8 "Rob Roy."-In what consists the essence of Poetry? [VOL. 3 "Ye are right, Mr. Owen-ye are cellent book, we must notice that of the right; ye speak weel and wisely; and I "Laigh Kirk," at Glasgow, and the satrust bowls will row right, though they cred service performed there which ocare awee ajee e' enow. But touching curs in the second volume. It is inimiRobin (Roy) I am of opinion he will tably good, and gives prodigious effect befriend this young man if it is in his to the incident which takes place in power. He has a gude heart, puir Rob- "those waste regions of oblivion," where in; and though I lost a matter o' twa "dusky banners, and tattered escutchhunder pounds wi' his former engage- eons indicated the graves of those who ments, and haena muckle expectation were once, doubtless, Princes in Israel;' ever to see back my thousand pund Scots where inscriptions, which could only be that he promises me e'enow, yet I will read by the painful antiquary, in lannever say but that Robin means fair by guage as obsolete as the act of devotional a' men.' charity which they implored, invited the re- passengers to pray for the souls of those whose bodies resteth beneath." 66 6 I am then to consider him,' I plied, as an honest man.' 66 6 Umph,' replied Jarvie, with a precautionary sort of cough, Ay, he has The scenery of Northumberland and a sort o' Hieland honesty-he's honest of the Highlands is painted with a force after a sort, as they say. My father the and colouring equally faithful. An artist deacon used aye to laugh when he tauld would need no other studies to enable ne how that bye-word came up. Ane him to transfer its features from the pa Captain Costlett was cracking crouse per to the canvas. about his loyalty to King Charles, and We can scarcely tear ourselves away Clerk Pettigrew (ye'l! hae heard mony from this fascinating subject; but dare a tale about him) asked him after what not go on, lest we forget all our pledges, manner he served the king, when he was and dash into the very heart of the story. fighting against him at Worster in Crom- Suffice it to repeat, that Rob Roy is worwell's army; and Captain Costlett was a ready body, and said that he served him after a sort. My honest father used to langh weel at that sport-and sae the bye-word came up.' Among the finest pictures of this ex thy of its author, and has added another laurel to his crown, another source to the foains of intellectual enjoyments, another picture to the series of national manners, and another star to the galaxy of national literature. From the Literary Gazette, January, 1818. IN WHAT CONSISTS THE ESSENCE OF POETRY? "Thoughts that voluntary move, sound is the sustained and continuous; the musical in thought and feeling is the OETRY is the music of language, sustained and continuous also. Whenexpressing the music of the mind. ever articulation passes naturally into inWhenever any object takes such a hold tonation, this is the beginning of Poetry. on the mind as to make us dwell on it, There is no natural harmony in the ordiand brood over it, melting the heart in nary combinations of significant sounds. love, or kindling it to a sentiment of ad- The language of prose is not the language miration ;-whenever a movement of of music or of passion; and it is to supimagination or passion is impressed, on ply this inherent defect in the mechanism the mind, by which it seeks to prolong of language,-to make the sound an echo and repeat the emotion, to bring all other to the sense, when that sense becomes a objects into accord with it, and to give sort of echo to itself,-to mingle the tide the same movement of harmony, retain- of verse" the golden cadences of poetry" ed and continuous, to the sounds that ex- with the tide of feeling, or to take the press it, this is Poetry. The musical in imagination off its feet, and spread its VOL. 3.] Shakspeare and his Times.-Gentlemen's Houses, &c. wings where it may indulge its own im- discordant flats and sharps of prose,pulses, without being stopped lor per- that Poetry was invented. plexed by the ordinary abruptness, or 9 From the Monthly Magazine, January, 1818, DR. DRAKE'S SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES.”* A COUNTRY-GENTLEMAN'S MANSION HOUSE IN 1595. length, but to have, at the further end, a winter and a summer parler, both TH HE mansion-houses of the country- faire and under these roomes a faire gentlemen were, in the days of and large cellar, sunke under ground: Shakspeare, rapidly improving both in and likewise, some privie kitchins, with their external appearance, and in their butteries and pantries, and the like." It interior comforts. During the reign of was the custom also to have windows Henry the Eighth, and even of Mary, opening from the parlours and passages, they were, if we except their size, little into the chapel, hall, and kitchen, with better than cottages, being thatched the view of overlooking or controlling buildings, covered on the outside with what might be going on; a trait of vigithe coarsest clay, and lighted only by lant caution, which may still be disco-* lattices; when Harrison wrote, in the vered in some of our ancient colleges age of Elizabeth, though the greater and manor-houses, and to which Shaknumber of manor-houses still remained speare alludes in King Henry the Eighth, framed of timber, yet he observes, where he describes his Majesty and Butts "such as be latelie builded, are comon- the physician entering at a window above, lie either of bricke or hard stone, or which overlooks the council-chamber, both; their roomes large and comelie, We may add, in illustration of this sysand houses of office further distant from their lodgings." The old timber mansions, too, were now covered with the finest plaster, which, says the historian, "beside the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with more exactnesse:" and at the same time, the windows, interior decorations, and furniture, were becoming greatly more useful and elegant. tem of architectural espionage, that Andrew Borde, when giving instructions for building a house in his Dictarie of Health, directs "many of the chambers to have a view into the chapel :" and that Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a letter, dated 1573, says, "if it please her Majesty, she may come in through my gallerie, and see the disposition of the hall in dynner-time, at a window opening thereunto." The house of every country-gentleThe hall of the country-squire was the man of property included a neat chapel usual scene of eating and hospitality, at and a spacious hall; and where the the upper end of which was placed the estate and establishment were consider- orsille or high table, a little elevated able, the mansion was divided into two above the floor, and here the master of parts or sides, one for the state or ban- the mansion presided, with an authority, queting-rooms, and the other for the if not a state, which almost equalled household; but in general, the latter, that of the potent baron. The table was except in baronial residences, was the divided into upper and lower messes, by only part to be met with, and when com- a huge saltcellar, and the rank and con plete had the addition of parlours; thus sequence of the visitors were marked by Bacon, in his Essay on Buildings, de- the situation of the seats above and bescribing the household side of a mansion, low the saltcellar; a custom which not says, "I wish it divided at the first into a ball, and a chappell, with a partition betweene; both of good state and bignesse; and those not to goe all the See Ath. Vol. 2. page 413. CATHENEUM. Vol. 3. only distinguished the relative dignity of the guests, but extended likewise to the nature of the provision, the wine frequently circulating only above the saltcellar, and the dishes below it being of 10 Shakspeare and his Times-Origin and Celebration of May-Day. [voL. 3 a coarser kind than those near the head And than rejoysen in their great delite; of the table. MAY-DAY. Eke ech at other throw the floures bright, And it should be observed, that this, The observance of May-day was a custom which, until the close of the reign of James the First, alike attracted the attention of the royal and the noble, as of the vulgar class. Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth, and James, patronized and accompanied by the morris-dance, and partook of its ceremonies; and, during village in the kingdom but what had a manifestly allude to the costume of this May-pole, with its appropriate games this extended era, there was scarcely a and dances. ing descriptions, by Bourne and Borlase, the games of Robin Hood. The follow age, and to the simpler mode of commemorating the 1st of May: "On the Calends, or the 1st day of May," says The origin of these festivities has been attributed to three different sources, the juvenile part of both sexes were the former, "commonly called May-day, Classic, Celtic, and Gothic. The first appears to us to establish the best claim wont to rise a little after midnight, and to the parentage of our May-day rites, as walk to some neighbouring wood, accoma relique of the Roman Floralia, which pany'd with music, and the blowing of were celebrated on the last four days of from the trees, and adorn them with horns, where they break down branches April, and on the first of May, in hononr of the goddess Flora, and were accom- this is done, they return with their booty nosegays and crowns of flowers. When panied with dancing, music, the wearing homewards, about the rising of the sun, of garlands, strewing of flowers, &c. The Beltein, or rural sacrifice of the Highlanders on this day, as described by to have arisen from a different motive, giving to the sun, if not for the return of flowers, fruit, and grain, yet for the introduction of a better season for fishing and hunting. be The modes of conducting the ceremonies and rejoicings on May-day, may best drawn from the writers of the Eliza bethan period, in which this festival appears to have maintained a very high degree of celebrity, though not accompanied with that splendour of exhibition which took place at an earlier period in the reign of Henry the Eighth. It may be traced, indeed, from the era of Chaucer, who, in the conclusion of his Court of Love, has described the Feast of May, when Forth goth all the court both most and least, To fetch the floures fresh, and braunch and blome And namely hauthorn brought both page and grome and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The afterpart of the day is chiefly spent in danMay poll; which, being placed in a concing round a tall poll, which is called a venient part of the village, stands there, Flowers, without the least violence ofas it were consecrated to the Goddess of fered it, in the whole circle of the year." An antient cusom," says the latter, "still retained by the Cornish, is that of decking their doors and porches on the hawthorn boughs, and of planting trees, 1st of May with green sycamore and or rather stumps of trees, before their houses and on May-eve, they from towns make excursions into the country, and having cut down a tall elm, brought pole to the end of it, and painted the it into town, fitted a straight and taper same,erect it in the most public places,and flower garlands, or insigns and streamers." on holidays and festivals adorn it with of early rising on May-day, that Shak- "Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible YOL. 3.] Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian. Herrick, the minute describer of the customs and superstitions of his times, which were those of Shakspeare, and the immediately succeeding period, has a poem called Corinna's going a Maying, which includes most of the circumstances hitherto mentioned; he thus addresses his mistress : "Get up, and see The dew bespangling herbe and tree': Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east, Nay profanation, to keep in; Or branch: each porch, each doore, ere this, Made up of white-thorn neatly enterwove There's not a budding boy, or girle, this day And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth, Many a green gown has been giv'n; Many a glance too has been sent This night, and locks pickt,yet w'are not a Maying!" "In this our spacious isle, I think there is not one, 11 But he hath heard some talk of him and little John:- In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and their trade;- which, wheresoe'er she came, Her clothes tuck'd to the knee, and dainty braided Was sovereign of the woods, chief lady of the game: hair, With bow and quiver arm'd ;" characters which Warner, the contemporary of Drayton and Shakspeare, has exclusively recorded as celebrating the rites of May; for, speaking of the periods of some of our festivals, and remarking that "ere penticost begun our May," he adds, "Tho' (then) Robin Hood, liell John, frier Tucke, And Marian, deftly play, And lord and ladie gang till kirke With lads and lasses gay: Fra masse and een sang sa gud cheere These four characters, therefore, Robin In consequence of this arrangement, But, about the commencement of the "the old Robin Hood of England," as sixteenth century, or somewhat sooner, Shakspeare calls him, was created the probably towards the middle of the fif- King or Lord of the May, and sometimes teenth century, a very material addition carried in his hand, during the Maywas made to the celebration of the rites game, a painted standard. It was no of May-day, by the introduction of the uncommon circumstance, likewise, for characters of Robin Hood and some of metrical interludes, of a comic species, his associates. This was done with a and founded on the achievements of this view towards the encouragement of arch- outlaw, to be performed, after the morris, ery, and the custom was continued even on the May-pole green. In Garrick's beyond the close of the reign of James I. Collection of Old Plays, occurs one, It is true, that the May-games in their entitled "A mery Geste of Robyn rudest form, the mere dance of lads and Hoode, and of hys Lyfe, wyth a newe lasses round a May-pole, or the simple Playe for to be played in Maye games, morris with the Lady of the May, were very pleasaunte and full of pastyme;" Occasionally seen during the days of it is printed at London, in the black letElizabeth; but the general exhibition ter, for William Copland, and has figures was the more complicated ceremony in the title page of Robin Hood and which we are about to describe. The personages who now became the chief performers in the morris dance, were four of the most popular outlaws of Sherwood forest; that Robin Hood, of whom Drayton says,— Lytel John. Shakspeare appears to allude to these interludes when he represents Fabian, in the Twelfth Night, exclaiming, on the approach of Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek with his challenge, "More matter for May-morning." 12 Shakspeare's Times-Dress-the Copalain Hat, Love Lock, &c. [voL. 3 DRESS OF BEAUX IN THE REIGN OF JAMES 1. time in camps, is drawn with the latter of these beards; and his unfortunate King James's love of finery seems to friend, Lord Essex, is constantly rehave been imbibed, not only by his presented with the former." courtiers, but by all his youthful sub- On the effeminate fashion of this age, jects; for, from the crown of his head perhaps the most effeminate was the to the sole of his foot, nothing can ex- custom of wearing jewels and roses in the ceed the fantastic attire, by which the ears, or about the neck, and of cherishbeau of this period was distinguished. ing a long lock of hair under the left His hair was worn long and flowing, ear,called a love-lock. The first and least "whose length," says Decker, "before offensive of these decorations, the use the rigorous edge of any puritanical of jewels and rings in the ear, was genepair of scissors, should shorten the breadth ral through the upper and middle ranks, of a finger, let the three house-wifely nor was it uncommon to see gems worn spinsters of destiny rather curtail the appended to a ribbon round the neck, thread of thy life; let it play openly Roses were almost always an appendage with the lascivious wind, even on the of the love-lock, but these were, for the top of your shoulder." His hat was most part, formed of ribbon, yet, we are made of silk, velvet, taffeta, or beaver, told by Burton, in bis Anatomy of Methe last being the most expensive; the lancholy, "that it was once the fashion crown was high, and narrow towards the to stick real flowers in the ear." The top, "like the speare or shaft of a love-lock with its termination in a silken steeple," observes Stubbs, "standing rose, had become so notorious, that a quarter of a yard above their heads;" Prynne at length wrote an express treathe edges, and sometimes the whole hat, tise against it, which he entitled, The were embroidered with gold and silver, Unloveliness of Love-locks, and long to which a costly hat-band, sparkling womanish hair, 1628. with gems and a lofty plume of feathers, The ruff never reached the extravawere generally added. It appears, gant dimensions of that in the other sex, from a passage in The Taming of the yet it gradually acquired such magnitude Shrew, that to these high hats the name as to offend the eye of Elizabeth, who, of Copatain was given; for Vincentio, in one of her sumptuary laws, ordered it, surprised at Tranio being dressed as a when reaching beyond "a nayle of a gentleman, exclaims, "Ö fine villain! yeard in depth," to be clipped. 66 a silken doublet! a velvet hose! a The doublet and hose, to the eighth scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat!" a year of Elizabeth's reign, had been of an word which Mr. Steevens considers as enormous size, especially the breeches, synonymous with a high copt hat. It which being puckered, stuffed, bolstered was usual with gallants to wear gloves and distended with wool and hair, atin their hats, as a memorial of their ladies' favour. tained a magnitude so preposterous, that, as Strutt relates on the authority of a Of the beard and its numerous forms, MS. in the Harleian collection, "there we have already seen a numerous de- actually was a scaffold erected round tail by Harrison, to which we may sub- the inside of the parliament house for join, that it was customary to dye it of the accoinmodation of such members as various colours, and to mould into vari- wore those huge breeches; and that the ⚫ous form, according to the profession, said scaffold was taken down when, in age, or fancy, of the wearer. Red was the eighth of Elizabeth, those absurdione of the most fashionable tints; a ties went out of fashion. beard of "formal cut" distinguished The doublet was then greatly reduced the justice and the judge; a rough bushy in size, yet so hard-quilted, that Stubbes beard marked the clown, and a spade says, the wearer could not bow himself beard, or a stilletto, or dagger-shaped to the ground, so stiff and sturdy it stood beard, graced the soldier. "It is ob- about him. It was made of cloth, silk, servable," remarks Mr. Malone, "that or satin, fitting the body like a waistcoat, our author's patron, Henry, earl of surmounted by a large cape, and acSouthampton, who spent much of his companied either with long close sleeves, |