers, afford us many minute accounts of these gorgeous but tasteless exhibitions, during the sixteenth century; and our novelist has well detailed their quaintnesses in his description of the out-of-door sports at Kenilworth Castle. But the former are too tedious for insertion; and with the latter the reader is sufficiently familiar. We proceed, therefore, to another popular amusement of these past times-the masque.

This favourite entertainment had many features in common with the pageant; but differed from it in other particulars. They

were both allegorical, and compounded of similar characters and representations; but the pageant involved more of shew in it; was on a larger scale; and generally exhibited sub dio: While the masque assumed more of the dramatic character; was enlivened with poetical recitation; had less of the extravagant in its plan; a better taste in its conception; and was always performed within the house. We may judge, indeed, of what nature this entertainment had been in its earlier day, by the masques of Ben Jonson and Milton, which shew us what it was when it had attained its perfection. It appears, however, that some

* Among the masques composed by Ben Jonson, for the entertainment of the Court, one of the most ingenious was presented on the surrender of Theobalds to King James, 22d May, 1607, from which the following is an extract:

"The king and queen, with the Princes of Wales and Lorrain, and the nobility, being entered into the gallery, after dinner there was seen nothing but a traverse of white across the room; which suddenly drawn, discovered a gloomy, obscure place, hung all with black silks, and in it only one light, which the Genius of the house held, sadly attired; his cornucopia ready to fall out of his hand; his garland VOL. III.

C

times the masque and the pageant were blended together; but in this case the appa

drooping on his head; his eyes fixed on the ground; when out of his pensive posture, after some little pause, he brake, and began :

"Let not your glories darken, to behold

The place, and me, her Genius, here so sad;
Who, by bold rumour, have been lately told,

That I must change the loved lord I had.
And he, now in the twilight of sere age,
Begin to seek a habitation new,
And all his fortunes and himself engage
Unto a seat his fathers never knew;
And I, uncertain what I must endure,
Since all the ends of destiny are obscure.

"Mercury appears to the despondent Genius, accompanied by a boy, representing Good Event, together with the Fatal Sisters, who announce to him,

"When underneath thy roof is seen
The greatest king and fairest queen,
With princes an unmatched pair-

One, hope of all the earth, their heir;

The other stiled of Lorrain,

Their blood, and sprung from Charlemagne

When all these glories jointly shine,

And fill thee with a heat divine,
And these reflected, do beget
A splendid sun, shall never set,

ratus of the latter was upon a smaller scale, and the scene of action within the mansion.

But here shine fixed, to affright
All after hopes of following night:
Then, Genius, is thy period come
To change thy lord: thus fates do doom.

Upon which the consoled Genius breaks forth into the following rapture:

"Mourn'd I before? Could I commit a sin
So much 'gainst kind or knowledge, to protract
A joy, to which I should have ravish'd been,
And never shall be happy till I act.

Vouchsafe, fair Queen, my patron's zeal in me,
Who fly with fervour, as my fate commands,
To yield these keys; and wish that you could see
My heart as open to you as my hands.
There might you read my faith, my thoughts. But, oh,
My joys, like waves, each other overcome!
And gladness drowns, where it begins to flow-
Some greater pow'rs speak out, for mine are
dumb.

"At this the place was filled with rare and choice music, to which was heard the following song, delivered by an excellent voice, and the burden maintained by the whole quire:

SONG.

"Oh! blessed change!

And not less glad than strange!