The prince and duke travelled under the assumed names of John and Thomas Smith. King James wrote a poem on this expedition, of which the first and last verses are as follow. A copy is preserved among the Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library:—
In MS. Harl., 6987, is preserved Buckingham's letter to James I, describing the first interview. Speaking of the prince, he says, "Baby Charles is himself so touched at the heart, that he confesses all he ever yet saw is nothing to her, and swears, that if he want her, there shall be blows."
[3]Though Buckingham and Charles were exigeant of jewels for presents, the king was equally profuse in sending until he had exhausted his store. Considerably more than 150,000 l. worth were consigned to Spain. In a letter from Newmarket, March 17, 1623, preserved in Harleian MS. 6987, he enumerates a large quantity to be presented to the Infanta; and he is equally careful that Prince Charles should be well supplied; "As for thee, my sweet gossip, I send thee a fair table diamond for wearing in thy hat." The king ingeniously prompts them to present the Infanta with a small looking-glass to hang at her girdle, and to assure her that "by art magic, whensoever she shall be pleased to look in it, she shall see the fairest lady that either her brother's or your father's dominions can afford."
[4]On his first coming to court he was made cup-bearer to the king, then Master of the Horse, then ennobled, made Lord High Admiral, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Windsor Castle, Ranger of Royal Parks, &c. &c. A list of the public plunderings of himself and family is given in Sloane MS. 826, amounting to more than 27,000 l. per annum in rents of manors, irrespective of 50,000 l. "paid to the duke by privie seale of free guifts, but alleged to be intended for the navie." Many pensions and customs were also made over to his use.
[5]King James delighted in calling the Duke of Buckingham "Steenie," as has been already instanced in the letter quoted, p. 463, Vol. I. This was not the duke's Christian name, but was invented for him by his royal master, who fancied his features resembled those usually given to St. Stephen, and whose face was usually depicted in accordance with the description in Acts vi. 15, "as it had been the face of an angel."
[6]The great exhibition of fireworks at Rome, at the castle of St. Angelo, during the festivities of the Holy Week, preserve the character of the displays of fireworks adopted on great occasions in the seventeenth century. An enormous explosion of squibs, crackers, and rockets was the tour de force in such celebrations. The volume describing the entry of Louis XIII. to Lyons in 1624, contains an engraving of the fireworks constructed on barges in the river on that occasion; a blazing crowned sun, surrounded by a wheel of stars, squibs, star-rockets, and water-serpents flying about it, composed the feu d'artifice. In the volume descriptive of the rejoicings in the same city on the ratification of peace between France and Spain in 1660, are several engravings in which fireworks are shown, but they exhibit no novelties, being restricted to rockets and pots of fire bursting into coloured stars. Henry Van Etten's "Mathematical Recreations," 1633, notes the principal "artificial fireworks" then in use, and gives engravings of several, and instructions to make them. Rockets, fire-balls, stars, golden-rain, serpents, and Catharine wheels are the principal noted. "Fierie dragons combatant" running on lines, and filled with fireworks, were the greatest stretch of invention at this time; and our author says they may be made "to meete one another, having lights placed in the concavity of their bodies, which will give great grace to the action."
[7]Specimens of most of these modes of writing may be seen at the British Museum. No. 3478, in the Sloanian library, is a Nabob's letter, on a piece of bark, about two yards long, and richly ornamented with gold. No. 3207 is a book of Mexican hieroglyphics, painted on bark. In the same collection are various species, many from the Malabar coast and the East. The latter writings are chiefly on leaves. There are several copies of Bibles written on palm leaves. The ancients, doubtless, wrote on any leaves they found adapted for the purpose. Hence, the leaf of a book, alluding to that of a tree, seems to be derived. At the British Museum we have also Babylonian tiles, or broken pots, which the people used, and made their contracts of business on; a custom mentioned in the Scriptures.
[8]This speech was made by Claudius (who was born at Lyons), when censor, A.D. 48, and was of the highest importance to the men of Lyons, inasmuch as it led to the grant of the privileges of Roman citizenship to them. This important inscription was discovered in 1528, on the heights of St. Sebastian above the town.
[9]The paintings discovered at Pompeii give representations of these books and implements.
[10]The use of the table-book was continued to the reign of James I. or later. Shakspeare frequently alludes to them—
They were in the form of a modern pocket-book, the leaves of asses' skin, or covered with a composition, upon which a silver or leaden style would inscribe memoranda capable of erasure.
[11]A box containing such written rolls is represented in one of the pictures exhumed at Pompeii.
[12]See note to Vol. I. p. 5.
[13]The ink of old manuscripts is generally a thick solid substance, and sometimes stands in relief upon the paper. The red ink is generally a body-colour of great brilliancy.
[14]This was, in fact, a realization of the traditional representations of the Flight into Egypt, in which the Virgin, having the Saviour in her lap, is always depicted seated on an ass, which is led by Joseph.
[15]See Article Ancient and Modern Saturnalia, in this Volume.
[16]In the romances and poems of the Middle Ages, the heroines are generally praised for the abundance and beauty of their "yellow hair"—
Queen Elizabeth had yellow hair, hence it became the fashion at her court, and ladies dyed their hair of the Royal colour. But this dyeing the hair yellow may be traced to the classic era. Galen tells us that in his time women suffered much from headaches, contracted by standing bare-headed in the sun to obtain this coveted tint, which others attempted by the use of saffron. Bulwer, in his "Artificiall Changeling," 1653, says—"The Venetian women at this day, and the Paduan, and those of Verona, and other parts of Italy, practice the same vanitie, and receive the same recompense for their affectation, there being in all those cities open and manifest examples of those who have undergone a kind of martyrdome, to render their haire yellow."
[17]That is, carriages of the modern form, and such as became common toward the end of Elizabeth's reign; but waggons and chares, covered with tapestry, and used by ladies for journeys, may be seen in illuminated MSS. of the fourteenth century. There is a fine example in the Loutterell Psalter, published in "Vetusta Monumenta."
[18]The use of censers or firepans to "sweeten" houses by burning coarse perfumes is noted by Shakespeare. His commentator, Steevens, points out a passage in a letter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who when keeping Mary Queen of Scots under his surveillance, notes "That her Majesty was to be removed for 5 or 6 dayes to clense her chamber, being kept very unclenly." That annoyances of a very disagreeable kind were constantly felt, he instances in a passage from the Memoir of Anne, Countess of Dorset, who relates that a noble party were infested with insects not now to be named, though named plainly by the lady, and all this "by sitting in Sir Thomas Erskine's chamber."
[19]He gives this piece of autobiography in his first sermon preached before Edward VI., 1549:—"My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or foure pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He kept me to school. He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles a piece; so that he brought them up in godliness."
[20]Lower's "English Surnames; an Essay on Family Nomenclature," may be profitably studied in connexion with this curious subject.
[21]Fortunate names, the bona nomina of Cicero, were chiefly selected in accordance with the classic maxim, bonum nomen, bonum omen.
[22]"Plautus thought it quite enough to damn a man that he bore the name of Lyco, which is said to signify a greedy-wolf; and Livy calls the name Atrius Umber abominandi ominis nomen, a name of horrible portent."—Nares' Heraldic Anomalies.
[23]The names adopted by the Romans were very significant. The Nomen was indicative of the branch of the family distinguished by the Cognomen; while the Prenomen was invented to distinguish one from the rest. Thus, a man of family had three names, and even a fourth was added when it was won by great deeds.
[24]Edgar Poe's account of the regular mode by which he designed and executed his best and most renowned poem, "The Raven," is an instance of the use of methodical rule successfully applied to what appears to be one of the most fanciful of mental works.
[25]The old poet is the most fresh and powerful in his words. The passage is thus given in Wright's edition:—
Leigh Hunt remarks with justice that "Dryden falls short of the freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His lines are beautiful, but they do not come home to us with so happy and cordial a face."
[26]This use of what most persons would consider waste paper, obtained for the poet the designation of "paper-sparing Pope."
[27]Dr. Johnson, in noticing the MSS. of Milton, preserved at Cambridge, has made, with his usual force of language, the following observation: "Such reliques show how excellence is acquired: what we hope ever to do with ease, we may learn first to do with diligence."
[28]Silent in the MS. (observes a critical friend) is greatly superior to secret, as it appears in the printed work.
[29]The great feature of the modern stage within the last twenty years has been the Classical Burlesque Drama, which, though originating in the last century in such plays as Midas, really reached its culmination under the auspices of Madame Vestris.
[30]Motteux, whose translation Lord Woodhouselee distinguishes as the most curious, turns the passage thus: "I wish you well, good people: drive on to act your play, for in my very childhood I loved shows, and have been a great admirer of dramatic representations." Part II. c. xi. The other translators have nearly the same words. But in employing the generic term they lose the species, that is, the thing itself; but what is less tolerable, in the flatness of the style, they lose that delightfulness with which Cervantes conveys to us the recollected pleasures then busying the warm brain of his hero. An English reader, who often grows weary over his Quixote, appears not always sensible that one of the secret charms of Cervantes, like all great national authors, lies concealed in his idiom and style.
[31]The author of the descriptive letter-press to George Cruikshank's illustrations of Punch says he "saw the late Mr. Wyndham, then one of the Secretaries of State, on his way from Downing-street to the House of Commons, on the night of an important debate, pause like a truant boy until the whole performance was concluded, to enjoy a hearty laugh at the whimsicalities of the 'motley hero.'"
[32]Rich, in his "Companion to the Latin Diction," has an excellent illustration of this passage:—"This art was of very great antiquity, and much practised by the Greeks and Romans, both on the stage and in the tribune, induced by their habit of addressing large assemblies in the open air, where it would have been impossible for the majority to comprehend what was said without the assistance of some conventional signs, which enabled the speaker to address himself to the eye, as well as the ear of the audience. These were chiefly made by certain positions of the hands and fingers, the meaning of which was universally recognised and familiar to all classes, and the practice itself reduced to a regular system, as it remains at the present time amongst the populace of Naples, who will carry on a long conversation between themselves by mere gesticulation, and without pronouncing a word." That many of these signs are similar to those used by the ancients, is proved by the same author, who copies from an antique vase a scene which he explains by the action of the hands of the figures, adding, "A common lazzaroni, when shown one of these compositions, will at once explain the purport of the action, which a scholar with all his learning cannot divine." The gesture to signify love, employed by the ancients and modern Neapolitans, was joining the tips of the thumb and fore-finger of the left hand; an imputation or asseveration by holding forth the right hand; a denial by raising the same hand, extending the fingers. In mediæval works of art, a particular attitude of the fingers is adopted to exhibit malicious hate: it is done by crossing the fore-finger of each hand, and is generally seen in figures of Herod or Judas Iscariot.
[33]Tacitus, Annals, lib. i. sect. 77, in Murphy's translation.
[34]This measure of "restrictive policy," which gave to the patent theatres the sole right of performing the legitimate drama properly, led to the construction of plays for the minor theatres, entirely carried on by action, occasionally aided by inscriptions painted on scrolls, and unrolled and exhibited by the actor when his power of expressing such words failed. This led to the education of a series of pantomimists, who taught action conventionally to represent words. At the close of the last century, there were many such; and the reader who may be curious to see the nature of these dumb dramas, may do so in two volumes named "Circusiana," by J.C. Cross, the author of very many that were performed at the Royal Circus, in St. George's Fields. The whole action of the drama was performed to music composed expressly to aid the expression of the performers, among the best of whom were Bologna and D'Egville. It is a class of dramatic art which has now almost entirely passed away; or is seen, but in a minor degree, in the pantomimic action of a grand ballet at the opera.
[35]L'Antiq. Exp. v. 63.
[36]Louis Riccoboni, in his curious little treatise, "Du Théâtre Italien," illustrated by seventeen prints of the Italian pantomimic characters, has duly collected the authorities. I give them, in the order quoted above, for the satisfaction of more grave inquirers. Vossius, Instit. Poet, lib. ii. 32, § 4. The Mimi blackened their faces. Diomedes, de Orat. lib. iii. Apuleius, in Apolog. And further, the patched dress was used by the ancient peasants of Italy, as appears by a passage in Varro, De Re Rust, lib. i. c. 8; and Juvenal employs the term centunculus as a diminutive of cento, for a coat made up of patches. This was afterwards applied metaphorically to those well-known poems called centos, composed of shreds and patches of poetry, collected from all quarters. Goldoni considered Harlequin as a poor devil and dolt, whose coat is made up of rags patched together; his hat shows mendicity; and the hare's tail is still the dress of the peasantry of Bergamo. Quadrio, in his learned Storia d'ogni Poesia, has diffused his erudition on the ancient Mimi and their successors. Dr. Clarke has discovered the light lath sword of Harlequin, which had hitherto baffled my most painful researches, amidst the dark mysteries of the ancient mythology! We read with equal astonishment and novelty, that the prototypes of the modern pantomime are in the Pagan mysteries; that Harlequin is Mercury, with his short sword called herpe, or his rod the caduceus, to render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the earth to the other; that the covering on his head was his petasus, or winged cap; that Columbine is Pysche, or the Soul; the Old Man in our pantomimes is Charon; the Clown is Momus, the buffoon of heaven, whose large gaping mouth is an imitation of the ancient masks. The subject of an ancient vase engraven in the volume represents Harlequin, Columbine, and the Clown, as we see them on the English stage. The dreams of the learned are amusing when we are not put to sleep. Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 459. The Italian antiquaries never entertained any doubt of this remote origin. It may, however, be reasonably doubted. The chief appendage of the Vice or buffoon of the ancient moralities was a gilt wooden sword, and this also belonged to the old Clown or Fool, not only in England but abroad. "The wooden sword directly connects Harlequin with the ancient Vice and more modern Fool," says the author of the letter-press to Cruikshank's Punch, apparently with the justest derivation.
[37]This statue, which is imagined to have thrown so much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on Maschere sceniche e le figure coniche d'antichi Romani, p. 48. It is that of a Mime called Maccus by the Romans; the name indicates a simpleton. But the origin of the more modern name has occasioned a little difference, whether it be derived from the nose or its squeak. The learned Quadrio would draw the name Pullicinello from Pulliceno, which Spartianus uses for il pullo gallinaceo (I suppose this to be the turkey-cock) because Punch's hooked nose resembles its beak. But Baretti, in that strange book the "Tolondron," gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar squeaking nasal sound. He says, "Punchinello, or Punch, as you well know, speaks with a squeaking voice that seems to come out at his nose, because the fellow who in a puppet-show manages the puppet called Punchinello, or Punch, as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a tin whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of voice. But the English word Punchinello is in Italian Pulcinella, which means a hen-chicken. Chickens' voices are squeaking and nasal; and they are timid, and powerless, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have given the name of Pulcinella, or hen-chicken, to that comic character, to convey the idea of a man that speaks with a squeaking voice through his nose, to express a timid and weak fellow, who is always thrashed by the other actors, and always boasts of victory after they are gone."—Tolondron, p. 324. In Italian, Policinello is a little flea, active and biting and skipping; and his mask puce-colour, the nose imitating in shape the flea's proboscis. This grotesque etymology was added by Mrs. Thrale. I cannot decide between "the hen-chicken" of the scholar and "the skipping flea" of the lady, who, however, was herself a scholar.
[38]How the Latin Sannio became the Italian Zanni, was a whirl in the roundabout of etymology, which put Riccoboni very ill at his ease; for he, having discovered this classical origin of his favourite character, was alarmed at Menage giving it up with obsequious tameness to a Cruscan correspondent. The learned Quadrio, however, gives his vote for the Greek Sannos, from whence the Latins borrowed their Sannio. Riccoboni's derivation, therefore, now stands secure from all verbal disturbers of human quiet.
Sanna is in Latin, as Ainsworth elaborately explains, "a mocking by grimaces, mows, a flout, a frump, a gibe, a scoff, a banter;" and Sannio is "a fool in a play." The Italians change the S into Z, for they say Zmyrna and Zambuco, for Smyrna and Sambuco; and thus they turned Sannio into Zanno, and then into Zanni, and we caught the echo in our Zany.
[39]Riccoboni, Histoire du Théàtre Italien, p. 53; Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196.
[40]There is an earlier and equally whimsical series bearing the following title—"Mascarades recuillies et mises en taille douce par Robert Boissart, Valentianois, 1597," consisting of twenty-four plates of Carnival masquers.
[41]Signorelli, Storia Critica de Teatri, tom. iii. 263.
[42]Mem. of Goldoni, i. 281.
[43]Mem. of Goldoni, ii. 284.
[44]I am here but the translator of a grave historian. The Italian writes with all the feeling of one aware of the important narrative, and with a most curious accuracy in this genealogy of character: "Silvio Fiorillo, che appetter si facea il Capitano Matamoros, INVENTO il Pulcinella Napoletano, e collo studio e grazia molto AGGIUNSE Andrea Calcese dello Ciuccio por soprannome."—Gimma, Italia Letterata, p. 196. There is a very curious engraving by Bosse, representing the Italian comedians about 1633, as they performed the various characters on the Parisian stage. The cracked voice and peculiarities of this "great invention" are declared by Fiorillo and Signorelli to be imitations of the peculiarities of the peasants of Acerra, an ancient city in the neighbourhood of Naples. For a curious dissertation on this popular character, see the volume so admirably illustrated by Cruikshank, quoted on a previous page.
[45]John Rich was the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, and spent large sums over his favourite pantomimes. He was also the fortunate producer of the "Beggar's Opera," which was facetiously said to have made Rich gay, and Gay rich. He took so little interest in what is termed the "regular drama," that he is reported to have exclaimed, when peeping through the curtain at a full house to witness a tragedy—"What, you are there, you fools, are you!" He died wealthy, in 1761; and there is a costly tomb to his memory in Hillingdon churchyard, Middlesex.
[46]Some of the ancient Scenarie were printed in 1661, by Flaminius Scala, one of their great actors. These, according to Riccoboni, consist of nothing more than the skeletons of Comedies; the canevas, as the French technically term a plot and its scenes. He says, "They are not so short as those we now use to fix at the back of the scenes, nor so full as to furnish any aid to the dialogue: they only explain what the actor did on the stage, and the action which forms the subject, nothing more."
[47]The passage in Livy is, "Juventus, histrionibus fabellarum actu relicto, ipsa inter se, more antiquo, ridicula intexta versibus jactitare cæpit." Lib. vii. cap. 2.
[48]As these Atellanæ Fabulæ were never written, they have not descended to us in any shape. It has, indeed, been conjectured that Horace, in the fifth Satire of his first Book, v. 51, has preserved a scene of this nature between two practised buffoons in the "Pugnam Sarmenti Scurræ," who challenges his brother Cicerrus, equally ludicrous and scurrilous. But surely these were rather the low humour of the Mimes, than of the Atellan Farcers.
[49]Melmoth's Letters of Cicero, B. viii. lett. 20; in Grævius's edition, Lib. ix. ep. 16.
[50]This passage also shows that our own custom of annexing a Farce, or petite pièce, or Pantomime, to a tragic Drama, existed among the Romans: the introduction of the practice in our country seems not to be ascertained; and it is conjectured not to have existed before the Restoration. Shakspeare and his contemporaries probably were spectators of only a single drama.
[51]Storia Critica del Teatri de Signorelli, tom. iii. 258.—Baretti mentions a collection of four thousand dramas, made by Apostolo Zeno, of which the greater part were comedies. He allows that in tragedies his nation is inferior to the English and the French; but "no nation," he adds, "can be compared with us for pleasantry and humour in comedy." Some of the greatest names in Italian literature were writers of comedy. Ital. Lib. 119.
[52]Altieri explains Formica as a crabbed fellow who acts the butt in a farce.
[53]I refer the reader to Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. ii. p. 495, for a sight of these literary curiosities.
[54]The commencement of the "Platt" of the "Seven Deadly Sinnes," believed to be a production of the famous Dick Tarleton, will sufficiently enlighten the reader as to the character of the whole. The original is preserved at Dulwich, and is written in two columns, on a pasteboard about fifteen inches high, and nine in breadth. We have modernised the spelling:—
"A tent being placed on the stage for Henry the Sixth; he in it asleep. To him the lieutenant, and a pursuivant (R. Cowley, Jo. Duke), and one warder (R. Pallant). To them Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, and Covetousness at one door; at another door Envy, Sloth, and Lechery. The three put back the four, and so exeunt.
"Henry awaking, enter a keeper (J. Sincler), to him a servant (T. Belt), to him Lidgate and the keeper. Exit, then enter again—then Envy passeth over the stage. Lidgate speakes."
[55]Women were first introduced on the Italian stage about 1560—it was therefore an extraordinary novelty in Nash's time.
[56]That this kind of drama was perfectly familiar to the play-goers of the era of Elizabeth, is clear from a passage in Meres' "Palladis Tamica," 1598; who speaks of Tarleton's extemporal power, adding a compliment to "our witty Wilson, who, for learning and extemporal wit, in this faculty is without compare or compeer; as to his great and eternal commendations, he manifested in his challenge at the Swan, on Bank-side." The Swan was one of the theatres so popular in the era of Elizabeth and James I., situated on the Bankside, Southwark.
[57]Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 56.
[58]In the poem on the entrenchment of New Ross, in Ireland, in 1265 (Harl. MS., No. 913), is a similar account of the minstrelsy which accompanied the workers. The original is in Norman French; the translation we use is that by the late Miss Landon (L.E.L.):—
Deip. lib. xiv. cap. iii.
[60]The Lords of the Admiralty a few years ago issued a revised edition of these songs, for the use of our navy. They embody so completely the idea "of a true British sailor," that they have developed and upheld the character.
[61]In Durfey's whimsical collection of songs, "Wit and Mirth," 1682, are several trade songs. One on the blacksmiths begins:—
The London companies also chanted forth their own praises. Thus the Mercers' Company, in 1701, sang in their Lord Mayor's Show, alluding to their arms, "a demi-Virgin, crowned":—
Dr. Burney subsequently observed, that "this rogue Autolycus is the true ancient Minstrel in the old Fabliaux;" on which Steevens remarks, "Many will push the comparison a little further, and concur with me in thinking that our modern minstrels of the opera, like their predecessor Autolycus, are pickpockets as well as singers of nonsensical ballads."—Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 107, his own edition, 1793.
[63]Mr. Roscoe has printed this very delightful song in the Life of Lorenzo, No. xli. App.
[64]The late Rowland Hill constantly sang at the Surrey Chapel a hymn to the tune of "Rule Britannia," altered to "Rule Emmanuel." There was published in Dublin, in 1833, a series of "Hymns written to favourite tunes." They were the innocent work of one who wished to do good by a mode sufficiently startling to those who see impropriety in the conjunction of the sacred and the profane. Thus, one "pious chanson" is written to Gramachree, or "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," of Moore. Another, describing the death of a believer, is set to "The Groves of Blarney."
[65]The festival of St. Blaize is held on the 3rd of February. Percy notes it as "a custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blaize's Night." Hone, in his "Every-day Book," Vol. I. p. 210, prints a detailed account of the woolcombers' celebration at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1825, in which "Bishop Blaize" figured with the "bishop's chaplain," surrounded by "shepherds and shepherdesses," but personated by one John Smith, with "very becoming gravity."
[66]The custom was made the subject of an Essay by Gregory, in illustration of the tomb of one of these functionaries at Salisbury. They were elected on St. Nicholas' Day, from the boys of the choir, and the chosen one officiated in pontificals, and received large donations, as the custom was exceedingly popular. Even royalty listened favourably to "the chylde-bishop's" sermon.
[67]Alexander Necham, abbot of Cirencester (born 1157, died 1217), has left us his idea of a "noble garden," which should contain roses, lilies, sunflowers, violets, poppies, and the narcissus. A large variety of roses were introduced between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Provence rose is thought to have been introduced by Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI. The periwinkle was common in mediæval gardens, and so was the gilly-flower or clove-pink. The late Mr. Hudson Turner contributed an interesting paper on the state of horticulture in England in early times to the fifth volume of the "Archæological Journal." Among other things, he notes the contents of the Earl of Lincoln's garden, in Holborn, from the bailiff's account, in the twenty-fourth year of Edward I.—"We learn from this curious document that apples, pears, nuts, and cherries were produced in sufficient quantities, not only to supply the earl's table, but also to yield a profit by their sale. The vegetables cultivated in this garden were beans, onions, garlic, leeks, and others." Vines were also grown, and their cuttings sold.
[68]This is, however, an error. Mr. Turner, in the paper quoted, p. 154, says, "It may fairly be presumed that the cherry was well known at the period of the Conquest, and at every subsequent time. It is mentioned by Necham in the twelfth century, and was cultivated in the Earl of Lincoln's garden in the thirteenth."
[69]The quince comes from Sydon, a town of Crete, we are told by Le Grand, in his Vie privée des François, vol. i. p. 143; where may be found a list of the origin of most of our fruits.
[70]Peacham has here given a note. "The filbert, so named of Philibert, a king of France, who caused by arte sundry kinds to be brought forth: as did a gardener of Otranto in Italie by cloue-gilliflowers, and carnations of such colours as we now see them."
[71]The queen-apple was probably thus distinguished in compliment to Elizabeth. In Moffet's "Health's Improvement," I find an account of apples which are said to have been "graffed upon a mulberry-stock, and then wax thorough red as our queen-apples, called by Ruellius, Rubelliana, and Claudiana by Pliny." I am told the race is not extinct; but though an apple of this description may yet be found, it seems to have sadly degenerated.
[72]The Court of Wards was founded in the right accorded to the king from the earliest time, to act as guardian to all minors who were the children of his own tenants, or of those who did the sovereign knightly service. They were in the same position, consequently, as the Chancery Wards of the present day; but much complaint being made of the private management of themselves and their estates by the persons who acted as their guardians, and who were responsible only to the king's exchequer, King Henry VIII., in the thirty-second year of his reign, founded "the Court of Wards" in Westminster Hall, as an open court of trial or appeal, for all persons under its jurisdiction. In the following year, a court of "liveries" was added to it; and it was always afterwards known as the "Court of Wards and Liveries." By "liveries" is meant, in old legal phraseology, "the delivery of seisin to the heir of the king's tenant in ward, upon suing for it at full age," the investiture, in fact, of the ward in his legal right as heir to his parents' property. This court was under the conduct of a very few officers who enriched themselves; and one of the first acts of the House of Lords, when the great changes were made during the troubles of Charles I., was to suppress the court altogether. This was done in 1645, and confirmed by Cromwell in 1656. At the restoration of Charles II. it was again specially noted as entirely suppressed.
[73]D'Ewes's father lost a manor, which was recovered by the widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that he had purchased that manor with the interests accumulating from the money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of that controversial sin." This expression shows that even in that age there were rational political economists. Jeremy Bentham, in his little treatise on Usury, offers just views, cleared from the indistinct and partial ones so long prevalent. Jeremy Collier has an admirable Essay on Usury, vol. iii. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon, that he would have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns, because the merchant is best able to afford the highest.
[74]In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, is an amusing description of the usurer, who binds his clients in "worse bonds and manacles than the Turk's galley-slaves." And in Decker's "Knights' Conjuring," 1607, we read of another who "cozen'd young gentlemen of their land, had acres mortgaged to him by wiseacres for three hundred pounds, payde in hobby-horses, dogges, bells, and lutestrings; which, if they had been sold by the drum, or at an outrop (public auction), with the cry of 'No man better,' would never have yielded £50."
[75]"The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in Powles," 1603, is the title of a rare tract in the Malone collection, now in the Bodleian Library. It is a curious picture of the manners of the day.
[76]Games with cards. Strutt says Primero is one of the most ancient games known to have been played in England, and he thus describes it:—"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the same; but the 2, the 3, and the 4 for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits, the highest number won the primero; if they were all of one colour, he that held them won the flush." Gleek is described in "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, as "a game on the cards wherein the ace is called Tib, the knave Tom, the 4 of trumps Tiddy. Tib the ace is 15 in hand and 18 in play, because it wins a trick; Tom the knave is 9, and Tiddy is 4; the 5th Towser, the 6th Tumbler, which, if in hand, Towser is 5 and Tumbler 6, and so double if turned up; and the King or Queen of trumps is 3. Now, as there can neither more nor less than 3 persons play at this game, who have 12 cards a-piece dealt to them at 4 at a time, you are to note that 22 are your cards; if you win nothing but the cards that were dealt you, you lose 10; if you have neither Tib, Tom, Tiddy, King, Queen, Mournival, nor Gleek, you lose, because you count as many cards as you had in tricks, which must be few by reason of the badness of your hand; if you have Tib, Tom, King and Queen of trumps in your hand, you have 30 by honours, that is, 8 above your own cards, besides the cards you win by them in play. If you have Tom only, which is 9, and the King of trumps, which is 3, then you reckon from 12, 13, 14, 15, till you come to 22, and then every card wins so many pence, groats, or what else you play'd for; and if you are under 22, you lose as many."
[77]A note to Singer's edition of "Hall's Satires," says the phrase originated from the popular belief that the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, in old St. Paul's, was that of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. Hence, to walk about the aisles dinnerless was termed dining with Duke Humphrey; and a poem by Speed, termed "The Legend of his Grace," &c., published 1674, details the popular idea—