follies of my own, when I should rather make ex-in such company his morals may become depraved?" cuse for being here at all, and tell you wherefore I came."

So saying, he reached a seat, and placing another for Lord Glenvarloch, in spite of his anxious haste to anticipate this act of courtesy, he proceeded in the same tone of easy familiarity:

"We are neighbours, my lord, and are just made known to each other. Now, I know enough of the dear North, to be well aware that Scottish neighbours must be either dear friends or deadly enemiesmust either walk hand-in-hand, or stand swordpoint to sword-point; so I choose the hand-in-hand, unless you should reject my proffer."

"Let his company look to their own," answered Lord Dalgarno, coolly; "for it will be a company of real fiends in which Lutin cannot teach more mischief than he can learn: he is, I thank the gods, most thoroughly versed in evil for his years. I am spared the trouble of looking after his moralities, for nothing can make them either better or worse."

"I wonder you can answer this to his parents, my lord," said Nigel.

"I wonder where I should find his parents," replied his companion, "to render an account to them.' "He may be an orphan," said Lord Nigel; "but surely, being a page in your lordship's family, his parents must be of rank."

'How were it possible, my lord," said Lord Glenvarloch, "to refuse what is offered so frankly, even "Of as high rank as the gallows could exalt them if your father had not been a second father to me?"- to," replied Lord Dalgarno, with the same indifferAnd, as he took Lord Dalgarno's hand, he added-ence; "they were both hanged, I believe at least the "I have, I think, lost no time, since, during one day's gipsies, from whom I bought him five years ago, inattendance at Court, I have made a kind friend and timated as much to me.-You are surprised at this, a powerful enemy." now. But is it not better that, instead of a lazy, conThe friend thanks you," replied Lord Dalgarno, ceited, whey-faced slip of gentility, to whom, in your "for your just opinion; but, my dear Glenvarloch-old-world idea of the matter, I was bound to stand or rather, for titles are too formal between us of the Sir Pedagogue, and see that he washed his hands and better file what is your Christian name?" face, said his prayers, learned his accidens, spoke no naughty words, brushed his hat, and wore his best doublet only on Sunday,-that, instead of such a Jacky Goodchild, I should have something like this?"

Nigel," replied Lord Glenvarloch.

"Then we will be Nigel and Malcolm to each other," said his visiter, "and my lord to the plebeian world around us. But I was about to ask you whom you supposed your enemy?"

"No less than the all-powerful favourite, the great Duke of Buckingham.'

"You dream! What could possess you with such an opinion?" said Dalgarno.

"He told me so himself," replied Glenvarloch; "and, in so doing, dealt frankly and honourably with

me.'

'O, you know him not yet," said his companion; "the Duke is moulded of an hundred noble and fiery qualities, that prompt him, like a generous horse, to spring aside in impatience at the least obstacle to his forward course. But he means not what he says in such passing heats-I can do more with him, I thank Heaven, than most who are around him; you shall go visit him with me, and you will see how you shall be received."

"I told you, my lord," said Glenvarloch firmly, and with some haughtiness, "the Duke of Buckingham, without the least offence, declared himself my enemy in the face of the Court; and he shall retract that aggression as publicly as it was given, cre I will make the slightest advance towards him."

He whistled shrill and clear, and the page he spoke of darted into the room, almost with the effect of an actual apparition. From his height he seemed but fifteen, but, from his face, might be two or even three years older, very neatly made, and richly dressed; with a thin bronzed visage, which marked his gipsy descent, and a pair of sparkling black eyes, which seemed almost to pierce through those whom he looked at.

"There he is," said Lord Dalgarno, "fit for every element prompt to execute every command, good, bad, or indifferent-unmatched in his tribe, as rogue, thief, and liar."

"All which qualities," said the undaunted page, "have each in turn stood your lordship in stead."

66

va

"Out, you imp of Satan!" said his master; nish-begone-or my conjuring rod goes about your ears." The boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly as he had entered. "You see," said Lord Dalgarno, that, in choosing my household, the best regard can pay to gentle blood, is to exclude it from my service-that very gallows-bird were enough to corrupt a whole antechamber of pages, though they were descended from Kings and Kaisers."

"You would act becomingly in every other case," said Lord Dalgarno, "but here you are wrong. In the court horizon, Buckingham is Lord of the Ascend-prevalence of chivalry, began to be grossly varied from the on ant, and as he is adverse or favouring, so sinks or rises the fortune of a suitor. The King would bid you remember your Phædrus,

'Arripiens geminas, ripis cedentibus, ollas'-and so forth. You are the vase of earth; beware of knocking yourself against the vase of iron." "The vase of earth," said Glenvarloch, "will avoid the encounter, by getting ashore out of the current-I mean to go no more to Court."

About this time the ancient customs arising from the long ginal purposes of the institution. None was more remarkable than the change which took place in the breeding and occupasisted of youths of noble birth, who, that they might be trained tion of pages. This peculiar species of menial originally con to the exercise of arms, were early removed from their paternal homes, where too much indulgence might have been expected, to be placed in the family of some prince or man of rank and military renown, where they served, as it were, an apprenticeship to the duties of chivalry and courtesy. Their education was severely moral, and pursued with great strictness in respect to useful exercises, and what were deemed elegant accomplishments. From being pages, they were advanced to the next gradation of squires; from squires, these candidates for the honours of knighthood were frequently made knights.

But in the sixteenth century the page had become, in many

"O, to Court you necessarily must go; you will find your Scottish suit move ill without it, for there is both patronage and favour necessary to enforce the sign-instances, a mere domestic, who sometimes, by the splendour of manual you have obtained. Of that we will speak more hereafter; but tell me in the meanwhile, my dear Nigel, whether you did not wonder to see me here so early?"

"I am surprised that you could find me out in this obscure corner," said Lord Glenvarloch.

My page Lutin is a very devil for that sort of discovery," replied Lord Dalgarno; "I have but to say, 'Goblin, I would know where he or she dwells,' and he guides me thither as if by art magic."

"I hope he waits not now in the street, my lord," said Nigel; "I will send my servant to seek him."

"Do not concern yourself-he is by this time," said Lord Dalgarno, "playing at hustle-cap and chuckfarthing with the most blackguard imps upon the wharf, unless he hath foregone his old customs.'

Are you not afraid," said Lord Glenvarloch, "that

for the absence of a whole band of retainers with swords and his address and appearance, was expected to make up in show bucklers. We have Sir John's authority when he cashiers part of his train.

"Falstaff will learn the humour of the age,

French thrift, you rogues, myself and skirted page." Jonson, in a high tone of moral indignation, thus reprobated the change. The Host of the New Inn replies to Lord Lovel, who asks to have his son for a page, that he would, with his

own hands, hang him, sooner

"Than damn him to this desperate course of life.
Lovel. Call you that desperate, which, by a line
Of institution, from our ancestors
Hath been derived down to us, and received
In a succession, for the noblest way

Of brushing up our youth, in letters, arms,
Fair mien, discourses civil, exercise,
And all the blazon of a gentleman?
Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,
To move his body gracefully, to speak
The language pure, or to turn his mind
Or manners more to the harmony of nature,

"I can scarce think that a nobleman should need he was serious in his propositions, or how far they the offices of such an attendant as your goblin," said flowed from a wild and extravagant spirit of raillery. Nigel; "you are but jesting with my inexperience." And, ever and anon, those flashes of spirit and hoTime will show whether I jest or not, my dear nour crossed his conversation, which seemed to inNigel," replied Dalgarno; "in the meantime, I have timate, that, when stirred to action by some adequate to propose to you to take the advantage of the flood-motive, Lord Dalgarno would prove something very tide, to run up the river for pastime; and at noon I trust you will dine with me."

Nigel acquiesced in a plan which promised so much amusement; and his new friend and he, attended by Lutin and Moniplies, who greatly resembled, when thus associated, the conjunction of a bear and a monkey, took possession of Lord Dalgarno's wherry, which, with its badged watermen, bearing his lordship's crest on their arms, lay in readiness to receive them. The air was delightful upon the river; and the lively conversation of Lord Dalgarno added zest to the pleasures of the little voyage. He could not only give an account of the various public buildings and noblemen's houses which they passed in ascending the Thames, but knew how to season his information with abundance of anecdote, political inuendo, and personal scandal; if he had not very much wit, he was at least completely master of the fashionable tone, which in that time, as in ours, more than amply supplies any deficiency of the kind.

different from the court-haunting and ease-loving voluptuary, which he was pleased to represent as his chosen character.

As they returned down the river, Lord Glenvarloch remarked, that the boat passed the mansion of Lord Huntinglen, and noticed the circumstance to Lord Dalgarno, observing, that he thought they were to have dined there. "Surely no," said the young nobleman, "I have more mercy on you than to gorge you a second time with raw beef and canary wine. I propose something better for you, I promise you, than such a second Scythian festivity. And as for my father, he proposes to dine to-day with my grave, ancient Earl of Northampton, whilome that celebrated putter-down of pretended prophecies, Lord Henry Howard."* "And do you not go with him?" said his companion.

"To what purpose?" said Lord Dalgarno. "To hear his wise lordship speak musty politics in false Latin, which the old fox always uses, that he may give the learned Majesty of England an opportunity of correcting his slips in grammar? That were a rare employment!"

66

"Nay," said Lord Nigel, "but out of respect, to wait on my lord your father."

It was a style of conversation entirely new to his companion, as was the world which Lord Dalgarno opened to his observation; and it is no wonder that Nigel, notwithstanding his natural good sense and high spirits, admitted, more readily than seemed consistent with either, the tone of authoritative instruction which his new friend assumed towards him. "My lord my father," replied Lord Dalgarno, "has There would, indeed, have been some difficulty in blue-bottles enough to wait on him, and can well making a stand. To attempt a high and stubborn dispense with such a butterfly as myself. He can lift tone of morality, in answer to the light strain of Lord the cup of sack to his head without my assistance; Dalgarno's conversation, which kept on the frontiers and, should the said paternal head turn something between jest and earnest, would have seemed pedantic giddy, there be men enough to guide his right honourand ridiculous; and every attempt which Nigel made able lordship to his lordship's right honourable couch. to combat his companion's propositions, by reasoning-Now, do not stare at me, Nigel, as if my words as jocose as his own, only showed his inferiority in were to sink the boat with us. I love my father-I that gay species of controversy. And it must be love him dearly-and I respect him, too, though I owned, besides, though internally disapproving much respect not many things; a trustier old Trojan never of what he heard, Lord Glenvarloch, young as he belted a broadsword by a loop of leather. But what was in society, became less alarmed by the language then? He belongs to the old world, I to the new. and manners of his new associate, than in prudence He has his follies, I have mine; and the less either he ought to have been. of us sees of the other's peccadilloes, the greater will be the honour and respect-that, I think, is the proper phrase-I say the respect in which we shall hold each other. Being apart, each of us is himself, such as nature and circumstances have made him; but, couple us up too closely together, you will be sure to have in your leash either an old hypocrite or a young one, or perhaps both the one and t'other."

Lord Dalgarno was unwilling to startle his proselyte, by insisting upon any topic which appeared particularly to jar with his habits or principles; and he blended his mirth and his earnest so dexterously, that it was impossible for Nigel to discover how far Than in these nurseries of nobility?

Host. Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,
And only virtue made it, not the market
That titles were not vended at the drum

And common outery; goodness gave the greatness,
And greatness worship; every house became

An academy, and those parts

We see.departed in the practice now
Quite from the institution.

Lovel. Why do you say so,

Or think so enviously? do they not still

Learn us the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,
To ride or Pollux' mystery, to fence?

The Pyrrhick gestures, both to stand and spring
In armour; to be active for the wars;
To study figures, numbers, and proportions,
May yield them great in counsels and the arts;
To make their English sweet upon the tongue
As reverend Chaucer says.

Host. Sir you mistake;

To play Sir Pandarus, my copy hath it,

And carry messages to Madam Cressid;

Instead of backing the brave steed o' mornings,
To kiss the chambermaid, and for a leap

O' the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting house;
For exercise of arms a bale of dice,

And two or three packs of cards to show the cheat
And nimbleness of hand; mis-take a cloak
From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets
Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel

Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons
From off my lady's gown: These are the arts,
Or seven liberal deadly sciences,

Of pagery, or rather paganism,

As the tides run; to which, if he apply him,

He may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn,
A year the earlier come to read a lecture
Upon Aquinas, at Saint Thomas-a-Watering's,
And so go forth a laureate in hemp circle."
VOL. IV.

G

The Neto Inn, Act I.

We are

As he spoke thus, the boat put into the landingplace at Blackfriars. Lord Dalgarno sprung ashore, and, flinging his cloak and rapier to his page, recommended to his companion to do the like. coming among a press of gallants," he said; "and, if we walk thus muffled, we shall look like your tawny-visaged Don, who wraps him close in his cloak, to conceal the defects of his doublet."

"I have known many an honest man do that, if it please your lordship," said Richie Moniplies, who had been watching for an opportunity to intrude himself on the conversation, and probably remembered what had been his own condition, in respect to cloak and doublet, at a very recent period.

Lord Dalgarno stared at him, as if surprised at his assurance; but immediately answered, "You may have known many things, friend; but, in the meanwhile, you do not know what principally concerns

*Lord Henry Howard was the second son of the poetical Earl of Surrey, and possessed considerable parts and learning. He wrote, in the year 1583, a book called, "A Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies." He gained the favour of Queen Elizabeth, by having, he says, directed his battery against a sect of prophets and pretended soothsayers, whom he accounted infesti regibus, as he expresses it. In the last years of the Queen, he became James's most ardent partisan, and conducted with great pedantry, but much intrigue, the correspondence betwixt the Scottish King and the younger Cecil. Upon James's accession, he was created Earl of Northampton, and Lord Privy Seal. According to De Beaumont the French Ambassador, Lord Henry Howard was one of the greatest flat terers and calumniators that ever lived.

"And wherefore not ?" said his companion. "You are thinking now of Auld Reekie, as my father fondly calls your good Scottish capital, where there is such bandying of private feuds and public factions, that a man of any note shall not cross your High Street twice, without endangering his life thrice. Here, sir, no brawling in the street is permitted. Your bullheaded citizen takes up the case so soon as the sword is drawn, and clubs is the word."

And a hard word it is," said Richie, "as my brain-pan kens at this blessed moment."

"Were I your master, sirrah," said Lord Dalgarno, "I would make your brain-pan, as you call it, boil over, were you to speak a word in my presence before you were spoken to."

Richie murmured some indistinct answer, but took the hint, and ranked himself behind his master along with Lutin, who failed not to expose his new companion to the ridicule of the passers-by, by mimicking, as often as he could do so unobserved by Richie, his stiff and upright stalking gait and discontented physiognomy.

"And tell me now, my dear Malcolm," said Nigel, "where we are bending our course, and whether we shall dine at an apartment of yours?"

An apartment of mine-yes, surely," answered Lord Dalgarno, "you shall dine at an apartment of mine, and an apartment of yours, and of twenty gallants besides; and where the board shall present better cheer, better wine, and better attendance, than if our whole united exhibitions went to maintain it. We are going to the most noted ordinary of London." "That is, in common language, an inn, or a tavern, " said Nigel.

An inn, or a tavern, my most green and simple friend!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno. "No, no-these are places where greasy citizens take pipe and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most unhappy victims-where Templars crack jests as empty as their nuts, and where small gentry imbibe such thin potations, that they get dropsies instead of getting drunk. An ordinary is a late invented institution, sacred to Bacchus and Comus, where the choicest noble gallants of the time meet with the first and most ethereal wits of the age,-where the wine is the very soul of the choicest grape, refined as the genius of the poet, and ancient and generous as the blood of the nobles. And then the fare is something beyond your ordinary gross terrestrial food! Sea and land are ransacked to supply it; and the invention of six ingenious cooks kept eternally upon the rack to make their art hold pace with, and if possible enhance, the exquisite quality of the materials."

By all which rhapsody," said Lord Glenvarloch, "I can only understand, as I did before, that we are going to a choice tavern, where we shall be handsomely entertained, on paying probably as handsome a reckoning."

"Reckoning!" exclaimed Lord Dalgarno in the same tone as before, "perish the peasantly phrase! What profanation! Monsieur le Chevalier de Beaujeu, pink of Paris and flower of Gascony-he who can tell the age of his wine by the bare smell-who distils his sauces in an alembic by the aid of Lully's philosophy-who carves with such exquisite precision, that he gives to noble, knight, and squire, the portion of the pheasant which exactly accords with his rank-nay, he who shall divide a becafico into twelve parts with such scrupulous exactness, that of twelve guests not one shall have the advantage of the other in a hair's breadth, or the twentieth part of a drachm, yet you talk of him and of a reckoning in the same breath! Why, man, he is the wellknown and general referee in all matters affecting the mysteries of Passage, Hazard, In and In, Penneeck, and Verquire, and what not-Why, Beaujeu is King of the Card-pack, and Duke of the Dice-box -he call a reckoning like a green-aproned, red-nosed son of the vulgar spigot! O, my dearest Nigel, what a word you have spoken, and of what a person! That you know him not, is your only apology for such blasphemy; and yet I scarce hold it adequate, for to have been a day in London and not to know Beaujeu, is a crime of its own kind. But you shall know him this blessed moment, and shall learn to hold yourself in horror for the enormities you have uttered."

"Well, but mark you," said Nigel, this worthy chevalier keeps not all this good cheer at his own cost, does he?"

No, no," answered Lord Dalgarno; "there is a sort of ceremony which my chevalier's friends and intimates understand, but with which you have no business at present. There is, as majesty might say, a symbolum to be disbursed-in other words, a mutual exchange of courtesies takes place betwixt Beaujeu and his guests. He makes them a free present of the dinner and wine, as often as they choose to consult their own felicity by frequenting his house at the hour of noon, and they, in gratitude, make the chevalier a present of a Jacobus. Then you must know that, besides Comus and Bacchus, that princess of sublunary affairs, the Diva Fortuna, is frequently worshipped at Beaujeu's, and he, as officiating highpriest, hath, as in reason he should, a considerable advantage from a share of the sacrifice."

"In other words," said Lord Glenvarloch, man keeps a gaming-house."

this

"A house in which you may certainly game," said Lord Dalgarno," as you may in your own chamber, if you have a mind; nay, I remember old Tom Tally played a hand at put for a wager with Quinze le Va, the Frenchman, during morning prayers in Saint Paul's; the morning was misty, and the parson drowsy, and the whole audience consisted of themselves and a blind woman, and so they escaped detection. "For all this, Malcolm," said the young lord, gravely, "I cannot dine with you to-day at this same ordinary."

And wherefore, in the name of Heaven, should you draw back from your word?" said Lord Dalgarno. 'I do not retract my word, Malcolm; but I am bound, by an early promise to my father, never to enter the doors of a gaming-house."

"I tell you this is none," said Lord Dalgarno; "it is but, in plain terms, an eating-house, arranged on civiller terms, and frequented by better company, than others in this town; and if some of them do *Edinburgh appears to have been one of the most disorderly towns in Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seamuse themselves with cards and hazard, they are venteenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, men of honour, and who play as such, and for no repeatedly records such incidents as the following: "The 24 of more than they can well afford to lose. It was not, and November [1567], at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the could not be, such houses that your father desired Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there you to avoid. Besides, he might as well have made were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol." These skir you swear you would never take the accommodation mishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of of an inn, tavern, eating-house, or place of public rethe Scowrers, an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits :-"Iception of any kind; for there is no such place of knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityre public resort but where your eyes may be contamitu's; they were brave fellows indeed! In these days a man could not go from the Rose Garden to the Piazza once, but he nated by the sight of a pack of pieces of painted pastemust venture his life twice, my dear Sir Willie." But it ap board, and your ears profaned by the rattle of those pears that the affrays, which, in the Scottish capital, arose out little spotted cubes of ivory. The difference is, that of hereditary quarrels and ancient feuds, were in London the growth of the licentiousness and arrogance of young de- where we go, we may happen to see persons of qualibauchees. ty amusing themselves with a game; and in the ordi

Better have no more memory of the late Lord Glenvarloch," said Lord Dalgarno, interrupting the Monsieur le Chevalier, (as he qualified himself,) Chevalier without ceremony; who perceived that the Saint Priest de Beaujeu, was a sharp, thin Gascon, encomium which he was about to pass on the deceasabout sixty years old, banished from his own coun-ed was likely to be as disagreeable to the son, as it try, as he said, on account of an affair of honour, in which he had the misfortune to kill his antagonist, though the best swordsman in the south of France. His pretensions to quality were supported by a feathered hat, a long rapier, and a suit of embroidered taffeta, not much the worse for wear, in the extreme fashion of the Parisian court, and fluttering like a Maypole with many knots of riband, of which it was computed he bore at least five hundred yards about his person. But notwithstanding this profusion of decoration, there were many who thought Monsieur le Chevalier so admirably calculated for his present situation, that nature could never have meant to place him an inch above it. It was, however, part of

So saying, he made a pirouette on his heel, and put his attendants in motion to place dinner on the table, Dalgarno laughed, and, observing his young friend looked grave, said to him in a tone of reproach"Why, what-you are not gull enough to be angry with such an ass as that ?"

"I keep my anger, I trust, for better purposes,' said Lord Glenvarloch; "but I confess I was moved to hear such a fellow mention my father's name-and you, too, who told me this was no gaming house, talked to him of having left it with emptied pockets." "Psha man!" said Lord Dalgarno, "I spoke but according to the trick of the time; besides, a man must set a piece or two sometimes, or he would be held a cullionly niggard. But here comes dinner, and we will see whether you like the Chevalier's good cheer better than his conversation."

The good wine had by this time gone so merrily round, and had such genial effect on the guests, that those of the lower end of the table, who had hitherto been listeners, began, not greatly to their own credit, or that of the ordinary, to make innovations. "You speak of the siege of Leith," said a tall, raw-boned man, with thick mustaches turned up with a military twist, a broad buff belt, a long rapier, and other outward symbols of the honoured profession, which lives by killing other people," you talk of the siege of Leith, and I have seen the place-a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a plain wall, or rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every angle. Uds daggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four hours, not to say so many months, before it, without carrying the place and all its cocklofts, one after another by pure storm, Dinner was announced accordingly, and the two they would have deserved no better grace than the friends, being seated in the most honourable station Provost-Marshal gives when his noose is reeved." at the board, were ceremoniously attended to by the Saar," said the Chevalier, "Monsieur le CapiChevalier, who did the honours of his table to them taine, I vas not at the siege of the petit Leyth, and and to the other guests, and seasoned the whole with I know not what you say about the cockloft; but I his agreeable conversation. The dinner was really will say for Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he underexcellent, in that piquant style of cookery which the stood the grande guerre, and was grand capitaineFrench had already introduced, and which the home- plus grand-that is more great, it may be, than some bred young men of England, when they aspired to the of the capitaines of Angleterre, who do speak very rank of connoisseurs and persons of taste, were un-loud-tenez, Monsieur, car c'est à vous!" der the necessity of admiring. The wine was also of the first quality, and circulated in great variety, and no less abundance. The conversation among so many young men was, of course, light, lively, and amusing; and Nigel, whose mind had been long depressed by anxiety and misfortune, naturally found himself at ease, and his spirits raised and animated. Some of the company had real wit, and could use it both politely and to advantage; others were coxcombs, and were laughed at without discovering it; and, again, others were originals, who seemed to have no objection that the company should be amused with their folly instead of their wit. And almost all the rest who played any prominent part in the conversation, had either the real tone of good society which belonged to the period, or the jargon which often passes current for it.

In short, the company and conversation was so agreeable, that Nigel's rigour was softened by it, even towards the master of ceremonies, and he listened with patience to various details which the Chevalier de Beaujeu, seeing, as he said, that Milor's taste lay for the curieux and l'utile," chose to address to him in particular, on the subject of cookery. To gratify, at the same time, the taste for antiquity, which he somehow supposed that his new guest possessed, he launched out in commendation of the great artists of former days, particularly one whom he had known in his youth, "Maitre de Cuisine to the Maréchal Strozzi-très bon gentil homme pourtant;" who had maintained his master's table with twelve covers every day during the long and severe blockade of le petit Leyth, although he had nothing better to place on it than the quarter of a carrionhorse now and then, and the grass and weeds that grew on the ramparts. "Despardieux c'étoit un homme superbe! With one thistle-head, and a nettle or two, he could make a soupe for twenty guestsan haunch of a little puppy-dog made a roti des plus excellens; but his coup de maitre was when the rendition-what you call the surrender, took place and appened; and then, dieu me damme, he made out of the hind quarter of one salted horse, forty-five couverts; that the English and Scottish officers and nobility, who had the honour to dine with Monseigneur upon the rendition, could not tell what the devil any one of them were made upon at all."*

*The exertion of French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of conse qience yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that his jests lay a good deal in the line of the cuisine. He caused a mule to be stolen from one Brusquet, on whom he wished to play a trick, and served up the flesh of that unclean animal so well disguised, that it passed with Brusquet for venison.

we

"O Monsieur," answered the swordsman, know the Frenchman will fight well behind his barrier of stone, or when he is armed with back, breast, and pot."

"Pot!" exclaimed the Chevalier, "what do you mean by pot- do you mean to insult me among my noble guests? Saar, I have done my duty as a pauvre gentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at Courtrai and Yvry, and, ventre saint gris! we had neither pot nor marmite, but did always charge in our shirt."

"Which refutes another base scandal," said Lord Dalgarno, laughing, "alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms."

"Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord," said the captain, from the bottom of the table. Craving your lordship's pardon, I do know something of these same gens-d'armes."

"We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your modesty at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge was acquired," answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously. I need not speak of it, my lord," said the man of war; "the world knows it-all, perhaps, but the men of mohair-the poor sneaking citizens of London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses to relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once to come near that cuckoo's nest of theirs!"

"A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!" said a gallant who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it"I will not brook to hear that repeated."+

+ The quarrel in this chapter between the pretended captain and the citizen of London, is taken from a burlesque poem Wood street, so called. It is a piece of low humour, which had called The Counter Scuffle, that is, the Scuffle in the Prison at at the time very considerable vogue. The prisoners, it seems, had fallen into a dispute amongst themselves which calling was of most repute," and a lawyer put in his claim to be most highly considered. The man of war repelled his pretence with "Wer't not for us, thou swad,' quoth he 'Where wouldst thou fay to get a fee? But to defend such things as thee

much arrogance.

Tis pity;

For such as you esteem us least,
Who ever have been ready prest
To guard you and your cuckoo's nest,
The City.'"

The offence is no sooner given than it is caught up by a gallant citizen, a goldsmith, named Ellis.

"Of London city I am free,
And there I first my wife did see,
And from that very cause,' said he,
'I love it.

And he that calls it cuckoo's nest,
Except he say he speaks in jest,
He is a villain and a beast,-

I'll prove it!