ART. IX.-The Device to entertayne hir Ma' att Harfielde, the house of St Thomas Egerton, Lo: Keeper, and his Wife the Countess of Darbye, in hir Mats progresse, 1602. Alice, Countess Dowager of Derby, the youngest of six daughters of Sir John Spencer, of Althorp, in Northamptonshire, was married to Ferdinando Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, better known to the readers of our early dramas from the company of players he retained, and who bore the name of my Lord Strange's players.' Lord Strange succeeded to the Earldom of Derby on the death of his father, Henry Earl of Derby, in the year 1592; and dying two years after, 16th April, 1594, his widow in October, 1600, married Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper, created by King James I. Baron Ellesmere, 21 July, 1603, Lord High Chancellor of England, 24 of July, 1603, and Viscount Brackley, 7 November, 1616. Lord Chancellor Egerton died at York House, in the Strand, 15 March, 1616-17, and his widow, Alice Countess Dowager of Derby, at Harefield, in Middlesex, on the 16th January, 1636-7. Harefield Place, on the river Colne, near Uxbridge, was "a fair house standing on the edge of a hill," belonging, when Norden compiled his Survey of Middlesex, in 1593, to Sir Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. From Sir Edmund Anderson it passed, in 1601, into the possession of Sir Thomas Egerton and here, in July, 1602, the Lord Keeper and his Lady entertained Queen Elizabeth in her last progress. The Queen died in the March following. The name of Alice Countess Dowager of Derby can never 1 See Henslowe's Diary, printed for the Shakespeare Society, p. 20. VOL. II. F die Spenser dedicates his "Tears of the Muses to her; and for her did Milton write his "Arcades," part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Derby "by some noble persons of her family." Her second daughter by the Earl of Derby was married to John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, son of the Lord Chancellor Egerton, by his first wife, and before whom the "Masque of Comus" was presented at Ludlow Castle, in the year 1634. Harefield Place was burnt down about the year 1660. "Tradition says that the fire was occasioned by the carelessness of the witty Sir Charles Sedley, who was amusing himself by reading in bed."1 The MS. from which the following part of the entertainment at Harefield in the summer of 1602 is taken, was found among the "Conway Papers" by the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, and is here printed, by the kind permission of that gentleman. The "petition" is printed in Nichol's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (vol. iv., part 1, ed. 1821), and the Song and Lotteries in "Davison's Poetical Rhapsody," a popular miscellany of the reign of James I. Davison, however, omits the names of the drawers, and merely describes the portion he preserves as "A Lottery presented before the late Queen's Majesty at the Lord Chancellor's House, 1601." Nichols assigns it to the same year, as indeed does Manningham, in his Diary, among the Harleian MSS. There is, however, every reason to believe that the several lotteries in question were drawn, not at York House, in the Strand, in 1601, but at Harefield, in 1602, when Queen Elizabeth was there, and when "Othello" was performed for the first time, that 1 Lysons's Middlesex Parishes, p. 108. 2 Poetical Rhapsody, ed. Nicolas, p. 5. 3 Harl. MS., 5353. "Some of the lotteries [15 of them] wch were the last Sumer at hir Mties being with the L. Keeper." fol. 95. 1 we have any trace of it by "Burbidge's players." I may add that a MS. Collection of Poems of the time of James I. assigns the several lotteries to the year 1602.-Poet. Miscellanies printed for the Percy Society, No. lv. To the Lotteries in Davison the initials "I. D." are attached; i.e., as there is every reason to believe, Sir John Davys, the author of "Nosce Teipsum, or, a poem on the Immortality of the Soul," &c. The Lots in Davison are in number thirty-four. They are here the same. In the Percy publication they are thirtyeight. But the text of the Percy transcript is very far from correct, and "the names of the drawers" generally erroneous. P. CUNNINGHAM. THE DEVISE TO ENTERTAYNE HIR MATY AT HARFIELDE, In hir Mats pro gresse. 1602. Beawtyes rose and vertues booke, Angells mynde and The humble Angells looke To all Snts and Angells deere, cleerest Maty on earth Heavens did smile att your faire birth And since your dayes have bene most cleere peticōn of a giltless sainte wherewith ye gowne of rainebowes was p❜sented to hir Maty Onely pore St Swithin now, doth heare you blame his in hir pro clowdy browe Butt he pore Snt devoutly sweares, it is butt a tradicon vayne Thatt his much weeping causeth rayne, For Sats in heaven shed no teares. gresse. 1602. Egerton Papers, printed for the Camden Society, p. 343. Collier's Shakespeare, vii., 493. Butt this he saith thatt to his feaste, comes Iris an unbidden gueste. In hir moiste roabe of collors gaye. And when she comes she ever stayes For the full space of fortye dayes And more or lesse raines every daye.' Butt he good Snt when once he knewe, this rayne was like to fall on you. If Snt could weepe had wepte as muche, as when he did the ladye leade, Thatt did on burning iron treade To Ladyes his respecte is suche He gentlye first bidds Iris goe, unto th' antipodes belowe, Butt she for this more sullen grewe, when he sawe thatt with angry looke, From hir, hir raynye roabe he toke, Wch heere he doth p'sente to you. Tis fitt itt shoulde wth you remayne, for you know better how to raigne, Yett if itt rayne still as before, Snt Swythen prayes thatt you woulde guesse, Thatt Iris doth more roabes possesse, And thatt you would blame him noe more This reading is infinitely to be preferred to the reading in Nichols : "But this he saith, that to his feast In her moist roabe of collers gay; And more or lesse raines euery day." CYNTHIA queene of seas and landes, Thatt fortune every Sung by 2 wher comandes, mariners p1sently before Sent forth fortune to the sea, To trye her fortune every the Lottaryes. waye. Ther did I fortune meete, wch makes me now to singe, All the nymphes of Thetis trayne, did Cynthias fortune intertayne, Many a Jewell, many a Jemme, was to fortune broughte Hir fortune spedd so well, wch makes me now to singe, Fortune thatt itt might be seene, Thatt she did serve a royall Queene A ffranke and royall hande did beare, and cast hir for- Some toyes fell to my share, wch makes me now to singe, THE SEVERALL LOTTES.2 Fortunes wheeles. Fortune must now noe more in tryumphe ride This, Mr. Collier assures me, is the burden of a ballad considerably earlier, in point of time, than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 2 The order of the "Lottes" in the Poetical Rhapsody is very different from the order in the Conway MS. They are here, in all probability, given as they were drawn. The fifteen "Lottes" preserved by Manningham, in his Diary (Harl. MS., 5353), are the 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 31, 32, 34, of the Conway Transcript. Hir Matye. |