the amusement of her Majesty and the court-tilts, tournaments, deer hunting in the park, savage man, satyrs, bear and bull baitings, Italian tumblers and rope dancers, a country bridal ceremony, prizefighting, running at the quintin, morris dancing, and brilliant fireworks in the grandest style and perfection; during all this time the tables were loaded with the most sumptuous cheer. On the pool was a Triton riding on a Mermaid, eighteen feet long, and an Arion on a dolphin, who entertained the regal visitant with an excellent piece of music.

The old Coventry play of Hock Tuesday, founded on the massacre of the Danes, in 1002, was also performed here, "by certain good-hearted men of Coventry," at the head of whom was that renowned bibliomaniac, Captain Cox, the very mention of whose library has such a magical effect on all the black-letter collectors of the day. In this play was represented, "the outrage and importable insolency of the Danes, the grievous complaint of Hunna, King Ethelred's chieftain in wars, his counselling and contriving the plot to dispatch them; the violent encounters of the Danish and English knights on horseback, armed with spear and shield; and afterwards between hosts of footmen, which at length ended in the Danes being beaten down, overcome, and led captive by our English women; whereat her Majesty laught, and rewarded the

performers with two bucks and five marks in money." For the greater honour of this splendid entertainment, Sir Thomas Cecil, son and heir to the Lord Burleigh, and four other gentlemen of note were knighted; and in compliment to the Queen, and to evince the Earl's hospitable disposition. Laneham observes, "that the clok bell sang not a note all the while her Highness waz thear: the clok stood also still withal, the hands of both the tablz stood firm and fast, always pointing at two o'clock, the hour of banquet." Such is a slight but accurate account of this far famed fete, which had never been equalled, and has never been excelled; in which the refinement of music and poetry, and the pageantries of chivalry and romance, conspired to heighten the pleasures of sense, and temper the exuberances of luxuriance; of the Castle at this period, our illustrious novelist whose descriptions are distinguished for their historical truth and accuracy, has given us the following animated account.

"At length the princely Castle appeared, upon improving which, and the domains around, the Earl of Leicester had, it is said, expended sixty thousand pounds sterling, a sum equal to half a million of our present money.

"The outer wall of this splendid and gigantic structure enclosed seven acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a pleasure

garden, with its trim arbours and parterres, and the rest formed the large base-court, or outer yard, of the noble Castle. The lordly structure itself, which rose near the centre of this spacious enclosure, was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner court, and bearing in the 'names attached to each portion of the magnificent mass, and in the armorial bearings which were there emblazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long passed away, and whose history, could ambition have lent ear to it, might have read a lesson to the haughty favorite, who had now acquired and was augmenting the fair domain. A large and massive keep, which formed the citadel of the Castle, was of uncertain though great antiquity. It bore the name of Cæsar, perhaps from its resemblance to that in the Tower of London so called. Some antiquaries ascribed its foundation to the time of Kenelph, from whom the Castle had its name, a Saxon King of Mercia, and others to an early æra after the Norman conquest. On the exterior walls frowned the scutcheon of the Clintons, by whom they were founded in the reign of Henry I. and of the yet more redoubted Simon de Montford, by whom, during the Barons' Wars, Kenilworth was long held out against Henry III. Here Mortimer, Earl of March, famous alike for

his rise and his fall, had once gaily revelled, while his dethroned sovereign, Edward II. languished in its dungeons. Old John of Gaunt, "time honoured Lancaster," had widely extended the Castle, erecting that noble and massive pile which yet bears the name of Lancasters buildings; and Leicester himself had out-done the former possessors, princely and powerful as they were, by erecting another immense structure, which now lies crushed under its own ruins, the monument of its owner's ambition. The external wall of this royal Castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a lake partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the Castle by a path hitherto untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over which he had erected a gate-house or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in extent and superior in architecture, to the baronial Castle of many a northern chief.

"Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red deer, fallow deer, roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from amongst which the extended front and massive towers of the Castle were seen to rise in majesty and beauty. We cannot but add, that of this lordly palace, where princes feasted and herpes fought, now in the bloody earnest of storm and

siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt the prize which valour won, all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but a rushy swamp; and the massive ruins of the Castle only serve to shew what their splendour once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment."

On the departure of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester continued to make Kenilworth his occasional residence, till his death in 1588, when he bequeathed it to his brother, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, and after his death to his own son, the learned and accomplished Sir Robert Dudley; his legitimacy being questioned, on account of the private manner in which his father had married Lady Douglas Sheffield, and his second marriage, in her life time, with Lady Lettice, relict of the Earl of Essex, Sir Robert, in disgust, quitted the kingdom; and under pretence of his absence, though he travelled avec permission de la roi, his castle and estates were seized by a decree of that infamous court, the Star-Chamber, and given to Henry, son of James I.

At this period a regular survey of the Castle and its dependancies was made by the king's officers,

* Kenilworth, vol. 2. p. 332.