pretext of a piece of the queen's plate having been missed during her stay there, when an image of "Our Lady" was found in a hay-rick, which, "for greatness, for gayness, and workmanship, I did never see a match;" this image the queen commanded to the fire, which, in her sight, by the country-folk was quickly done, to her content, and the unspeakable joy of every one but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned milk." The unfortunate Rookwood was afterwards fined heavily for his crime in presuming to "attempt her real presence," and ultimately died in Bury gaol, in June, 1598; the necessities of his family compelled them subsequently to dispose of the property of Euston. How flagrant was this outrage upon every principle of justice, religion, honesty, and gratitude. The gaols were the regions of loathsome and infectious disease, which sometimes broke forth, and swept with havoc through the Court. Twenty catholics, of good family, imprisoned for their faith, all died in August, 1578, of the gaol-fever in York Castle. Meantime the enlargement of London excited terror and alarm, and its further extension was prohibited by proclamation. These are hints revealing to us the state of the nation. Facts, like these, are torches, by the aid of which we travel again through the past; they enable us to realize the old times. Glimpses of a coming morning were glowing and brightening through all the dwellings of the land, but as yet, it was but a semi-barbarous age. “At the vigils and fairs every wanton might dance her will.” At the table of the queen, by the queen herself, the meat was conveyed to the mouth with the fingers, as forks were yet undiscovered. A justice of the peace and magistrate was defined to be "a person, that for half-a-dozen chickens would dispense with half-a-dozen penal statutes." The streets of London, by day, were openly infested by highwaymen and thieves; and gallowses were erected for their punishment in the city. Let these be taken as index fingers, for the instruction of those who look back to this as the Ideal Age. We do not present these facts in order that an opinion may be formed by them alone. Let these be weighed with other facts, and it will be found that that too was a day of beautiful and certain progress, and regarded by the side of preceding reigns, worthy to be called THE GOLDEN AGE, CHAPTER IX. 66 MERRIE ENGLAND." MERRY England in the old time, Queen Bess and Merry England, are ever associated together in our thoughts. Will it be possible to recall the Domestic Life as it was in that day? Can we stroll in imagination through old chambers of old houses? Can we sit by the fireside, and listen to the tale of fear? Can we respond to the salutations of the early morning, and hie away, in the merry spring or summer time, to the woods or the hills, with the rural sporters and festive girls and boys? Can we realise the men and the women of those days, in their language, and manners, and costume? Can we make all allowances for their superstitions, for their vices, rather of education than disposition, and arrive at something like a fair estimate of character ?-For this is History—the presentation to us so vividly of the past, that our sym pathies are enlisted immediately, for the scenery and for all its varieties of human characters.History is not merely the narrative of events, but the exhibition, with every propriety of colour and of form, of the spirit and the body of the time. Ah, how difficult it is to realise the pursuits of that day, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers— We have but little time for enjoyment, and the enjoyment of which we partake is frequently by no means of an exhilarating character, -the low tap-room, the crowded meeting, the gaming-table: we have no desire to return to the mere festivities of the times of Queen Bess. We shall find much of exception may be taken here, but we seem to have outlived the idea of enjoyment—the playfulness of disposition which should equally be enjoyed by the boy, and the old man, if life has been passed in a truly healthy spirit, this is gone. It is not so much the kind of amusement we would inculcate, as the idea of relaxation-the appropriation of some portion of time to the enlivening and invigorating the spirits and the blood. The first of May-May-day in the time of our "Virgin Queen."-We cannot look at it near at hand; but how beautiful a picture it seems set in the frame of the Domestic Life of the period. At midnight-not a very nice time, oh, forefathers of ours-but at midnight, all the young people of the village, the parish, or the town, were wont to assemble, and away to the groves and to the woods, separating themselves into companies; some went in one direction-some in another; these to the hills and mountains-those to the neighbouring glades, and wild gardens, and forests: the night was spent in pastimes and sports; and when the time is remembered, and the promiscuous mingling together of the youth of both sexes, we can very well credit the accusation of old Stubbs. In his "Anatomy of Abuses" he says, "I have heard it credibly reported, by men of great gravity, credit, and reputation, that of forty, threescore, or an hundred maidens going to the wood, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home as they went." From the wood they brought home with them, to the village, the May-pole drawn by thirty or forty yoke of oxen—both it, and the oxen covered with May, and all kinds of flowers; it was set up, then, upon the village green, covered with handkerchiefs and flags,and all around it were erected halls and bowers |