At

monopoly, and any infringement was much resented. one time it was granted to Endymion Porter with reversion to his son George. It was, however, so little to be relied on that we usually find people preferring to send their letters by carrier. Lady Brilliana Harley nearly always despatched her letters to her son at Oxford by carrier as well as the hampers which she sent from time to time with apples, mead, or violet cakes. Sir William Temple and his charming Dorothy made use of the same means of communication, as the carrier is occasionally bitterly reproached if a letter goes astray, though, to do them justice, it seems to have happened much seldomer than with the legitimate post.

The carrier was a great institution, and it may not be generally known that the Cambridge carrier of this date, one Hobson,1 is supposed to have been the origin of the phrase 'Hobson's choice,' as he kept post-horses as well, and insisted on his customers taking the horse that stood nearest the stable door. As a purveyor of news the carrier must have been slow, but no doubt in many a country village he was the sole link with the outer world, and was looked for in those days of war with as much anxiety as the mail coach in the days of Waterloo, as he made his leisurely journey by the deep-rutted lanes or through the snow.

1 Hobson, as we learn from Milton's sonnet, died of being stopped in his work. When the plague was raging in London he was forbidden to go thither, and the cessation in his accustomed habits killed the old man.

CHAPTER XI

THE LITERARY COTERIE

DURING the halcyon time, as Clarendon calls it, between the accession of Charles I. and the outbreak of the Great Rebellion, the literary coterie blossomed abundantly. Ever since the Renaissance literature had been in fashion amongst men of the world, and the patron had been for long, and still was, an institution. In the previous reign the Earl of Southampton who was Shakespeare's friend, the great Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Arundel, had all shone in this capacity, as did also both King James and King Charles, but in the latter reign something a little different in character came to the front. The fact was, literary men had gradually obtained a much higher social standing than had formerly been theirs; the men of fashion themselves now took up the pen; and in place of a crowd of pensioners waiting on the favour of the patron, we find a party of guests, entertained at his table by a man of culture and high position, in many cases forming a brilliant galaxy of talent.

Clarendon compares this time with the much-vaunted Elizabethan era somewhat to the advantage of his own day. Undisturbed by wars, unthreatened by any foreign foe, it was yet a stirring time; the ideals of the Renaissance and of the Reformation were still seething in men's brains; the political ferment of the future was already working, seeds which were almost immediately to bring forth the temporary overthrow of Monarchy amongst ourselves, and later to issue in the French Revolution, were

already germinating: for the moment it was Peace, but not 'the long, long canker of Peace' which the nineteenthcentury poet thought so fatal to the national character.

The Coffee House as a meeting-place for wits and poets was as yet undeveloped; the earliest was started in Oxford in 1649, and though the club at the Mermaid drew the actors and dramatists together, there were some who did not care for the high play or noisy company of the tavern, and they generally found a resort at some great man's table. Sir Thomas Gresham's new College in the City was the chief centre for the men of science who already formed the nucleus of what was to be the Royal Society, and among them were numbered not only such scientific students as Sir Thomas Browne, Robert Boyle, or the versatile Sir Kenelm Digby, but even some of the poets, as Cowley, Waller, and later Dryden; the purely literary element of society, however, met more often in private houses. Endymion Porter, who had learned something of the duties of the patron under the roof of his wife's kinsman the Duke of Buckingham, kept open house in the Strand, and thither resorted not only the fashionable world but a concourse of poets, artists, and musicians. The pencil of Vandyck and the pen of Suckling help us to picture these gatherings, for one of the painter's best portraits of himself, already referred to, includes Mr. Porter in the same canvas, and likenesses of Suckling, Carew, Killigrew, and many another, set them before us as they looked and dressed.

We can fancy the host, handsome, stout, and kindly, with a gay good-humour that would set every one at his ease; the hostess, dark-haired and sparkling, exquisitely dressed, with something of Villiers' pride to temper her husband's easy bonhomie; sometimes perhaps the gentle, aged grandmother with the pretty little boys would have come up from the country-but I forget; in the days we have come to, just before the war, the grandmother was at rest, and the boys had shot up into tall slender lads

ready to serve the king. The painter himself would be often there with his pretty wife, Mary Ruthven, for he was a near neighbour, and she would be able to take part in the music that formed a feature of the entertainment, since she was a performer on the king's favourite instrument, the viol da gamba. Then there would be Nicholas Laniere and Wilson the lute player, and many another of the Royal Band, or 'the King's Music,' as it was called. Henry Lawes, too, whose charming melodies, 'wedded to immortal ' verse,' are better known in these days than most of those of his contemporaries. Madrigals and Catches would be sung, and chamber music played, such as drew tears from the eyes of Wilson.

As to the poets, their name was legion, for in those days every person of quality wrote verse more or less; and doubtless many of these social gatherings were devoted to the reading of some new play or copy of verses, or perhaps to the manufacture of the anagrams, acrostics, and quaint metrical conceits which were so greatly in fashion. Ben Jonson would no doubt be a frequent visitor, and Dekker, Davenant, May, and a swarm of others, who owed a good deal to their host's generous helpfulness, were always welcome guests at his table. Davenant was an intimate

friend of the Porter family, and Endymion with his Court influence had been able to come to his aid when his play The Wits was censured by Lord Herbert, Master of the Revels. The portions which the Censor had Bowdlerised were such expressions as Faith! Sdeath! and Sleight! singular, when plots so offensive to good taste if not to morality, as were many of the plays of that day, were allowed to pass unquestioned. Porter, to whom the play was dedicated, took the poet's part, and showed it to the king, who decided that the exclamations condemned were asseverations, not oaths, and allowed them to stand.1

Porter also wrote a prelude to Davenant's poem on Madagascar, which was an ode addressed to Prince Rupert 1 Letters of Mr. Endymion Porter.

at a time when there was a scheme on foot for setting him up as a kind of Rajah over that island. On the title-page of the book is written, 'If these poems live may 'their memory by whom they were cherished, Endymion 'Porter and Henry Jermyn live with them.' Jermyn, who was a Catholic and the Queen's favourite, would be on friendly terms with Mrs. Porter, who was one of the Queen's converts; and Davenant was a great admirer of Olivia's, and addressed to her some charming lines, 'To 'Endymion's Love.' Herrick, too, was a very old friend, and no doubt it was the charm of the literary society he found gathered at their house on his infrequent visits to town that drew from him his sigh for London, and his momentary self-pity for his 'irksome banishment.'

Edmund Bolton's grand scheme for a Literary Academy on the same lines as the French Academy probably took its rise, or at any rate was discussed in all its details round Mr. Porter's table. Bolton was a critic of eminence, and a distant cousin to the Duke of Buckingham, which latter fact threw him a good deal into Porter's society, whom in the dedication of his Historical Parallel, shewing the difference between Epitomes and Just Histories, he calls, 'his good and noble friend.' The idea of this Academy was that it should review and superintend all English secular writings and translations from foreign languages, and publish an Index Expurgatorius for the benefit of the vulgar. It was to be under royal patronage, and to hold its meetings at Windsor Castle. A paper read before the Society of Antiquaries by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A., gives the following particulars. 'The Academy Royal of King James, as originated by Edmund Bolton, encouraged ' by the Duke of Buckingham, and finally planned in 1624, was to consist of three classes of persons: Essentials, or working members (of whom Bolton drew up a pre'liminary list of eighty-four); Tutelaries, who were to be 'the Knights of the Garter, with the Chancellors of the ' two Universities and the Lord Chancellor; and Auxili