cuse me, if I am not forward to entertain any high notions of their civility.

THEIR civility, faid Dr. ARBUTHNOT, is another confideration. The HALL and TILT-YARD are certainly good proofs of what they are alledged for, the hof'pitality and bravery of our ancestors. But it hath not been maintained, that these were their only virtues. On the contrary, it feems to me, that every flower of humanity, every elegance of art and genius, was cultivated amongst them. For an inftance, need we look any further than the LAKE, which in the flourishing times of this castle was fo famous, and which we even now trace in the winding-bed of that fine meadow?

I Do not understand you, replied Mr. ADDISON. I can easily imagine what an embellishment that lake must have been to the caftle; but am at a lofs to conceive what flowers of wit and ingenuity,

to

to use your own ænigmatical language, could be raised or fo much as watered by it.

AND have you then, returned Dr. ARBUTHNOT, so soon forgotten the large defcription, you gave us just now, of the shews and pageants displayed on this lake? And can any thing better declare the art, invention, and ingenuity, of their conductors? Is not this canal as good a memorial of the ardour and success with which the finer exercises of the mind were pursued in that time, as the tiltyard, we have now left, is of the address and dexterity shewn in those of the body?

I REMEMBER, faid Mr. ADDISON, that many of the shews, intended for the queen's entertainment at this place, were exhibited on that canal. But as to any art or beauty of contrivance

"You see none, I suppose."

WHY

L

WHY truly none, resumed Mr. ADDISON. To me they seemed but well enough fuited to the other barbarities of the time. "The Lady of the Lake and her train of Nereids," was not that the principal? And can it pafs for any thing better than a jumble of Gothic romance and pagan fable? A barbarous modern conceit, varnished over with a little classical pedantry?

AND is that the best word you can afford, faid Dr. ARBUTHNOT, to these ingenious devices? The business was, to welcome the Queen to this palace, and at the fame time to celebrate the honours of her government. And what more decent way of complimenting a great Prince, than through the veil of fiction ? Or what fo elegant way of entertaining a learned Prince, as by working up that fiction out of the old poetical story? And if fomething of the Gothic romance adhered hered to these classical fictions, it was not for any barbarous pleasure, that was taken in this patchwork, but that the artist found means to incorporate them with the highest grace and ingenuity. For what, in other words, was the Lady of the Lake (the particular, that gives moft offence to your delicacy) but the presiding nymph of the stream, on which these shews were presented? And, if the contrivance was to give us this nymph under a name that romance had made familiar, what was this but taking advantage of a popular prejudice to introduce his fiction with more address and probability?

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BUT fee the propriety of the scene itself, for the defigner's purpose, and the exact decorum with which these fanciful perfonages were brought in upon it. It was not enough, that the pagan deities were fummoned to pay their homage to the queen. They were the deities of the the fount and ocean, the watry nymphs and demi-gods: and these were to play their part in their own element. Could any preparation be more artful for the panegyric designed on the naval glory of that reign? Or, could any reprefentation be more grateful to the queen of the ocean, as ELIZABETH was then called, than such as expressed her fovereignty in those regions? Hence the fea-green Nereids, the Tritons, and Neptune himfelf, were the proper actors in the drama. And the opportunity of this spacious lake gave the easiest introduction and most natural appearance to the whole scenery. Let me add, too, in further commendation of the taste which was shewn in these agreeable fancies, that the attributes and dresses of the deities themselves were studied with care; and the most learned poets of the time employed to make them speak and act in character. So that an old Greek or Roman might have applauded the contri