furniture, with the names of the purchasers, in | Buck's Antiquities, published in 1774, which must

Harl. MSS. No. 4898, and No. 7352: from which I select a few curious articles.

"In the Princes Chamber. One standing beddstead, covered with watchet damaske, with all the furniture suitable thereunto belonging, &c. Sold Mr Bass ye 11.th of March 1650 for 36 10s.

"One suit of old tapistry hangings cont.

in

all 120 ells at 2 per ell; Sold Mr Cleam, ye 18. January 1650 for 15£.

"In the Governour's Quarter. Two pictures, ye one of the late king, and the other of his queen, 10. Sold to Mr Bass.

"One large old Bible, 6. Sold to Mr Bass.

Mr Brown.

"In the Shovell-board Room. Nine peeces of green kersey hangings paned wth gilt leather, 8 window curtaines, 5 window peeces, a chimney peece, and curtaine rodds, and three other small

peeces in a presse in ye wardrobe val. togeather

25£. WITH Ye PROTEctor.

"In y Hall. Two long tables, two square tables with formes, one fire-grate, one side table, a court cuppboard, two wooden figures of beasts, 3 candlesticks, & racks for armour, 1£.

Sold to Mr Bass."

have been written many years before, it is said "Many of the royal apartments are yet entire; and the sword, with the velvet hangings, and some of the furniture are still preserved." And Grose in his Antiquities, published about the same time, extracting from the Tour through Great Britain what he pronounces a very just and accurate account of this castle, represents the chapel having abundance of coats of arms upon the pannels, and the hall decorated with the same ornaments, together with lances, spears, firelocks, and old armour. Of these cu rious appendages to the grandeur of both, little perhaps is now known. Of the chapel, a circular building within the inner court is now all that remains. Over several of the stable doors, however, are still the arms of queen Elizabeth, and the earl of Pembroke. Over the inner gate of the castle, are also some remains of the arms of the Sidney family, with an inscription denoting the date of the queen's reign, and of sir Henry Sidney's residence, in 1581, together with the following words, Hominibus ingratis loquimini lapides. No reason has been assigned for this remarkable address. Perhaps sir Henry Sidney might intend it as an allusion to his predecessors, who had suffered the stately fabric to decay; as a memorial also, which no successor might behold without determining to avoid its application: Nonne IPSAM DOMUM metuel,

ne quam VOCEM ELICIAT,nonne PARIETES CONCIOS?

who visited the castle in 1768, has acquainted me, that the floors of the great council chamber were then pretty entire, as was the stair-case. The covered steps leading to the chapel were remaining, but the covering of the chapel was fallen: yet the arms of some of the lords presidents, painted on the walls, were visible. In the great council chamber was inscribed on the wall a sentence from 1 Sam. xii. 3. All of which are now wholly gone. The person, who showed this gentleman the castle, informed him that, by tradition, the Mask of Comus was performed in the council chamber. Among the valuable collections of the same gentleman is an extensive account of Ludlow town and castle from the most

Mr. Dovaston, of the Nursery, near Oswestry,

No other remarkable circumstances distinguish the history of this castle, till the court of the Marches was abolished, and the lords presidents were discontinued, in 1688. From that period its decay commenced. It has since been gradually stript of its curious and valuable ornaments. No longer inhabited by its noble guardians, it has fallen into neglect; and neglect has encouraged plunder. "It will be no wonder that this noble castle is in the very perfection of decay, early times, to the first year of William and Ma. when we acquaint our readers, that the present ry, copied by him from a MS. of the rev. Rich. inhabitants live upon the sale of the materials. Podmore, A. B. rector of Coppenhall in Co. All the fine courts, the royal apartments, halls, Pal. of Chester, and curate of Cundover, Salop, ⚫ and rooms of state, lie open and abandoned, and collected with great care from ancient and auFrom this interesting compilasome of them falling down." Tour through thentic books. Great Britain, quoted by Grose, art. Ludlow tion I have been informed that the court of the Castle. See also two remarkable instances reMarches was erected by Edward IV. in honour lated by Mr. Hodges in his Account of the Castle, of the earls of March, from whom he was desp. 39. The appointment of a governor, or stew-cended, as the court of the duchy of Lancaster had ard of the castle, is also at present discontinued. Butler enjoyed the stewardship, which was a lucrative as well as an honourable post, while the principality court existed. And, in an apartment over the gateway of the castle, he is said to have written his inimitable Hudibras. The poet had been secretary to the earl of Carbery, who was lord president of Wales; and who, in the great rebellion, had afforded an asylum to the excellent Jeremy Taylor.

In the account of Ludlow castle, prefixed to

been before by Henry IV. in honour of the house of Lancaster: that the household of Ludlow castle was numerous and splendid, and that the lord president lived in great state. The chaplain had the yearly fee of £.50 with diet for hiruself and one servant. The other officers of the court bad fees and salaries suitable to their several ranks. See also Sidney State Papers, vol. i. p. 5, 6. where the “Fees annually allowed to the

Cicero pro Cælio, sect. 25.

COMUS.

counsel and commissioners, and the officers | displayed. But at the same time it is a melanwaiges," An. 3 Edw. VI. are set forth. The choly monument, exhibiting the irreparable efcourt consisted of the lord president, vice-presi- fects of pillage and dilapidation.

ORIGIN OF COMUS.

By Mr. WARTON.

He

IN Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, an Arcadian comedy, recently published, Milton found many touches of pastoral and superstitious imagery, congenial with his own conceptions. Many of these, yet with the highest improvements, he has transferred in Comus: together with the general cast and colouring of the piece. catched also from the lyric rhymes of Fletcher, that Dorique delicacy, with which sir Henry Wotton was so much delighted in the songs of Milton's drama. Fletcher's comedy was coldly received the first night of its performance. But it had ample revenge in this conspicuous and indisputable mark of Milton's approbation. It was afterwards represented as a Mask at court, before the king and queen on twelfth-night, in 1633. I know not, indeed, if this was any recommendation to Milton; who, in the Paradise Lost, speaks contemptuously of these interludes, which had been among the chief diversions of an elegant and liberal monarch. B. iv. 767. court-amours

dent, and council, who were composed of the lord chancellor, lord treasurer, lord keeper of the privy seal, lord treasurer of the king's household, chancellor of the exchequer, principal secretary of state, the chief justices of England, and of the Common Pleas, the chief baron of the Exchequer, the justices of Assize for the counties of Salop, Gloucester, Hereford, and Monmouth, the justice of the grand Session in Wales, the chief justice of Chester, attorney and solicitor general, with many of the neighbouring nobility, and with various subordinate officers. See Mr. Hodges's Hist. Acc. of the Castle, p. 67, 68. From the inedited tour of a traveller in 1 535, communicated to me by Joseph Cooper Walker, esq. it appears that there was also a secretary to the court; the office of which was then filled by At lord Goring, and said to be worth 3000£. the same time, sir John Bridgeman was the chief justice of the court. The traveller adds, that in the absence of the president, the chief justice represented the president's person, and kept "the king's house in the castle, which is a prettie little neate castle, standing high, kept in good repaire:" and that he was "invited by the judge to dinner, and verye kindly and respectfully entertained." This court was dissolved by act of parliament Mix'd dance, and wanton mask, or midnight in the first year of Williain and Mary, at the humble suit of all the gentlemen and inhabitants of the principality of Wales; by whom it was represented as an intolerable grievance.

The situation of the castle is delightful, and romantic. It is built in the north-west angle of the town upon a rock, commanding an extensive and beautiful prospect northward. On the west it is shaded by a lofty hill, and washed by the river. It is strongly environed by walls of immense height and thickness, and fortified with round and square towers at irregular distances. The walls are said by Grose to have formerly been a mile in compass; but Leland in that The intemeasure includes those of the town. rior apartments were defended on one side by a deep ditch, cut out of the rock; on the other, by an almost inaccessible precipice overlooking the vale of Corve. The castle was divided into two separate parts: the castle, properly speaking, in which were the palace and lodgings; and the green, or outwork, which Dr. Stukely supposes to have been called the Barbican. See his ItiThe green takes in a nerary, Iter iv. p. 70. large compass of ground, in which were the court of judicature and records, the stables, garIn the den, bowling-green, and other offices. front of the castle, a spacious plain or lawn forIn 1772 a public merly extended two miles. walk round the castle was planted with trees, and laid out with much taste, by the munificence of the countess of Powis. See Mr. Hodges's Hist. Acc. p. 54.

The exterior appearance of this ancient edifice bespeaks, in some degree, what it once has been. Its mutilated towers and walls still afford an idea of the strength and beauty, which so noble a specimen of Norman architecture formerly

ball, &c."

And in his Ready and easy Way to establish a free
Commonwealth, written in 1660, on the incon-
veniences and dangers of readmitting kingship,
66 a king
and with a view to counteract the noxious hu-
mour of returning to bondage, he says,
must be adored as a demigod, with a dissolute
and haughty court about him, of vast expense
and luxury, masks and revels, to the debauch-
ing our prime gentry, both male and female,
not in their pastimes only, &c." Pr. W. i. 590.
I believe the whole compliment was paid to the
genius of Fletcher. But in the mean time it
should be remembered, that Milton had not yet
contracted an aversion to courts and court-
amusements; and that, in L'Allegro, masks
are among his pleasures. Nor could he now
disapprove of a species of entertainment, to
which as a writer he was giving encouragement.
The royal masks, however, did not, like Comus,
always abound with Platonic recommendations of
the doctrine of chastity.

The ingenious and accurate Mr. Reed has
pointed out a rude out-line, from which Milton
seems partly to have sketched the plan of the
See Biograph. Dramat. ii.
fable of Comus.
p. 441. It is an old play, with this title, The
old Wives Tale, a pleasant conceited Comedie,
plaied by the Queens Maiesties players. Writ-
ten by G. P. [i. e. George Peele.] Printed at
London by John Danter, and are to be sold by
Ralph Hancocke and John Hardie, 1595.
quarto. This very scarce and curious piece ex-
hibits, among other parallel incidents, two bro-
thers wandering in quest of their sister, whom an
enchanter had imprisoned. This magician had
learned his art from his mother Meroe, as Co-

In

mus had been instructed by his mother Circe.
The Brothers call out on the Lady's name, and
Echo replies. The enchanter had given her
a potion which suspends the powers of reason,
and superinduces oblivion of herself. The Bro-
thers afterwards meet with an old man who is
also skilled in magic; and, by listening to his
Boothsaying, they recover their lost sister. But
not till the enchanter's wreath had been torn
from his head, his sword wrested from his hand,
a glass broken, and a light extinguished. The
names of some of the characters, as Sacrapant,
Chorebus, and others, are taken from the Orlando
Furioso. The history of Meroe a witch, may be,
seen in The xi Bookes of the Golden Asse,
containing the Metamorphosie of Lucius Apuleius,
interlaced with sundrie pleasant and delectable
Tales, &c. Translated out of the Latin into
English by William Adlington, Lond. 1566.
See Chap. iii. "How Socrates in his returne
from Macedony to Larissa was spoyled and rob-
bed, and how he fell acquainted with one Meroe❘
a witch." And Chap. iv. "How Meroe the
witch turned divers persons into miserable
beasts." Of this book there were other editions,
in 1571, 1596, 1600, and 1639. All in quarto
and the black letter. The translator was of
University College. See also Apuleius in the
original. A Meroe is mentioned by Ausonius,
Epigr. xix.

Peele's play opens thus.

Anticke, Frolicke, and Fantasticke, three adventurers, are lost in a wood, in the night. They agree to sing the old song,

"Three merrie men, and three merrie men,
And three merrie men be wee;

I in the wood, and thou on the ground,
And Jacke sleeps in the tree."

They hear a dog, and fancy themselves to be
near some village. A cottager appears, with a
lantern: on which Frolicke says, "I perceiue
the glimryng of a gloworme, a candle, or a cats-
eye, &c." They entreat him to show the way:
otherwise they say, "wee are like to wander
among the owlets and hobgoblins of the forest."
He invites them to h's cottage; and orders his
wife to lay a crab in the fire, to "rost for lambes-
wool, &c." They sing

"When as the rie reach to the chin,
And chopcherrie, chopcherrie ripe within;
Strawberries swimming in the creame,
And schoole-boyes playing in the streame, &c."

At length to pass the time trimly, it is proposed that the wife shall tell "a merry winters tale," or, "an old wiues winters tale," of which sort of stories she is not without a score. She begins, There was a king, or duke, who had a most beautiful daughter, and she was stolen away by a necromancer, who turning himself into a dragon, carried her in his mouth to his castle. The king sent out all his men to find his daughter; "at last, all the king's men went out so long, that hir two brothers went to seeke hir." Immediately the two brothers enter, and speak.

"1 Br. Vpon these chalkie cliffs of Albion, We are arriued now with tedious toile, &c. To seeke our sister, &c."

A soothsayer enters, with whom they converse about the lost lady. "Sooths. Was she fayre? 2 Br. The fayrest for white and the purest for redde, as the blood of the deare or the driven snowe, &c." In their search, Echo replies to their call. They find too late that their sister is under the captivity of a wicked magician, and that she had tasted his cup of oblivion. In the close, after the wreath is torn from the magician's head, and he is disarmed and killed, by a Spirit in the shape and character of a beautiful page of fifteen years old, she still remains subject to the magician's enchantment. But in a subsequent scene the Spirit enters, and declares, that the sister cannot be delivered but by a lady, who is neither maid, wife, nor widow. The Spirit blows a magical horn, and the lady appears; she dissolves the charm, by breaking a glass, and extinguishing a light, as I have before recited. A curtain is withdrawn, and the sister is seen seated and asleep. She is disenchanted and restored to her senses, having been spoken to thrice. She then rejoins her two brothers, with whom she returns home; and the Boy-spirit vanishes under the earth. The magician is here called "inchanter vile," as in Comus, v.

"Faire maiden, white and red,
Combe me smoothe, and stroke my head,
And thou shall haue some cockell bread!
Gently dippe, but not too deepe,

For feare thou make the golden beard to weepe!"
"Faire maiden, white and redde,
Combe me smooth, and stroke my head:
And euery haire a sheaue shall be,
And euery sheaue a golden tree!"

With this stage-direction, "A head comes up full
of gold; she combes il into her lap."

I must not omit, that Shakespeare seems also to have had an eye on this play. It is in the scene where "The Haruest-men enter with a Song." Again, "Enter the Haruest-men singing with wo men in their handes." Frolicke says, "Who have we here, our amourous haruest starres ?" -They sing,

"Loe, here we come a reaping a reaping,
To reape our haruest-fruite;

And thus we passe the yeare so long,
And neuer be we mute."

Compare the Mask in the Tempest, A. iv. S. i.
where Iris says,

taste

To quench the drought of Phoebus; which asthey | Venus now wakes, and wakens love.
Come, let us our rites begin;
'Tis only day-light that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,

[thirst:) (For nost do taste through fond intemperate Soon as the potion works, their human counte

nance,

The express resemblance of the gods, is chang'd
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,

All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,

70

But boast themselves more comely than before;
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual stye.
Therefore when any, favour'd of high Jove,
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

128 Dark-veil'd Cotytto! to whom the secret flame Of midnight torches burns; mysterious dame, That ne'er art call'd, but when the dragon woom Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, And makes one blot of all the air;

Stay the cloudy ebon chair,

Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend
Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end

Of all thy dues be done, and none left out;

Ere the babbling eastern scout,

The nice Morn, on the Indian steep

80

From her cavin'd loop-hole peep,

I shoot from Heaven, to give him safe convoy,

As now I do: but first I must put off
These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who with his soft pipe, and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.

90

Dropping odours, dropping wine.

Rigour now is gone to bed,

And Advice with scrupulous head.
Strict Age and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry quire,

And to the tell-tale Sun descry

Our conceal'd solemnity.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.

THE MEASURE,

140

Break off, break off, I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds, within these brakes and
trees;

149

Our number may affright: some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods. Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well-stock'd with as fair a herd as graz'd
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that's against my course:
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-plac'd words of glozing courtesy
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,

160

And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,

I shall appear some harmless villager,

Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
But here she comes; I fairly step aside,

And hearken, if I may, her business here.

The Lady enters.

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, 170
My best guide now: methought it was the sound
Of riot and ill-manag'd merriment,

110 Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe,
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds;
When for their teeming flocks, and granges full,
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
To meet the rudeness, and swill'd insolence,
Of such late wassailers; yet O! where else
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?
My brothers, when they saw me wearied out
With this long way, resolving here to lodge
Under the spreading favour of these pines,
Stept, as they said, to the next thicket side,
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit

119

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and scas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the Moon in wavering morrice move;
And, on the tawny sands and shelves,
Trip the pert faeries and the dapper elves,
By dimpled brook and fountain brim,
The wood-nymphs, deck'd with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep;
What hath night to do with sleep?

Night hath better sweets to prove,

180