ST. PAUL'S SINGING-SCHOOL among the doctors, and to the divine wisdom of his recommendations of a childlike simplicity. The school afterwards founded by Dean Colet was in honour of "the child Jesus." There was a school attached to the cathedral, of which Colet's was, perhaps, a revival, as far as scholarship was concerned. The boys in the older school were not only taught singing but acting, and for a long period were the most popular performers of stageplays. In the time of Richard the Second, these BoyActors petitioned the king to prohibit certain ignorant and "inexpert people from presenting the History of the Old Testament." They began with sacred plays, but afterwards acted profane; so that St. Paul's singingschool was numbered among the play-houses. This custom, as well as that of the boy-bishop, appears to have been common wherever there were choir-boys; and it doubtless originated, partly in the theatrical nature of the catholic ceremonies at which they assisted, and partly in the delight which the more scholarly of their masters took in teaching the plays of Terence and Seneca. The annual performance of a play of Terence, still kept up at Westminster School, is supposed by Warton to be a remnant of it. The choristers of Westminster Abbey, and of the chapel of Queen Elizabeth (who took great pleasure in their performances), were celebrated as actors, though not so much so as those of St. Paul's. A set of them were incorporated under the title of Children of the Revels, among whom are to be found names that have since become celebrated as the fellow-actors of Shakspeare -Field, Underwood, and others. It was the same with Hart, Mohun, and others, who were players in the time of Cibber. It appears that children with good voices were sometimes kidnapped for a supply.1 Tusser, who 1 Purvey'd is the word of Mr Chalmers; who says, however, that he knows not on what principle the right of "purveying such children" was justified, except by the maxim that the king had a right to the services of all his subjects. See Johnson and Steeven's Shakspeare, Prolegomena, vol. ii., p. 516. THE CHILDREN OF THE REVELS wrote the Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, is thought to have been thus pressed into the service; and a relic of the custom is supposed to have existed in that of pressing drummers for the army, which survived so late as the accession of Charles the First. The exercise of the right of might over children, and by people who wanted singers-an effeminate press-gang-would seem an intolerable nuisance; but the children were probably glad enough to be complimented by the violence, and to go to sing and play before a court. Ben Jonson has some pretty verses on one of these juvenile actors: As heaven and nature seemed to strive Years he numbered, scarce thirteen, Yet three filled zodiacs had he been And did act (what now we moan) As, sooth, the Parca thought him one, He played so truly. Till, by error of his fate, They all consented; But viewing him since (alas! too late) FESTIVALS OF THE COMMEMORATION And have sought (to give new birth) But being so much too good for earth, This child, we see, was celebrated for acting old men. It is well known that, up to the Restoration, and sometimes afterwards, boys performed the parts of women. Kynaston, when a boy, used to be taken out by the ladies an airing, in his female dress after the play. This custom of males appearing as females gave rise, in Shakspeare's time, to the frequent introduction of female characters disguised; thus presenting a singular anomaly, and a specimen of the gratuitous imaginations of the spectators in those days; who, besides being contented with taking the bare stage for a wood, a rock, or a garden, as it happened, were to suppose a boy on the stage to pretend to be himself. One of the strangest of the old ceremonies, in which the clergy of the cathedral used to figure, was that which was performed twice a year, namely, on the day of the Commemoration and on that of the Conversion of St. Paul. On the former of these festivals, a fat doe, and on the latter, a fat buck, was presented to the Church by the family of Baud, in consideration of some land which they held of the Dean and Chapter at West Lee in Essex. The original agreement made with Sir William Le Baud, in 1274, was, that he himself should attend in person with the animals; but some years afterwards it was arranged that the presentation should be made by a servant, accompanied by a deputation of part of the family. The priests, however, continued to perform their part in the show. When the deer was brought to the foot of the steps leading to the choir, the reverend brethren appeared in a body to receive it, dressed in their full pontificial robes, and having their heads decorated with garlands of flowers. From thence they accompanied THE EPITAPH ON it as the servant led it forward to the high altar, where having been solemnly offered and slain, it was divided among the residentiaries. The horns were then fastened to the top of a spear, and carried in procession by the whole company around the inside of the church, a noisy concert of horns regulating their march. This ridiculous exhibition, which looks like a parody on the pagan ceremonies of their predecessors the priests of Diana, was continued by the cathedral clergy down to the time of Elizabeth. The modern passenger through St. Paul's Churchyard has not only the last home of Nelson and others to venerate, as he goes by. In the ground of the old church were buried, and here, therefore, remains whatever dust may survive them, the gallant Sir Philip Sidney (the beau ideal of the age of Elizabeth), and Vandyke, who immortalised the youth and beauty of the court of Charles the First. One of Elizabeth's great statesman also lay there-Walsingham-who died so poor, that he was buried by stealth, to prevent his body from being arrested. Another, Sir Christopher Hatton, who is supposed to have danced himself into the office of her Majesty's Chancellor,1 had a tomb which his contemporaries thought too magnificent, and which was accused of "shouldering" the altar. There was an absurd epitaph upon it, by which he would seem to have been a dandy to the last. Stay and behold the mirror of a dead man's house, Whose lively person would have made thee stay and wonder. When Nature moulded him, her thoughts were most on Mars; And all the heavens to make him goodly were agreeing; 1 "His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green, His high-crown'd hat, and satin doublet, Mov'd the stout heart of England's queen, Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."-GRAY. SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON x * Thence he was valiant, active, strong, and passing comely; And God did grace his mind and spirit with gifts excelling. Nature commends her workmanship to Fortune's charge, Fortune presents him to the court and queen, Queen Eliz. (O God's dear handmayd) his most miracle. Now hearken, reader, raritie not heard or seen; This blessed Queen, mirror of all that Albion rul'd, Gave favour to his faith, and precepts to his hopeful time; First trained him in the stately band of pensioners; And for her safety made him Captain of the Guard. Now doth she prune this vine, and from her sacred breast Lessons his life, makes wise his heart for her great councells, And so, Vice-Chamberlain, where foreign princes' eyes Might well admire her choyce, wherein she most excels. He then aspires, says the writer, to "the highest subject's seat," and becomes Lord Chancelour (measure and conscience of a holy king :) Robe, Collar, Garter, dead figures of great honour, Alms-deeds with faith, honest in word, frank in dispence, The poor's friend, not popular, the church's pillar. This tombe sheweth one, the heaven's shrine the other.1 The first line in italics, and the poetry throughout, are only to be equalled by a passage in an epitaph we have met with on a Lady of the name of Greenwood, of whom her husband says: "Her graces and her qualities were such That she might have married a bishop or a judge; 1 Maitland's History of London, vol. ii., p. 1170. |
