THE RIVER AND THE STRAND BY TORCHLIGHT.

Scarcely less out of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds, was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime. Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D. 1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a panoply of steel.

In costliness and riotous excess the Prince of Purpoole's revel at Gray's Inn was not inferior to any similar festivity in the time of Elizabeth. On the 20th of December, St. Thomas's Eve, the Prince (one Master Henry Holmes, a Norfolk gentleman) took up his quarters in the Great Hall of the Inn, and by the 3rd day of January the grandeur and comicality of his proceedings had created so much talk throughout the town that the Lord Treasurer Burghley, the Earls of Cumberland, Essex, Shrewsbury and Westmoreland, the Lords Buckhurst, Windsor, Sheffield, Compton, and a magnificent array of knights and ladies visited Gray's Inn Hall on that day and saw the masque which the revellers put upon the stage. After the masque there was a banquet, which was followed by a ball. On the following day the prince, attended by eighty gentlemen of Gray's Inn and the Temple (each of the eighty wearing a plume on his head), dined in state with the Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city, at Crosby Place. The frolic continued for many days more; the royal Purpoole on one occasion visiting Blackwall with a splendid retinue, on another (Twelfth Night) receiving a gallant assembly of lords, ladies, and Knights, at his court in Gray's Inn, and on a third (Shrovetide) visiting the queen herself at Greenwich, when Her Majesty warmly applauded the masque set before her by the actors who were members of the Prince's court. So delighted was Elizabeth with the entertainment, that she graciously allowed the masquers to kiss her right hand, and loudly extolled Gray's Inn "as an house she was much indebted to, for it did always study for some sports to present unto her;" whilst to the mock Prince she showed her favor, by placing in his hand the jewel (set with seventeen diamonds and fourteen rubies) which he had won by valor and skill in the tournament which formed part of the Shrovetide sports.

Numerous entries in the records of the inns testify to the importance assigned by the olden lawyers to their periodic feasts; and though in the fluctuations of public opinion with regard to the effects of dramatic amusements, certain benchers, or even all the benchers of a particular inn, may be found at times discountenancing the custom of presenting masques, the revels were usually diversified and heightened by stage plays. Not only were interludes given at the high and grand holidays styled Solemn Revels, but also at the minor festivities termed Post Revels they were usually had recourse to for amusement. "Besides those solemn revels, or measures aforesaid," says Dugdale, concerning the old usages of the 'Middle Temple,' "they had wont to be entertained with Post Revels performed by the better sort of the young gentlemen of the society, with galliards, corrantoes, and other dances, or else with stage-plays; the first of these feasts being at the beginning, and the other at the latter end of Christmas. But of late years these Post Revels have been disused, both here and in the other Inns of Court."

Besides producing and acting some of our best Pro-Shakespearian dramas, the Elizabethan lawyers put upon the stage at least one of William Shakespeare's plays. From the diary of a barrister (supposed to be John Manningham, of the Middle Temple), it is learnt that the Middle Templar's acted Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' at the Readers' feast on Candlemas Day, 1601-2.[20]

In the following reign, the masques of the lawyers in no degree fell off with regard to splendor. Seldom had the Thames presented a more picturesque and exhilarating spectacle than it did on the evening of February 20, 1612, when the gentlemen masquers of Gray's Inn and the Temple, entered the king's royal barge at Winchester House, at seven o'clock, and made the voyage to Whitehall, attended by hundreds of barges and boats, each vessel being so brilliantly illuminated that the lights reflected upon the ripples of the river, seemed to be countless. As though the hum and huzzas of the vast multitude on the water were insufficient to announce the approach of the dazzling pageant, guns marked the progress of the revellers, and as they drew near the palace, all the attendant bands of musicians played the same stirring tune with uniform time. It is on record that the king received the amateur actors with an excess of condescension, and was delighted with the masque which Master Beaumont of the Inner Temple, and his friend, Master Fletcher, had written and dedicated "to the worthy Sir Francis Bacon, his Majesty's Solicitor-General, and the grave and learned bench of the anciently-called houses of Grayes Inn and the Inner Temple, and the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn." The cost of this entertainment was defrayed by the members of the two inns—each reader paying £4, each ancient, £2 10s.; each barrister, £2, and each student, 20s.

The Inner Temple and Gray's Inn having thus testified their loyalty and dramatic taste, in the following year on Shrove-Monday night (Feb. 15, 1613), Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, with no less splendor and Éclat, enacted at Whitehall a masque written by George Chapman. For this entertainment, Inigo Jones designed and perfected the theatrical decorations in a style worthy of an exhibition that formed part of the gaieties with which the marriage of the Palsgrave with the Princess Elizabeth was celebrated. And though the masquers went to Whitehall by land, their progress was not less pompous than the procession which had passed up the Thames in the February of the preceding year. Having mustered in Chancery Lane, at the official residence of the Master of the Rolls, the actors and their friends delighted the town with a gallant spectacle. Mounted on richly-caparisoned and mettlesome horses, they rode from Fleet Street up the Strand, and by Charing Cross to Whitehall, through a tempest of enthusiasm. Every house was illuminated, every window was crowded with faces, on every roof men stood in rows, from every balcony bright eyes looked down upon the gay scene, and from basement to garret, from kennel to roof-top throughout the long way, deafening cheers testified, whilst they increased the delight of the multitude. Such a pageant would, even in these sober days, rouse London from her cold propriety. Having thrown aside his academic robe, each masquer had donned a fantastic dress of silver cloth embroidered with gold lace, gold plate, and ostrich plumes. He wore across his breast a gold baldrick, round his neck a ruff of white feathers brightened with pearls and silver lace, and on his head a coronal of snowy plumes. Before each mounted masquer rode a torch-bearer, whose right hand waved a scourge of flame, instead of a leathern thong. In a gorgeous chariot, preceded by a long train of heralds, were exhibited the Dramatis PersonÆ—Honor, Plutus, Eunomia, Phemeis, Capriccio—arrayed in their appointed costumes; and it was rumored that the golden canopy of their coach had been bought for an enormous sum. Two other triumphal cars conveyed the twelve chief musicians of the kingdom, and these masters of melody were guarded by torch-bearers, marching two deep before and behind, and on either side of the glittering carriages. Preceding the musicians, rode a troop of ludicrous objects, who roused the derision of the mob, and made fat burghers laugh till tears ran down their cheeks. They were the mock masque, each resembling an ape, each wearing a fantastic dress that heightened the hideous absurdity of his monkey's visage, each riding upon an ass, or small pony, and each of them throwing shells upon the crowd by way of a largess. In the front of the mock masque, forming the vanguard of the entire spectacle, rode fifty gentlemen of the Inns of Court, reining high-bred horses, and followed by their running footmen, whose liveries added to the gorgeous magnificence of the display.

Besides the expenses which fell upon individuals taking part in the play, or procession, this entertainment cost the two inns £1086 8s. 11d. About the same time Gray's Inn, at the instigation of Attorney General Sir Francis Bacon, performed 'The Masque of Flowers' before the lords and ladies of the court, in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall; and six years later Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes' was presented before a goodly company of grand ladies by the Inner Templars.