T

SIR CHRISTOPHER HATTON IN

THERE

LONDON.

HERE is in Northamptonshire a very ancient mansion, whose square courts, little towers, and arched

cloisters, once announced the architec-
ture of Queen Elizabeth's days; and
its gardens, decorated with labyrinths
and small mounts, with walks writhing
round them like the turnings of a
cockle shell, equally reminded antiqua-
rians of Theobald's. Therein lived an
aged lady, whose life had been so long
protracted that her heirs were apt to say,
as King James often said of Elizabeth
-"that he should never come to his
inheritance as long as there was an old
wife in England, for he verily believed
when one died, another was set up in
her place." Being a frugal and pru-
dent man, he chose to live with his ven-
erable aunt, and amused himself with
the ancient books that filled her library.
They related chiefly to the reign of his
family's patroness, the maiden queen ;
and during twelve years his daily walk
was from the dial to the buttery court,
and from thence to the fountain, with a
volume of Stowe, Camden, or Sidney,
in his hand. Above all, he studied the
anuals of Sir Christopher Hatton, chief
dancer and Lord Chancellor of Queen
Elizabeth, and founder of his family.

By the Author of Legends of Lampidosa, &e.
R ATHENEUM VOL. 6.

Our modern Sir Christopher meditated on these annals with such extraordinary zeal and research, that his mind began to bewilder itself among its own gleanfumed gloves, peaked ruffs, and galliardings. He talked of nothing but perden death left him in possession of a dancing; and when his old aunt's sudfortune immensely beyond his expectations, the torrent of joy mixing with the ridiculous ferment. He informed the stagnant pool of learning caused a most executors of the deceased lady, with discovered an iniquitous and extensive great injunctions to secrecy, that he had stratagem in the reigning government.

་་

Her

know, the real and identical Sir ChrisGentlemen," said he, "I am, as you volumes, and my most royal mistress, topher Hatton mentioned in all these like myself, is only disguised. successor, or, to speak more fitly, the his name, and written all these extravausurper James of Scotland, has changed gant legends to persuade me that above the fit of lethargy which seized me five two hundred years have passed since or six months ago. I have taken a her highness always kept secretly in her vow before this cross, which is the same closet, that I will never open a book again as long as I live."--The gentlespeech was a physician and a man of man to whom he addressed this strange hamour. He had observed and ascer

ney-corner, and whispered in his ear, "You have judged right, and she has commissioned me to invite you to her counsels. She lives concealed with ten of her young ladies of honour in a fair house near Marybone Park, where Mountjoy fought Lord Essex for saying, Every fool has a favour now.' When she is willing and ready to reveal herself to you, for the time is not quite ripe, she will shew you the fellow to this glove, which I now give you as a token; and the watch-word will be that phrase which she used to my father

tained the progress of his friend's distemper, and replied very gravely, "My good friend, we must, as one of our old courtiers says, be the willow and not the oak in such times. I am John Harrington, son of Isabel Markham and a good father, yet I am content to put off my spurs and tawny jirkin, and be called a physician. Since James chooses to be called George, and has made his astronomers alter the style of our calendar, we must even be willing to think the world two hundred years older." Sir Christopher bowed with great respect to Queen Elizabeth's god-What fool brought thee? go about thy son, and asked him what was the news at court since he had been confined in the country, as these forged books told him with an intermittent fever. "Strange, very strange!" replied Dr. Harrington "Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh are gone on a new voyage of discovery to the North Pole; Mr. Secretary Davison and my Lord Burleigh have made a coalition; and Dudley of Leicester has brought all the gilt temples, swimming and singing gods, aye and the whole orchestra which was put into a dolphin's inside when he entertained the queen, to a new place called

an

business."" Though this was a frame of words not quite so courtly as the gal lant master of the queen's revels would have chosen, he was enraptured to see the very glove in which Elizabeth was painted in her favourite portrait; and only craved to know whether he might not carry with him a high hat, satin doublet, and shoes with green strings, to attend her majesty's private councils. Dr. Harrington assured him her safety required an exact conformity to the new mode; and as the patriot's zeal could endure no delay, they set out in the mail to London.

Had Sir Christopher Hatton, who ended his honest life in 1591, been suddenly wafted to Piccadilly, and awakened after a sleep of two hundred years, he could not have been more ignorant of its customs, or more astonished at its extent, than his modern namesake, whose farthest journies had never be fore exceeded a mile from his StokePogeis. But as every man ought to speak for himself, and the fashion of keeping journals seems to have been as prevalent among Queen Elizabeth's courtiers as modern travellers, we will give Sir Christopher's, as he framed it in a letter to his housekeeper, probably on the model of his friend, Sir John Harrington's.

opera-house."-Sir Christopher paused several seconds with a serious air, and answered, "I have one comfort in all this. Since the present ruler of things calls himself but a Regent, there is hope that our good lady and mistress is still living, but not in that ostensible palace where it is said the true sovereign abideth. Now as I bless her memory for her great goodness to me and mine--not to mention the praises she always bestowed on my dancing, I have resolved to visit London in quest of her. To which I am the more minded, because sundry vehicles have passed this way, bearing on their sides in great letters To LONDON, which is a distinct and providential direction." The physician remained silent, as if "How shall I speak what I have seen meditating on a matter of vast import; or what I have felt ?-thy good silence then drew his new knight to the chim- in these matters emboldens my pen. For, thanks to the sweet god of silence,

Gray alludes to Sir C. Hatton dancing after he thy lips do not wanton out of discre

was Lord Chancellor

"My grave Lord-keeper led the brawls,
"The seals and maces danced before him."

tion's path, like the many gossiping dames we could name, who lose their