* Love in a Tub, a comedy, by Sir George Etherege.
And, carried away by his enthusiasm to the days of jolly Queen Bess, the Lauréat of Little Britain, with a countenance bubbling with hilarity, warbled _con spirito_, as a probationary ballad for the _Itinerant ship_, (!)
On a pot of strong beer and a pound of beefsteak,
Ere six in the morning was toll'd by the chimes--
O the days of Queen Bess they were merry old times!
From hawking and hunting she rode back to town,
In time just to knock an ambassador down;
Toy'd, trifled, coquetted, then lopp'd off a head;
And at threescore and ten danced a hornpipe to bed.
With Nicholas Bacon,1 her councillor chief,
One day she was dining on English roast beef;
That very same day when her Majesty's Grace
** When Queen Elizabeth came to visit Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, at his new house at Redgrave, she observed, alluding to his corpulency, that he had built his house too little for him. "Not so, madam," answered he; "but your Highness has made me too big for my house!"
The term "your Grace' was addressed to the English Sovereign during the earlier Tudor reigns. In her latter years Elizabeth assumed the appellation of "Majesty" The following anecdote comprehends both titles. "As Queen Elizabeth passed the streets in state, one in the crowde cried first, 'God blesse your Royall Majestie!' and then, 'God blesse your Noble Grace!' 'Why, how now,' sayes the Queene, 'am I tenne groates worse than I was e'en now?'" The value of the old "Ryal," or "Royall," was 10s., that of the "Noble" 6s. Sd. The Emperor Charles the Fifth was the first crowned head that assumed the title of "Majesty."
My Lord Keeper stared, as the wine-cup she kiss'd,
At his sovereign lady's superlative twist,
And thought, thinking truly his larder would squeak,
He'd much rather keep her a day than a week.
"What call you this dainty, my very good lord?"--
"The Loin,"--bowing low till his nose touch'd the
"And--breath of our nostrils, and light of our eyes!
*Saving your presence., the ox was a prize."
* Queen Elizabeth issued an edict commanding every artist who should paint the royal portrait to place her "in a garden with a full light upon her, and the painter to put any shadow in her face at his peril!" Oliver Cromwell's injunctions to Sir Peter Lely were somewhat different. The knight was desired to transfer to his canvass all the blotches and carbuncles that blossomed in the Protector's rocky physiognomy. Sir Joshua Reynolds, ( -------- with fingers so lissom, Girls start from his canvass, and ask us to kiss 'em!) having taken the liberty of mitigating the utter stupidity of one of his "Pot-boilers," i. e. stupid faces, and receiving from the sitter's family the reverse of approbation, exclaimed, "I have thrown a glimpse of meaning into this fool's phiz, and now none of his friends know him!" At another time, having painted too true a likeness, it was threatened to be thrown upon his hands, when a polite note from the artist, stating that, with the additional appendage of a tail, it would do admirably for a monkey, for which he had a commission, and requesting to know if the portrait was to be sent home or not, produced the desired effect. The picture was paid for, and put into the fire!