"There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay;-
That found King James, when hunting late this way
With his brave Son the Prince; they saw thy fires
Shine bright on ev'ry hearth, as the desires

Of thy Penates had been set on flame

To entertain them; or the country came,

With all their zeal, to warm their welcome here.

What (great I will not say, but) sudden chear

from its vicinity to Tunbridge Wells. As a description of it at the time of King James's visit, the whole of Ben Jonson's Poem on this highly celebrated place may be appropriately cited :

Thou art not, PENSHURST, built to envious show
Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row
Of polish'd pillars, or a roof of gold;
Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told;
Or stair, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And, these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while.
Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport;
Thy mount, to which thy Dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech, and the chesnut shade;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,

At his great birth, where all the Muses met *.

There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names
Of many a sylvan, taken with his flames;
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns, to reach thy Lady's Oak +.
Thy copse too, named of Gamage, thou hast
there ‡.

That never fails to serve thee season'd deer,
When thou wouldst feast, or exercise thy friends.
The lower land that to the river bends,
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do
feed;

The middle grounds thy mares and horses breed.
Each bank doth yield thee conies; and the tops
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydney's copps,

* Sir Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst Nov. 29, 1554. "That taller tree," produced from an acorn planted on his birth-day, and which has been the theme of many Poets, is no longer standing. It is said to have been felled by mistake in 1768; a wretched apology, if true, and, in a case of such notoriety, scarcely possible. Waller, in one of his poems, written at Penshurst where he amused himself with falling in love, has an allusion to this oak:

Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth," &c.

On which the commentator on his poems observes that though no tradition of the circumstance remained in the family, yet the observation of Cicero on the Marian oak might not unaptly be applied to it: "Manet vero et semper manebit. Sata est enim ingenio. Nullius autem agricolæ cultu stirps tam diuturna quàm poetæ versu seminari potest." De Leg. lib. 1.

About a century after the date of Waller's verses, this oak was still standing, and the ingenious Mr. F. Coventry wrote the following lines under its shade:

He perish'd early; I just stay behind

An hundred years; and lo! my clefted rind,
My wither'd boughs foretell destruction nigh;
We all are mortal; oaks and heroes die."

GIFFORD.

"There is an old tradition that a Lady Leicester (wife undoubtedly of Sir Robert Sydney) was taken in travail under an oak in Penshurst Park, which was afterwards called my Lady's Oak." G. "This coppice is now called Lady Gamage's bower; it being said that Barbara Gamage, Countess of Leicester, used to take great delight in feeding the deer therein from her own hands." Dug. Baron. This Lady was daughter and heiress of John Gamage, of Coytie in Glamorganshire, the wife of the first Earl, and the "good Lady" mentioned in the extract in the text.

Didst thou then make 'em! and what praise was heap'd

On thy good Lady, then! who therein reap'd

The just reward of her high hus wifry;

To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,

When she was far; and not a room, but drest

As if it had expected such a guest!"

In a Survey of Putney taken in 1617, the house built at the village in 1596 by John Lacy, Citizen and Clothworker, is described, as “a fair edifice in which his Majesty has been 1."

To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant with the speckled side;
The painted partridge lies in ev'ry field,
And for thy mess is willing to be kill'd.
And if the high-swoln Medway fail thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat aged carps that run into thy net,
And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat,
As loth the second draught or cast to stay,
Officiously at first themselves betray.
Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land,
Before the fisher, or into his hand.
Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours.
The early cherry, with the later plum,
Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come;
The blushing apricot, and woolly peach
Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach;
And though thy walls be of the country stone
They're rear'd with no man's ruin, no man's
groan;

There's none, that dwell about them, wish them
down ;

But all come in, the farmer and the clown ;
And no one empty-handed, to salute
Thy Lord and Lady, though they have no suit.
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,
Some nuts, some apples; some that think they
make

The better cheeses, bring them; or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would com-
mend

This way to husbands; and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum or pear.

But what can this (more than express their love)
Add to thy free provisions, far above
The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow,
With all that hospitality doth know!
Where comes no guest, but is allow'd to eat,
Without his fear, and of thy Lord's own meat;
Where the same beer and bread, and self-same
That is his Lordship's, shall be also mine. [wine,
And I not fain to sit, (as some this day
At great men's tables,) and yet dine away.
Here no man tells my cups; nor standing by,
A waiter, doth my gluttony envy;

But gives me what I call, and lets me eat,
He knows, below, he shall find plenty of meat;
Thy tables hoard not up for the next day,
Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray
For fire, or lights, or livery; all is there;
As if thou then wert mine, or 1 reign'd here;
There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay.
[Then follow the lines above quoted in the text.]
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all;-
Thy Lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal;
His children thy great Lord may call his own,—
A fortune, in this age, but rarely known;
They are, and have been taught religion; thence
Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence;
Each morn, and even, they are taught to pray,
With the whole household, and may, every day,
Read in their virtuous parents' noble parts,
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see

Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else,
May say, their Lords have built, but thy Lord
dwells.

Lysons's Environs of London, vol. I. p. 407; vol. II. p. 394. It was the same house at which Queen Elizabeth was so very frequent a visitor; see her "Progresses," vol. II. p. 92. It is still standing, and the ceiling of the Drawing-room is ornamented with the Clothworkers' arms. It will be remembered that King James was a Clothworker; see vol. II. p. 132.

Of doubtful, indeed very doubtful, authenticity is the Visit which the following letter, which was printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1769, attributes to the King: "MR. URBAN, I believe most of your numerous readers have seen or heard of the old song of The King and the Tinker', though perhaps few of them are acquainted with the scene of that merry transaction. Crossing Ashdown Forest, in my way to Lewes, about 35 years ago, I came to a little ale-house called Duddleswell, which (though little better than an hovel) gives name to a very extensive manor, and still retains the traditionary honour of having entertained the funny Monarch King Jemmy and his jovial companion the Tinker. They shewed me the chimney corner, where his Majesty sat enthroned, and directed me to King's-standing, about a mile off, where the King and his new acquaintance came up with the Courtiers, and where an oak was planted upon that occasion, which has always gone by the name of King's-standing Oak 3, and a few years ago was remarkably overgrown with a long hairy sort of moss, but, alas! when I went to this tree last I found it almost despoiled of its venerable beard by the passengers beating down the small twigs to which it adhered, and carrying them away as a great curiosity. However, I have enclosed a little tuft thereof as a specimen, and likewise a map of Ashdown Forest, or Lancaster Great Park, published about twenty years ago, which I would recommend to the notice of your readers. I am, Sir, yours, &c. L. M."

Another alleged visit of the King, which appears to be deficient in authenticity, is one which was probably first asserted in the following passage of Dr. Fuller in his introduction to the Worthies of Herefordshire: "There cannot be given a more effectual evidence of the healthful aire in this Shire, than the vigorous vivacity of the inhabitants therein; many aged folk which in other Counties are properties of the chimneyes, or confined to their beds, are here found in the field as able (if willing) to work. The ingenious Mr. Serjeant Hoskin gave an intertainment to King James, and provided ten aged people to dance the Morish

"It has been a favourite subject with our English ballad-makers," says the Editor of the Elegant Extracts, "to represent our Kings conversing either by accident or design with the meanest of their subjects. Of the former kind are King Henry and the Miller of Mansfield [printed in the Elegant Extracts], King Henry and the Soldier, King James I. and the Tinker, King William III. and the Forester, &c. Of the latter sort are King Alfred and the Shepherd, King Edward IV. and the Tanner, King Henry VIII. and the Cobler."

That is, about 1734. The story, if a fabrication, is not of modern date.

3 There was a Royal chace in Ashdown Forest, and the name may have had a far earlier origin.

before him, all of them making up more than a thousand yeares, so that what was wanting in one was supplied in another,—a nest of Nestors not to be found in another place."-This story has been quoted in the Baronetages, and elsewhere, with an assertion that Morehampton was the place of the Royal entertainment, that being the seat of the witty Sergeant Hoskyns. It appears, however, that this assemblage of veteran morris-dancers really took place at the Hereford races in 1609, when the King was certainly not present, as the historian of the festival (for an historian it had) has recorded the names of all the visitors of consequence1. There is a tradition (that both Queen Elizabeth and King James paid visits

' In the British Bibliographer, vol. IV. pp. 326-338, will be found an account of "Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd-Marian, and Hereford Towne for a Morris-daunce; or twelve Morrisdancers in Herefordshire, of twelve hundred years old. London, 1609." The visitors of rank were "Lord Herbert of Ragland; Sir Thom. Somerset ; Cha. Somerset ; Count Arundel's two sons; Sir Edw. Swift; Sir Thom. Mildemay; Sir Rob. Yaxley; Sir Ro. Carey; Sir John Philpot; Sir Ed. Lewes; Sir Fr. Lacon; Sir James Scudamore; Sir Thom. Cornwall; Sir Ro. Bodenham; Sir Thom. Russell; Sir Bascarvile; Sir Th. Conisby: and Sir Geo. Chute."--Whilst noticing this subject, it may be as well to mention that, in a pedigree of Andrewes in my History of Leicestershire, vol. III. p. 456, the following note is appended to the name of Thomas, the head of the tree, and from whom the late Dean of Canterbury was fifth in descent: "This gentleman danced, in company with five other gentlemen, at a Masque before King James the First, in the year 1609, at the age of 108, being the youngest of the company." Here we find, it may be remarked, the correct date of the meeting at the Hereford races, blended, from Fuller's assertion, with the name of the King. It should be added, that even in this short paragraph there are two other errors; for "Thomas Andros," instead of being the youngest, was one of the oldest of the party; nor was he one of the dancers, but one of the four "Marshales of the Field," who were all upwards of a hundred years old, and were in addition to the twelve dancers. These four, we are told in the tract, "had no great stomacke to daunce in the Morris, but took upon them the office of Whiflers." Perhaps they were also of a somewhat superior rank in life.-Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, records the names of eight individuals who only " a few years ago" danced a morris in Herefordshire; and, having deprived one set of veterans of the honour of having danced before royalty, it may be considered a propitiation to the credit of old age to adduce here an instance which there seems no such reason to doubt. In 1773, when Christian VI. King of Sweden, and his Queen, Sophia Magdalena, visited their Norwegian dominions, they resided at the house of Lieut.-Colonel Colbiornson, in Frederickshall. What is called a jubilee wedding was then performed in the garden, under tents pitched for that purpose. There were four couples married, being country people invited from the adjacent parts, each of whom was one hundred years of age. These eight people made themselves extremely merry at this jubileewedding; the women, according to the custom of their country, danced with green wreaths on their heads, which are always worn in Norway by brides on their wedding day. They had each a handsome present to defray their expences home.

to Parham in Sussex, in the reign of the latter the seat of Sir Thomas Bishopp, Bart, and now of his descendant Lord de la Zouch.

In a manuscript History of Hatfield near Doncaster, written by Abraham de la Pryme about 1700, one of the numerous chapters into which the work is divided, treats:

"Of the Progress that Henry Prince of Wales took into Yorkshire, with several Lords and Gentlemen.

"As it is a great pleasure and satisfaction unto an ingenious and curious man to behold the rarity and works of art and nature in all countrys, so the noble Henry Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester, the first son of King James the First, haveing a mind to take a Progress into the country, to divert himself, and behold the raritys thereof, he set out of London about the 9th of July in the year 1609, haveing many attendant Noblemen and Gentlemen in his company. They bent their course towards York by easy marches, to see that second Citty in England, but being mett upon the road by Sir Robert Swift, Sir Henry Lee, Sir Rob. Anstrudder, Sir Copley, and several other Gentlemen, many of which belonging to the King's Mannor and Chace of Hatfield, as the two first named, they prevailed with the Prince to go with them to Hatfield, and to hunt a stagg. Which they being agreed to, Sir Robert Swift, who was Bow-bearer unto the King, gave the Prince and his retinue a noble treat at Stristerop [Streetthorpe], where he lived, and where the Prince lay that night. The next day, the Prince, being earnest for the sport, desired to be pursuing the same, which being understood, they all mounted on horsback, and haveing faln into a rang, they soon raised a stagg, which being very strong kept them in play a great while, and then strikeing over the low commons escaped them; but, another being soon after raised, after a fierce chace the dogs pulled him down not farr from the Town of Hatfield, where the Prince, being met and welcomed by Portington, Esq. (belonging likewise to the King's game) and by others, Sir Henry Lee envited him to his house, where they feasted and enjoyed themselves very plentifully.

"After this the chief Regarder of Thorn, and

Portington, Esq. haveing

promised the next day to let the Prince see such sport as he never saw in his life, the Prince and his retinue went with them; and being come to Tudworth, where Mr. Portington lived, they all embarked themselves in almost a hundred boats