warning from the ways of ambition, and smile and weep by turns as the pageant and the trial in this strange phantasmagoria of English historical romance in succession come and flit away. To catch echoes of the past, will be our endeavour; and among them, we shall strive especially to seize and fix on those which proceed from royal feastings-men of the marble chair-bench and barold politics and parliaments-early state trials-the seven bishops, and an Indian viceroy.

II. ROYAL FEASTINGS.

WALK down to Westminster in winter time, on some cold damp day, when the inhabitants of the city and liberties are regaled with a pea-soup fog, and barristers, attorneys, and clients may be seen emerging out of the thick and sticky atmosphere within the huge and solemn doorway of the great hall, in dim shadowy form, and with grim, anxious countenances. The outside vapour has penetrated inside the yawning space of the ancient building, in thinner consistency, indeed, but yet of sufficient shade and density to obscure somewhat the massive oak rafters of the roof, the stretch of the walls, the great southern flight of steps, and the figures of lawyers and litigants passing out and in. Nobody is there but those whom a subpoena, a fee, or the hope of a verdict, has brought to the spot; and the little knots of such parties, by the entrances to the Courts of Common Pleas or Exchequer, only serve to give a greater aspect of desertion and gloom to the rest of the scene. Fear, vexation, and annoyance are painted upon more faces than shew hope, contentment, and satisfaction; and, altogether, the genius of the place if it has any fascination, is of the Medusa kind, and one is glad to get away from Westminster to a snug home and a bright fireside.

Or, drop into this same relic of England's olden times some drizzly night when parliament is sitting, and some heavy business debate is wearing out the hours on empty benches, and how melancholy looks the hall, despite of gas-lamps, and how triste is the silence, only at rare intervals broken by the footfall of a tired-out member eager to get into a cab, whose jarvey, by the side of his broken-kneed horse, whip in hand, is as eager to catch

a fare. And yet this same Westminster Hall, so often dull and dreary, and never now particularly cheerful and joyous, was once the theatre of most brilliant festivities, of banquetings right royal in their way, both at coronations and at weddings, and oftener still at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. What colours have shone-what gold and silver and jewels have gleamed and sparkled —what armour and arms have glittered-what banners and feathers have waved-what lights have flashed-what minstrelsy has echoed-what shouts of laughter and bursts of song have rolled up the halls, and run along the roof, in the Westminster Hall of the Normans, Plantagenets, and Tudors! If few spots have witnessed more of anxiety and sadness, certainly few have seen as much of hilarity and rejoicing.

Let us catch some of the echoes.

Here is the first, proceeding from the black-letter folio of good John Stowe, now before us:-"King William, having returned out of Normandy into England, kept his feast of Whitsuntide very royally at Westminster in the new hall, which he had lately caused there to be builded." This is all we find recorded. Thus the first of the festive echoes is but faint; but they will soon grow louder.

Henry, the son of Henry II., received the regal crown while his father was alive. He passed through the ceremonies of knighthood and coronation on the same day (A.D. 1170). A banquet followed in the great hall, when the father served the son as sewer, bringing up the boar's head, the very crown of the feast, amidst a blast of trumpets. The Archbishop of York-who had crowned the prince, in assumption of a privilege claimed by Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom the king was at variance -noticed the pride which flushed the cheek of the royal stripling at the honour and service thus done him by his sire, and, turning to him, said, “Be glad, my son; there is not another prince in the

world that hath such a sewer at his table." The newly crowned scion of royalty gave presage of his after unfilial ambition by asking: "Why dost thou marvel at that? My father in doing it, thinketh it not more than becometh him; he, being born of princely blood only on the mother's side, serveth me that am a king born, having a king to my father and a queen to my mother." Father and son appear about equally foolish in this business; but in the vanity of the latter there was something worse than folly.

On a Sunday in the September of 1189, Richard Cœur de Lion held his coronation feast in the hall, where the citizens of London officiated as the king's butlers, and men of Winchester served up the viands. While archbishops and bishops, earls, barons, and knights, were seated at the royal tables, and the wine-cups went round, and the rude music of the minstrels mingled with the ruder merriment of the numerous guests, a scene occurred outside the walls of the grand banqueting-room in strange contrast to the rejoicings inside, but very characteristic of the state of the times. Richard had given orders that no Jew or Jewess should be present at his coronation, or at the banquet afterwards, "for fear," says Stowe, "of enchantments which were wont to be practised." But some of the proscribed race, trusting to the gold and the gifts which English monarchs were wont to extort from the children of Israel, whose riches had become proverbial, ventured to approach the royal presence with appropriate offerings-too tempting a bribe to be resisted; so, in spite of previous orders, they were permitted to enter the hall, and their presents were accepted.

One unlucky wight, however, came into collision with a very zealous hater of the Jewish race, and this led to a general disturbance, whereupon the whole party, who had paid more dearly for their admission than any others, were ignominiously driven out into the street. Public fury against Jews was easily kindled, and

when once it burned there was destruction without mercy. Staves, bats, and stones were in immediate request, and the unhappy victims of popular indignation were driven back to "their houses and lodgings." Violence grew into massacre; and that night the

streets of Westminster and London were stained with the blood of the children of Abraham. The riot waxed fiercer and fiercer; the Jews made barricades for their defence,-when their enemies proceeded to burn their houses, making a holocaust of the inmates, husbands, wives, and children; or, breaking open the doors, they flung these miserable creatures out of the windows into the midst of blazing bonfires heaped up in the area below. The king caused several of the rioters to be seized, and some of them to be hanged.

What a comment does all this afford on the rudeness of the times, the prejudices against the Jews, the belief in magic, the feeble restraints of law and justice, and the iniquitous partiality and selfishness of the sovereign; for Richard, in sentencing three of the ringleaders to the gallows, expressly declared that it was for having burnt the houses of Christians! And when he saw the property, as well as the persons, of the Jews vanishing out of his sight, he declared them under his own gracious and special protection.

The festal echoes become still more distinct as time advances; and in the reign of the third Henry, we find numerous detailed records of regal banquetings at Westminster. The marriage of

the king with Eleanor of Provence, in 1236, was an occasion on which the festivities of the great hall were conducted with unusual splendour. "The solemnity was resplendent with the clergy and knights properly placed. But how shall I describe the dainties of the table, and the abundance of divers liquors, the quantity of game, the variety of fish, the multitude of jesters, and the attendance of the waiters? Whatever the world pours forth of pleasure and glory was there especially displayed." So writes Matthew Paris.