Again, by our author,

His flaggy wings when forth he did display,
Were like two SAILES.

Thus Bayardo, in Ariosto, fights with a monstrous bird, whose wings are like two fails.

l' ale havea grandé che parean DUO VALE*.

a

Her wings so huge, they seemed like a faile.

Harrington. B. v. c. v. f. iii.

And on her shoulder hung her shield bedeckt,
Upon the bosse, with stones that shined wide,
As the faire moon in her most full aspect.

Satan's fhield, in Milton, is compared to the moont: but to the moon as discerned through a telescope.

B. v. c. v. s. xi.

Her sunshiny helmet foone unlaced, Thinking, at once, both head and helmet to have raced.

xii.

But when as he discovered had her face,
He saw his senses strange astonishment, &c.

+ Par. Loft. 1. 287.

This is such a picture as Propertius gives us.

Aufa ferox ab equo quondam oppugnare sagittis

Mæotis Danaum Penthefilea rates ;
Aurea cui poftquam nudavit casida frontem,

Vicit victorem candida forma virum *.

B. v. c. viii. s. xxxvii.

At last from his victorious fhield he drew
The veile, &c.

And coming full before his horse's vew,
As they upon him prelt, it plain to them did shew.

Xxxviii.

So did the fight thereof their sense dismay,
That backe againe upon themselves they turn’d.

The Ægis is represented with the same effect on horses, in the spirited poem of Valerius Flaccus,

Ægida tum primùm virgo, Spiramque Medusa
Tercentum fævis Squallentem fuftulit hydris ;
Quam foli vidiftis Equi; pavor occupat ingens,
Excussis in terga viris t.

B. v. c. viii. s. xliii.

Like as the cursed son of Theseus,

That
Of his owne steeds was all to pieces torne.

Hippolitus was not torn in pieces by his own horses, but by a monster sent from Neptune, as Euripides relates, Hipp. Cor. 1220. and other authors. In this account of the death of Hippolitus, he greatly varies from himself, s. 5. 37. seq.

B. v. c. ix. f. xxv.

There as they entered at the fcreene, &c.

SCREENE occurs again,

But he there flew him at the SCREENE,

5. 10. 37 The SCREEN, or entrance into the hall, was as familiar a term in Spenser's age, as the ceremonies, mentioned in the next note, to have been performed within it, were frequent: This is still to be feen before the halls of antient houses. Stow uses it as a well-known word, “ A maypole, to stand in the hall, before the SCRINE, 66 decked with holme and ivie, at the feast of chrift

It is yet remembered in our universities.

mas.

B. y. c. ix. s. xxii.

The marshall of the hall to them did come,

His name hight ORDER. VOL. II.

Ee

Here

Here Spenser paints from the manners of his own age; in which the custom of celebrating a

Feaft,
Serv'd

up

in hall with sewrs and * seneshalls,

*

was not entirely dropt. One of the officers at these solemnities was styled the marshal of the hall: an office for which Chaucer tells us, his host at the tabard was properly qualified.

A femely man our hoste was withal
To ben a MARSHALL IN A LORDIS HALL +.

As the guests at these pompous and public festivals were very numerous, and of various conditions ; I suppose the business of this office, was to place every person according to his rank, and to preserve peace and order.

Another officer belonging to these antient festivals, was a lord of the misrule, whose name is only now remembered. Stowe tells us, “ In the feast of christ“mas, there was in the king's house, wheresoever he

lodged, a lord of misrule, or master of merry disports, " and the like had yee in the house of every

noble

* Stow, speaking of a magnificent feast in Ely-house, at which were present king Henry VIII, and queen Catharine, says, that “ Ed66 ward Nevil was SENESHALL or Steward.” Survey, p. 315. ed. 1599.

+ Prol. 753.

man

man of honour, or good worship, were he spiritual

or temporall *.” In an original draught of the statutes of trinity-college, Cambridge, one of the chapters is entitled, De præfe£to ludorum qui IMPERATOR dicitur, under whose direction, comedies and tragedies are to be represented at christmas, in the hall; as also sex spectacula, or else as many dialogues. Wood, in the Athene, mentions a christmas prince, in some of the colleges at Oxford, whose office was the same +. Another title to this statute, which seems to be substituted by another hand in the place of the former, is, De comediis ludisque in natali Christi exhibendis. These statutes were drawn up in the reign of queen Mary, 1554 I.

With regard to the state in which our old nobility lived, it is mentioned as an inftance of extraordinary pomp in cardinal Wolsey, that he kept a full choir in his chapel S, like the king. But this was common

* Survey of London, pag. 149. edit, 1618. + The lords of misruke, in colleges, were preached against at Cambridge, by.che Puritans, in the reign of James I, as inconsistent with a place of religious education, and as a PAGAN RELIC, Fuller's Ch. Hift. 1655. Hift. of Cambridge, pag. 159. But see the Life of John Dee, Hearne's I. Glaston. Appendix, vol. 2. pag. 502. These ceremonies were common in the inns of court.

See Dugdale's Orig. Juridical. ed. 2. 1671. fol. pag. 154. 156. 247. 235. | Fol. on vellum, MSS. Rawlins. Bib. Bodl. Oxon. See cap. 24.. See Stowe's Annals, by Howes, pag. 502. Ee 2

to