nights, where masques and dancings had a continual motion; the King naturally affecting such high-flying pastimes and banquetings as might wrap up his spirit and keep it from descending towards earthly things.' "* No doubt earthly things, and the opinions of earthly people, would have given him but little satisfaction. This shameful marriage spread abroad a general sentiment of disgust, fast verging into emotions of a still deeper character, from the remembrance of one of its attendant circumstances. Rochester's friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, who had assisted him in his stolen interview with the then Countess of Essex, when the marriage was proposed, objected very naturally to it, urging the "baseness of the woman." Rochester, in his infatuation, told the Countess what Sir Thomas had said, who from that moment determined to destroy him. The unfortunate man was seduced by Rochester's professions of friendship to refuse an embassy which had been purposely offered to him, and that refusal was made matter of accusation with the King. He was thrown into the Tower; Sir William Wade, the lieutenant, removed, and a creature of Rochester's and the Countess put in his place; and the very day before the sentence of divorce from the Earl of Essex was obtained, Sir Thomas Overbury died in his dungeon. Among the feasts given in honour of Rochester, now Earl of Somerset, and his bride, was one where the gentlemen of Gray's Inn were the entertainers; who, it appears, did it very unwillingly, for Bacon claimed the entire merit of vanquishing their reluctance. He had his reward for this and other equally sycophantic acts. He was created Chancellor in November 1616; and when James visited Scotland in 1617 he was intrusted with such extraordinary powers, that the great philosopher turned giddy with the elevation. According to Sir Anthony Weldon, a caustic reporter of his conduct, Bacon immediately began to believe himself King, to lie in the King's lodgings at Whitehall, and give audience in the great banqueting-house to ambassadors and others; to make the members of the council attend him with the same state that they observed toward the King, and when they sat with him for the despatch of business to know their proper distance. Upon which Secretary Winwood rose, went away, and would never sit more; but instantly despatched one to the King, to desire him to make haste back, for his seat was already usurped; at which," says Weldon," I remember the King reading it unto us, both the King and we were very merry. In this posture he lived until he heard the King was returning, and began to believe the play was almost at an end, that he might personate a King's part no longer, and therefore did again re-invest himself with his old rags of baseness, which were so tattered and poor at the King's coming to Windsor." The passage is in all probability an exaggeration of Bacon's conduct, and both his pride and his humility might receive a worthier explanation than Sir Anthony Weldon has given. The Banqueting House which witnessed Bacon's temporary exercise of one of the attributes of sovereignty was not the building erected by Elizabeth, but the splendid edifice so familiar to our own eyes, which had been but recently erected. The history of this building has some features of too great interest and importance to be hastily passed over at the conclusion of the present paper; we postpone it therefore to the com 66 * Wilson. mencement of the next. The old Whitehall of Wolsey, Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, which had become thoroughly decayed and worn out by James's time, and the Whitehall of modern times-of Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II., of which the Banqueting-room remains to us-are essentially distinct buildings, and in connexion with the length of our subject point naturally to the division we have adopted. We have now concluded the history of the one; our next number will embrace the history of the other. JAMES had commenced the work of pulling down the old palace so early as 1606, when, as we learn from Howe's edition of Stow's Annals,' the "old, rotten, slight-builded Banqueting House," which Elizabeth had erected, was removed, and a new one built in the following year, "very strong and stately, being every way larger than the first: there were also many fair lodgings new builded and increased." Their strength and stateliness, however, could not defend them from a destruction as sudden as it was unexpected. "About ten o'clock in the morning upon Tuesday, the 12th of January, 1619, the fair Banqueting House at Whitehall was upon the sudden all flaming a-fire, from end to end, and side to side, before it was discerned or descried by any persons or passengers, either by scent or smoke; at sight whereof the Court, being sore amazed, sent speedy news to the great lords of the council, who were then but newly set in the Guildhall in London, about excessive and disorderly buildings, but they all arose and returned to Whitehall, and gave directions to the multitude of people to suppress the flame, and by hook to pull down some other adjoining buildings, to prevent the furious fire; and so by their care and the people's labour the flame was quite extinct by twelve o'clock." We know not at what period the King first determined upon the plan of entirely rebuilding the palace of Whitehall, but it is not improbable that the accident referred to may have quickened his operations, if it did not altogether suggest them. The man too was at hand ready for the work. This was the famous Inigo Jones, who had been previously employed for some years about the court, with Ben Jonson, in the invention of masques to entertain it; the one having charge of the scenery, decorations, and machinery, and the other of the poetical composition. Of the excellence of the masques performed at Whitehall when under such management, it would be idle to speak; but we may notice two or three of the principal occasions when the services of these great men were in requisition. The earliest was probably the marriage of Philip Herbert, another of James's favourites, with Lady Susan Vere, in 1605, when the masque was played in the hall. On the twelfth day following, Charles was created Duke of York at Whitehall, and at night the Queen's masque of Blacknesse' was presented in the Banqueting House; the Queen, with eleven of the most beautiful ladies of her suite, performing the characters of the daughters of Niger; "because," as the poet tells us, "it was her Majesty's will to have them black-a-mores at first." This masque cost three thousand pounds. "A most glorious masque" was also given on the 12th of June, 1610, in honour of the creation of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales, which continued "till within half an hour of the sun's not setting but rising." Prince Henry was Jones's chief patron at this period, and on the death of the prince, in 1612, our artist went for the second time to Rome to study the principles of his beloved art. His absence appears to have been felt at the court at least; for at the marriage of Elizabeth, James's daughter, to the Elector Palatine (from whom the reigning family of England derives its descent)-a marriage attended by more than ordinary expense and splendour-we find no mention of any masque being performed at Whitehall. And on the return of Inigo Jones to England he found occupation more worthy of his high genius than the most splendid masques could afford, though the "unsubstantial pageants" might have still remained the most profitable. He was appointed Surveyor-general of the royal buildings, and commissioned to make designs for a new palace. These designs, imperfect as the shape confessedly is in which they have reached us (the best are supposed to have been compiled from the artist's drawings by a second hand), are alone sufficient to raise their author's reputation to the very highest rank; but fortunately the Banqueting House remains to us to this day, as a specimen of the style of the whole, of which it was the only portion erected. The very extent of the space to be covered would have alarmed, or at least bewildered, any ordinary architect. In Jones's plans the exterior buildings measured eight hundred and seventy-four feet on the east and west sides, and one thousand one hundred and fifty-two feet on the north and south. Within these were to be no less than seven courts. Two of the sides are here shown. The Banqueting House was commenced in 1619, and completed in about two years. Its entire cost was seventeen thousand pounds. It will surprise many of our readers to know what was the amount of the architect's remuneration for his labours whilst engaged upon what, if completed, would have been the grandest |