The Baltimore County union., 1866-03-10
England in Queen Elizabeth's Day.

England IN queen El1zaDeCn>S lay.
So rapidly were the English growing in
the luxurious and vices of other lands,
while they retained their native vigor and
coarse habits, that the playwrights con-
stantly alluded to the incongruity OF the
fashions displayed in the dress of dandies,
to their language mixed ofall the dialects
in Europe, to their aptitude for every kind
of dissipation, to their skill in the sports
of all nations, and to the decay of antique
severity. eve have robbed Greece of
gluttony," says Stephen Gasson, "Spain OF
pride, France of deceit, Dutchland of quaf-
fing.'2 But these afectations were only a
kind of varnish on the surface of society
The incidents Of court gossip show how
savage was the life beneath. Queen Eliza
beth spat one day in the midst of her no.
bles at a gentleman who displeased her.
She struck Lord Essex on the cheek
Burleigh often cried at her Entertainment
The Lords wrangled, and even drew.s swords
in her presence. Once Leicester took her
handkerchief from her lap to wipe his face
and beaten by her parents, and exposed to
such indignities that she wearied of life !;
yet they made her one of the best Greek
scholars of the day. Heretics were burned
in every town. Sir Henry Sidney, as we
learn from paper recently published by
Mr.. Froude, when sent to quell the Irish
rebels, first proclaimed the Queens sover-
eighty, and then allowed no mercy to the
recusants. He "put man, woman, and
child to the sword" While his sergeant
majors balanced the advantages Of pillag
ing or having some killing" with a pref
erence for the latter when they felt themsel-
yes in humor for the chase.
Z The belief in witches every where pre-
vailed, nor was it an uncommon village
sport to drown old women in the ponds, and
to rack suspected wizards till for very an
guish they confessed Fictitious crimes
Oountry-folks conducted their revels with
a license that would shock our modern ears.
The Lord of Misrule led out his motley
train, the ladies went a. -Maying with their
lovers to the woods. The Feasts Of Asses
and of Fools profaned the sanctuaries nor
were the sports of Christmas so well suited
to celebrate Christian festival as to recall
the rites of Wooden and Freya. Men and
women who read Plato and discussed the
beauties of Petrarch's poetry, allowed the
coarsest' practical jokes and used the gros
sest language. They sold farms and forests,
and wore their acres in the form OF gems
and gold lace on their backs. But their
splendid clothes and jewels did not prevent
them from indulging in the most untidy hab-
its. They would lie upon the rushes which
concealed the fragments of.old feasts; and
they burned perfumes to sweeten cham
bers musty with bad air. The church it.
self was not respected, The nave of St:
Paul's became a rendezvous of thieves and
prostitutes. Fine gentleman paid sums of
money for the privilege of clanking up and
down its aisles in service time dancers
and maskers, crowding from the square
outside in all their fnery, often took the
sacrament and then ran out to recommence
their sports. Men were papist and Pro-
testants accordhg to the time of pay;
hearing mass insthe morning and sermon in
the afternoon. There was no end to the ex-
travagance and .incongruity of elements
which then>prevailed in England. Yet in
the midst of this confusion rose cavaliers
like Sidney, philosophers like Bacon poets
like Spencer; in whom all that is pure, ele-
vated, subtle, tender, wise, delicate, and
learned in ourmodern civilization, display
ed itself. .-CornhM Magazine. hl
/ f1sf4 -.--.- aisa