no change of manners or of politics can destroy. The Pageants of Coventry have perished, as her strong gates and walls have perished. They belonged essentially to other times. They are no longer needed. A few fragments remain to tell us what they were; and upon these the learned, as they are called, will doubt and differ, and the general world heed them not.

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 the spirit of joyfulness. As one of the worthy aldermen gallantly presses his horse through the crowd, is there not a cry, too, of "A Nycklyn, a Nycklyn!" for did not the worthy 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 com. mendation and the city's great commodity ? "* In the wide area of the Crosscheaping 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 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 death-like 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 that grievous servitude whereunto it was subject; "§ and he telling her the hard conditions upon which her prayer would be granted

"She rode forth, clothed on with chastity."

* 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 Com missioners of Pavement. The Turks broke up the Elgin marbles to make mortar for their Athenian hovels, and we call them barbarians. These things went on amongst us up to a very recent time. In an old Chapel of Ease in the neighbourhood of Stratford was, a few years ago, one of the very fine recumbent figures of a Templar. The figure was missed by a clergyman who sometimes visited the place, and he asked the sexton what had become of it? The answer was, "What! that cross legged chap? Oh! I mended the road wi' he; a saved a deal o' limestone."

§ Dugdale.

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.* 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 :

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

"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 morn till night, out of his pavilion.

I am that flower."

And Alexander :

"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 swout."

* Sharp, page 145.

Ranging over the whole dramatic works of Shakspere, whenever we find a clasgical image or allusion, such as in Hamlet,

"A station like the herald Mercury,

New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,"

the management of the idea is always elegant and graceful; and the passage may sustain a contrast with the most refined imitations of his contemporaries, or of his own imitator, Milton. In his Roman plays he appears co-existent with his wonderful characters, and to have read all the obscure pages of Roman history with a clearer eye than philosopher or historian. When he employs Latinisms in the construction of his sentences, and even in the creation of new words, he does so with singuiar facility and unerring correctness. And then, we are to be told, he managed all this by studying bad translations, and by copying extracts from grammars and dictionaries; as if it was reserved for such miracles of talent and industry as the Farmers and the Steevenses to read Ovid and Virgil in their original tongues, whilst the dull Shakspere, whether schoolboy or adult, was to be contented through life with the miserable translations of Arthur Golding and Thomas Phaer.* We believe that his familiarity at least with the best Roman writers was begun early, and continued late; and that he, of all boys of Stratford, would be the least likely to discredit the teaching of Thomas Hunt and Thomas Jenkins, the masters of the grammar-school from 1572 till 1580.

The happy days of boyhood are nearly over. William Shakspere no longer looks for the close of the day when, in that humble chamber in Henley Street, his father shall hear something of his school progress, and read with him some

See a series of learned and spirited papers by Dr. Maginn on Farner's Essay, printed in Frazer's Magazine.

1839.

NOTE ON THE COVENTRY PAGEANTS.

THE "Chester Mysteries," which appear greatly to have resembled those of Coventry, were Enally suppressed in 1574. Archdeacon Rogers, who in his MSS. rejoices that “such a cloud of ignorance" would be no more seen, appears to have been an eye-witness of their performance, of which he has left the following description :-(See Markland's 'Introduction to a Specimen of the Chester Mysteries.')

"Now of the playes of Chester, called the Whitson playes, when the weare played, and what Occupations bringe forthe at theire charges the playes or pagiantes.

"Heare note that these playes of Chester, called the Whitson playes, weare the worke of one Rondell, a Moncke of the Abbaye of Sainte Warburghe in Chester, who redused the whole historye of the bible into englishe storyes in metter in the englishe tounge; and this Monke, in a good desire to doe good, published the same. Then the firste maior of Chester, namely, St John Arnewaye, Knighte, he caused the same to be played: the maner of which playes was thus :— they weare divided into 24 pagiantes according to the cōpanyes of the Cittie; and every companye broughte forthe theire pagiant, wch was the cariage or place wch the played in; and before these playes weare played, there was a man wch did ride, as I take it, upon St Georges daye throughe the Cittie, and there published the tyme and the matter of the plays in breeife: the weare played upon Mondaye, Tuesday, and Wensedaye in Whitson weeke. And thei first beganne at the Abbaye gates; and when the firste pagiante was played at the Abbaye gates, then it was wheled from thense to the Pentice, at the hyghe Crosse, before the maior, and before that was donne the seconde came; and the firste went into the Watergate Streete, and from thense unto Bridge Streete, and so one after an other 'till all the pagiantes weare played appoynted for the firste dayc, and so likewise for the seconde and the thirde daye. These pagiantes or carige was a hyghe place made like a howse with 2 rowmes, beinge open on the tope; the lower rowme theie apparrelled and dressed themselves, and the higher rowme theie played, and theie stoode pon vi wheeles; and when the had donne with one cariage in one place theie wheled the same from one streete to another, first from the Abbaye gate to the pentise, then to the Watergate streete, then to the bridge streete through the lanes, and so to the este gate streete: and thus tha came from one streete to another, kepinge a directe order in everye streete, for before thei firste carige was gone from one place the seconde came, and so before the seconde was gone the thirde came, and so till the laste was donne all in order withoute anye stayeinge in anye place, for worde beinge broughte howe every place was necre doone, the came and made no place to tarye tell the laste was played."

CHAPTER IX.

HOME.

WE have thus endeavoured to fill up, with some imperfect forms and feeble colours, the very meagre outline which exists of the schoolboy life of William Shakspere. He is now, we will assume, of the age of fourteen-the year 1578; a year which has been held to furnish decisive evidence as to the worldly condition of his father and his family. The first who attempted to write Some Account of the Life of William Shakspeare,' Rowe, says, "His father, who was a considerable dealer in wool, had so large a family, ten children in all, that, though he was his eldest son, he could give him no better education than his own employment. He had bred him, it is true, for some time at a free-school. where, it is probable, he acquired what Latin he was master of: but the narrow ness of his circumstances, and the want of his assistance at home, forced his father to withdraw him from thence, and unhappily prevented his further proficiency in that language." This statement, be it remembered, was written one hundred and thirty years after the event which it professes to record-the early removal of William Shakspere from the free-school to which he had been sent by his father. We have no hesitation in saying that the statement is manifestly Lased upon two assumptions, both of which are incorrect:-The first, that his father had a large family of ten children, and was so narrowed in his circumstances that he could not spare even the time of his eldest son, he being taught for nothing; and, secondly, that the son, by his early removal from the school where he acquired "what Latin he was master of," was pre