vants, fair and noble-born ladies, and humble tenants, all mingling there, gentle and simple, without restraint or envy. It is no time to think of such things, for at the cry the yule log is lighted,' which is raised as soon almost as master steward applies the brand, there is a fresh flourish of trumpets, and a hearty Kentish hurrah is given; the wassail-bowl is brought forth and passed briskly around, amid shouts of 'was-hael,' and 'drinkhael;' and the master of the feast bids them aloud be merry,' and drink 'success to the firing.' The shouts and the music are renewed, till the old hall re-echoes, and the rafters ring again.' Merry Christmas' is begun. For a moment there is a lull, while Misrule delivers a short but pithy speech, as a prelude to the toast his herald proclaims, of health and prosperity to the Lord of Penshurst,' a toast that is responded to with a hearty devotion, which tells, louder than the trumpets that accompany the cheering, of the affectionate regard with which this unrestrained intercourse unites the lord to his dependents.

Few and brief are the ceremonies, for the feast tonight is especially devoted to the servants and tenants, whose mirth ceremony would rather damp than enkindle. Misrule, as host, passes from table to table with continuous admonitions of drink, my masters; drink and be merry,' an injunction that in both its parts appears to be most loyally observed. Some of the choicer voices sing a three-part song, and one and another ballad succeeds. As a fresh brewing of the 'spicy nut-brown ale,' the strongest October, with sugar and spices and roasted apples in it-the 'Christmas lamb's-wool'-is brought in, one of the revellers leads off with the popular ditty:

"Back and side go bare, go bare,

Both hand and foot go cold;

But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old,"

and all join with mirthful gravity in the chorus.
Misrule sees that the mirth will go on without him,
and he has other sport to prepare. He and his followers
withdraw as the song ends, taking care to repeat as he
reaches the door his old 'be merry.' Master Silence,
of Doubledone Grange, down by the Eden (a descendant
of the Silences of Gloucestershire), who has left his
wife at home sick of the ague, after having sat
hitherto in quiet attendance on the bowl, catches at
Misrule's parting words, and breaks forth in a rhyme
that has been carefully preserved in the family from the
time of his ancestor, the Justice Silence of immortal

memory:

"Be merry, be merry, my wife's as all,

For women are shrews, both great and small:
"Tis merry in the hall when beards wag all,
And welcome merry Christmas."

My lord's fool sidles up at the unwonted voice, but the joke he is about to break at Master Silence's expense is interrupted by a loud smack that resounds from the lower end of the hall, followed by a sudden bustle and outburst of obstreperous laughter. A dozen

young men have just returned from the wood where they had gone to 'fetch the mistletoe,' and they have slily suspended from the gallery a goodly bunch of it, directly over the heads of a group of buxom maidens who happened to be chatting together there, and upon whose rosy lips instant assault was made. The usual rushing and struggling succeeds, and it is long before the lighthearted lads and lasses tire of this frolicking. There follows a noisy round of rustic games; and before the rougher jollity begins to flag, my lord and lady and their privileged guests take their seats on the dais, the musicians appear in the gallery, the attendants call out room there, places, places!' while the whisper passes round, 'here be the Mummers.'

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The middle of the hall is speedily cleared, and something approaching silence obtained. All eyes are directed to the door, where appears to be some little scuffling; but after several gruff repetitions of 'Stand back, stand back, I say!' the intruder makes good his entrance. He is a burly figure with along white beard, and locks of the same colour hanging down his shoulders. His dress is a robe of sheep-skins, in his hand he carries a long staff, on his head is a coronet of holly. This portly personage advances, expostulating with the door-keepers who still retain hold of him, till he reaches the fire, when he turns to the company and tells the purpose of his coming. Ben Jonson has preserved his speech for us, with some trifling alterations, which we take leave to remove. Hear his oration :

"Why Gentlemen, do you know what you do, eh? would you keep me out? Christmas, old Christmas, Christmas of Kent, and Captain Christmas? Pray you let me be brought before my Lord Misrule, I'll not be answered else: 'Tis merry in the hall when beards wag all: I ha' seen the time when you'd ha' wished for me, for a merry Christmas; and now you ha' me, they would not let me in: I must come another time! a good jest, as if I could come more than once a year. Why I'm no dangerous person, and so I told my friends o'the gate. I'm old Christmas still, and though I come from the Pope's Head, as good a Protestant as any i' the parish. The truth is, I ha' brought a masque here, out o'the country, o' my own making; and do present it by a set of my sons, that comes out of the lanes of Kent, good dancing boys all. Bones o'bread, his lordship! son Rowland, son Clym, be ready there in a trice."

The mummers so called upon quickly come capering in; they are the best of Misrule's jovial crew, with two or three light-heeled damsels; and all are daintily attired in accordance with their several characters. After them enters a motley crowd, who have disguised themselves under the direction of the almoner, a special master in the craft of mumming and interlude-making. Some are clad in Lincoln green, and represent Robin Hood and his merry men, not omitting friar Tuck and maid Marian; others appear as St. George and King Alexander. But the major part are content with little more than a change of clothes as complete as they can devise, and so much disguising of the face as they

can effect with burnt brands and red ochre. The chief object is to be as unlike themselves as possible: sixfeet men are arrayed therefore in the gowns and kirtles of the servant-wenches, or the cast-off finery of the mistress; the women have donned retainer's jerkins, or wagoner's gaberdines; children have long beards and crutches, and old men have been forced into giant bibs, and other infantile attire, while the transformed children are holding them by leading-strings. And "the hobbyhorse is not forgot." He is the most popular actor in the mumming, and care has been taken to find a proper person to play the part: one who knows the reins, the careers, the pranks, the ambles, both rough and smooth, the false trots, and the Canterbury paces; and can manage his pasteboard half with any player in the county. Next the hobby-horse in rank and favour is the dragon, the master Snap' of famous memory, who continued to make his annual appearance in the Norwich pageants till about a dozen years ago, when, after having survived him a full century, he followed the last hobbyhorse to the limbo appointed for all such vanities. The chief mummers deliver some short complimentary verses to the master of the house, and dance some fanciful rounds; the hobby-horse does his best amblings, while my lord's jester adds some odd tricks and extempore jokes and rhymes to the intense relish of the not overfastidious audience: and amid the loudest clamour of sackbuts, cornets, and kettle-drums, the mummers, after marching in purposely uncouth procession three or four times round the hall, take their departure.

"Marry now, does not Master Nimble-needle play the hobby most bravely?" asks a ruddy farmer, somewhat past the middle age, of a rather sour-looking junior who sits beside him. "Nay, forsooth," replies the person so addressed, "I like not such harlotry and ethnic antics. Your hobby-horse and dragon I cannot away with, and these baudie pipers and thundring drummers who strike up this devil's dance withalverily they are an abhomination to me!"-borrowing, by anticipation, a portion of a most irate denunciation which good Master Philip Stubbes, some half-century or so later, uttered against what he called "this heathenish devilrie." "Now, surely, friend Thumplast," returns the other, "this dancing be none so wicked a thing David, you know, danced; and, as Sir Tobias our good master's chaplain asked, in his sermon, only last Sunday, Doth not the motion and the music help to cheer the spirits, and chase away melancholy phantasies, and so comfortably recreate both body and mind?"""Now, in troth, neighbour Snayth, this is a most profane comparison of thine, to liken this pestiferous dance about this idol calf-this Philistine Dagon-to such a dance as David danced before the ark withal. But for health's sake, I grant you, dancing may be both wholesome and profitable, so it be practised as Master New-light the silenced preacher adviseth -'privately and apart, every sex by themselves'-and then, mayhap it might be accompanied with pipe and timbrel, and there should yet be in it neither wantonness nor popish heathenry."

Three or four treble voices are heard, from behind the screen, singing one of those carols that are so impressive and even solemn, in their primitive simplicity of phrase. It is intended to recal the listeners to a remembrance of the sacredness of the season; for our forefathers had an unsuspecting habit of mingling religious thoughts with their wildest mirth, and cheerfulness with their devotion, in a way that seems very strange, and even profane, in these later and more enlightened times. Thus runs the carol: "As Joseph was a-walking, He heard an angel sing, 'This night shall be born Our heavenly King! "He neither shall be born

In housen nor in hall, Nor in the place of Paradise

But in an ox's stall,'" &c.

There is a religious silence while the hymn is singing, but it only for that while delays the mirth, which is renewed as soon as it has ceased. The games and dances go on, and the cup passes round till midnight, when a soberer joy succeeds. A full choir ranges along the end of the hall, and that most favourite of all old English carols is chanted and listened to with a sweetness and earnest devotion which the sublime anthem often fails excite:

"God rest you merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay;
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day,
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.

Very different is the appearance of the old hall on Christmas morning. The dinner-hour is an early one: the sun is yet high in the heavens, and his rays stream through the stained-glass windows, working a wild confusion of pattern and colour upon the tables and floor, and causing the yule log, which is yet consuming on the hearth, to burn dim. The company, which includes almost all those who were present last night, are ranged at the tables, which are placed lengthwise down the body of the hall. The lord and his friends enter and take their seats at the high-board, which stands on the dais across the hall: my lord has the chief seat, which is in the centre of the board, the arras being drawn over it so as to form a sort of canopy; the others, both ladies and

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There is an over-abundant supply of every kind of flesh and fowl, but fish is not there, that being no meat for feast days.' The rarer dishes are brought to the high-board, and from thence a regular gradation may be traced down the tables, to the plainer and more ordinary but substantial meats at the lower end of the hall; but the distinction is a usual one, and no feeling of abasement is occasioned by what is considered as much a mere matter of etiquette as the arrangement of places. Every course is served like the first, with music, but no other dish calls for a carol, not even the Christmas-pie, the plum porridge, the pudding, or the mighty baron. After dinner, hippocrass and confects are served at the dais, a spiced bowl of less costly wine at the upper tables, and the plain English beverage at the lower end. All as they are bid make themselves merry as best they may. There are more and merrier Christmas sports for the young and the active than in these duller days can easily be fancied; while the seniors and the less lively take to tables and shovel-board, and other of the common games. Each end of the hall has its own amusements. At the upper part something of state is maintained, even in the wildest play. The jester there helps on the mirth, but his wit is of a caustic and comparatively polished kind. At the lower end the merriment is ruder, the jest coarser. There the wit flows from rustics, who, having gained a village celebrity, on this grand occasion put forth their mirth-moving powers with as keen a rivalry as modern wits, whose feet are under the polished mahogany; and if they have less esprit, they have perhaps more good-nature. One tells a tale provocative of broad laughter; another strains his powers of mimicry; while a third is so ready with a * It is still sung with undiminished zeal, though with innovations, in the hall of Queen's College, at Oxford, (see vol. ii., p. 57). The version given above is printed by Wynkyn

de Worde.

clenching quirp, that an admiring listener is tempted to exclaim, "Truly, Maister Jeremiah, an' thy wit groweth at this rate, thou mayest e'en come to be made my lord's fool-save the mark !-some day." "I dare warrant now," chimes in a second, who, by right of serving as parish clerk on Sundays, speaks as one having authority in all matters of wit and scholarship, "I dare warrant now, Maister Jeremie there thinketh he hath wit enow already to serve the turn, should he suffer such preferment; but I trow an' that is a cut above thy reach, Jeremie: 'let every man be satisfied with that God hath given him, and eschew all vain aspirings,' as sayeth the crooked letters over Maister Dominie's desk in our revestry; but come, man, speak out, dost thou not conceive thy wit would serve thee to retort all the gibes and the fleers, the quirks and the floutings, the ruffs and the mopes, and the gullings thou would'st have put upon thee at yonder high-board. Sure I think thou would'st look like a noddy, Maister Jeremie; thy little wit would'st forsake thee, and thou would'st be fain to cry out like thy namesake, in the Lesson, 'Behold, I am dumb; I cannot speak, I am like a child before thee'-eh, Jeremie, what sayest thou?" "Why, marry I say, only let my lord make me his fool, and then show me the man would dare question my wit-or folly either, Maister Leatherlungs!"

But the ears of those who sit at the dais are not shocked by the ribaldry. shocked by the ribaldry. Only the boisterous unchecked bursts of laughter now and then ascend from the bottom of the hall, and provoke once and again a lighter laugh of sympathy. But in truth if some unrefined pleasantry should reach the high-board, it would not greatly offend :—perhaps it would hardly shock the nerves of the ladies seated there-to say nothing of the lords.

When the sports have gone on a fair space, there is a motion made to clear the hall. My lord's minstrels, with a company of players who have come by invitation to Penshurst for the occasion, are to show their skill. The dais is yielded to them, and they proceed to make their preparations behind a curtain which is drawn in front of the platform. But we have no space left to describe their doings. Suffice it that a new interlude both "goodly and merry," has been prepared for this evening; that the players go through their parts to the content of my lord and the more critical part of the assembly, and to the unbounded delight of the remainder; that after the play, the minstrels sing their ballads of "knightly deeds and ladies' love," for the edification of the gentle; and Clym of the Clough, Chevy Chase, and Robin Hood for the simple: that the joculators hold conversations with voices on the roof and under the floor; and transfer handkerchiefs and rings and purses from the hands and the pockets of their owners to the pockets or the persons of honest people in other parts of the room, and do other deeds of no less magical a character, till the rustics fancy the lights burn blue, and look with undisguised terror on the conjurors: that the tumblers throw summersaults, and poise chairs, and plates, and straws, and cast up knives and balls

hangs heavily on the naked lime-washed walls. All that it contains are the long tables that are nearly rotten with age, and a few mouldering breast-plates and matchlocks that lie upon them, and two or three rusty tilting helmets; but one of these,-a very curious one too,—is said to have been worn by Sir Philip Sidney.

The state apartments, those which are open to public inspection, are not very remarkable on their own account, nor very beautiful: it is their contents that are the chief attraction. Yet with their antique furniture, and the quaintly attired family pictures on the walls, they serve to place before the visitor with uncommon distinctness, the domestic life of a former age, and to illustrate obsolete habits. The first room into which the visitor is conducted, on quitting the hall, is the ball-room, which retains to a considerable extent the furniture and fittings it was provided with on occasion of the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Penshurst. The two small odd-looking chandeliers, and the alabaster plates on the table, are said to have been presented to Sir Henry Sidney by her majesty. There are some portraits here, that as works of art will repay examination - especially those by Vandyke; and some are also valuable on account of the persons they represent. The miscellaneous pictures are of small account, though one will attract a moment's notice when it is pointed out as the work of Elizabeth's Earl of L ice ster. The smaller room adjoining contains objects of far greater interest. One is a portrait of himself by Rembrandt, broad, massive, forcible. There are some other pictures here by eminent painters, chiefly of the Italian schools; and there are also some more good old English portraits. On a table is a Sidney relic: Sir Phillip's two-handed sword; a sufficiently formidable weapon no doubt in skilful hands; but withal rather unwieldy. It is a rather curious example of this kind of sword, but that is a point for the antiquary. There are several other noteworthy things in this room, but we must pass on.

The next room is the most perfect and the most interesting, called Queen Elizabeth's drawing-room, on account of its having been furnished by her when about to visit Sir Henry: it still retains its furniture unaltered, save as time alters every thing, since she was its occupant. The room is very spacious, and the furniture, as may be supposed, magnificent; yet not so magnificent as perhaps would be expected. English workmen had not then attained any very great skill in upholstery. The chairs and couches are covered with richly embroidered yellow and crimson damask-the embroidery being, it is affirmed, the work of the Queen and her maids, worked by them in order to do especial honour to Sir Henry, who was a highly esteemed and favoured servant of hers, as he had been of the two preceding monarchs. A table in this room has an embroidered centre-piece, which is related to have been wholly wrought by the Queen's own hand. There are a good many pictures in this room on which we might linger. One or two are of a rememberable character. But the paintings, which are chiefly valuable as works of art, we must

pass unnoticed, notwithstanding that there are some which bear the name of Titian, and of other famous masters. Generally, however, it may be admitted that the pictures at Penshurst are not of a high class. The attention is chiefly claimed by the portraits; and those of the Sidneys are, of course, the most interesting. In this room the portrait of Sir Philip Sidney-a very striking one-claims the first place; but there is to our thinking a still more attractive portrait of our English Bayard in the gallery we shall visit presently. Another noticeable portrait here is that of the lady immortalized in Jonson's famous epitaph as Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.' From these we turn to the representation of a somewhat later Sidney. The portrait of Algernon Sidney was taken shortly before his execution for his alleged participation in the Rye House Plot.' There can be no doubt that the principles of Algernon Sidney were entirely opposed to those of the Government, nor indeed that they were ultra-republican; but there can at the same time be as little hesitancy in affirming that his trial was a mockery, that his condemnation was unjust, or that his execution conferred eternal dishonour on the profligate and unworthy monarch. The portrait is undoubtedly authentic; the period when it was taken is indicated by a representation of the block and executioner in the background, added when the picture was finished, after the death of the illustrious sitter. The face well accords with the character which his contemporaries have left of him : stern, haughty, enthusiastic, impatient of contradiction, but of consummate ability, and unwavering resolution; without any of the poetry of character, or lofty chivalry that rendered the other Sidney the object of such general admiration and devoted attachment, he, perhaps, had even higher qualifications for public life.

In the next room, called the Tapestry Room, from two immense pieces of Gobelin tapestry which are suspended in it, is a portrait of the mother of Sir Philip Sidney; she has pleasing, yet strongly marked features, and much resemblance in character, as well as contour of face to her distinguished descendants. A curious contrast in every respect to the matronly grace and modest dignity of the mother of the Sidneys, is another female portrait also in this room-Nell Gwynne, by Lely, who has here exposed that frail lady's charms. even more freely than he usually does in his innumerable representations of her. In the little ante-room attached to this are a few more pictures of different degrees of merit and interest; and also a relic that never fails of devotees. This is a fragment of Sir Philip Sidney's shaving glass, which being concave, of course shows the face considerably enlarged: one may fancy from it that the good knight was rather curious about having a smooth chin.

The Long Gallery will require some time in its actual examination: here it must be passed over hastily. Among the paintings are some of considerable excellence. They claim the hands of Titian, Da Vinci, Caracci, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Holbein, and others of the great names of different ages and schools: not all