Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

attachment to chivalric costume; the former was carried on upon a scale to which modern usage is a perfect stranger; for, as Bishop Hurd remarks, "the same bell, that called the great man to his table, invited the neighbourhood all around, and proclaimed a holiday to the whole country * ;" and the latter cherished its predilections, and romantic ardour, by cultivating tilting, the sole remaining offspring of the gorgeous tournament, with scientific skill. The latter half of the sixteenth, and the commencement of the seventeenth, century, saw, indeed, the diversion of running at the ring carried to its highest degree of perfection, from which, however, it very soon afterwards began to decline, and may be said to have expired with the reign of James the First.

Yet the influence of this amusement, in exciting the heroism of the Elizabethan age, was by no means inconsiderable, and we may view the tilt-yard of Kenelworth, with the eyes of Dr. Hurd," as a nursery of brave men, a very seed-plot of warriors and heroes.-And, as whimsical a figure as a young tilter may make in a modern eye, who will say that the virtue was not formed here, that triumphed at AXELL, and bled at ZUTPHEN.”

to

To complete the picture of Kenelworth-castle during this festive period, it would be desirable, could we ascertain what were the domestic economy and usages which were adopted in so large a household, and how the Queen, her ladies, and attendants, contrived pass the hours, when the weather forbade exterior diversions, and when the masque, the banquet, and the fete, had exhausted their attractions. Fortunately we possess a sketch of this kind, from the communicative pen of Laneham, who seems to have been gifted, if we may trust his own account, with great powers of pleasing, and to have enjoyed, in an extraordinary degree, the favour and confidence of the high-born dames of honour who followed in the train of Elizabeth.

* Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. i. p. 160. edit. of 1788.
+ Ibid. vol. i. p. 180.

"Methought it my part," he relates in a letter to his friend, "somewhat to impart unto you how it is here with me, and how I lead my life, which indeed is this :—

"A mornings I rise ordinarily at seven o'clock: Then ready, I go into the Chapel; soon after eight, I get me commonly into my Lord's chamber, or into my Lord's presidents. There at the cupboard, after I have eaten the manchet served overnight for livery (for I dare be as bold, I promise you, as any of my friends the servants there: and indeed could I have fresh, if I would tarry; but I am of wont jolly and dry a mornings): I drink me up a good bol of ale: when in a sweet pot it is defecated by all night's standing, the drink is the better, take that of me: and a morsel in a morning, with a sound draught, is very wholesome and good for the eye-sight: Then I am as fresh all the forenoon after, as had I eaten a whole piece of beef. Now, Sir, if the Council sit, I am at hand; wait at an inch, I warrant you: If • Peace,' say I, any man make babbling, Peace,' 'wot ye where ye are?' If I take a listener, or a pryer in at the chinks or at the lock-hole, I am by and by in the bones of him: But now they keep good order, they know me well enough: If a be a friend, or such a one as I like, I make him sit down by me on a form or a chest ; let the rest walk, a God's name.

"And here doth my language now and then stand me in good stead: My French, my Spanish, my Dutch, and my Latin: Sometime among Ambassador's men, Ambassador's men, if their Master be within the Council : Sometime with the Ambassador himself, if he bid call his lacky, or ask me what's a clock; and I warrant ye I answer him roundly; that they marvel to see such a fellow there: then laugh I and say nothing: Dinner and supper I have twenty places to go to, and heartily prayed to: Sometime get I to Master Pinner; by my faith, a worshipful Gentleman, and as careful for his charge as any her Highness hath: there find I alway good store of very good viands; we eat, and be merry, thank God and the Queen. Himself in feeding very temperate and moderate as ye shall see any: and yet, by your leave, of a dish, as a cold pigeon or so, that hath come to him at meat more

than he looked for, I have seen him een so by and by surfeit, as he hath plucked off his napkin, wiped his knife, and eat not a morsel more; like enough to stick in his stomach a two days after: (some hard message from the higher officers; perceive ye me?) upon search, his faithful dealing and diligence hath found him faultless.

"In afternoons and a nights, sometime am I with the right worshipful Sir George Howard, as good a Gentleman as any lives: And sometime, at my good Lady Sidneys chamber, a Noblewoman that I am as much bound unto, as any poor man may be unto so gracious a Laday; and sometime in some other place. But always among the Gentlewomen by my good will; (O, ye know thatt comes always of

gentle spirit:) And when I see company according, then can I be as lively too: Sometime I foot it with dancing: now with my gittern, and else with my cittern, then at the virginals: Ye know nothing comes amiss to me: Then carol I up a song withal; that by and by they come flocking about me like bees to honey: And ever they cry, 'Another, good Langham, another!' Shall I tell you? When I see Mistress (A, see a mad Knave; I had almost told all!) that she gives once but an eye or an ear; why then, man, am I blest; my grace, my courage, my cunning is doubled: She says, sometime, She likes it;' and then I like it much the better; it doth me good to hear how well I can do. And to say truth; what with mine eyes, as I can amorously gloat it, with my Spanish sospires, my French heighes, mine Italian dulcets, my Dutch hoves, my double releas, my high reaches, my fine feigning, my deep diapason, my wanton warbles, my running, my timing, my tuning, and my twinkling, I can gracify the matters as well as the proudest of them, and was yet never stained, I thank God: By my troth, Countryman, it is some time high midnight, ere I can get from them. And thus have I told ye most of my trade, all the live-long day: what will ye more, God save the Queene and my Lord." *

* Nichols's Progresses, vol. i. Laneham's Letter, p. 81-84.

Of this magnificent castle, the unrivalled abode of baronial hospitality, and chivalric pageantry, who can avoid lamenting the present irreparable decay, or forbear apostrophising the mouldering reliques in the pathetic, and picturesque language, which Bishop Hurd has placed in the mouth of his admired Addison?

"Where, one might ask, are the tilts and tournaments, the princely shows and sports, which were once so proudly celebrated within these walls? Where are the pageants, the studied devices, and emblems of curious invention, that set the court at a gaze, and even transported the high soul of our Elizabeth? Where now, pursued he, (pointing to that which was formerly a canal, but at present is only a meadow, with a small rivulet running through it) where is the floating island, the blaze of torches that eclipsed the day, the lady of the lake, the silken nymphs her attendants, with all the other fantastic exhibitions surpassing even the whimsies of the wildest romance? What now is become of the revelry of feasting? of the minstrelsy that took the ear so delightfully as it babbled along the valley, or floated on the surface of this lake? See there the smokeless kitchens, stretching to a length that might give room for the sacrifice of a hecatomb; the vaulted hall, which mirth and jollity have set so often in an uproar; the rooms of state, and the presencechamber; what are they now but void and tenantless ruins, clasped with ivy, open to wind and weather, and representing to the eye nothing but the ribs and carcase, as it were, of their former state? And see, said he, that proud gate-way, once the mansion of a surly porter, who, partaking of the pride of his lord, made the crowds wait, and refused admittance, perhaps, to nobles whom fear or interest drew to these walls, to pay their homage to their master: see it now the residence of a poor tenant, who turns the key but to let himself out to his daily labour, to admit him to a short meal, and secure his nightly slumbers."*

* Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues, vol. i. pp. 148–150.

To this account of some of the principal diversions of the court and the metropolis, we have now to subjoin, in a compass corresponding with the scale of our work, a clear, but necessarily a brief view, of an amusement which, more than any other, is calculated to interest, and to influence every class of society. The state, economy, and usages of THE STAGE, therefore, during the age of Shakspeare, will occupy the remainder of this chapter, forming an introduction to a sketch of dramatic poetry, at the period of Shakspeare's commencement as a writer for the stage.

The reader is probably aware, from the very copious and bulky, though somewhat indigested, collections, which have been published on this subject, that the following detail, consisting of an arrangement of minute facts, and which aims at nothing more than a neat and lucid compendium of an intricate topic, must necessarily, at almost every step, be indebted to previous researches; in order, therefore, to obviate a continual parade of reference, let it suffice, that we acknowledge the basis of our disquisition to have been derived from the labours of Steevens and Malone, as included in the last variorum edition of Shakspeare; from the two Apologies of Mr. Chalmers; from Decker, as reprinted by Nott; and occasionally, from the pages of Warton, Percy, Whiter, and Gilchrist. Where references, however, are absolutely essential, they will be found in their due place.

It has been justly observed by Mr. Chalmers, that "what Augustus said of Rome, may be remarked of Elizabeth and the stage, that she found it brick, and left it marble.” * At her accession in 1558, no regular theatre had been established, and the players of that period, even in the capital, were compelled to have recourse to the yards of great Inns, as the most commodious places which they could obtain for the representation of their pieces. These, being surrounded by open stages and galleries, and possessing, likewise, numerous private apartments and recesses from which the genteeler part of the audience

[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »