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The Glass.

Nous ne pouvons rien trouver sur la terre
qui soit si bon, ni si beau que le verre.
Du tendre amour berceau charmant,
c'est toi champêtre fougère,
c'est toi qui sers à faire
l'heureux instrument
ou souvent pétille,
mousse, et brille
le jus qui rend
gai, riant

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Mr. D'Israeli has given a specimen of the echo poems, which are also mentioned by Sam Butler as among the performances of Benlowes, and which were once very fashionable. The witty object of these compositions was, that each line should so end that the last syllables, on being repeated, as if by an echo, should convey a separate and pointed meaning. At times, this fancied repetition had something of the nature of the Irishman's echo, which not merely repeated his sentences, but varied them to make more fun, and even answered them; for when he said, "How do ?" his echo replied," Pretty

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you." Something of the sort will be found in the composition quoted by Mr. D'Israeli, where the line of the poem ends in "edify," and echo says "O fie!" or where the line says" belied," and echo (rather indecently) replies "bellied or where "lie all," is given as the reflected sound of "loyal."

The poem written by Francis Cole of Cambridge, who seems to have been a sturdy advocate for the royal cause, was published in 1642, or two years after the obstinacy and treachery of Charles I. had driven the English people to take up arms against him. The objects of the poet's satire, and he meant to be very satirical, are the roundheads, the citizens of London, and the puritans.-See Curiosities of Literature, vol. v.

XX. HISTORY OF STAGE COSTUME.

IF Stratford-upon-Avon be the Mecca of our dramatic world, Dunstable may surely be called the Medina,—the second sacred city in the estimation of the zealous playgoer; not that Shakspeare fled thither from the vengeance of Sir Thomas Lucy, his Abu Sophian; nor that the immortal actor-bard was the real original Sylvester Daggerwood of the Dunstable Company, whose benefit was fixed, &c. &c.; but because the little town of Bedfordshire, which is only famous in Gazetteers for the manufacture of straw hats and pillow-lace, has the honour of furnishing us with the earliest precise information concerning an English play and an English theatrical wardrobe, through the medium of Matthew Paris, who tells us, in his "Lives of the Abbots,"* that Geoffrey the Norman, afterwards abbot of Saint Albans, while yet a secular person, was invited over to England by Richard the then abbot to teach the school belonging to that monastery; but, in consequence of some delay when Geoffrey arrived, the vacant office had been filled, and he

* Vita Abbatum, Edit. 1640, vol. i. p. 56.

therefore took up his residence at Dunstable, where he brought out the miracle-play of "St. Catherine," and borrowed from the sacrist of St. Albans some of the ecclesiastical vestments of the abbey to adorn his actors! On the following night, Geoffrey's house took fire, and the borrowed wardrobe perished in the flames; upon which, the said Geoffrey, considering it a judgment of Heaven, assumed the habitum religionis in good earnest, and subsequently becoming himself abbot of St. Albans, expired in the odour of sanctity, A.D. 1146.* This "judgment," however, does not appear to have equally terrified the successors of Geoffrey in theatrical management; for in the" Manuel de Peché," a Norman-French poem,† written about the middle of the thirteenth century, the author charges the clergy not only with contriving and inventing miracle-plays, but says, they painted or disguised their faces with vizards, to act in them; and denounces as downright sacrilege the lending of any holy vestment, or horse, or harness, (most likely armour,) for the representation thereof. In the reign of Edward the Third, we find a glorious catalogue of dresses and properties furnished for the plays, maskings, or disguisings that took place when the King kept his Christmas in the Castle of Guilford; ‡ such as visors for men and for women, some to represent angels," made with silver," mantles embroidered with heads of dragons, white tunics wrought with heads and wings of peacocks, others with heads and wings of swans, some painted with eyes of peacocks, and some embroidered with stars of gold and silver. These habits, however, were evidently so fantastic that it is probable they were assumed merely for a

* Bulæus, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis. Paris, 1665, vol. ii. p. 225.

+ MS. Royal. 20 B. xiv. and Harl. Coll. 1701. Annals of the Stage, vol. i. p. 7. 9.

Collier's

Comp. J. Cooke, Provisoris Magnæ Gardarobæ, ab ann. 21 Edw. III. ad ann. 23. Membr. ix. Wharton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 72. Collier's Annals of the Stage,

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mumming, or dumb show,- a favourite entertainment of the middle ages.

In the next reign, there is an entry in the wardrobe accounts, for "21 linen coifs, to represent men of the law with in the King's plays," at Christmas, in the twelfth year of his (Richard the Second's) reign, A.D. 1389. Imagine a play with twenty-one lawyers in it! But, genius of Ducrow! what is the next piece of information respecting dramatic pageantry which the annals of the English stage afford us? A chronicle in the Cotton Collection gives a description of a performance at Windsor, before the Emperor Sigismond and King Henry the Fifth, during the visit of the former to England in 1416, founded on no less a subject than "St. George and the Dragon!" In the first part was exhibited the " armyng of St. George, an angel doing on his spurs;" in the second, St. George riding and fighting with the dragon, with his spear in his hand; and in the

*

* Caligula, B. ii.

third, St. George and the King's daughter leading the lamb in at the castle-gates. It is a question, we humbly conceive, whether "his Majesty's servants," in the year 1416, were not more splendidly and correctly attired than "his Majesty's servants" in the year 1836. As far as the chivalric appointments went, indeed, it does not admit of a doubt; for nothing can be less like armour than the "leather conveniences" into which theatrical tailors stuff our modern representatives of the "mirrors of knighthood."

The valuable labours of Mr. Wharton, in his "History of English Poetry," and of Mr. Payne Collier, in his "Annals of the Stage," have brought to light many curious notices of the expenses attending the getting up of pageants and dramatic shows during the reigns of Henry the Sixth, Edward the Fourth, Richard the Third, and Henry the Seventh ; and the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed are replete with descriptions of the gorgeous masqueradings of our eighth Harry and his splendid court. Grotesque effect, or mere magnificence, appear, however, to have been the principal objects in such exhibitions, which were little more than the disguisings and mummings we have before mentioned; but a roll in the Chapter-house at Westminster, examined by Mr. Collier, contains some particulars respecting the interludes performed at Richmond during the Christmas holidays, A.D. 1514-15. In one, called " The Triumph of Love and Beauty,' written and acted by Master William Cornyshe, and others of the King's Chapel, and the children of the Chapel, "Venus and Bewte dyd tryumph over al ther enemys, and tamed a salvadge man and a lyon, that was made very rare and naturall; and moreover Venus dyd synge a song with Bewte, which was lykyd of al that harde yt, every staffe endyng after this

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"Bowe you downe, and doo your deutye,
To Venus and the goddess Bewty;
We tryumpe hye over all,

Kings attend when we doo call." "

* 3 vols. small 8vo. London, 1831.

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