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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
who, in order that a scarcity might the sooner cease, assembled the poor that were suffering by famine in a bam, antt caused them to be burnt alive, saying, that poor people were like mice, good for nothing but to devour com ; wherefore God Almighty raised up an army of mice to do judg- ment upon him, from whom he escaped to a tower in the middle of the Rhine, whither the mice swam, and miserably devoured him. This story was told in the pageant by a wooden build- ing apparently on fire; people enclosed within, put their bands through the bars of the window imploring relief; a soldier with a lighted torch in one hand, stabs at them with a dagger grasped in the other; the archbishop, robed, mitred, and crosieied, follows dignifiedty; while Avarice in- fuses her thoughts into his ear with a pair of bellows; lastly, a dart, from which mice are hung by the back, is uplifted against him by death.*
Strutt remarks that Pageants, though com- monly exhibited in the great towns and cities of England on solemn and joyful occasions, were more frequent in London, on account of its being the theatre fur the entertainment of foreign monarchs, and for the procession of our own kings and queens to their coronation, or on their return from abroad ; besides which, there were the ceremonials Incident at stated periods, such as the setting of the midsummer watch, and the Lord Mayor's Show. Accordingly a considerable number of different artificers were kept at the city's expense to fumish the machineiy for the Pageants, and to decorate them ; and a great part of Leaden Hall was anciently appropriated to painting and depositing them. The fronts of the nouses in the streets through which the proces- sions passed, were covered with rich adornments of tapestry, arras, and cloth of gold ; the chief magistrates and most opulent citizens usually appeared on horseback in sumptuous habits, and joined the cavalcade, while the ringing of bells, the sound of music from various quarters, and the shouts of the populace, nearly stunned the ears of the spectators. At certain distances, in places appointed for the purpose, the Pageants were erected, which were temporary buudings representing castles, palaces, gardens, rocks, or forests, as ue occasion required, where nymphs, fauns, satyrs, gods, goddesses, angels, and' devils, appeared in company with giants, savages, dragons, saints, knights, buffoons, and dwarfs, surrounded by minstrels and choristers ; the hea- then mythology, the legends of chivalry and Christian divinity, were ridiculously jumbled together without meaning ; and the exhibitions usually concluded with dull pedantic harangues exceeaingly tedious, and replete with the grossest adulation. Warton is of opinion, that It was not until about the reign of Henry VI. that the performers in the Pageants began to recite. From a few notices some estimate may be formed of the consequence in which they arc held, and the nature of the exhibition.
- This sbnr li agreeably venllled by Mr. Southey in the
ballad of OnftjwgmaU on a Btthop.— Minor Poems. ISIS.
Strype says, that Pageants were exhibited in London when Queen Eleanor rode through tie city to her coronation in 1236, and again in 1298 on occasion of the victory obtained by Edward l! over the Scots. There were Pageants in 1357 when Edward the Black Prince bmught John', King of France, prisoner through the city ; in 1392, when Richard II. passed through London after the citizens, by submission, and we queen's intercession, had obtained the restoration of tbeir charter; and again, in 1415, upon the entry of Henry V. after the battle of Agincourt.
In 1431, when Henry VI. entered Paris u King of France, he was met there by the national and municipal authorities, accompanied by the nine worthies on horseback, richly armed.
In 1445, on the same king's marriage with Queen Margaret, when she approached London, the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, and the crafts, wearing their respective cognizances, went forth to meet her, and brought her in great state through the city, where were sumptuous and costly pageants, with verses by Lydgate, and resemblance of divers old histories, to the great comfort of the Queen and her attendants.
On the Queen of Henry VI. visiting Coventjy in 1455, at Bablake in that city, there was i Jesse over the gate, showing two speeches made by Isaiah and Jeremiah, in compliment to the Queen, and comparing her to the root of Jesse. Within the gate at the east end of the church, St. John the Evangelist, were equally polite in their welcome to her majesty. Afterwards the conduit in the ' Smythford-strete' was right well arrayed, and there were showed the four speeches of the four cardinal virtues. At the cross in the ' Croschepyng' were divers angels censing ahigh on the cross, and wine running out at divere places. Between the cross and Uie conduit were nine pageants, and in every pageant a speech from one of the nine conquerors. Joshua, m his q)eech, told her majesty, that if any one dared to do her wrong, he woiild fight for her : David told her that in dainties he had lived all his life, and had slain Goliath, and would obey her as a kind knight for the love of her liege Lord, King Henry. The conduit was arrayed with as many virgins as might be thereupon ; and there was made a great dragon, and St. Michael slaying him by miracle, with a suitable speech from her.
On 'the 24th of April, 1474, Prince Edward coming out of Wales to Coventry, was welcomed by the mayor and commonality. There was a station with three patriarchs there standing with Jacob's twelve sons, with minstrelsy of harp and dulcimers, and a speech from one of the pa- triarchs. At the cross were three prophets stand- ing, and upon the cross above were children of Israel singing and casting down sweet cakes and flowers, and four pipes mnning wine. Upon the conduit was St. George and a king's daughter kneeling before him with a lamb, and the father and mother in a tower above, beholding St George saving their daughter from the dia^n, and ue conduit running wine in Uiree places, and minstrelsy of organ playing.
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