Year: 1872

another. There was feast In three
parts, with rests between, to give the
guests time to recover their appetites.
The first one was given by the Duke
of Cleves. The banquet was beyond
description, and the chronicle calls it
'superb," and breaks down. But on
one of the great tables was a decora-
ton representing ship with sails set,
a knight standing erect in it, castle
ingeniously contrived on its deck,
while the ship appeared to be drawn
by silver swan wearing gold col
lar. On this machine, either on the
deck of the vessel or one of the tow
ers of the castle, or on the back of
the swan, somewhere, stood up to
make proclamation of tourney, not
a herald or squire, but mine host the
Duke of Cleves himself, under the ii
tie of Knight of the Swan. If any
grand-duke of the present d9y were
to do so, we should call him Knight
Of the Goose. The second feast was
given by the Count d'Etampes,
which must mean the Count of
STAMPS" and having seen so many
counts without stamps, we are pleased
to hear of one who had some left not
outstanding his extravaganza. At
this feast there is procession, in
which girl twelve years old rides
into the hall in great pomp as the
Princess of Joy, the Duke of Cleves
again appears as Knight of the Swan
on horseback, himself and horse dress
ed up in most stunning way. He
leads large swan, which is escorted
by archers, and then come a whole
string Of allegorical people, horses
whose garments are funged with gold
en- bells, and such an array of cloth
of gold, crimson velvet, and black
velvet, trimmed with golden tear-drops,
that we are bewildered. Barnum's
caravan is nothing to all this.


How shall we describe the last feast,
given by the Duke of Burgundy, the
grandest duke of all? There was a
great pie on the table-not with
''four-and-twenty blackbirds," but with
eight-and-twenty real musicians toot-
ing away for dear life inside the past
ry! And there was a church, inwhich
were four choristers singing and ring
ing the bell. There was a great cas-
tie, whose fosses were filled with rose
water, and fairy on one of the tow
ers, windmill with archers and cross
bowmen firing at mark, and a null
titude Of other ornaments, some of
which we omit for lack of space, and
some for the sake of decency. And
the parades and professions eff people
dressed to represent allegorical fig
ures overwhelm the Imagination
grifins, hobgoblins, mechanical stags
with golden horns and musical ma
cnlnes in them; great dragon nylng
through the air; Jason fighting the
bulls; a giant leading an elephant
with a castle on its back, in which 6
lady represents the Holy Church


then comes the "Grace of God" a lady
in white, and all the virtues represen
ted by ladies, who, if they were like
most ladies Of the time, possessed
none Of them. The virtues have {
good dance with their chosen knights
and we are so bewildered by the rest
of this sort of spectacular drama, thai
we are disposed to be glad that it ha'
gone out of fashion.


, But think what we might have done


We might have received the gran(


Alexis in this way. We might have
had allegorical figures representing


Theft, an elephant with new court


house on its back, the elephant repre-


senting the taxpayers. And w
might have had-but space fails, ant
we leave the completion of the pictur
r to the maginations of our readers
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