should be at their posts at five o'clock. There is to be a solemn procession-formerly, indeed, after the performance of the pageant-and then, with hundreds of torches burning around the figures of our Lady and St. John, candlesticks and chalices of silver, banners of velvet and canopies of silk, and the members of the Trinity Guild and the Corpus Christi Guild bearing their crucifixes and candlesticks, with personations of the angel Gabriel lifting up the lily, the twelve apostles, and renowned virgins, especially St. Catherine and St. Margaret. The Reformation has, of course destroyed much of this ceremonial; and, indeed, the spirit of it has in great part evaporated. But now, issuing from the many ways that lead to the Cross, there is heard the melody of harpers and the voice of minstrelsy; trumpets sound, banners wave, riding-men come thick from their several halls; the mayor and aldermen in their robes, the city servants in proper liveries, St. George and the Dragon, and Herod on horseback. The bells ring, boughs are strewed in the streets, tapestry is hung out of the windows, officers in scarlet coats struggle in the crowd while the procession is marshalling. The crafts are getting into their ancient order, each craft with its streamer and its men in harness. There are "Fysshers and Cokes,-Baxters and Milners,-Bochers,-Whittawers and Glovers,-Pynners, Tylers, and Wrightes,-Skynners,-Barkers, -Corvysers,-Smythes,-Wevers,Wirdrawers, Cardemakers, Sadelers, Peyntours, and Masons,-Gurdelers,—Taylours, Walkers, and Sherman,-Deysters,-Drapers,-Mercers."* At length the procession is arranged. It parades through the principal lines of the city, from Bishopgate on the north to the Gray Friars' Gate on the south, and from Broadgate on the west to Gosford Gate on the cast. The crowd is thronging to the wide area on the north of Trinity Church, and St. Michael's, for there is the pageant to be first performed. There was a high house or carriage which stood upon six wheels; it was divided into two rooms, one above the other. In the lower room were the performers; the upper was the stage. This ponderous vehicle was painted and gilt, surmounted with burnished vanes and streamers, and decorated with imagery; it was hung round with curtains, and a painted cloth presented a picture of the subject that was to be performed. This simple stage had its machinery, too; it was fitted for the representation of an earthquake or a storm; and the pageant in most cases was concluded in the noise and flame of fireworks. It is the pageant of the company of Shearmen and Tailors which is now to be performed,—the subject the Birth of Christ and Offering of the Magi, with the flight into Egypt and Murder of the Innocents. The eager multitudes are permitted to crowd within a reasonable distance of the car. There is a moveable scaffold erected for the more distinguished spectators. The men of the Guilds sit firm on their horses. Amidst the sound of harp and trumpet the curtains are withdrawn, and Isaiah appears, prophesying the blessing which is to come upon the earth. Gabriel announces to Mary the embassage upon which he is sent from Heaven. Then a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, and the scene changes to the field where shepherds are abiding in the darkness of the night-a night so dark that they know not where their sheep may be; they are cold and in great heaviness. Then the star shines, and they hear the song of "Gloria in excelsis Deo." A soft melody of concealed music hushes even the whispers of the Coventry audience; and three songs are sung, such as may abide in the remembrance of the people, and be repeated by them at their Christmas festivals. "The first the shepherds sing:"

"As I rode out this enders† night,

Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,

And all about their fold a star shone bright;
They sang terli terlow :

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow."

* Sharp's "Dissertation," page 160.

tEnders night-last night.

The shepherds again take up the song:

"Down from heaven, from heaven so high,
Of angels there came a great company,
With mirth, and joy, and great solemnity:
They sang terly, terlow:

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow."

The simple melody of these songs has come down to us; they are part songs, each having the treble, the tenor, and the bass.* The star conducts the shepherds to the "crib of poor repast," where the child lies; and, with a simplicity which is highly characteristic, one presents the child his pipe, the second his hat, and the third his mittens. Prophets now come, who declare in lengthened rhyme the wonder and the blessing:

"Neither in halls nor yet in bowers

Born would he not be,

Neither in castles nor yet in towers
That seemly were to see."

The messenger of Herod succeeds; and very curious it is, and characteristic of a period when the king's laws were delivered in the language of the Conqueror, that he speaks in French. This circumstance would carry back the date of the play to the reign of Edward III., though the language is occasionally modernized. We have then the three kings with their gifts. They are brought before Herod, who treats them courteously, but is inexorable in his cruel decree. Herod rages in the streets; but the flight into Egypt takes place, and then the massacre. The address of the women to the pitiless soldiers, imploring, defying, is not the least curious part of the performance; for example

*This very curious Pageant, essentially different from the same portion of Scripture-history in the "Ludus Coventriæ," is printed entire in Mr Sharp's "Dissertation," as well as the score of these songs.

is the mild address of one mother.

Another raves

"He that slays my child in sight,

If that my strokes on him may light,
Be he squire or knight,

I hold him but lost."

The fury of a third is more excessive :—

"Sit he never so high in saddle,

But I shall make his brains addle,
And here with my pot ladle
With him will I fight."

We have little doubt that he who described the horrors of a siege,

had heard the howlings of the women in the Coventry pageant. And so "fynes lude de taylars and scharmen.”

And now the men of Coventry lead the way of the strangers to another spot, with the cry of "The Hock-play, the Hock-play!" There was yawning and illrepressed laughing during the pageant, but the whole population now seems animated with a spirit of joyfulness. As one of the worthy aldermen gallantly presses his horse through the crowd, there is a cry, too, of "A Nycklyn, a Nycklyn!" for did not the excellent mayor, Thomas Nycklyn, three years ago, cause "Hock Tuesday, whereby is mentioned an overthrow of the Danes by the inhabitants of this city, to be again set up and showed forth, to his great commendation and the city's great commodity ?"+ In the wide area of the Cross-cheaping is the crowd now assembled. The strangers gaze upon "that stately Cross, being one of the chief things wherein this city most glories, which for workmanship and beauty is inferior to none in England." It was not then venerable for antiquity, for it had been completed little more than thirty years; but it was a wondrous work of a gorgeous architecture, story rising above story, with canopies and statues, to a magnificent height, glittering with vanes upon its pinnacles, and now decorated with numerous streamers.§ Around the square are houses of most picturesque form ; the balconies of their principal floors filled with gazers, and the windows immediately beneath the high-pitched roofs showing as many heads as could be thrust through the open casements. The area is cleared, for the play requires no scaffold. The English and the Danes marshal on opposite sides. There are fierce words and imprecations, shouts of defiance, whisperings of counsel. What is imperfectly heard or ill understood by the strangers is explained by those who are familiar with the show. There is no ridicule now; no laughing at Captain Cox, in his velvet cap, and flourishing his tonsword; all is gravity and exultation. Then come the women of Coventry, ardent in the cause of liberty, courageous, much enduring; and some one tells, in the pauses of the play, how there once rode into that square, in a deathlike solitude and silence, a lady all naked, who, "bearing an extraordinary affection for this place, often and earnestly besought her husband that he would free it from

* "Henry V.," Act III., Scene III.

Extract from manuscript Annals of Coventry in Sharp's "Dissertation," p. 129.
Dugdale.

The Cross has perished, not through age, but by the hands of Common-councilmen and Commissioners of Pavement. The Turks broke up the Elgin marbles to make mortar for their Athenian hovels, and we call them barbarians.

that grievous servitude whereunto it was subject;"* and he telling her the hard conditions upon which her prayer should be granted,—

"She rode forth, clothed on with chastity."-(TENNYSON.)

Noble-hearted women such as the Lady Godiva were those of Coventry who assisted, their husbands to drive out the Danes; and there they lead their captives in triumph; and the Hock-play terminates with song and chorus.

But the solemnities of the day are not yet concluded. In the space around Swine Cross, and near St. John's School, is another scaffold erected; not a lofty scaffold like that of the drapers and shearmen, but gay with painted cloths and ribbons. The pageant of "The Nine Worthies" is to be performed by the dramatic body of the Grammar School; the ancient pageant, such as was presented to Henry VI. and his Queen in 1455, and of which the Leet-book contains the faithful copy.t Assuredly there was one who witnessed that performance carefully employed in noting down the lofty speeches which the three Hebrews, Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabæus; the three Infidels, Hector, Alexander, and Julius Cæsar; and the three Christians, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Boulogne, uttered on that occasion. In the Coventry pageant Hector thus speaks :—

'Most pleasant princes, recorded that may be,
I, Hector of Troy, that am chief conqueror,
Lowly will obey you, and kneel on my knee."

And Alexander thus :

"I, Alexander, that for chivalry beareth the ball,

Most courageous in conquest through the world am I named,——
Welcome you, princes."

And Julius Caesar thus:—

"I, Julius Cæsar, sovereign of knighthood

And emperor of mortal man, most high and mighty,

Welcome you, princes most benign and good.'

Surely it was little less than plagiary, if it was not meant for downright parody, when, in a pageant of "The Nine Worthies" presented a few years after, Hector comes in to say

And Alexander :

"The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion:

A man so breath'd, that certain he would fight, yea,
From inorn till night, out of his pavilion.

I am that flower."

"When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;
By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might :
My 'scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander."

And Pompey, usurping the just honours of his triumphant rival :—

"I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the great,

That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to sweat."

The Nine Worthies were utterly

But the laugh of the parody was a harmless one. dead and gone in the popular estimation at the end of the century. Certainly in the crowd before St. John's School at Coventry there would be more than one who would laugh at the speeches-merry souls, ready to "play on the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay."

*Love's Labour's Lost," Act v. It is scarcely necessary to refer the reader to the same play for the speeches of Hector, Alexander, and Pompey. The coincidence between these and the old Coventry Pageant is remarkable.