It is an ancient legend that the castle of Winchester was built by the renowned king Arthur, in 523; but Dr. Milner ascertains that it was constructed in the reign of the Norman conqueror. In its old chapel, now termed the county hall,

VOL. I.-6.

Warton.

is Arthur's Round Table. It hangs at the east end, and consists of stout oak plank, perforated with many bullets, supposed to have been shot by Cromwell's salaicis. It is painted with a figure to represent king Arthur, and with the names of his

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twenty-four knights, as they are stated in the romances of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is represented by the above engraving.

King Arthur's round table was believed to have been actually made, and placed in Winchester castle by himself; and was exhibited, as his veritable table, by king Henry VIII., to the emperor Charles V. Hence Drayton sings

And so great Arthur's seat ould Winchester prefers,

Whose ould round table yet she vaunteth to be hers.

It is certain that among the learned, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was not generally credited that this had really and truly been the table of the renowned king Arthur. There is now evidence that it was introduced into this country by king Stephen. In the twelfth and succeeding centuries, knights who were accustomed to perform feats of chivalry used to assemble at a table of this form to avoid disputes for precedency. From this usage, the tournaments themselves obtained the name of the Round Table, and are so called in the records of

the times."

Arthur's round table was mentioned two centuries and a-half ago, by Paulus Jovius, who relates the emperor's visit to it, and states that many marks of its antiquity had been destroyed, that the names of the knights were then just written afresh, and the table, with its ornaments, newly repaired.t

It is agreed that this vestige of former times is of a date quite as early as Stephen, earl of Bologn, and Mortaigne, who, in 1135, achieved the chivalrous feat of seizing the crown of England, which had been settled on the empress Maud, as sole descendant of Henry I. The round table at Winchester, therefore, is at least seven hundred years old.

The reign of Arthur, the celebrated "British king," seems to have been taken on the authority of the no less celebrated Geoffrey of Monmouth, the monkish historian, in the reign of king Stephen. On this occasion it is sufficient to add, that, besides the old romance, there is a ballad, called "The Noble Acts of King Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table; with the Valiant Atchievements of Sir

Milner's History of Winchester. Hist. of Winchester, by Warton.

Lancelot du Lake: to the tune of Flying
Fame." The ballad commences thus:

When Arthur first in court began,
And was approved king;
By force of arms great victories won,
And conquest home did bring:
Then into Britain straight he came,
Where fifty good and able
Knights then repaired unto him,
Which were of the Round Table.*

CHARLES II.

In the diary of Mr. Pepys, who in the reign of Charles II., as secretary to the navy and military secretary, was constantly at Whitehall, and well acquainted with its affairs, there are numerous traits of the king's public and private conduct, and the manners of the court.

Extracts from Pepys's Diary.

1663. May 15. "The king desires nothing but pleasures, and hates the very sight or thought of business. If any of the sober counsellors give him good advice, and move him in any thing that is to his good and honor, the other part, which are his counsellors of pleasure, take him when he is with my lady Castlemaine, and in a humour of delight, and then persuade him that he ought not to hear nor listen to the advice of those old dotards or counsellors that were heretofore his enemies, when, God knows, it is they that now-adays do most study his honor."

1666. December 8. "Mr. Cowley heard Tom Killigrew publicly tell the king that his matters were coming into a very ill state, but that yet there was a way to help all. Says he, There is a good, honest, able man, that I could name, that if your majesty would employ, and command to see all well executed, all things would soon be mended; and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the court, and hath no other employment; but, if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it.' The king do not profit by any of this, but lays all aside, and remembers nothing, but to his pleasures again; which is a sorrowful consolation."

14. "Met my good friend, Mr. Evelyn, and walked with him a good while, lamenting our condition for want

Collection of Old Ballads, 1726, ii. 21.

19. For the want of pay to the household "many of the music are ready to starve, they being five years behind hand: nay, Evans, the famous man upon the harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark, at night, without one link, but that Mr. Hingston met it by chance, and did give 12d to buy two or three."

1667. April 26. "Took a turn with Mr. Evelyn, with whom I walked two hours, talking of the badness of the government, where nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women, commanded the king: it is not in his nature to gainsay any thing that relates to his pleasures. Mr. Evelyn tells me of several of the menial servants of the court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the king's coming in. Want of paper at the council the other day; Wooly being to have found it, and, being called, did tell the king to his face the reason of it."

June 23. "Mr. Povey tells me his opinion that it is out of possibility for us to escape being undone, there being nothing in our power to do that is necessary for the saving us a lazy prince, no councils, no money, no reputation at home or abroad. The king hath taken ten times more care and pains in making friends between lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did to save the kingdom; nay, upon any falling out between my lady Castlemaine's nurse and her woman, my lady C. hath often said she would make the king to make them friends and be quiet, which the king hath been fain to do."

July 27. "Went to visit Sir G. Cartwright. He tells me that the court is in a fair way to ruin all for their plea sures; and that he himself hath taken the liberty to tell the king the necessity of having, at least, a show of religion in the government, and sobriety; and that it was that that did set up. and keep up Oliver.”

29. "The king made a short, and no very pleasing speech to the house of commons, not at all giving them thanks for their readiness to come up to town at this busy time; but told them that he did think he should have had occasion for them, but had none, and therefore he did dismiss

any should offer to bring in a suspicion that he intended to rule by an army, and so bade them go and settle the minds of the country in that particular. Thus they are dismissed, to their general great distaste, to see themselves so fooled, and the nation certain of ruin; while the king, they see, is only governed by his women, and rogues about him. They do all give up the kingdom for lost that I speak to; and do hear what the king says, how he and the duke of York do do what they can to get up an army, that they may need no more parliaments; and how my lady Castlemaine hath said to the king, that he must rule by an army, or all would be lost. The kingdom never in so troubled a condition in this world as now. To Whitehall, and looking out of the window into the garden, I saw the king, whom I have not had any desire to see since the Dutch came upon the wars to Sheerness, for shame that I should see him, or he me, after such a dishonour With him, in the garden, two or three idle lords; and instantly after him, in another walk, my lady Castlemaine-how imperious this woman is, and hectors the king to whatever she will. She is come to-day, when, one would think, his mind should be full of some other cares, having but this morning broken up such a parliament, with so much discontent, and so many wants upon him. There is not an officer in the house, almost, but curses him for letting them starve, and there is not a farthing of money to be raised for the buying them bread."

1667-8. Feb. 13. "Tom Killigrew hath a fee out of the wardrobe for cap and bells, under the title of the king's fool or jester; and may revile or jeer any body, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his place."

Dec. 3. "To Whitehall-saw all the ladies, and heard the silly discourse of the king with his people about him, telling a story of my lord Rochester."

1668-9. Feb. 17." The king, dining yesterday at the Dutch ambassador's, after dinner they drank, and were pretty merry: among the king's company was that worthy fellow my lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear, in the king's presence; which do give much offence to the people here, to see how cheap the king makes himself, and the

more for that the king hath not only passed by the thing, and pardoned it to Rochester already, but this very morning the king did publicly walk up and down, and Rochester I saw with him as free as ever, to the king's everlasting shame to have so idle a rogue his companion."

1667. Sept. 3. "I dined with Sir G.Carteret (vice-chamberlain); after dinner I was witness of a horrid rating which Mr. Ashburnham, as one of the grooms of the king's bed-chamber, did give Mr, Townshend (officer of the wardrobe), for want of linen for the king's person, which he swore was not to be endured, and that the king would not endure it, and that his father would have hanged his wardrobe man, should he have been served so; the king having at this day no handkerchiefs, and but three bands to his neck. Mr. Townshend pleaded want of money, and the owing of the linen-draper £5000; but still this old man (Mr. Ashburnham), like an old loving servant, did cry out for the king's person to be so neglected. When he was gone, Mr. Townshend told me that it is the grooms' taking away the king's linen at the quarter's end, as their fees, which makes this great want; for, whether the king can get it or no, they will run away at the quarter's end with what he hath had, let the king get more as he can."

Waller, in a letter to St. Evremond, mentions Charles's vexation under the

pillage he suffered from his ill-paid

household.

"Last night," says Waller, "I supped at lord R.'s with a select party. The most perfect good-humour was supported through the whole evening; nor was it in the least disturbed, when, unexpectedly, towards the end of it, the king came in. 'Something has vexed him,' said Rochester; he never does me this honor, but when he is in an ill humor. """ The following dialogue, or something very like it, then ensued:

"The king. How the devil have I got here? The knaves have sold every cloak in the wardrobe.

"Rochester. Those knaves are fools. That is a part of dress, which, for their own sakes, your majesty ought never to be without.

"The king. Pshaw !-I'm vexed! "Rochester. I hate still life-I'm glad of it. Your majesty is never so entertaining as when

The Rev. Mr. Granger, the most charitable, and least prejudiced of biographical historians, says, that "Charles II., though a genius, acted in direct opposition to every principle of sound policy; and, in appearance, without propensity to tyranny, made no scruple of embracing such mea

sures as were destructive to the civil and

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religious liberties of his people. chose rather to be a pensioner to France, than the arbiter of Europe; and to sacrifice the independence of his kingdom, and the happiness of his subjects, than to

resist his attachment to indolence and

pleasure. He, under the veil of openness and candour, concealed the deepest and most dangerous dissimulation. Though he was a slave to love, he appears to have been an entire stranger to the softer sentiments of pity and compassion. He was gay, affable, and polite; and knew how to win the hearts, when he could no longer gain the esteem of mankind.”

A cheerful Glass.

On the proclamation of James II., in the market place of Bromley, by the Sheriff of Kent, the commander of the Kentish troop, two of the king's trumpets,

and other officers, they drank the king's health in a flint glass of a yard long.*

ON DRESS, TEMP. CHARLES II.

The Monmouth, or military cock of the hat, was much worn in this reign, and continued a considerable time in fashion. The periwig, which had been long used in France, was introduced into England

soon after the Restoration.

There is a tradition that the large black wig which Dr. R. Rawlinson bequeathed, among other things of much less consideration, to the Bodleian Library, was worn by Charles II.

Some were greatly scandalized at this article of dress, as equally indecent with long hair; and more culpable, because more unnatural. Many preachers inveighed against it in their sermons, and cut their hair shorter, to express their abhorrence of the reigning mode.

It was observed that a periwig procured many persons a respect, and even veneration, which they were strangers to before, and to which they had not the least claim from their personal merit. The judges and physicians, who thoroughly understood this magic of the wig, gave it all the advantage of length, as well as

size.

The extravagant fondess of some men for this unnatural ornament is scarcely credible. It is related, of a country gentleman, that he employed a painter to place periwigs upon the heads of several of Vandyck's portraits.

Anthony Wood informs us that Nath. Vincent, D. D., chaplain in ordinary to the king, preached before him at Newmarket, in a long periwig, and Holland sleeves, according to the then fashion for gentlemen; and that his majesty was so offended at it, that he commanded the duke of Monmouth, chancellor to the university of Cambridge, to see the statutes concerning decency of apparel put in execution; which was done accordingly.

The lace neckcloth became in fashion in this, and continued to be worn in the two following reigns.

Open sleeves, pantaloons, and shoulder knots, were also worn at this period, which was the era of shoe-buckles: but ordinary people, and such as affected plainness in their garb, continued for a

long time after to wear strings in their

shoes.

The clerical habit seems not to have been worn in its present form, before this reign.

Thiers, in his "Treatise of Perukes," informs us that no ecclesiastic wore a band before the middle of the last century, or a peruke before the Restoration: The clerical band, which was first worn

with broad lappets, apparently had its vided under the chin. origin from the falling band, which is di

The ladies' hair was curled and frizzled with the nicest art, and they frequently set it off with "heartbreakers"-artificial curls. Sometimes a string of pearls, or an ornament of riband, was worn on the head; and, in the latter part of this reign, hoods of various kinds were in fashion.

Patching and painting the face, than which nothing was more common in France, was also too common among the ladies in England. But, what was much worse, they affected a mean betwixt dress and nakedness, which occasioned the publication of a book entitled "A just and seasonable reprehension of naked Breasts and Shoulders, with a Preface by Richard Baxter."

It appears, from the "Memoires de Grammont," that green stockings were worn by one of the greatest beauties of the English court.*.

In Pepys's very minute and ever interesting Diary, there are many curious particulars relating to dress. He notes down of his wearing of great skirts, and a white suit with silver lace to the coat; and that he had come home a black "camlett cloak with gold buttons, and a silk suit." On a Sunday he called at his father's to change his long black cloak for a short one, "long cloaks being quite out;" ana he tells us of his brother bringing him his "jackanapes coat with silver buttons." This was before 1662, in the March of which year he writes, "By and by comes La Belle Pierce to see my wife, and to bring her a pair of perukes of hair, as the fashion is for ladies to wear; which are pretty, and of my wife's own hair." Next month he says, "Went with my wife by coach to the New (Exeter) Exchange, to buy her some things; where we saw some new-fashion petticoats of sarsnet, with a