skull-cap, sword, musket, and bandoliers, with which they were obliged to repair to the muster, the military discipline was of such a complex character, that it both imposed much labor and consumed a great deal of time. The ponderous matchlock, or carbine, of those days, had to be put through a long succession of manoeuvers before it could be loaded, primed, and discharged. In learning to shoot with it, the soldier-citizen was obliged to gather courage, and accustom himself to the recoil of his piece, by flashing a little powder in the pan; the use of wadding for the ball not being as yet understood, he could only shoot effectually breast-high; and his fire was delivered in the act of advancing, lest he should become himself a mark to the enemy, while taking a standing aim. As for the pike, it was a stout, heavy weapon of pliant ash, about sixteen feet long, and dexterity in the use of it could only be acquired by frequent practice. The Puritans at first re1 Grose's Military Antiquities, chap. v.

garded these warlike musters in the Artillery Gardens with abhorrence, as an absolute mingling with the profane; but when they were taught from the pulpits that their projected reformation could only be accomplished by carnal weapons, they crowded to the exercise with alacrity. In the mean time the proud cavaliers, who were still blind to the political signs of the times, laughed scornfully at these new displays of cockney chivalry, and were wont to declare that it took a Puritan two years to learn how to discharge a musket without winking.* But the laugh was turned against themselves after the civil wars commenced, when the pikes and guns of the civic militia scattered the fiery cavalry of Prince Rupert and bore down all before them. When these Puritans were converted into actual soldiers they "marched to the field in their highcrowned hats, collared bands, great loose coats,

1 Letter of Samuel Butler in Somers's Tracts, vol. iv. p.
2 Ibid.

582.

long tucks under them, and calves' leather boots: they used to sing a psalm, fall on, and beat all opposition to the devil." It is worthy of remark, too, that the long active service and military renown of these campaigners gave them no disrelish, after the war had ended, for their former peaceful and humble occupations. On the contrary, the soldier resumed his mechanical implements, and the officer returned to his shop or warehouse, while the cavaliers still went about with belts and swords, swearing, swaggering, and breaking into houses, and stealing whatever they could find.

The chief amusements of the court of King James were masques and emblematic pageants; and as these were chiefly the production of Ben Jonson, they were greatly superior to those of the preceding period. Still, however, the pedantry of James, and the frivolity of his queen, required those accommodations on the part of the poet which his own good taste would have rejected. In one of these representations, called the Masque of Blackness, twelve Ethiopian nymphs, taking a voyage to Britain, to have their complexions made white, were represented by the queen and twelve ladies of the court, whose faces and arms were besmeared for the occasion with black paint. At the end of the masque a banquet was set out, and, as the courtiers were hungry, the feast was "so furiously assaulted, that down went tables and tressels before one bit 1 Shadwell's Comedy of "The Volunteers "

1

PIKEMAN, 1635. Ibid.

was touched." A more detailed account, however. of a court pageant, exhibited before James and the King of Denmark at Theobalds, gives an astounding view both of the taste and moral character of the English court at this period. "One day," writes Sir John Harrington, in a letter to a friend in the country, during the visit of Christian IV., king of Denmark, in the summer of 1606, "a great feast was held, and after dinner the representation of Solomon his Temple and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or, I may better say, was meant to have been made, before their majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But, alas! as all earthly things do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The lady who did play the queen's part, did carry most precious gifts to both their majesties, but, forgetting the steps arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish majesty's lap, and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a little defiled with the presents of the queen which had been bestowed on his garments, such as wine, cream, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and