his building a new house on his purchase, he could not come to live in it till 1546, but that his workmen were continued to build the walls about his gardens, and other conveniences off from the house. And till he came to live in the house he could not well have an opportunity of observing how Richard Plantagenet retired with his book. So that it was probably towards the latter end of the year 1546 when Richard and Sir Thomas had the fore-mentioned dialogue together. Consequently, Richard could not build his house, and have it dry enough for him to live in, till the year 1547. So that he must be 77 or 78 years of age before he had his writ of ease.

52. THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.

ANONYMOUS.

[THE whole of the sixteenth century was marked by important changes of every kind-political, religious, and social. The wars with France, and the internal contests of the Roses, were over, and the energy of the nation was directed to new objects. Trade and commerce were extended; fresh sources of wealth were developed; and new classes of society sprung up into importance, whose riches enabled them to outvie the old landed gentry, but who had few of their hereditary tastes and habits. Hence the innovation of old customs, and the decay of ancient manners, to which the gentry themselves were compelled to conform. The following song, which is printed in the 'Percy Reliques,' from an ancient black-letter copy in the 'Pepys Collection,' is a lament over the changes which had taken place in the early part of the seventeenth century, as compared with the days of Queen Elizabeth.]

An old song made by an aged old pate,

Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate,

That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,

And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate;

Like an old courtier of the queen's,

And the queen's old courtier.

With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages,
That every quarter paid their old servants their wages,

And never knew what belong'd to coachmen, footmen, nor pages,
But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges;

Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old study fill'd full of learned old books,

With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks; With an old buttery hatch, worn quite off the hooks,

And an old kitchen that maintain'd half-a-dozen old cooks;

Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old hall hung about with pikes, guns, and bows,

With old swords, and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows, And an old frieze coat to cover his worship's trunk hose;

And a cup of old sherry to comfort his copper nose;

Like an old courtier, &c.

With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,
To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum,
With good cheer enough to furnish every
old room,
And old liquor able to make a cat speak and a man dumb ;
Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old falconer, huntsman, and a kennel of hounds,
That never hawk'd nor hunted but in his own grounds,
Who, like a wise man, kept himself within his own bounds,
And when he died gave every child a thousand good pounds;
Like an old courtier, &c.

But to his eldest son his house and lands he assign'd,
Charging him in his will to keep the old bountiful mind,
To be good to his old tenants, and to his neighbours be kind;
But in the ensuing ditty you shall hear how he was inclined;
Like a young courtier of the king's,

And the king's young courtier.

Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land,
Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command,
And takes up a thousand pounds upon his father's land,
And gets drunk in a tavern till he can neither go nor stand;
Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new-fangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare,
Who never knew what belong'd to good house-keeping, or care;
Who buys gaudy-colour'd fans to play with wanton air,
And seven or eight different dressings of other women's hair ;
Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new-fashion'd hall, built where the old one stood,

Hung round with new pictures that do the poor no good;

With a fine marble chimney, wherein burns neither coal nor wood, And a new smooth shovel-board, whereon no victuals ne'er stood;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new study stuft full of pamphlets and plays,

And a new chaplain that swears faster than he prays,

With a new buttery hatch that opens once in four or five days,
And a new French cook to devise fine kickshaws and toys;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,

And a new journey to London straight we all must be gone,
And leave none to keep house but our new porter John,

Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete ;
With a new coachman, footman, and pages to carry up the meat;
With a waiting gentlewoman, whose dressing is very neat,

Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat;

Like a young courtier, &c.

With new titles of honour, bought with his father's old gold,
For which sundry of his ancestors' old manors are sold;
And this is the course most of our new gallants hold,
Which makes that good house-keeping is now grown so cold,
Among our young courtiers of the king,

Or the king's young courtiers.

53. THE MODERN DRAMATIC POETS.-I.

[IN subsequent Half-Hours' we shall give scenes from some of the great dramatic writers who were contemporary with Shakspere-from Webster, Ben Jonson, Dekker, Beaumont and Fletcher, and others, as we have already given Scenes from Massinger. The golden age of the English Drama did not last for Imore than sixty years. After an interval in which the Stage, in common with many other of the graces and refinements of life, was proscribed by a misdirected though sincere zeal, the Restoration gave us a degenerate and corrupt dramafalse in its principles of Art, debasing in its gross licentiousness. The Augustan age, as it used to be called, brought its brilliant Comedy, in which Wit went hand in hand with Profligacy-meretricious sisters-and its feeble Tragedy, which rested its claims upon its dissimilarity to Shakspere. From Cato to Irene we had no serious drama that was not essentially based upon French models-declamation taking the place of passion, and monotonous correctness substituted for poetical fervour. In our own times, and in a great degree by living authors, the imitation of the old drama, or, to speak more correctly, the knowledge of the principles upon which the old dramatists worked, has given us a dramatic literature which will not, we venture to think, be forgotten by coming generations.]

DE MONFORT.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

[MISS BAILLIE'S 'Series of Plays to delineate the stronger Passions of the Mind' was the first great attempt to cast off the frigid conventionalities that had long encumbered all modern dramatic poetry. Here was a woman of genius working upon a bold theory. The notion of making the conduct of a drama wholly rest upon the development of one intense master passion appears to us a

mistake. Passions, as they exist in actual life, and as they are portrayed by the greatest poetical revealers of man's nature, are complicated and modified by the antagonism of motives and circumstances. Othello is not simply jealous-Macbeth not merely ambitious. It is to this cause that we may perhaps attribute the circumstance that one only, we believe, of Joanna Baillie's Plays has been acted, although they were written for the stage, as every drama must be that has a dramatic vitality. But, whatever may be the defects of their scenic construction, they are, in many respects, models of strong and earnest dialogue, which rejects all cumbrous ornament, and is really poetical through its unaffected simplicity. This was a revolution in dramatic composition. It is half a century since these 'Plays on the Passions' were published. Their authoress lived to see many changes in literary reputation; but none in which she was not recognised with the honours which very few can permanently win and wear. She died on Feb. 23, 1851, aged 89.]

'De Monfort,' from which the following scene is extracted, is founded upon the passion of hatred. De Monfort has fostered, from early years, a hatred of Rezenvelt-a hatred which he feels to be unjust and at variance with his own better nature. His noble sister, Jane de Monfort, thus struggles to expel the demon which torments and finally destroys him:

De Mon. No more, my sister, urge me not again;
My secret troubles cannot be reveal'd.
From all participation of its thoughts

My heart recoils: I pray thee be contented.

Jane. What! must I, like a distant humble friend,
Observe thy restless eye, and gait disturb'd,
In timid silence, whilst, with yearning heart,
I turn aside to weep? Oh, no, De Monfort!
A nobler task thy nobler, mind will give ;
Thy true intrusted friend I still shall be.

De Mon. Ah, Jane, forbear! I cannot e'en to thee.
Jane. Then fie upon it! fie upon it, Monfort!
There was a time when e'en with murder stained,

Had it been possible that such dire deed

Could e'er have been the crime of one so piteous,

Thou wouldst have told it me.

De Mon. So would I now--but ask of this no more.

All other troubles but the one I feel

I had disclosed to thee. I pray thee spare me.

It is the secret weakness of my nature.

Jane. Then secret let it be; I urge no farther.

The eldest of our valiant father's hopes,

So sadly orphan'd, side by side we stood,

Like two young trees, whose boughs, in early strength,
Screen the weak saplings of the rising grove,

And brave the storm together

I have so long, as if by nature's right,

Thy bosom's inmate and adviser been,

I thought through life I should have so remain'd,
Nor ever known a change. Forgive me, Monfort;
A humbler station will I take by thee;

The close attendant of thy wand'ring steps;

The cheerer of this home, with strangers sought;
The soother of those griefs I must not know.

This is mine office now: I ask no more.

De Mon. Oh, Jane! thou dost constrain me with thy love. Would I could tell it thee!

Jane. Thou shalt not tell me! Nay, I'll stop mine ears,

Nor from the yearnings of affection wring

What shrinks from utt'rance. Let it pass, my brother.
I'll stay by thee; I'll cheer thee, comfort thee;
Pursue with thee the study of some art,
Or nobler science, that compels the mind
To steady thought progressive, driving forth
All floating, wild, unhappy fantasies;
Till thou, with brow unloaded, smilest again ;
Like one who, from dark visions of the night,
When th' active soul within its lifeless cell
Holds its own world, with dreadful fancy press'd
Of some dire, terrible, or murd'rous deed,
Wakes to the dawning morn, and blesses heaven.

De Mon. It will not pass away; 't will haunt me still.
Jane. Ah! say not so; for I will haunt thee too,

And be to it so close an adversary,

That, though I wrestle darkling with the fiend,

I shall o'ercome it.

De Mon.

Thou most gen'rous woman!

Why do I treat thee thus? I should not be

And yet I cannot-Oh that cursed villain!

He will not let me be the man I would.

Jane. What say'st thou, Monfort? Oh! what words are these? They have awaked my soul to dreadful thoughts.

I do beseech thee speak!

By the affection thou didst ever bear me;

By the dear memory of our infant days;
By kindred living ties; ay, and by those

Who sleep i' the tomb, and cannot call to thee,
I do conjure thee speak!

Ha! wilt thou not?

Then, if affection, most unwearied love,

Tried early, long, and never wanting found,