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gentlemen of the olden time. Theirs was not 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul,' which made Lord Falkland's hospitality at Great Tew so genial and full of charm to scholars and divines. The after-dinner chat of the Bowling Club wanted the wild hilarity of the 'merry meetings' and 'wit combats' which marked the social intercourse of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Drayton, and their comrades. It was the Isle of Wight 'honest talk' of those bygone days, when men could meet their fellows without ostentatious display, and a dozen or more neighbours would ‘drink down all unkindness' over a hot venison pasty.' They had leisure to tattle, laugh, and be laughed at. Their language did not conceal thoughts; they talked as they felt.

Shakespeare's generous patron 'cast a kind glance' on John Baker, Vicar of Carisbrooke. An entry in the Carisbrooke Registers shows that Baker was appointed by Southampton chaplain to the Governor of the Island, and Vicar of St. Nicholas in the Castle. The Grammar School of Newport also experienced the Earl's fostering care, when the Corporation of Newport with praiseworthy zeal in the cause of education determined on endowing that school, recently founded by Sir Thomas Fleming, with an estate on Hunnyhill which had been bequeathed to the town in the reign of Henry V, and which was used as a common for their cattle by the inhabitants; Lord Southampton, having taken the advice of counsel, agreed and was very well pleased' with this appropriation. The entry of this transaction with the signature of Thomas Fleming appears in the Corporation's minute book for 1619, and proves that the Governor of the Island at that period had considerable power in the disposal of the property of the borough of Newport.

James I, pacific and timorous, whose conduct towards foreign states was weak and discreditable, at the close of his reign drifted into a foreign war for the purpose of recovering the inheritance of his daughter's husband, the Elector Palatine, Frederick V. Count Mansfeldt was permitted to raise four regiments of foot (an innovation on the military system in England) for service in Holland. was made colonel of one of these regiments. the campaign, so far as the English were

Southampton

The result of engaged, was

shame and disgrace. The Earl of Southampton and other English officers returned home to England. Southampton went back after this to the scene of war, as is proved by a little work of excessive rarity, the title of which is given in Canon Venable's Guide, I. W. p. 183, and runs as follows: The teares of the Isle of Wight shed on the tombe of their most noble, valorous, and louing Captaine and Governour, the Right Honourable Earle of Southampton, who dyed in the Netherlands, Novemb. 10, at Bergen-opZone. Also the true image of his person and virtues, James the Lord Wriothesley, Knight of the Bath, and Baron of Titchfield, who dyed Novemb. 5, at Rosendaal, and were both buried in the sepulcher of their fathers at Titchfield on Innocents' Day, 1624.'

Greatly is it to the honour of Southampton that his sudden rise from being a prisoner in the Tower of London to the important post of Governor of the Isle of Wight did not turn his head. Lord Macaulay has well said that 'one of the most severe trials to which the head and heart of man can be put is great and rapid elevation.' Southampton's prosperity did not run over in insolent self-confidence.

'His just, affable, obliging deportment gained him the esteem of all ranks of people, and raised the Island to a most flourishing state, many gentlemen residing there in great affluence and hospitality' (Worsley, Hist. I. W. p. 108). His intimacy with Shakespeare had taught Southampton one great lesson of life; 'to fling away ambition and in his right hand carry gentle peace to silence envious tongues.'

January 16, 1886.

CHRISTMAS IN CARISBROOKE CASTLE,

A. D. 1606.

LET me try to bring before the eyes of my readers Christmas as it was kept in Carisbrooke Castle two hundred and eighty years since, when the accomplished Lord Southampton, the friend and patron of Shakespeare, was Governor of the Isle of Wight.

The scene of these Christmas festivities was the pile of buildings opposite the archway entrance into Carisbrooke Castle, which, under its modern form, covers the site of the 'Great Hall, built by Baldwin de Redvers (1135-1156). This twelfth-century hall was extensively altered by Sir George Carey in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the floor being lowered by three steps, and the walls raised and re-roofed, so as to admit of the formation of an upper story, containing a suite of bedrooms. In the days of Lord Southampton the great hall of the old fortress, which most of us remember in its fallen condition as a clothing store of the Militia, recently re-modelled by Sir George Carey, Queen Elizabeth's cousin, must have presented a stately appearance on the Christmas festival. At the further end of the hall was the 'dais'—a platform carried across the room and raised a step above the floor. Here the master and mistress of the house sat with their chief guests, as Chaucer tells in his January and May:

'And at the feste sitteth he and she

With other worthy folk upon the dise.'

The high table, as it was called, at which Lord and Lady Southampton sat when entertaining those whom they invited to their hospitalities, occupied its proper place along the dais. The other tables were ranged along the other sides of the hall. Across the lower end is an oak or sweet chestnut carved wooden screen, supporting the minstrels' gallery. On the left-hand side, as advance is made to the dais, is the hearth, with an 'andiron' or iron bar sustained horizontally upon a pillar, with two ornamental ends, called 'fire-dogs,' to support the burning wood.

We will look into this hall as it appeared, A. D. 1606, on Christmas eve, for the festivities begin on the vigil of the holy day. The hall has its ordinary decorations; hangings of arras, placed at such a distance from the walls as to allow of persons being concealed in the space between; arms and armour, with the spreading antlers of deer, captured after some memorable hunting in Parkhurst Forest, are suspended around; square or quadrangular flags, of varying sizes, displaying the arms and badges of Lord Southampton and other persons of distinction, are floating overhead; in addition to these every part from floor to roof is decked with bays, rosemary, laurel, and other evergreens, especially holly.

There is little company as yet in the great hall. Lord Southampton, not now accompanied by her ladyship, who is elsewhere, is on the dais, surrounded by a few of the gentlemen of the Island, an Oglander, a Worsley, a Hobson, and others, who in the seventh year of King James's reign, as Oglander says, 'lived well,' and were members of the ordinary, which Lord Southampton established at the Bowling Green on St. George's Down. Here too along with this goodly and select company was John Baker, Vicar of Carisbrooke and chaplain to the Governor of the Isle of Wight, as he has himself recorded in the pages of the Carisbrooke Register. The vicar was no doubt clad in that 'decency of apparel enjoyned to Ministers' by the seventy-fourth canon. He had a cloak with sleeves, without gards, welts, long buttons or cuts, a comely and scholar-like apparel, not cut or pinkt.' Under his cloak he wore a doublet, and hose, and 'stockings, not light-coloured.' On his head he wore a 'nightcap of black silk, satin, or velvet.' The worthy vicar, faithful to his clerical obligations, did not attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments,' but wore the prescribed uniform for decency, gravity, and order.' The Governor and his companions at the high table are not the rulers of this night's merriment. A Lord of Misrule has been appointed, 'as is the custom at the house of every nobleman or person of distinction,' whose office it is to see that all goes merrily at Christmastide, and he is now master of the situation. The ladies who would be entitled to a seat at the high table along with the noble hostess, a cousin of

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the ill-fated Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, are in the music loft, where they can most conveniently be spectators of the evening's revelry. The hall fire is not lighted yet, but a vast heap of faggot-wood and stout logs lie ready on the hearth. A loud noise is heard outside the cross-barred wooden gates of the castle, and presently the sound of music blends with the boisterous shouting, followed by a bustle in the hall. The hangings are held aside from the doors under the music gallery, and the Lord of Misrule himself, clad in a quaint, showy habit, enters accompanied by his officials, dressed in my Lord Southampton's livery, and further bedizened with. such scarfs, ribbons, and laces, hanged all over with gold rings, precious stones, and other jewells,' as their own stores can furnish, or they can beg or borrow of their neighbours. Thus gallantly attended, 'the master of the merry disport' advances with affected pomp into the middle of the room, where turning round he waves his staff with much ceremony, and recites the formulary, which a poet of later date rendered into flowing verse:

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Come, bring with a noise,

My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing;

While my good lord, he

Bids you all be free,

And drink to your hearts' desiring.'

The trumpets sound, and the yule-log, the trunk of a large tree felled in Parkhurst Forest, is dragged in, a score or more sturdy Isle of Wight countrymen lending their arms to the ropes that are fastened around the huge tree, and as many more pushing at the sides and behind, all striving with might and main to speed its progress. Following it is a motley crowd of both sexes from Carisbrooke and Newport, but only such as are admitted within the swinging gates enter the castle, for all improper characters are shut out by the porter. With so many willing assistants the log is soon poised on the 'andiron,' and the lighter wood heaped around it. Then at Misrule's bidding the brand that was quenched last Candlemas, and then carefully and with a little mystery stored away, is produced and lighted by the steward, who applies it to the heap. The hall is now full, the ladies come

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