"other elegancie that may be thought upon *." Har rison, who wrote a Defcription of England about the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign, obferves; "Certes "in noblemens houses it is not rare to see abundance "of arras, rich hangings of tapestrie, &c... Likewise, "in the houses of knights, gentlemen, &c. it is not "gefon to behold generallie this great provision of tapestrie+." Before the use of tapestry became very common, they painted the walls of their rooms. Chaucer tells us, that the room in which he flept, in his Dreme, was painted with the hiftory of the Romaunt of the Rose ‡. 66 And foothe to faine my chamber was * 崇 And all the walls with colours fine Were paint, both text and glose, And [with] all the Romaunt of the Rofe. The interior walls of the churches were alfo frequent *Of Building. Effay, xlv. Dreame of Chaucer, v. 322. ed. Urry, p. 406. or Speght fol. 228. verfo. col. 2. There are other instances in Chaucer. By the way, PORTRAYING is mentioned as an accomplishment in the character of Chaucer's Squire. + Prefixed to Hollingshed's Chron. p. 183. He could fongs make, and eke well endite, ly ly painted. Thus the author of Pierce Plowman's Crede, defcribing a church; Walles well heye, That mote bene portraid, and paint, and pulched Again, full clene. The pilers weren ypaint, and pulched full clene. Though this last instance may mean plain colouring, as was the fashion. The cloyfters of monafteries were often decorated with paintings. Thus the fame author. Than cam I to the cloyfter, and gaped abouten, Wough it was pilered and peint, and portreyed full clene *. The Dance of Death, painted in the cloyfters of St. Paul's, about 1440, I have mentioned above. Hearne imagines, that the cloyfters of the nunnery at Godftowe were curiously painted †. The roofs of the churches were often painted with fantaftic decorations, those I mean, that were flat and not vaulted, as at St. Alban's, and Peterborough. A common ornament of the roofs of ftate-rooms, was a blue ground, fprinkled with golden ftars. Queen Elizabeth's cham *Edit. Owen Rogers, 4to. 1561. fign. A. iii. † Gul. Neubrig. vol. 3. p. 773. This was written before I had feen Mr. Walpole's valuable and entertaining anecdotes of antient painting. VOL. II Hh ber, ber, in the palace at Woodstock, had fuch a roof*. The ceiling of the Bodleian library, and picture gallery at Oxford, are curious remains of this ftile..... Taste and imagination make more antiquarians, than the world is willing to allow. One looks back with a romantic pleasure on the arts and fashions of an age, which, Employ'd the power of fairy hands †. B. vii. c. vii. f. xxxv. Like that ungracious crew which faines demureft grace. He feems here to have intended a fatirical ftroke against the puritans who were a prevailing party in the age of queen Elizabeth; and, indeed, our author, from his profeffion, had fome reafon to declare himself their enemy, as poetry was what they particularly ftigmatifed, and bitterly inveighed against. In the year 1579, one Stephen Goffon wrote a pamphlet, with this title, "The School of Abuse, containing a "pleasaunt invective against poets, pipers, plaiers, jefters, and fuch-like caterpillers of a common 66 It remained almost complete, about fifty years fince. It was deftroyed with the magnificent ruins of the old royal manor, when Blenheimpalace was built. + Gray. "wealth." "wealth ‡." This was foon followed by many others of the fame kind. But the moft ridiculous treatise of this fort was one written many years afterwards by W. Prynne; as a specimen of which, I fhall beg leave to entertain the reader with its title-page. "HISTRIOMASTIX, "the Players Scourge, or Actors Tragedie, divided into "two parts; wherein it is largely evidenced by divers "arguments, by the concurring authorities, and refo"lutions of fundry texts of Scripture; of the whole "primitive church, both under the law and gospel ; "of fifty-five fynods and councils, of feventy-one "fathers, and chriftian writers, before the year of ແ our Lord 1200; of above one hundred and fifty foraigne and domeftic protestant and popish authors "fince; of forty heathen philofophers, hiftorians, "poets; of many heathen, many christian nations, "republicks, emperors, princes, magistrates; of fun dry apoftolical, canonical, imperial conftitutions, "and of our own english statutes, magistrates, uni"verfities, writers, preachers.... That popular ftage"playes (the very pompes of the devil, which we renounce in baptifme, if we believe the fathers) I think, in one of the abfurd books of this kind, there is a chapter "Of the Vanity of wearing cork-beeled shoes.” Hh 2 29 <are "are finfull, heathenish, lewd, ungodly fpectacles, ❝and most pernicious corruptions; condemned in all ❝ages as intolerable mifchiefes, to churches, to re"publicks, the manners, mindes, and foules of men ; and that the profeffion of play-poets, of stage"players, together with penning, acting, and frequenting of ftage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous, "and misbeseeming chriftians: all pretences to the " contrary are here likewife fully anfwered; and the "unlawfullness of acting, of beholding academical "enterludes, briefly difcuffed; befides fundry other particulars concerning dancing, dicing, healthdrinking, &c." London, 1633. This extravagant and abfurd fpirit of puritanical enthusiasm, proved at last, in its effects, as pernicious to polite learning, and the fine arts, as to the liberties and conftitution of our country: while every fpecies of elegance was reprefented, by thefe auftere and melancholy zealots, as damnable luxury, and every degree of decent adoration, as popish idolatry *. In short, it is not fufficiently confidered, what a rapid and national progrefs we were, at that time, making * Oliver Cromwell, however, was fond of mufic; and, what may feem furprifing, was particularly fond of the mufic of an organ: as appears from the following remarkable anecdote. In the grand Rebellion, when the organ at Magdalen-college in Oxford, among others, was taken down, Cromwell ordered it to be carefully conveyed to Hampton |