We see

and the lime, throw their branches across the unpaved road, we find a goodly company, with little to do but gossip and laugh, and make sport of each others' cholers and weaknesses. Master Page 'training his fallow greyhound,' and we go with Master Forda-birding;' we listen to the pribbles and prabbles of Sir Hugh Evans and Justice Shallow with a quiet satisfaction, for they talk as unartificial men ordinarily talk, without much wisdom, but with good temper and sincerity. We find ourselves in the days of ancient hospitality, when men could make their fellows welcome without ostentatious display, and half a dozen neighbours 'could drink down all unkindness' over a hot venison pasty."

Of the external appearance of the town during the fifteenth century, the period to which Shakspere's comedy refers, this may be taken as a tolerably correct description; but judging from Norden's map of Windsor, made in the early part of the reign of King James I., the town in the time of Elizabeth must have presented a different aspect, the houses being represented in that map as built close together on both sides the street, leaving no space for such gardens as Mr. Knight so poetically describes. Nor should it be forgotten, when we picture to ourselves the Windsor of the sixteenth century, that the internal arrangements of English houses at that time were anything but comfortable. Erasmus, who visited England in the reign of Henry VIII., complains of the doors and windows of the houses being badly contrived, and of the dilapidated state of the walls in many instances, which being full of chinks freely admitted the wind and weather.

"The floors" he says, "are, for the most part, of

clay strewed with rushes, which are often renewed, fresh layers being placed over the old ones, and the whole remaining for perhaps twenty years, so as to form a solid pavement, including deposits of fish bones, spittle, fragments of meat, and other filth not to be mentioned." *

The latter part of the interesting sketch by Mr. Knight, harmonises with our boyish dreams of the golden days of good Queen Bess, but historical truth makes great deductions from such poetical estimates. It both detracts from the goodness of the queen, and dims the golden glitter of her days. England could not at that time have been so "merry" as we find it often represented; or, if merry, it must have been so in the midst of a vast amount of guilt and wretchedness; for pauperism and crime seemed to have stalked with giant strides over the land. "In the year 1596, according to the statement of a justice of peace of the county of Somerset, which has been preserved by Strype, forty persons were executed in that county alone, thirty-five burnt in the hand, and thirty-seven whipped; one hundred and eighty-three others apprehended for robbery, theft, and other felonies, were discharged, and again let loose upon the public, though nearly all of them were probably as desperate characters as those who suffered; yet, after all, the number of felonies committed in the country during the year, had been at least five times

*"Tum sola ferè strata sunt argillâ, tum scirpis palustribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas."-EPISTOLE ERASMI, 1,140. Ed. 1642.

as many as were brought to trial. Other counties, the account adds, were in no better condition than Somersetshire, and many even in a worse; there were in every country three or four hundred able-bodied vagabonds who lived by theft and rapine, and who sometimes assembled in troops to the number of sixty, and committed spoil on the inhabitants. The magistrates, in fact, were overawed by the threats, and confederated strength of these ruffians, and were deterred from putting the law in force against them. It will be perceived from all this, that the 'merry England' of the days of Elizabeth, was in some respects rather a terrible country to live in, and that the courtly and literary splendour, which makes the sunny foreground of the picture it has spread before the imagination of all of us, is set off, when the whole is uncovered, by no small force of contrast in the black barbaric gloom of the other parts."

But though there are associations of a gloomy character, connected with the sixteenth century, there is one event which will never cease to shed over it the brightest rays. Scenes in Windsor, exhibiting the noble struggle made for truth and religious liberty at the time of the Reformation, have already passed before us. Whatever might be the infirmities of the men who were the leading instruments in producing that great intellectual and moral change in the public mind, whatever circumstances to be deplored might gather round it, whatever might be the limited extent of its early salutary effects,-it was the opening of a most auspicious era in the history of our country. Seeds of improvement were then sown, which could never be uprooted, and

"Pictorial England," vol. ii., p. 907.

WINDSOR IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

lessons were taught which men will go on studying till the human mind be freed from every restraint but that of the word of God, and the laws of righteousness. An impetus was then given to the progress of literature, and a spirit of inquiry and thoughtfulness excited, which we feel at the present hour. Above all, religion was purified from much of her corruption, and the word of God was brought forth from its concealment,* and opened before the eyes of men, so that all might read. It was a glorious epoch. It lifts its head above all preceding eras in English history, like some tall Alpine height-like Mount Blanc, herself, above her sister mountains. For ages yet to come will the eye of man reverently turn back to look on it, and in future states of being will immortal spirits, in their deep musings on the past, gaze on it as a great landmark in the scenes of time.

* "When the queen (Elizabeth) passed through the city, on her way from the tower to her coronation, in a pageant erected in Cheapside, an old man with a scythe and wings, representing Time, appeared coming out of a hollow place or cave, leading another person, clothed in white silk, gracefully apparelled, who represented Truth, the daughter of Time; which lady had a book in her hand, on which was written, Verbum Veritatis, the word of truth." It was the Bible in English, which, after a speech made by the queen, Truth reached down to her, which was taken, and brought by a gentleman attending, to her hands. As soon as she received it, she kissed it, and with both her hands held it up, and then laid it upon her breast, greatly thanking the city for that present, and said she would often read over that book."-Johnson's History of Translation."-" Watson's Tracts," vol. iii., Р 86.

Windsor in the Seventeenth Century.

CHAPTER V.

HERE are preserved, in the British Museum, two interesting MSS., relative to the state of Windsor in the early part of this century. One of these is a short paper, in a volume of the Harleian MSS., and described in the

catalogue as written by John Stow. It seems to belong to the reign of James I., as reference is made to "the Prince;" and therefore a doubt may fairly be entertained whether Stow be the author, for he died within two years after James's accession, at the advanced age of eighty, weighed down with infirmities, poverty, and distress. It describes what would appear to be author to the castle of Windsor, a visit which it was not likely that Stow would have paid at that period; and besides, it would seem improbable that he wrote the paper, from the circumstance, that in another MS. in the same volume, apparently in the same handwriting, a reference is made to Stow in the third person. But be the writer who he may, the paper

a recent visit of the