It is most probable that the precise origin of this castle will never be ascertained. The late Mr. King, who minutely described the existing remains in the sixth volume of the "Archæologia," imagined this fortress was of Saxon construction, and a place of royal residence during the Heptarchy. But other antiquaries suppose it to be an undoubted Norman structure, built by William Peverell, a natural son to William the Conqueror; to whom indeed the traditions of the neighbourhood ascribe its erection. Its ancient appellation of "Peverell's Place in the Peke," countenances this opinion. Whatever be the truth, it is certain that Peverell possessed it at the time of the Domesday Survey, by the name of the Castle of Peke, together with the honour and forest, and thirteen other lordships in this county.

Whilst the Peke Castle was in the possession of the Peverells, and most probably during the time of the second William, son of the first William Peverell, it became the scene of a splendid Tournament, which lasted three or four days; though how the knights and their followers found accommodation, unless some temporary buildings were attached to the castle, or pavillions erected, seems hardly to be explained, but the fact is unquestionable.

Pain Peverell, Lord of Whittington, in Shropshire, had two daughters, both (as usual) very beautiful and very accomplished. The eldest, whose name was Mellet, inherited the martial spirit of her race, and though she was sought after by many of the young nobility of the land, she delcared she would marry no one but a knight who had distinguished himself by his prowess in the field. Her father, admiring her resolution, took the accustomed mode of procuring her a husband by proclaiming a Tournament to be held at a certain time, at "Peverell's Place in the Peke," and inviting all young men of noble birth, to enter the lists and make trial of their skill and valour. He promised to the victor his daughter for a wife, with his castle of Whittington, as a dowry. Many were the knights that assembled, and severe and long disputed were the contests, for the prize was a rich one, and the honour desirable. Among the competitors was a knight of Lorraine, with a maiden shield of

hero performed prodigies of valour, unhorsing and overcoming all who opposed him, and consequently gaining the favour of the fair Mellet; until, as a last effort, having vanquished a knight of Burgundy, and a prince of Scotland, he was hailed victor and received the glorious prize, thus carrying the castle of Whittington to the family of Fitz-warren.

Where the Tournament was held seems not to be ascertained. Within the walls of the Castle it could not be; for independent of want of room, the ground was too sloping to give fair play to the parties who had to fight. Some assert that it was in the valley called the Cave, but this seems a very inconvenient spot. It is more likely that it took place on the plain near the Castle, where there would be space sufficient for the lists, and where the inhabitants of all the country around, were they ever so numerous, might find room to witness the war-like contention.

This Castle did not remain in the possession of the Peverell's more than four-score years, it being forfeited in the time of Henry the Second, by the then William Peverell, for having poisoned Ranulph, Earl of Chester; and the castle and his other property were given by the King to his son John, Earl of Morteigne, afterward King John, who in 1204, appointed Hugh Neville, his governor.

In 1215, the Peak Castle was in the custody of the barons, who had taken up arms against John, but it did not remain long in their possession, for William de Ferrers, the seventh Earl of Derby, took it by assault for the King, and as a reward, was made governor, which office he held for six years after the accession of Henry the Third.

"In the fourth year of the reign of King Edward the Second, John, Earl of Warren, obtained a free grant of the Castle and Honour of the Peke, together with the whole forest of High Peke, to hold during his life, in as full and ample a manner as William Peverell antiently enjoyed the same, before it came by escheat to the Kings of England,”—yet in the time of Edward the Third, "this castle and forest appear to have been part of the fortune given with Joan, his sister, on her marriage with David," son of the King of Scotland. In the same reign it seems to have reverted to the crown, for in the forty-sixth year of Edward the Third, it was granted to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and it now forms part of the Duchy of Lancaster. At present, it is in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, who, as lessee from the crown of the "Honour, Manor, and Forest of the Peke," has the nominal appointment of the Constable

history of former days, without associating therewith in the most pleasurable sensations. Every one, apparently, was enabled to live by his labour, the rich were bountiful, and every holiday was a universal festival. In those joyous days, Dramatic Exhibitions formed no inconsiderable part of the public amusements. These, it is well known, were for ages exhibited gratuitously to all beholders, as the stages, or platforms on which the actors performed were moveable, and the crowds in the streets and market-places surrounded them; as in our days, do people gaze at the merry doings of Punchinello, or the mechanical wonders of the Fantoccini.

The common prejudice that all Players were deemed rogues and vagabonds, by statute law, has begotten many a wager dinner, at the Devil and Dunstan, the Grecian, Button's, Toms, and Dicks, amongst the families of the Wrongheads, and the Positives, in the days that are gone; and in places of less note, many a wanton joke, many a "swordtickling," and many a broken head. In our days men are become more civil-spoken," swords have been long, no longer the fashion; and as for broken heads, touching such matters, they are numbered with the things that have ceased to be.

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Yes, these were the prejudices of other times; the good folks of our times if not better fed, are better taught, and consequently need not be told, that the profession of a player is no less reputable than that of an author; not that this is altogether a new discovery; for so the legitimate, legalized actor has been considered in the eye of the law, from the days of the royal patroness of Shakespeare, England's Maiden queen. The following act, promulgated in the reign of Elizabeth, will shew, on what class of actors the offensive designations were bestowed.

"That all persons that be, or utter themselves to be procters, procurers, patent gatherers, or collectors for gaols, prisons or hospitals, or fencers, bear-wards, common players of interludes, or minstrels wandering abroad, (OTHER than players of interludes belonging to barons of this realm, or any other honourable personage of great degree, to be authorised to play under the hand and seal of such baron or personage,) all jugglers, tinkers, pedlars and petty chapmen wandering abroad, &c. These shall be adjudged rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and punished as such." John Heywood, of facetious memory, was one of the first old English play-wrights, who led the way to the regular drama. He died in 1565, the year after Shakespeare was born. Heywood's dramatic works are properly classed under the term, interludes, though intituled, plays.

This merry ancient then, wrote six plays, the titles of which are so quaint, and so characteristic of the humour of the times, that they may be herein recorded at length.

1. A Play between Johan the Husband, Tyb the Wife, and Sir Johan the Priest.

2. A Righte Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Friar, the Curate, and the Neighbour Pratt. 3. A Play called the Four P's; being a new and a very mery interlude between a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedlar.

4. A Play of Genteelness and Nobility.
5. A Play of Love.

6. A Play of Weather. These were published in 1533.

Amongst the pleasing reveries that crowd a cultured mind at ease, few are more kindly entertained, than those that savour of the daily doings of our old English households; they may be likened to links in the social chain that unite the present with the past, and hold affiance to the love of our country.

Would that our chroniclers of old, had given us, for every page of coronations, royal weddings, births and deaths of princes, with nightly tournaments, and wars their prototypes, and all that appertains to courts, and camps, at least another page, touching the more genial events of common life.

Chaucer has shewn us what men were in his time; society abounded in character then, as now. Every city, town, and village performed its daily drama, in which each one played his part.

Who more holy than the prior? who more jovial than the monks? When not at mass, they might be found at the hostelry hard by, teaching mine host, how to choose good sack, and mine hostess how to season venison pasty; he being somewhat of a homely wit, and she a buxom dame. Then the bench bore corpulent justices, and bodies-corporate grew fat at the mayor's feast. Then attornies-at-law, scrupulous to the very letter, o'er the parchment, met neighbour, neighbourly at the inn. Barons were then right lordly, maintaining open hospitality, and their ladies courteous and bounteous to the poor. Esquires were brave abroad, frank, generous, and noisy as their beagles; when at home, cracking fair maiden's ear strings, with loud talli-hoes: self-grudging misers there were, and self-loving extortioners; but these were shunned. Then there were humourists of every degree, in high life, and in low; each wearing his humour as a badge. The schoolmaster, and the rhymer; the priest and poticary, the sexton and the pinder; the smith and the cord-wainer; the miller and the malster; the tanner and the tinker; the weaver and

the tailor; the millwright, carpenter, and mason; little confraternities, neighbours in good fellowship. Yea, a congregate of character, the thrifty and the thriftless; the sober and the sottish; the joyous and the moody; the phlegmatic and warm-hearted; the sprightly and the grave, all mingling, and helping to drive on the daily system of life, through all its social ramifications, and congenial dependencies,

That these diurnal doings were done in days of yore, we know; but, vain would now be our regret, at not knowing more of these the daily doings of our worshipful forefathers. The little that we happen to know thereof, however, shall herein be recorded.

Amongst other excentrics of former days, was that merry wight, ycleped Jester, and his no less sprightly coeval, the Motley-fool; whose frolics, gibes and jeers were the delight, and the talk of all, whilst, few, even amongst the writers contemporary, had the kindness to record their witty sayings, for the entertainment of posterity.

Master John Heywood was one of those cognomened Jester, a character not to be confounded with that of Patch, or Fool. Killegrew, a man of letters also, was commonly so designated, as one of the leading wits of Charles the Second's court.

Heywood doubtless was a master-wit; it were sufficient to establish this to know, that he was the delight of Sir Thomas More) who frequently entertained him at his seat at Chelsea, and exchanged many a lively joke with Master John.-He himself, indeed, kept a Fool in his own house, whose portrait was introduced by Holbein into his celebrated picture of the More family.

By this renowned lord high chancellor, the patron of wit in others, himself being peerless in that rare talent, Heywood was introduced to the Lady Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII., and incredible as it may appear, through the favour of this religious devotee, he found his way into the good graces of that potent prince, and was dubbed the King's Jester. But, those were strange times, when a buffoon might with something like impunity, laugh in the very face of that sovereign, who could send to the scaffold so great a man as Sir Thomas More!

We are not told whether Master Heywood acted by his first patron, as worthily as did his compeer the other Jester to the king, laughing Will. Sommers, who is seen painted to the life, tapping at the lattice of a chamber in Whitehall, to "have a merry skit" at the first courtier who might happen to be passing;-for he, kind-hearted soul, admonished the dying tyrant on the score of his injustice to an old master of his, and caused the oppressor to relent, in time to restore that

master to his right.* Perchance, Heywood did not; for, according to report, Master John was prompt to invent facetious tales to divert the gloomy Mary, when she became England's Queen, and when her conscience had better been in the holy keeping of an honest priest than of a courtly Merry-Andrew.

Of this worthy, Puttenham relates a comic tale: "The following happened," says he, "on a time, at the Duke of Northumberland's board, where merry John Heywood was allowed to sit at the board's end. The duke had a very noble and honourable mynde alwayes to pay his debtes well, and when he lacked money, would not stick to sell the greatest part of his plate: so had he done some few days before,

"Heywood being loth to call for his drinke so oft as he was dry, turned his eye towards the cup-board, and said, 'I find a great misse of your grace's standing cups.' The duke thinking he had spoken it of some knowledge that his plate was lately sold, said somewhat sharply, Why, sir, will not these cuppes serve as good a man as yourself?' Heywood readily replied, 'Yes, if it please your grace; but I would have one of them stand still at my elbowe, full of drinke, that I might not be driven to trouble your man so often to call for it,'

"This pleasant and speedy revers of the former words holpe all the matter again; whereupon the duke became very pleasant, and drank a bottle of wine to Heywood, and bid a cup should alwayes be standing by him."—

The great Sir Thomas More himself was no mean actor. It is related of him, that he would make one among the players, occasionally coming upon them by surprise, and without rehearsal fall into a character, and support the part by his extemporaneous invention, and acquit himself with credit. Even his impromptu wit was boundless.

To John Heywood succeeded Master Richard Tarleton,-as comic a soul as any recorded on the ancient list of those who were wont" to set the table in a roar." The humour of this mad-cap would make the surly Ben Jonson "shake his sides."

Dick Tarleton, so he was familiarly called, is known to posterity as Queen Elizabeth's Jester. What joyous meetings,-what revellings when the Stationers shut up their stalls, and went to take their sack at Master Dick's. He kept a tavern in Paternoster-row;

* Richard Fermor, Esq. of Eston Neston, Northamptonshire, with whom Will. Sommers had formerly lived servant. This gentleman, ancestor to the Earl of Pomfret, had been found guilty of a præmunire, and deprived of all his property by Henry VIII., for sending 8d. and two shirts to a priest who had been convicted of denying the king's supremacy, and was then in the goal at Buckingham