As the rosary of kisses,

With the oath that never misses,
This "believe me on on the breast,"
And then telling some man's jest,
Thinking to prefer his wit,
Equal with his suit by it,

I mean his clothes? No, no, no;
Here doth no such humour flow.
He can neither bribe a grace,
Nor encounter my Lord's face
With a pliant smile, and flatter,
Though this lately were some matter!
To the making of a courtier.
Now he hopes he shall resort there,
Safer, and with more allowance;
Since a hand hath governance,
That hath given these customs chace,
And hath brought his own in place.
O that now a wish could bring,
The god-like person of a King!
Then should even envy find,
Cause of wonder at the mind
Of our woodman: but lo, where
His kingly image doth appear 2,
And is all this while neglected.
Pardon, Lord, you are respected,
Deep as is the keeper's heart,
And as dear in every part.
See, for instance, where he sends

His son, his heir 3; who humbly bends

There is probably something of private history in this gentle gird at the Ministers of Elizabeth; but I cannot explain it. If flattery was at all necessary to gain the Favourite, Sir Robert Spencer would never have succeeded at Court; but, indeed, he seems to have been a man of retired habits. "Like the old Roman dictator," says Wilson, "Spencer made the country a virtuous Court, where his fields and his flocks brought more calm and happy contentment than the various and irritable dispensations of a Court can contribute." Why Sir Robert was now absent from Althorp does not appear. He was at Hampton Court in July this year; and in September following, was appointed Ambassador to the reigning Duke of Wirtemburg; so that there was something prophetic in the "hope" that he should now 66 resort to Court with more allowance." G.

i. e. Prince Henry. G.

3 John Spencer: he was now in his twelfth year. He died in France at age of nineteen. G.

[Fetches out of the wood the Lord Spencer's eldest son,
attired and appointed like a huntsman.

Low as is his father's earth,

To the womb that gave you birth ;

So he was directed first,

Next to you, of whom the thirst
Of seeing takes away the use
Of that part, should plead excuse
For his boldness, which is less
By his comely shamefacedness.
Rise up, Sir, I will betray
All I think you have to say;
That your father gives you here
(Freely as to him you were)
To the service of this Prince :
And with you these instruments
Of his wild and sylvan trade.
Better not Actæon had;

The bow was Phoebe's, and the horn,
By Orion often worn:

The dog of Sparta breed', and good,
As can RING within a woOD;
Thence his name is: you shall try
How he hunteth instantly.

But perhaps the Queen, your Mother,
Rather doth affect some other

Sport, as coursing: we will prove

Which her Highness most doth love.-
Satyrs let the woods resound;

They shall have their welcome crown'd

With a brace of bucks to ground.

[At that the whole wood and place resounded with the noise of cornets, horns, and other hunting music, and a brace of choice deer put out, and as fortunately killed, as they were meant to be, even in the sight of her Majesty.

This was the first night's show 2.

'Thus Shakspeare: "I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete, they bayed the boar With hounds of Sparta."

Both from Ovid's, Spartand gente Melampus.

Jonson's dog, it appears, was called Ringwood. G.

* And every way worthy of the presenter and the guests. The rich and beautiful scenery, the music, soft or loud as the occasion required, dispersed through the wood, the sweetness of the vocal performers, the bevy of fairies, composed of the young ladies "of the country" (whose brothers

"

The next, being Sunday, the Queen rested, and on Monday till after dinner; where there was a Speech suddenly thought on, to induce a morris of the clowns thereabout, who most officiously presented themselves; but by reason of the throng of the country that came in, their speaker could not be heard, who was in the person of NOBODY, to deliver this following Speech, and attired in a pair of breeches which were made to come up to his neck, with his arms out at his pockets, and a cap drowning his face.

If
my outside move your laughter,
Pray Jove, my inside be thereafter.

QUEEN, PRINCE, DUKE, EARLS,
COUNTESSES, you courtly pearls!
(And I hope no mortal sin,
If I put less Ladies in,)
Fair saluted be you all!

At this time it doth befall,

We are the huisher to a morris,

A kind of masque, whereof good store is
In the country hereabout,

But this the choice of all the rout,
Who, because that no man sent them,
Have got NOBODY to present them.
These are things have no suspicion
Of their ill-doing; nor ambition
Of their well: but as the pipe
Shall inspire them, mean to skip:
They come to see, and to be seen,

And though they dance afore the Queen,

There's none of these doth hope to come by

Wealth to build another Holmby1:

appeared in the succeeding "sports"), the gay and appropriate dialogue, the light, airy, and fantastic dances which accompanied it, the foresters, headed by the youthful heir, starting forward to chase the deer at force at the universal opening of hound and horn, together with the running down of the game in sight, must have afforded a succession of pleasures as rare as unexpected. It is very easy to stigmatize all this with the name of " pedantry," and to rave at "the wretched taste of the times," which could tolerate it: but there are still some who affect to think that this taste was not altogether so deplorable; and that nearly as much judgement was displayed in engaging the talents of a man of genius and learning to produce an Entertainment which should not disgrace the rational faculties of the beholders, as in procuring the assistance of a pastry cook to honour a general festival by scrawling unmeaning flourishes on a ball-room floor, at an expense beyond that of the graceful and elegant hospitality of Althorp. G.

1

Holmby, or Holdenby House, was a magnificent structure in the neighbourhood of Althorp, built by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor in the time of Queen Elizabeth, as the latest and

All those dancing days are done,

Men must now have more than one

noblest monument of his youth. Sir Christopher Hatton was taken notice of by Queen Elizabeth for his gracefulness in dancing before her at Court, which proved the first step to his future preferments. To this circumstance the first of these lines alludes. W.

This reminds us of the third and fourth stanzas of Gray's "Long Story:"

"Full oft within these spacious walls,

When he had fifty winters o'er him,
My grave Lord Keeper led the brawls,
The Seal and Maces danced before him;
His bushy beard and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat and satin doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's Queen,

Though Pope and Spaniards could not trouble it."

"The spacious walls" are well known to mean the mansion of Stoke Pogeis in Buckinghamshire ; but they may equally well allude to Holdenby. N.

In Bishop Corbet's "Iter Boreale" there is a pleasant apostrophe to the tutelar Lares, the giants, with whom Sir Christopher had ornamented this magnificent mansion. The traveller had just witnessed the ruin of Nottingham Castle, notwithstanding the two giants, which still stood at the gates; and he reproaches them with the fidelity of their Brethren at Holmeby and Guildhall, who had carefully kept the respective buildings intrusted to them.

"Oh, you that doe Guildhall and Holmeby keepe

Soe carefully when both the founders sleepe,

You are good giants, and partake no shame

With those two worthlesse trunkes of Nottinghame;
Look to your several charges!"

Gilchrist's edition, p. 183.

The praise is not ill bestowed; the Giants of Holmeby would still perhaps have preserved their charge, if they had only to contend with ordinary enemies; but they fell by a lawless force, before which not only Castles but Empires have disappeared. It was here that Charles was seized by the vulgar miscreant Joyce, and here, to gratify at once their malice and rapacity, the rebels, soon after his murder, broke in, levelled the mansion with the ground, and stole or sold the materials.

The Giants of Guildhall, thank Heaven, yet defend their charge: it only remains to wish that the Citizens may take example by the fate of Holmeby, and not expose them to an attack to which they will assuredly be found unequal.

To return to the text. Dancing, as Jonson says, is a graceful quality where graces meet; and it was remarkably so in Sir Christopher, who was found fully equal to the exigencies of his great office. He died in 1591, and was followed to the grave by the praise of Camden, and many others. A sumptuous monument was erected to his memory, in or near the choir of St. Paul's, which was long regarded with peculiar respect by those whom business or pleasure brought to the metropolis. To this Jonson alludes in Every Man out of his Humour, "When shall I put off to the Lord Chancellor's tomb," &c. 2 B

VOL. I.

Grace, to build their fortunes on,
Else our soles would sure have gone
All by this time to our feet.-
I do not deny where Graces meet
In a man, that quality

Is a graceful property:

But when dancing is his best,
Beshrew me, I suspect the rest.
But I am No-body, and my breath,

Soon as it is born, hath death.

Come on, clowns, forsake your dumps,
And bestir your hob-nail'd stumps,

Do

your worst, I'll undertake,

Not a jerk you have shall make
Any Lady here in love.

Perhaps your fool, or so, may move

Some Lady's Woman with a trick,
And upon it she may pick

A pair of revelling legs, or two,
Out of you, with much ado.
But see, the hobby-horse is forgot.
Fool, it must be your lot,

To supply his want with faces,
And some other buffoon graces,
You know how; piper, play,
And let No-body hence away.

[Here the morris-dancers entered.

There were those, however, who regarded this stately pile with less complacency. Either from its unusual bulk, or more probably, from its projection into the walk of the South aisle, it is very spleneticly mentioned on many occasions. On a pillar near it hung two humble tablets to the memories of Sir Philip Sidney and Francis Walsingham; this gave birth to the pleasing couplet:

It is singular that Sir Christopher's Heirs should have found money enough for this costly monument; since it appears that he had so embarrassed his circumstances by erecting the noble structure of Holmeby, that he fell in arrears with the Queen, whose ceaseless importunity for payment, (for Elizabeth never gave nor took credit,) is said to have depressed his spirits and hastened his death. G. The 4to reads soules, the folio soles; an equivoque was probably designed; and, what cannot be said of all equivoques, the sense is good either way. G.