that Mr. William Langlands was not yet sufficiently bathed, and therefore caus ed his assistants to lay himn on his back in the stream, and duck him in the most satisfactory and perfect manner. The unfortunate apparitor was then conducted back to the church, where, for his refreshment after his bath, the letters of excommunication were torn to pieces, and steeped in a bowl of wine; the mock abbot being probably of opinion that a tough parchment was but dry eating, Langlands was compelled to eat the letters, and swallow the wine, and dismissed by the Abbot of Unreason, with the comfortable assurance, that if any more such letters should arrive during the continuance of his office, 66 they should a' gang the same gate," i. e. go the same road.

A similar seene occurs betwixt a sumner of the Bishop of Rochester, and Harpool, the servant of Lord Cobham, in the old play of Sir John Oldcastle, when the former compels the church-officer to eat his citation. The dialogue,* which may be found in the note, contains most of the jests which may be supposed appropriate to such an extraordinary occasion.

*Harpool. Marry, sir, is this process parchment? Sumner. Yes, marry is it.

Harpool. And this seal wax?

Sumner. It is so.

Harpool. If this be parchment, and this be wax, eat you this parchment and wax, or I will make parchment of your skin, and beat your brains into wax. Sírrah Sumner, dispatch-devour, sirrah, devour.

Sumner. I am my Lord of Rochester's sumner; I came to do my office, and thou shalt answer it.

Harpool. Sirrah, no railing, but betake thyself to thy teeth. Thou shalt eat no worse than thou bringest with thee. Thou bringest it for my lord; and wilt thou bring my lord worse than thou wilt eat thyself?

Sumner. Sir, I brought it not my lord to eat.

Harpool. O, do you Sir me now? All's one for that; I'll make you eat it for bringing it.

Sumner. I cannot eat it.

Harpool. Can you not? 'Sblood, I'll beat you till you have a stomach! (Beats him.) Sumner. Oh, hold, hold, good Mr. Servingman; I will eat it. Harpool. Be champing, be chewing, sir, or I will chew you, you rogue. Tough wax is the purest of the honey.

Sumner. The purest of the honey!-O Lord, sir! oh! oh!

Harpool. Feed, feed; 'tis wholesome, rogue, wholesome. Cannot you, like an honest sumner, walk with the devil your brother, to fetch in your bai liff's rents, but you must come to a nobleman's house with process? If the seal were broad as the lead which covers Rochester Church, thou shouldst eat it. Sumner. Oh, I am almost choked-I am almost choked!

Harpool. Who's within there? will you shame my lord? is there no beer in the house? Butler, I say.

Butler. Here, here.
Harpool. Give him beer.

Enter BUTLER.

Tough old sheep-skin 's but dry meat.
First Part of Sir John Oldcastle, Act II. Scene 1.

14. Page 143. This exhibition, the play-mare of Scotland, stood high among holyday gambols. It must be carefully separated from the wooden chargers which furnish out our nurseries. It gives rise to Hamlet's ejaculation,

But oh, but oh, the hobby-horse is forgot

There is a very comic scene in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of " Women Pleased," where Hope-on-high Bombye, a puritan cobler, refuses to dance with the hobby-horse. There was much difficulty and great variety in the motions which the hobby-horse was expected to exhibit.

The learned Mr. Douce, who has contributed so much to the illustration of our theatrical antiquities, has given us a full account of this pageant, and the burlesque horsemanship which it practised.

"The hobby-horse," says Mr. Douce," was represented by a man equipped with as much pasteboard as was sufficient to form the head and hinder parts of a horse, the quadrupedal defects being concealed by a long mantle or footcloth that nearly touched the ground. The former, on this occasion, exerted all his skill in burlesque horsemanship. In Sympson's play of the Law-breakers, 1636, a miller personates the hobby-horse, and being angry that the mayor of the city is put in competition with him, exclaims, Let the mayor play the hobby-horse among his brethren, an he will; I hope our townlads cannot want a hobby-horse. Have I practised my reins, my careers, my pranckers, my ambles, my false trots, my smooth ambles, and Canterbury paces, and shall master mayor put me besides the hobby-horse? Have I borrowed the forehorse bells, his plumes, his braveries; nay, had his mane new shorn and frizzled, and shall the mayor put me besides the hobby-horse,?'"DOUCE's Illustrations, vol. II., p. 468.

15. Page 143. The representation of Robin Hood was the darling Maygame both in England and Scotland, and doubtless the favourite personification was often revived, when the Abbot of Unreason, or other pretences of frolic, gave an unusual degree of license.

The Protestant clergy, who had formerly reaped advantage from the opportunities which these sports afforded them of directing their own satire and the ridicule of the lower orders against the Catholic church, began to find that, when these purposes were served, their favourite pastimes deprived them of the wish to attend divine worship, and disturbed the frame of mind in which it can be attended to advantage. The celebrated Bishop Latimer gives a very naive account of the manner in which, bishop as he was, he found himself compelled to give place to Robin Hood and his followers.

แ came once myselfe riding on a journey homeward from London, and I sent word over night into the towne that I would preach there in the morning, because it was holiday, and me tnought it was a holidayes worke. The church stood in my way, and I tooke my horse and my company, and went thither. (I thought I should have found a great company in the church,) and when I came there the church doore was fast locked. I tarryed there halfe an houre and more. At last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me, and said, Sir, this is a busie day with us, we cannot hear you; it is Robin Hood's day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood. I pray you let them not.' I was faine there to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet should have been regarded, though I were not: but it would not serve, it was faine to give place to Robin Hood's men. It is no laughing matter, my friends, it is a weeping matter, a heavie matter, a heavie matter. Under the pretence for gathering for Robin Hood, a traytour, and a thief, to put out a preacher; to have his office lesse esteemed; to preferre Robin Hood before the ministration of God's word; and all this hath come of unpreaching prelates. This realme hath been ill provided for, that it hath had such corrupt judgements in it, to prefer Robin Hood to God's word."-Bishop Latimer's sixth Sermon before King Edward.

While the English Protestants thus preferred the outlaw's pageant to the preaching of their excellent Bishop, the Scottish calvinistic clergy, with the celebrated John Knox at their head, and backed by the authority of the magistrates of Edinburgh, who had of late been chosen exclusively from this party found it impossible to control the rage of the populace, when they attempted to deprive them of the privilege of presenting their pageant of Robin Hood. (1561.) "Vpon the xxi day of Junij, Archibalde Dowglas of Kilspindie, Provest of Edr., David Symmer and Adame Fullartoun, baillies of the samyne, causit ane cordinare servant, callit James Gillon, takin of befoir, for playing in Edr. with Robene Hude, to wnderly the law, and put him to the knawlege of ane assyize qlk yaij haid electit of yair favoraris, quha with

ous collection has been reprinted in Mr. John Grahame Dalyell's Scottisa Poems of the 16th Century. Edin. 1801, 2 vols.

17. Page 159. Fox, an old-fashioned broadsword was often so called.

18. Page 160. The Saint Swithin, or weeping Saint of Scotland. If his festival (fourth July) prove wet, forty days of rain are expected.

19. Page 169. There is a popular belief respecting evil spirits, that they cannot enter an inhabited house unless invited, nay, dragged over the threshold. There is an instance of the same superstition in the Tales of the Genii, where an enchanter is supposed to have intruded himself into the Divan of the Sultan. "Thus,' said the illustrious Misnar, 'let the enemies of Mahomet be dismayed! but inform me, O ye sages! under the semblance of which of your brethren did that foul enchanter gain admittance here? May the lord of my heart,' answered Balihu, the hermit of the faithful from Queda, triumph over all his foes! As I travelled on the mountains from Queda, and saw neither the footsteps of beasts, nor the flight of birds, behold, I chanced to pass through a cavern, in whose hollow sides I found this accursed sage, to whom I unfolded the invitation of the Sultan of India, and we, joining, journeyed towards the Divan; but ere we entered, he said unto me, 'Put thy hand forth, and pull me towards thee unto the Divan, calling on the name of Mahomet, for the evil spirits are on me, and vex me.'

I have understood that many parts of these fine tales, and in particular that of the Sultan Misnar, were taken from genuine Oriental sources by the editor, Mr. James Ridley.

But the most picturesque use of this popular belief occurs in Coleridge's beautiful and tantalizing fragment of Christabel. Has not our own imaginative poet cause to fear that future ages will desire to summon him from his place of rest, as Milton longed

"To call him up, who left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold ?"

The verses I refer to are when Christabel conducts into her father's castle a mysterious and malevolent being, under the guise of a distressed female stranger.

" They cross'd the inoat, and Christabel

Took the key that fitted well;

A little door she open'd straight,

All in the middle of the gate;

The gate that was iron'd within and without,

Where an army in battle array had march'd out.

"The lady sank, belike thro' pain,

And Christabel with night and main

Lifted her up, a weary weight,

Over the threshold of the gate:

Then the lady rose again,

And moved as she were not in pain.

"So free from danger, free from fear,

They cross'd the court-right glad they were,

And Christabel devoutly cried

To the lady by her side:

'Praise we the Virgin, all divine,

Who hath rescued thee from this distress.'

'Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,

'I cannot speak from weariness.'

So free from danger, free from fear,

They cross'd the court-right glad they were."

20. Page 196. George, fifth Lord Seyton, was immovably faithful to Queen Mary during all the mutabilities of her fortune. He was grand master of the household, in which capacity he had a picture painted of himself with his official baton, and the following motto:

In adversitate, patiens,

In prosperitate, benevolus.
Hazard, yet forward.

On various parts of his castle he inscribed, as expressing his religious and political creed, the legend,

UN DIEU, UN FOY, UN ROY, UN LOY.

He declined to be promoted to an earldom, which Queen Mary offered him at the same time when she advanced her natural brother to be Earl of Mar, and afterwards of Murray.

On his refusing this honour, Mary wrote, or caused to be written, the following lines in Latin and French

Sunt comites, ducesque alii; sunt denique reges;
Sethoui dominum sit satis esse mihi.

Il y a des comptes, des roys, des ducs; ainsi
C'est assez pour moy d'estre Seigneur de Seton.

Which may be thus rendered

Earl, duke, or king, be thou that list to be
Seton, thy lordship is enough for me.

This distich reminds us of the "pride which aped humility," in the motto of the house of Couci :

Je suis ni roy, ni prince aussi ;

Je suis le Seigneur de Coucy.

After the battle of Langside, Lord Seton was obliged to retire abroad for safety, and was an exile for two years, during which he was reduced to the necessity of driving a wagon in Flanders for his subsistence. He rose to favour in James VI.'s reign, and resuming his paternal property, had himself painted in his wagoner's dress, and in the act of driving a wain with four horses, on the north end of a stately gallery at Seton Castle. He appears to have been fond of the arts; for there exists a beautiful family-piece of him in the centre of his family. Mr. Pinkerton, in his Scottish Iconographia, published an engraving of this curious portrait. The original is the property of Lord Somerville, nearly connected with the Seton family, and is at present at his lordship's fishing villa of the Pavilion, near Melrose.

21. Page 202. Both these Border chieftains were great friends of Queen Mary.

22. Page 203. Maiden of Morton-a species of guillotine which the Regent Morton brought down from Halifax, certainly at a period consideraoly later than intimated in the tale. He was himself the first that suffered by the engine.

END OF VOLUME I.