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She wore a frock of frolic green,
Might well become a maiden queen,
Which seemly was to see;

A hood to that so neat and fine,
In colour like the columbine,
Ywrought full featously.

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grass that grows by Dove,
And lythe as lass of Kent.
Her skin as soft as Leinster wool,
As white as snow on Peakish Hull,

Or swan that swims in Trent.

This maiden in a morn betime,

Went forth when May was in the prime,

To get sweet setywall,

The honey-suckle, the harlock,
The lily, and the lady-smock,

To deck her summer-hall."*

Some heightening to the picture of the country-gentleman which we have just given, may be drawn from the character of the upstart squire or country-knight, as it has been pourtrayed by Bishop Earle, towards the commencement of the seventeenth century; for the absurd imitation of the one is but an overcharged or caricature exhibition of the costume of the other.

"The upstart country-gentleman," remarks the Bishop, "is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not the stuff of himself, for he bare the kings sword before he had arms to weild it; yet being once laid o'er the shoulder with a knighthood, he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock, though but a tanner or usurer; he purchased the land, and his son the title. He has doffed off the name of a countryfellow, but the look not so easy, and his face still bears a relish of churne-milk. He is guarded with more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country, yet his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping is seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with his jessest. A justice of peace he is to domineer in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. He will be drunk with his hunters for company, and stain his gentility with droppings of ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the assize-week as much as the prisoners. In sum, he's but a clod of his own earth, or his land is the dunghill and he the cock that crows over it: and commonly his race is quickly run, and his children's children, though they scape hanging, return to the place from whence they came.” ‡ Notwithstanding the hospitality which generally prevailed among the countrygentlemen towards the close of the sixteenth century, the injurious custom of deserting their hereditary halls for the luxury and dissipation of the metropolis, began to appear; and, accordingly, Bishop Hall has described in a most finished and picturesque manner the deserted mansion of his days;

"Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound
With double echoes doth againe rebound;
But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee,
Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see:
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,

Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite!

The marble pavement hid with desert weed,
With house-leek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed.—
Look to the towered chimnies, which should be

The wind-pipes of good hospitalitie :——
Lo, there th'unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnel with her circled nest." S

Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 435, 436. Drayton, Fourth Eclogue.

A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which are fastened to the hawk's legs, by which he is held on the fist, or joined to the leash." Bliss.

Earle's Microcosmography; or a Piece of the World discovered, in Essays and Characters. Edition of 111, by Philip Bliss Hall's Satires, bock v. sat. 2 printed in 1598.

That it was no very uncommon thing for country-gentlemen to spend their Christmas in London at this period, is evident from a letter preserved by Mr. Lodge, in his Illustrations of British History; it is written by William Fleetwood, afterwards Queen's Serjeant, to the Earl of Derby; is dated New Yere's Daye, 1589, and contains the following passage:-"The gentlemen of Norff. and Suffolk were commanded to dep'te from London before Xtemmas, and to repaire to their countries, and there to kepe hospitalitie amongest their neighbours." The fashion, however, of annually visiting the capital did not become general, nor did the character of the country-squire, such as it was in the days of Shakspeare, alter materially during the following century. †

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• Lodge's Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners, in theReigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I., vol. ii. p 383.

That this evil kept gradually increasing during the reign of James L., may be proved from the testimony of Peacham and Brathwait; the former, in his "Compleat Gentleman, " observes,-"Much doe I detest that effeminacy of the most, that burne out day and night in their beds, and by the fire side; in trifles, gaming, or courting their yellow mistresses all the winter in a city; appearing but as cuckoes in the spring, one time in the yeare to the countrey and their tenants, leaving the care of keeping good houses at Christmas, to the honest yeomen of the countrey;" (p. 214.) and the latter, in his English Gentleman," addressing the rural fashionables of his day, exclaims,-"Let your countrey (I say) enjoy you, who bred you, shewing there your hospitality, where God hath placed you, and with sufficient meanes blessed you. I doe not approve of these, who fly from their countrey, as if they were ashamed of her, or had committed something unworthy of her. How blame-worthy then are these Court-comets, whose onely delight is to admire themselves? These, no sooner have their bed-rid fathers betaken themselves to their last home, and removed from their crazie couch, but they are ready to sell a mannor for a coach. They will not take it as their fathers tooke it: their countrey houses must bee barred up, lest the poore passenger should expect what is impossible to finde, releefe to his want, or a supply to his necessity. No, the cage is opened, and all the birds are fled, not one crum of comfort remaining to succour a distressed poore one. Hospitality, which was once a relique of gentry, and a knowne cognizance to all ancient houses, hath lost her title, merely through discontinuance and great houses, which were at first founded to releeve the poore, and such needful passengers as travelled by them, are now of no use but onely as waymarkes to direct them. But whither are these Great ones gone? To the Court; there to spend in boundlesse and immoderate riot, what their provident ancesters had so long preserved, and at whose doores so many needy soules have beene comfortably releeved." Second edition, 1633, p. 332.

In the margin of the page from which this extract is taken, occurs the following note:-"This is excellently seconded by a Princely pen, in a pithy poem directed to all persons of ranke or quality to leave the Court, and returne into their owne countrey.'

In confirmation of this remark, I shall beg leave to give, for the entertainment of my readers, the two following sketches of country-squires, as they existed towards the middle of the seventeenth, and commencement of the eighteenth century. "Mr Hastings," relates Gilpin from "Hutchin's History of Dorsetshire,” "was low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy complexion with flaxen hair. His cloaths were always of green cloth, his house was of the old fashion; in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He had a long narrow bowling green in it; and used to play with round sand bowls. Here too he had a banquetting room built, like a stand, in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger: and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins, of this and the last year's killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, compleatly furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner, and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In the windows, which were very large, lay his arrows, crossbows, and other accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant use twice a day, all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper; with which the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk ; one side of which held a CHURCH BIBLE; the other the BooK OF MARTYRS. On different tables in the room lay hawk'shoods, bells, old hats, with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant eggs; tables, dice, cards, and store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine; which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this closet, was a door into an old chapel; which had been long disused for devotion; but in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pye, with thick crust well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all, but beef and mutton; except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding; and he always sang it in with "My part lies therein-a." He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack; and had always a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred; and never lost his eye sight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till he was past four score." Gilpin's Forest Scenery; vol. ii. p. 23, 26.

Mr Dibdin, in the second edition of his Bibliomania, the most pleasing and interesting book which Bibliography has ever produced, has quoted the above passage, and thus alludes, in his text, to the character which it describes -But what shall we say to Lord Shaftesbury's eccentric neighbour, Henry Hastings? who, in spite of his hawks, hounds, kittens, and oysters, could not forbear to indulge his book-propensities,

The country-clergyman, the next character we shall attempt to notice, was distinguished, in the time of Shakspeare, by the appellation of Sir: a title which the poet has uniformly bestowed on the inferior orders of this profession, as Sir Hugh in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Sir Topas in the Twelfth Night, Sir Oliver in As You Like It, and Sir Nathaniel in Love's Labour's Lost. This custom, which was not entirely discontinued until the close of the reign of Charles II., owes its origin to the language of our universities, which confers the designation of Dominus on those who have taken their first degree or bachelor of arts, and not, as has been supposed, to any claim which the clergy had upon the order of knighthood. The word Dominus was naturally translated Sir; and as almost every clergyman had taken his first degree, it became customary to apply the term to the lower class of the hierarchy.

"Sir seems to have been a title," remarks Dr. Percy, "formerly appropriated to such of the inferior clergy as were only readers of the service, and not admitted to be preachers, and therefore were held in the lowest estimation, as appears from a remarkable passage in Machell's MS. "Collections for the History of Westmoreland and Cumberland," in six volumes, folio, preserved in the Dean and Chapter's library at Carlisle. The Rev. Thomas Machell, author of the Collections, lived temp. Car. 11. Speaking of the little chapel of Martindale in the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland, the writer says, 'There is little remarkable in or. about it, but a neat chapel yard, which, by the peculiar care of the old reader, Sir Richard, * is kept clean, and as neat as a bowling-green.'

Within the limit of myne own memory all readers in chapels were called Sir† and of old

though in a moderate degree! Let us fancy we see him, in his eightieth year, just alighted from the toils of the chase, and listening, after dinner, with his single glass' of ale by his side, to some old woman with spectacle on nose,' who reads to him a choice passage out of John Fox's Book of Martyrs!' A rare old boy was this Hastings." Bibliomania, p. 379.

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Mr Grose, the antiquary, has given us, in his sketches of some worn-out characters of the last age, a most amusing portrait of the country squire of Queen Anne's days: "I mean," says he, "the little independent gentleman of three hundred pounds per annum, who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at assize and session time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town, with the attornies and justices. This man went to church regularly, read the Weekly Journal, settled the parochial disputes between the parish officers at the vestry, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring ale-house, where he usually got drunk for the good of his country. He never played at cards but at Christmas, when a family pack was produced from the mantlepiece. He was commonly followed by a couple of grey-hounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbour's house by smacking his whip, or giving the view-halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas, the fifth of November, or some other gala days, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy punch garnished with a toast and nutmeg. A journey to London was, by one of these men, reckoned as great an undertaking, as is at present a voyage to the East Indies, and undertaken with scarce less precaution and preparation.

The mansion of one of these 'Squires was of plaister striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick, large casemented bow widows, a porch with seats in it, and over it a study; the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with holly-hocks. Near the gate a horse-block for the conveniency of mounting.

The hall was furnished with flitches of Bacon, and the mantle-piece with guns and fishing rods of dif ferent dimensions, accompanied by the broad sword, partizan, and dagger, borne by his ancestor in the civil wars. The vacant spaces were occupied by stag's horns. Against the wall was posted King Charles's Golden Rules, Vincent Wing's Almanack, and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's Chronicle, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Glanvil on Apparitions, Quincey's Dispensatory, the Complete Justice, and a Book of Farriery.

In the corner, by the fire side, stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion; and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees, and other great logs, and told and heard the traditionary tales of the Village respecting ghosts and witches, till fear made them afraid to move. In the mean time the jorum of ale was in continual circulation.

The best parlour, which was never opened but on particular occasions, was furnished with Turk-worked chain, and hung round with portraits of his ancestors; the men in the character of shepherds, with their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes; others in complete armour or buff coats, playing on the base viol or lute. The females likewise as shepherdesses, with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads and flowing robes.

"Alas! these men and these houses are no more!"

Richard Berket Reader, æt. 74, MS. note.

Grose's Olio, 2d edit. 1796. p. 41—14.

In the margin is a MS. note seemingly in the hand-writing of Bishop Nicholson, who gave these volumes to the library :

Since I can remember there was not a reader in any chapel but was called Sir "

have been writ so; whence, I suppose, such of the latty as received the noble order of knighthood being called Sirs too, for distinction sake had Knight writ after them; which had been superfluous, if the title Sir had been peculiar to them."

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Shakspeare has himself indeed sufficiently marked the distinction between priesthood and knightood, when he makes Viola say, "I am one that had rather go with Sir Priest than Sir Knight." †

Were we to estimate the character of the country-clergy, during the age of Elizabeth, from the sketches which Shakspeare has given us of them, I am afraid we should be induced to appreciate their utility and moral virtue on too low a scale. It will be a fairer plan to exhibit the picture from the delineation of one of their own order, a competent judge, and who was likewise a contemporary.

"The apparell of our clergiemen," records Harrison, "is comlie, and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the popish church: before the universities bound their graduats unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by the blind Sir Johns. For if you peruse well my chronolojie, you shall find, that they went either in diverse colors, like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red, greene, etc. with their shoes piked, their haire crisped, their girdles armed with silver; their shoes, spurres, bridles, etc, buckled with like metall: their apparell (for the most part) of silke, and richie furred; their cappes laced and butned with gold: so that to meet a priest in those daies, was to behold a peacoke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne which now (I saie) is well reformed. Touching hospitalitie, there was never any greater used in England, sith by reason that marriage is permitted to him that will choose that kind of life, their meat and drinke is more orderly and frugallie dressed; their furniture of houshold more convenient, and better looked unto; and the poore oftener fed generallie than heretofore they have beene." Then, alluding to those who reproach the country-clergy for not being so prodigal of good cheer as in former days, he adds, "To such as doo consider of the curtailing of their livings, or excessive prices whereunto things are growen, and how their course is limited by law, and estate looked into on every side, the cause of their so dooing is well inough perceived. This also offendeth manie, that they should after their deaths leave their substances to their wives and children whereas they consider not, that in old time such as had no lemans nor bastards (verie few were there God wot of this sort) did leave their goods and possessions to their brethren and kinsfolk, whereby (as I can shew by good record) manie houses of gentilitie have growen and been erected. If in anie age some one of them did found a college, almes-house, or schoole, if you looke unto these our times, you shall see no fewer deeds of charitie doone, nor better grounded upon the right stub of pielie than before. If you saie that their wives be fond, after the decease of their husbands, and bestow themselves not so advisedlie as their calling requireth, which God knoweth these curious surveiors make small accompt of in truth, further than thereby to gather matter of reprehension: I beseech you then to look into all states of the laitie, and tell me whether some duchesses, countesses, barons, or knight's wives, doo not fullie so often offend in the like as they for Eve will be Eve, though Adam would saie naie. Not a few also find fault with our thread-bare gowns, as if not our patrons but our wives were causes of our wo: but if it were knowne to all, that I know to have been performed of late in Essex, where a minister taking a benefice (of lesse than twentie pounds in the Queen's bookes so farre as I remember) was inforced to paie to his patrone, twentie quarters of otes, ten quarters of wheat, and sixtéene yéerlie of barleie, which he called hawkes-meat; and another left the like in farme to his patrone forten pounds by the yéere, which is well worth fortie at the least, the cause of our threadbare gowns would easile appeere, for such patrones doo scrape the wool from our clokes."

This delineation is, upon the whole, a favourable one; but the author in the very next page admits that the country-clergy had notwithstanding fallen into. "general contempt" and "small consideration;" that the cause of this was not merely owing to the poverty of the ministry, but was for the most part attributable either to the iniquity of the patron or the immorality of the priest, will but too clearly appear from the relation of Harrison himself, and from other contemporary evidence. The historian declares that it was the custom of some patrons to 'bestow advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers, instead of other recompence for their long and faithfull service; and the following letter from the Talbot papers presents us with a

66

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol v. p. 8. note.

# Holinshed, vol. i. p. 233, 234.

Twelfth Night, act. iii. sc. 4.
Ibid. vol i. 231.

frightful view of the manners of the country-clergy at the commencement of the reign of James I.

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"I understand that one Raphe Cleaton ys curate of the chappell at Buxton; his wages are, out of his neighbour's benevolence, about v' yearely: S Charles Cavendishe had the tythes there this last yeare, ether of his owne right or my Lords, as th' inhabitants saye. The minister aforenamed differeth litle from those of the worste sorte, and had dipt his finger both in manslaughter and p'jurie, etc. The placinge or displacing of the curate there resteth in Mr. Walker, commissarie of Bakewell, of which churche Buxton is a chappell of ease.

"I humbly thanke yo' Wor for yo' 1" to the justices at the cessions; for S Peter Fretchwell, togither w Mr. Bainbrigg, were verie earnest against the badd vicar of Hope; and lykewyse S' Jermane Poole, and all the benche, savinge Justice Bentley, who use some vaine--on his bebalfe, and affirmed that my La. Bowes had been disprooved before My Lord of Shrowesburie in reports touching the vicar of Hope; but such answere was made therto as his mouthe was stopped: yet the latter daie, when all the justic's but himselffe and one other were rysen, he wold have had the said vicar lycensed to sell ale in his vicaredge, althoe the whole benche had commanded the contrarye; whereof St Jermane Poole being adv'tised, retyrned to the benche (contradicting his speeche) whoe, w Mr. Bainbrigge, made their warrant to bringe before them, him, or anie other person that shall, for him, or in his vicardige, brue, or sell ale, &c. Heys not to bee punished by the Justices for the multytude of his women, untyll the basterds whereof he is the reputed father bec brought in. I am the more boulde to wryte so longe of this sorrie matter, in respect you maye take so much better knowledge of S' Jo. Bentley, and his p'tialytie in so vile a cause; and esteeme and judge of him accordinge to y' wisdome and good discretion. Thus, humbly cravinge p'don, I comnmitt y' good Wors. to the everlasting Lorde, who ever kepe you. This 12th of Octob. 1609. "Yo' La' humble poore tenant, at comandm'. AD. SLACK.

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"To the right wor" my good Ladie, the La. Bowes of Walton, geive theise."

That men who could thus debase themselves should be held in little esteem and their services ill requited, cannot excite our wonder; and we consequently read without surprise, that in the days of Elizabeth, the minstrel and the cook were often better paid than the priest;-thus on the books of the Stationers' Company for the year 1510, may be found the following entry:

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Let us not conclude, however, that the age of Shakspeare was without instances of a far different kind, and that religion and virtue were altogether excluded from what ought to have been their most favoured abode; it will be sufficient to mention the name of Bernard Gilpin, the most exemplary of parishpriests, whose humility, benevolence, and exalted piety were never exceeded, and whose ministerial labours were such as to form a noble contrast to the shameful neglect of the pastoral care which existed around him. Indeed we are inclined to infer, notwithstanding the numerous individual instances of profligacy and dissipation which may be brought forward, that the country clergy then, as now, if considered in the aggregate, possessed more real virtue and utility than any other equally numerous body of men; but that aberrations from the stricter decency of their order were, as is still very properly the case in the present day, marked with avidity, and censured with abhorrence. To the younger clergy in the country, also, was frequently committed the task of education, a labour of unspeakable importance, but in the period of which we are writing, attended too often with the most underserved contumely and contempt. In the Scholemaster of Ascham may be found the most bitter complaints of the barbarous and disgraceful treatment of the able instructor of youth; and the following sketches of the clerical tutor from Peacham and Hall, will still further heighten and authenticate the picture. The former of these writers observes,

* Lodge's Illustrations, vol iii. p 391.

↑ Reed's Shakspeare, vol xx p. 221, note 7.

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