The Quest of a Cup

ONE day at the beginning of our century, Washington Irving, then browsing on the Parnassus grass of England, bethought him of paying a visit to Eastcheap, that home of princely jest and Falstaffian revelry; and he afterwards set down in delectably humorous English the story of his attendant search for the old Boar’s Head Tavern. The history of that famous inn exists in little, and may be told while the hourglass runs a measure of sand such as Queen Mab might hold upon her palm. When it was built no chronicle relates, but of a certainty it was burned in the Great Fire of 1666. Its successor of the same name, sought out by Goldsmith, who dreamed there of Mrs. Quickly, in the naive and delightful belief that he was sitting beneath the original roof-tree, had also gone the way of the dead-and-alive who creep too far into a new century. Unfortunately, the old Boar stood in the pathway of progress, and his tenement was first absorbed by shops, and then swept away altogether in 1831, to make way for the approaches to new London Bridge. Now, the site of his former glory is indicated in one meagre line from Baedeker, which incidentally informs the expectant tourist that he will find the monument erected to King William IV. “ at the point where King William Street, Gracechurch Street, Eastcheap, and Cannon Street converge ; on a site once occupied by Falstafi s Boar s Head Tavern.” To be thus minimized, thus dragged in under the shadow of a mere inheritor of crowns, — is it not enough to make fat Jack flash out a lightning-sharp gibe from his limbo, and send some colossal eulogy of self hurtling back into our empty day ?

Goldsmith’s vision in the tavern rebuilt after the five deserves remembrance as one of those performances in which greatness in the dramatispersona does away with the necessity for correct scenesetting.

“ Here,” he says, “by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstafi cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was sometimes honored hy Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted by his immortal merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the tollies of youth, wished to be young again, hut was resolved to make the best of life whilst it lasted, and now and then compared past and present times together. . . . The watchman had gone twelve. My companions had all stolen off, and none now remained with me but the landlord. From him I could have wished to know the history of a tavern that had such a long succession of customers. I could not help thinking that an account of this kind would be a pleasing contrast of the manners of different ages. But my landlord could give me no information. He continued to doze and sot, and tell a tedious story, as most other landlords usually do, and though he said nothing, yet was not silent. One good joke followed another good joke, and the best joke of all was generally begun towards the end of a bottle. I found at last, however, his wine and his conversation operate by degrees. He insensibly began to alter his appearance. His cravat seemed quilted into a ruff, and his breeches swelled out into a farthingale. I now fancied him changing sexes; and as my eyes began to close m slumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, sleep made but few changes in my situation. The tavern, the apartment, and the table continued as before. Nothing suffered mutation but my host, who was fairly altered into a gentlewoman whom I knew to be Dame Quickly, mistress of this tavern in the days of Sir John ; and the liquor we were drinking seemed converted into sack and sugar.

“ ‘ My dear Mrs. Quickly,’cried I (for I knew her perfectly well at first sight), ‘ I am heartily glad to see you. How have you left Falstaff, Pistol, and the rest of our friends below stairs ? brave and hearty, I hope?’ ”

I heie was little lelt for Irving, the pioneer of England-loving Americans, but an hour of musing over past mirth, and a fruitful gossip (oh that some crafty and unscrupulous listener could have written us down its story!) with a worthy woman, self-constituted historian of the region, and like Mrs. Quickly in being “ a poor widow of Eastcheap.” She it was who suggested that, although lie had necessarily failed in looking upon the tavern, he might find a picture of it at St. Michael’s Church. Crooked Lane. Now not only had the back window of the inn looked out upon St. Michael’s churchyard, but the inn itself had passed into the hands of the church; the revenues of Bacchus thus reverting to the Establishment. Nothing, therefore, could be more natural than that St.. Michael’s should preserve the counterfeit presentment of its useful ward. But, though Irving betook himself there without delay, no such relic was forthcoming. Countless were the tombs of fishmongers therein, for St. Michael’s was near neighbor to Billingsgate. There also were treasured the ashes of William Walworth, the doughty knight, most inti epid of lord mayors, who smote Wat Tyler at Smithfield. In the little graveyard adjoining the church stood the tombstone of honest Robert Preston, drawer of renown, doubtless the successor of that Francis who had the immortal honor of serving Prince Hal and Falstaff, — cold comfort all, when the prime jewel of Eastcheap was lacking.

The sexton, however, perceiving Irving’s disappointment, and reverencing, as English sextons will, the spirit of the loving antiquary, proposed a descent upon the Mason’s Arms, at No. 12 Miles Lane.

This was the tavern where St. Michael’s vestry held its meetings, as it once had held them at the Boar’s Head, departed. Here, too, were deposited its vessels, formerly guarded by the trusty Boar. What he saw there, let Irving himself relate : —

“ The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and, with an air of profound importance, imparted to her my errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses, Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige; and, hurrying upstairs to the archives of her house, where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, she returned, smiling and courtesying, with them in her hands.

“ The first she presented me was a japanned iron tobacco-box of glganic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had smoked at their stated meetings since time immemorial; and which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on common occasions.

I received it with becoming reverence ; but what was my delight at beholding on its cover the identical painting of which I was in quest! There was displayed the outside of the Boar’s Head Tavern, and before the door was to be seen the whole convivial group, at table, in full revel; pictured with that wonderful fidelity and force with which the portraits of renowned generals and commodores are illustrated on tobacco-boxes for the benefit of posterity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the cunning limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the bottoms of their chairs.

“ On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliterated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar’s Head Tavern, and that it was ‘ repaired and beautified by his successor, Mr. John Packard, 1767.’ Such is a faithful description of this august and venerable relic, and I question whether the learned Scriblerus contemplated his Roman shield, or the Knights of the Round Table the long-sought Sangreal, with more exultation.

“ While 1 was meditating on it with enraptured gaze. Dame Honey ball, who was highly gratified by the interest it excited, put in my hands a drinking-cup, or goblet, which also belonged to the vestry, and was descended from the old Boar’s Head. It bore the inscription of having been the gift of Francis Wythers, knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great value, being considered very ‘ antyke.’

“The great importance attached to this memento of ancient revelry by modern church-wardens at first puzzled me ; but there is nothing sharpens the apprehension so much as antiquarian research, for I immediately perceived that this could be no other than the identical ‘parcel-gilt goblet’ on which Falstaff made his loving but faithless vow to Dame Quickly, and which would, of course, he treasured up with care among the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn contract.”

There the search rested so far as Irving was concerned, and he genially remarks, at the close of his paper, that he leaves all this as a rich mine to be worked out by future commentators.

“ Nor do I despair,” he adds, “ of seeing the tobacco-box and the ‘ parcel-gilt goblet ’ which I have thus brought to light the subject of future engravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles or the far-famed Portland Vase.”

The story of his pilgrimage has, for the mind imbued with romance, a peculiar charm. For my own part, I have never for an instant doubted that the goblet which he identified, with the precision of genius, was actually Mrs. Quickly ’s, and that goblet I had long resolved to seek, should fortune take me to England.

“ Came a day,” as Aurora Leigh elliptically declares, when, on the top of an omnibus, with a faithful gossip, I crossed the Styx of Holborn and Cheapside to that land still peopled by illustrious ghosts, still decked in brave raiment of names that dazzle the eye and stir the blood. Though ancient landmarks have been effaced by hurrying feet, intent on that meat which is less than life, Eastcheap is to-day enchanted ground, and its tavern a Mecca of the mind. The very names in the neighborhood are redolent of good cheer. Bread Street, Fish Street Hill, and Pudding Lane each stands pointing a sad finger to the merry past when, as Lydgate, the rhyming monk, relates, it was a city of cooks’ shops. Lydgate’s period was that of Henrys IV. and V., and his London Lack penny has the ring of good and olden cheer. “ Then I hyed me into Est-Chepe;
One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye;
Pewter pottes they clattered on a he ape ,
There was harpe, pype and mynstrelsye.”

High revelry was held in Eastcheap in the time of Henry IV., but, according to Stow, that most delightful of antiquaries, who in the face of manifold discouragements added riches untold to the treasury of English history, no taverns then existed. No man interfered with another’s specialty. “ The Cooks dressed Meat and sold no Wine; and the taverner sold Wine and dressed no Meat for Sale.”

“ This Eastcheap,” continues he, “ is now a Flesh-Market of Butchers, there dwellingon both sides of the Street; it had sometime also Cooks mixed amongst the Butchers, and such other as sold Victuals ready dressed of all sorts. For of old time, when Friends did meet, and were disposed to be merry, they went not to dine and sup in Taverns, (for they dressed not Meats to be sold) but to the Cooks, where they called for Meat what they liked, which they always found ready dressed, and at a reasonable rate.”

Eastcheap in fact was very near the river, that great highway of London, upon which fish, flesh, and wine were brought to the bank’s side. Of that strip of land immediately south, and between Eastclieap and the river, a twelfthcentury folio has suggestive mention, thus quoted by Stow : —

“In London, upon the River side, between the wine in Ships, and the Wine to be sold in Taverns, is a common Cookery or Cooks Row; where daily, for the Season of the Year, Men might have Meat, roast, sod, or fryed ; Fish, Flesh, Fowls, fit for Rich and Poor.

“ If any come suddenly to any Citizen from afar, weary, and not willing to tarry till the Meat be bought and dressed ; while the Servant bringeth Water for his Master’s Hands, and fetcheth Bread, he shall have immediately (from the River side) all Viands whatsoever he desireth. What Multitude soever, either of Soldiers or Strangers, do come to the City ; whatsoever Hour, Day or Night, according to their Pleasures, may refresh themselves. And they which delight in Delicateness, may be satisfied with as delicate Dishes there, as may be found elsewhere. And this Cooks Row is very necessary to the City : And according to Plato and Gorgias, Next to Physick, is the Office of Cooks, as Part of a City.”

It was in Eastclieap, moreover, that Prince Hal s two brothers fell out with the watch, an episode which may have served as the germ in Shakespeare’s brain whence blossomed such a robust tree of mirth. Near by stood Prince Ilal s own mansion of Cold Harbour, the cellars enriched with his father’s gift, “ twenty casks and one pipe of red wine of Gascoigne, free of duty.” What other part of London could Falstaff possibly have chosen for his haunts ? Even in the old play of Henry Fifth which preceded Shakespeare’s, the Prince declares, “ You know the old tavern in Eastcheap, there is good wine.” Thus is this roistering region so famous in contemporary eulogy that it needs no bush of modern criticism.

The lover of Shakespeare and of his Falstaff is conscious of an excited delight in threading these murky streets of “the City, —worshipful, almost, of the very ground whereon he treads. He will stand lost in dreaming while traffic surges past, and smells are ancient and fish like, mindful of memory alone. If, happily, the ideal is more real to him than solid earth, he will sweep aside the orderly rubbish of a modern day, and by force of fancy reconstruct that house where “ hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons.” Let Falstaff rise, tavern reckoning in pocket, and counterfeit a moment s life, as “gunpowder Percy ” should have done to fright him. Then shall we see, entering beneath the tavern ’s tuskèd sign, “ a goodly portly man, faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage.” Here stood the chair which was his state, when he dared personate his sovereign ; this cushion was his crown, and here behind the arras did he snore. Here was discussed that merry jest at Gadshill, and this is the room where, in the telling, Falstaff’s adversaries were so marvelously multiplied. Here must he have heard the chimes at midnight, and here was his heart struck cold with pathetic reminder of his end. Remembrance throngs upon us, until we are fain to cry : —

Last and most lustrous memory of all, William Shakespeare, who saw the house almost daily, on his way to Blackfriars playhouse, must often have sought its hospitable door for his cup of sack and his merry jest with mine host.

When Lessing confessed that, for himself, the search after truth was to be preferred to the goddess herself, he proved himself a wise man. Happy is he who takes a roundabout way to Elysium, and so is pleasantly entertained upon the road! There is no comparison for blessedness between his lot and that of the victim of accurate charts and infallible time-tables. Had Ulysses formed one of a “ personally conducted ” expedition, a bankrupt world might well have bemoaned its loss, for who by searching can find in Cook’s circular mention of the Lotophagi, “ who for their only nourishment eat flowers,” the Cyclops, Nausicaa, or Circe ? Yet Ulysses came upon them because he sacrificed not on the altar of accurate and abominable science. If the two Americans who sought Eastcheap one golden day had devoted an hour’s study to their problem in the British Museum, they would have wandered less widely in pursuit of their desire ; nay, would have concluded that there was nothing left to attain, and thus confined themselves to the region of narrow experience reserved for those who let “ ‘ I dare not ’ wait upon " I would.’ ” With the simplicity of ignorance, we expected, though the tavern had been swept away, to lay a finger upon the link forged by Irving with the past ; to look upon the Mason’s Arms, custodian of box and goblet, and to visit St. Michael’s Church, forever memorable from having held its vestry meetings under the sign of the Boar’s Head.

King William’s Monument was easily found, and near by lay Crooked Lane,

“ so called of the crooked windings thereof,” though, as we speedily realized, its generous curve had been cut short at the call of traffic. A moment ’s investigation made it also evident that St. Michael’s Church had in that lamentable doing been swept away. Even after that certainty had settled cold upon the heart, we walked up and down the dingy street, staring beseechingly about, as if, perchance, church, tower, and all might magically rise. An appeal to policemen and dusty-looking idlers who played the role of oldest inhabitant bore no consoling fruit. St. Michael’s Church was gone ; one and another declared that it had not been there in his day ; and as we querulously disputed the wisdom of its , removal, we were urged to consider the fair proportions of those newer streets which had crowded it out of being.

“ But be not daunted, at length whispered Hope: “the Mason’s Arms may still have such store of compensation as it offered Irving in his disappointment! ”

Therefore we turned our steps in the direction of Miles Lane. There might the heart he warmed by the descendants of Master Edward Honeyball, Irving’s kindly host, or even Master Honeyball himself, his century brimmed over and his race still unfinished. Narrow and dingy is the way. Bales of goods are hoisted over the head of the timorous traveler, who, if he be prudent, takes to the middle of the street, there to be jostled by unsavory fish-venders and bearers of burdens. Such hardships of progress are of little moment, however, to one inspired by the hope that he may presently come upon Dame Honeyball, hospitably alert in the doorway, overcoming the scruples of the hesitant traveler, and persuading him that her wine needs no bush. May he not catch a glimpse of the serving-maid with trim ankles, or even a savory whiff of that mutton which was a-roasting so many years ago ? Vain delusion of the too alert fancy ! The Mason’s Arms lives no longer, save upon Irving’s rescuing page. Covering its former ground stands a glaringly modern and commonplace “public,” whither business men, boys, and cabbies were that day tending for a pot of beer, to emerge brushing the foam from appreciative lips. Yet, though that beery seclusion might be reserved for the tippling male, not for such reason would woman, wrapped in the armor of an idea, refrain from penetrating it.

The traveler in England soon learns that there, as in the economy of nature, nothing is lost, and that axiom will comfort him on many a discouraging quest. Anything which St. Michael’s Church had once possessed must still be church property, and would undoubtedly be kept in this parish, or in a neighboring one.

Therefore, in whatever corner of secrecy and darkness its forgotten treasures lay hidden, they might surely be unearthed by the persistent seeker. Such reasonable premises being assumed, what more likely spot could there be for eliciting fact or wildfire gossip than the common meeting-ground of a tavern ?

The white-aproned “ drawer ” would fain have told us all we sought, so said his sympathetic manner, but he could only suggest the beadle as a probable fountain of Eastcheap lore. And where was the beadle to he found ? He was in, not five minutes ago, to take his pint of beer, and he might come round again in an hour. (0 bibulous beadle, is this thy hourly custom ?) It all depended upon what he had to do. Some days there were a good many burials. No beadle, however, was forthcoming, even after long lingering, and an ascent to his room, over three flights of breakneck stairs ; and choosing at random a church near by which might divulge hidden information, we went to St. Margaret Pattens, named for the patten-makers who long ago flourished there, and rich in its own store of old-time memories. The white-haired rector was finishing his daily service to empty benches; for, though traffic surges about this and its sister churches in the heart of the City, it is rare indeed that a man or woman enters one of them to seek the bread of life. They have their religiously preserved carvings, their precious organs, their careful service ; they go quietly beating on, like a jeweled timepiece in the clothes of a beggar, and afar off, but ominous, sounds the howl of “ Disestablishment ! ”

This gentleman was not the rector of St. Margaret Pattens, protested an inner voice, when finally he was ready to speak with the strangers. He was Trollope’s gentle.”Warden.”

“ Have you given up that old and loving habit of fingering your imaginary violoncello ? ” one refrained with difficulty from asking. Has Archdeacon Grantly frowned it down, and is lie at this moment waiting for you at home, to broach some scheme of advancement in which your cleanly soul will not concur ? The Warden held, as it happily proved, the key to difficulty the first. St. Michael’s parish had, he said at once, been merged in St. Magnus’s, and doubtless took all its property with it. But if we were interested in the Boar’s Head, should we not also like to see an entry in St. Margaret’s vestry accounts, of the sixteenth century, proving that it found the tavern a comfortable neighbor? From an old oaken chest he drew a volume, its leather covers worn rough by time, its pages yellowed and stained by years, if not from use.

“ Itn paide for our dynners on St. Andrewse Day at the Bores Hedde 18s. 6d.”

He it was who suggested that the parcel-gilt goblet was not a sacramental cup, but rather one used by the vestry in its business meetings, which had also a convivial character. Such cups were known as " masers,” and might be either of metal or of wood, carved, and ornamented with silver and gold. An allusion of the sixteenth century to another vessel describes it as “ a great cuppe, brode and deepe, such as great masers were wont to be.” These vessels, true loving cups, were highly valued by the fortunate owners, whether individuals or corporations. The Warden would not hear of thanks. Old customs were his delight, he protested, and of all the phantasms of this changing world they best rewarded pursuit, He had even revived in his own church the ancient ceremony of " beating the bounds. The children of the parish marched out in due form and beat with wands the parish boundaries; but so changed had the locality become since the days when such geography lessons were of ordinary occurrence, and building had not smothered God’s earth, that one child had to be let down from a window into a closed court, to touch with his wand a separating point. But O times and manners ! that ye have changed is patent in the fact that whereas such occasions served of old as pretext for revelings, to-day but one friendly baker regaled the beaters with buns and lemonade. Where are the cakes and ale whereon they feasted once from door to door ? Gone, with bear-baitings, new plays on Bankside, mouth-filling oaths, and good Queen Bess.

With that day and the farewell courtesies of the gentle Warden ended our quest.It even hung fire over the summer, for an appeal by letter to the ” fair parish church of St. Magnus ” elicited the fact that it was undergoing repair, and was therefore in no condition for visitors. Thus it happened that it was only a few days before sailing for America that we entered its little vestry, and caught at once from the window a sight more to be desired than the freedom of the city in a box of gold. There, hemmed in by walls, lies a little patch of green, its one ornament the Purbeck stone which once in St. Michael’s churchyard told the virtues of Robert Preston, and now sojourns with St. Magnus, still to rehearse his fame.

Truly, it is good to touch with reverent finger each link of a golden past, to renew our fondness for the motherland by thumbing over the pages of her story ! The rector of St. Magnus dallied with our impatience, and proffered many a fillip to the appetite before he would produce the nightingales’ tongues and ortolans of the feast. We must see his church, redolent of memories ancient and wonderful, and the tablet to Miles Coverdale, wherein the godly and learned do much delight. We must even try his organ. But at length returned to the vestry room, there appeared a sexton, penetrated to the soul with the importance of every detail connected with the Establishment, and in his hands he bore two boxes, one of wood, and the other the identical tobacco-box which Irving had described, — the same, yet different in the fresh glory of paint probably applied in 1861, for, as the inscription relates, it was then repaired anew. Now be it understood that there had been throughout little talk of the goblet, but much of this box from which the church-wardens once filled their innocent pipes. It was impossible to refer honestly to the former treasure in any way except as a memento of Mrs. Quickly; and would even the daring scion of an aggressive land approach a reverend incumbent of the English Church with a mention of that amiable but scarcely conventional woman, painful antithesis to the British matron ? Perish the thought! Rather wait, hoping that box and goblet had drifted down the stream of years still together, and that the same incoming wave would sweep them to the travelers’ feet. With a slow seriousness befitting the occasion the wooden box was opened, and there, in its green baize seclusion, lay the goblet of our dreams. The moment had come, and triumphantly it crowned endeavor. No one who has seen that cup can doubt for a moment that it is certainly the one illuminated by the sea-coal fire that day when Falstaff swore his perishable oath. It is of a goodly shape, with a standard and a generous bowl. It is lined with gold. “ parcel-gilt,” and the silver exterior is decorated with fanciful little figures in outline, shaped somewhat like Prince Rupert drops. About the foot runs the inscription, Ex done Francisci Wythers A rm irjer i.

There is an actual possibility connected with this relic which is hardly to be considered without excitement. The cup, we are told, was in the first part of this century “very ‘ antyke.’ ” What is more probable than that William Shakespeare, in his social evenings at the tavern where it was kept, was a welcome guest of St. Michael’s vestry, what time the cup went round and beards all wagged ? The parcel-gilt goblet was ever held in high esteem, whenever it was first received, and it is easy to believe it formed a part of the church property before 1597, the earliest date to be assigned King Henry IV. That possibility once assumed, the mind runs riot in conjecture, and almost loses its balance in a mad chase after the thistle-down of circumstantial proof. Who was Sir Francis Wythers ? When was he christened, married, or where did he die ? A list of tombstones and tablets from St. Michael’s does not contain his name. Its register of christenings, marriages, and burials, which begins in 1538, holds no reference to him. Did he belong to some other parish, which keeps in hiding the record of his life, waiting for a lucky finder, that prince whose lot it is to succeed after the many fail, or did he go to the wars with Falstaff, to receive burial “unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d ” ? — for it is difficult to avoid a strange mingling of the poetical and real, in such a quest. Was be one of the Lancashire Withers, a family which claims George Wither, the poet, and of whose founder mention is made in the reign of Edward II. ? “ What’s become of Waring?” is no more crucial problem, no blinder scent, than that connected with this elusive donor of a cup. The ingenious mind will suggest that there may be some mention of goblet or giver in St. Michael’s audit books. Even so small a matter as paying for the inscription, if that were not done until after its presentation, would surely be mentioned. Vain hope ! The earliest parochial book is dated 1617, and has nothing to say on the subject. It does, however, contain two references to the Boar’s Head, which are of some interest, like every trifle touching that wonder-breeding spot.

I, for one, am determined to assume that the cup has met the eye of Shakespeare, and was even touched by his good right hand. I shall never allow the true delight of literary pilgrimage to be spoiled by too close an adherence to possible fact. In the ideal suppositions of life lie its paramount charms. He is a happy man. gifted with the truest wisdom, who sees in every thorn-tree at Glastonbury a scion of the olden one, who can bare his head in memory of King Arthur at each of the several places claiming the crown of Camelot, and people the land with brave men and fair women who, as the learned tell us, were never more than “ such stuff as dreams are made on.”

Shakespeare dearly loved to harness every-day events to the car of poesy ; to fit a cart horse out with wings, and hid him godspeed in playing Pegasus. When Titania describes a strange contusion of the seasons, and the resulting evils to man and beast, there can be no doubt that the poet had in mind the year 1594, when “ the spring was very unkind, by means of the abundance of rain that fell. Our July hath been like to a February ; our June even as an April: so that t he air must needs be infected.” That immortal speech of Bottom, wherein he entreats the ladies not to tremble, since lie is no lion, hut “ a man as other men are, has its prototype in an incident, probably of Shakespeare’s own time, which is recorded in a collection entitled Merry Passages and Jests : —

“ There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the Dolphin’s baeke ; but finding his voice to be verye hoarse and unpleasant when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Harry Goldingham.” Face-painting, Mary Queen of Scots and her siren arts, the dancing horse (a justly celebrated wonder of the poet’s time), a fool’s leap into a custard to excite the popular mirth, the “ little eyases ” of St. Paul’s Cathedral, who became stage favorites, to be strongly and somewhat jealously censured by legitimate players, — dozens of contemporary allusions illustrate Shakespeare’s royal and prodigal way of sweeping up the dust from the path of every-day life and using it for ornament of his pageants.

The “parcel-giltgoblet at the Boar’s Head, ’ — a careless mention, fit only to cause a passing smile on such lips as had merrily touched its brim, but to us, cold under the long shadows of too late a day, pregnant with wondrous meaning. For to have looked upon what Shakespeare saw, though it be but the infinitely removed descendants of the daisies that bloomed at Stratford three centuries ago, to have held what his hand once touched, is to have found one vivifying crumb left from that high feast when every man

Alice Brown.