In the early times these trade guilds were demi-religious bodies, and all their affairs had an ecclesiastical element in them. They all had their patron saints, who were generally chosen for their associations with their particular craft. Thus, the Fishmongers' was St. Peter; the Drapers', the Virgin Mary, mother of the lamb; the Goldsmiths', St. Dunstan. Upon these saints' days their grand festivals and shows were always held. They kept a mortuary priest, sometimes two, who attended the obits of all deceased members, and they maintained perpetual lights on the different altars erected to their deceased worthies. The estates left to the companies in trust to maintain these altars and chantries formed a very large part of their property; and when they were seized by Edward VI. a very great blow was dealt at their power and consequence, as they had to redeem them by the sale of other property. When any very eminent member of their craft died, the whole livery attended his funeral. All the companies had a state hearse-cloth, or pall, which was used on these grand occasions. The Saddlers' Company still preserve theirs; and the Fishmongers' state pall is one of the famous sights of that great company. It was not a mere cloth of black velvet, such as we now use, although they used such on ordinary occasions, but a splendidly embroidered affair, a description of which will not, perhaps, be here out of place. "It consists of a centre slip about twelve feet long and two feet and a half wide, and two shorter sides, each eight feet eleven inches long, by one foot four inches wide, and when laid over the coffin must have totally enveloped it; but it is without corner folds, like our modern palls. * * * The pattern of the central part is a sprig or central flower, the latter of which is composed of gold network bordered with red, and the whole whereof reposes on a smooth solid ground of cloth of gold. The end pieces and side borders to this middle slip are worked in different pictures and representations. The end pieces consist of a very rich and massy wrought picture, in gold and silk, of the patron, St. Peter, in pontificalibus. He is seated on a superb throne, his head crowned with the papal tiara. One hand holds the keys, and the other is in the posture of giving the benediction. On each side of the saint is a kneeling angel, censing him with one hand, and holding a sort of golden vase with the other. * * The angels' wings, according to the old custom in such representations, are composed of peacocks' feathers, in all their natural, vivid colours; the outer robes are gold, raised with crimson; their under vests white, shaded with sky blue; the faces are finely worked in satin, after nature, and they have long yellow hair. The side pieces are pictures equally elaborately wrought of Christ delivering the keys to St. Peter. The entire pall has a fringe of two inches in depth of gold and purple silk threads." This pall is supposed to be the last Catholic pall used by the company a short time before the change of faith; hence its splendid condition, and the vividness of its colours. On the burial, in 1524, of Sir Thomas Lovell (who built Lincoln's Inn Gateway), at Holywell Nunnery, Shoreditch, we catch a glimpse of the habit our fathers had of turning events of such solemnity into feasts, for we find that "there was a drynkynge in all the cloisters, the nuns' hall, and parlors of the said place, and everywhere ells for as many as would come, as well the crafts of London as gentlemen of the Inns of Court." This seems to have been the universal practice at the time. At ordinary funerals the bearers were regaled with beer and ale in the churches; and on such grand occasions as the one above noticed the company, after attending the state funeral, always dined together in their ball. These feasts were an odd mixture of strong and delicate meat. Roasted swansstandard swans set upright in the dish,- -was a very favourite dish in those days; boar, conger, lampreys, and coney standard, or rabbits set upright, are also continually mentioned; and besides these, we find "sea hog," or porpoise, spoken of in those feasts as a standard dish. These sea hogs must have been a monstrous size sometimes, as we find that when a cart is required to bring them to the kitchen an extra allowance is to be made for carriage. With these grosser dishes, however, we find some lighter courses of a more delicate character, such as white mottrews, leche lombard, great birds with little ones together, fritters, payne puff, frumenty, or wheat boiled in milk, was also a favourite dish, and the drink was some red wine of the claret kind. Rude as was the magnificence of the grand dinners of these trade guilds, in one respect they far surpassed those of modern days. They admitted the ladies, not to peep at their gross feeding from some far-off gallery, but to sit with them at the best places of the board. Not only were the fair sex invited, but the members were directed to bring them, under penalties for disobedience. In the early times women as well as men were members of these guilds; and every member's betrothed was expected to come, and was considered as good as one of the livery. In the early part of the 17th century the ladies are no longer found gracing the board, but even as late as 1687 we find one very notable exception, when Sir John Peake, Lord Mayor, was entertained by the Mercers' Company. The coat and crest of this company is a virgin with dishevelled hair, and this virgin and mystery they always made the most of in their trade pageants. The maiden chariot in which she generally rode on these Occasions was made of beaten and embossed silver, drawn by nine white Flemish mares, three abreast, in rich trappings of silver and white feathers. The lady was splendidly attired in white satin, adorned with jewels, and was surrounded by young ladies representing all the virtues; but what comes next is the most astounding. The virgin and all her fair bevy of attendants had their table provided for them in the hall, and dined in state on the dais. Imagine the sensation such a bevy of virgins must have made among the younger members of the craft. These ladies were not, however, of doubtful character, such as we imagine would be likely to offer themselves for these public shows; but their respectability was guaranteed by a committee chosen to select them; at least such was the case in 1704, when Sir William Gore was entertained by the Mercers, for we find it recorded that the virgin on that occasion was a young and beautiful gentlewoman, of good parentage, religious education, and unblemisht reputation ;" and we must of course suppose that all her handmaidens were to match. 66 A reredos or screen generally ran across these old halls to divide them from the buttery hatch, as we see it now does in the dininghall of the Middle Temple. In the gallery above this the musicians were posted, and we find it was the custom to "send the hat round" for these worthies, as we see it recorded that at a dinner of the Brewers' Company the clerk collected 20d. in the hall for "the harper minstrel." We must suppose that on state occasions a certain staid and sad gravity was maintained; but on ordinary festivals, after dinner, the pageants commenced. This was a much easier matter to manage than may be imagined. The pageant was generally kept in the open timber roof; it was let down with cords, and the simple play began. In the early days it was illustrative of some Scripture passage, such as Noah descending from the ark with his sons, or the sacrifice of Isaac; and our forefathers, after they had had their din ner and wine, were wonderfully tolerant of all shortcomings. Like boys at play, the same old toy afforded them amusement for a very long time. On grand occasions, when they indulged in out-of-door pageants, they threw an air of poetry into these displays. When, for instance, a lord mayor was chosen from their guild, some special entertainment was made to entertain him in his passage through the streets, or along the river, for there were water pageants as well as land pageants. The land pageants were exhibited on a movable stage. Poets, we are told, were engaged to compose what were called "projects," or arrangements of scenes, with character, song, and dialogue descriptive of the company of the lord mayor elect. In the water spectacle of Sir Thomas Middleton, grocer, in 1613, the pageant consisted of "five islands, artfully garnished with all manner of Indian fruit trees, drugges, spiceries, and the like, the middle island having a faire castle especially beautiful," in allusion to the forts of the newly-established East India Company, which gave an immense impetus to the trade of the company. These islands must have been movable ones, placed on boats. All the other great companies had solemn entertainments on the occasion of having a lord mayor elected from their body; so that with the home plaything kept in the roof of the halls, the royal pageants, when kings entered or returned from the wars (such as those given to Henry V. after Agincourt, and to Henry VII. after Bosworth), and the setting of the midsummer watch, -a kind of civic guard for the protection of the city, in which all the companies vied with each other in the magnificent manner in which they turned out their contingent to this grand middle-ages procession —we may imagine what a merry time those old gentlemen had whose effigies we see on old monuments, the very pictures of sad sedateness and gravity, which, in common with many of our notions of the habits of our forefathers, are wholly delusive. But if the City Companies knew how to amuse themselves, they also in time of necessity played an important part in the affairs of the country. Henry VII. early saw the value of these bodies as a protection to the crown against the nobility, and he ingratiated himself with them by becoming a member of the Taylors' Company, and sat with them in the open hall, clothed in the livery of their craft. James I. became a member of the Cloth workers' Company, and the grand festival given in honour of the occasion of his inauguration was celebrated by two events. Inigo Jones arranged the pageant; and in the old hall of the company the glorious anthem, "God Save the King," was first heard, Dr. John Bull having composed it for the occasion. Charles II. and William III. were also members of city companies. But this connection of the companies with royalty was dearly purchased, as they speedily came to be looked upon as milch cows in all cases of state impecuniosities. Henry VIII., in 1545, first opened their purse- them centuries since, we scarcely like to calcustrings by borrowing a sum of 21,263l. 6s. 8d. | late, seeing that many of them consisted of towards carrying on his wars in Scotland. On land now within the limits of the metropolis, another occasion, having sent his commissioners and often in positions where ground is valued to assess the companies, Alderman Richard by the hundred thousand pounds an acre. Read was bold enough to object to it as an Perhaps it is well that this property is disarbitrary measure; but he speedily put an persed, as it has proved to be far too valuable end to any attempt at opposition by seizing to rest under the governance of any chartered the alderman, and sending him as a foot solbodies of men. dier to the Scotch wars. The exactions upon the companies went on increasing from this time until that of William III., and the vast riches of the companies were greatly reduced thereby. These bodies gave not only in purse but in person. On the first threat of the Spanish Armada, the government of Elizabeth demanded 10,000 men of the city, fully equipped. These they furnished by impressment, together with thirty-five ships. Several other draughts of soldiers were made upon them; and we all know how boldly the 10,000 train bands served the nation in its time of utmost need, marching to the relief of Gloucester during the civil war, and thereby settling the fate of Charles. They were also foremost in all adventures. They contributed towards the expenses of fitting out Sebastian Cabot's expedition from Bristol, which resulted in the discovery and annexation to the English crown of North America. They helped to settle Virginia, and in doing so we fear they acted in a rather arbitrary manner towards the poor of the city, shipping them off to the new land without particularly consulting their inclination; and they also largely embarked in settling Ulster, under James I., and thereby laid the foundation of those Irish estates which are to this day the best administered in that country. Trade, for the protection of which they had originally been founded, began to struggle against their restrictions as early as the days of the Tudors, and their fate was sealed by the rapid progress which the country was making in mercantile pursuits, before the advent of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth men, who drained their coffers to the dregs, or the great fire of 1666, which destroyed all their halls and melted their plate, with two or three insignificant exceptions, and also their house property in the city; and finally, the destruction of the ancient charters which gave them such special trade powers, by Charles II., dealt them their death blow as powers in the State. But their splendid charities and their great schools founded in ancient times, their exhibitions to our universities, still remain, augmenting in value every year in consequence of the vast increase in the value of the estates. What the value of these estates would have been had the Crown not despoiled | About the beginning of the Stuart period, perhaps, the companies were in the most flourishing condition. Certainly, the entertainments they gave to princes were magnificent. Their sideboards abounded with curious plate, their halls and gardens were on a scale of great magnificence, and they formed the centre of little communities, to whom they diffused their bounty. The city halls had attached to them granaries, well stored, in case of a dearth of corn in the city-a very common occurrence, as but little was grown in the country, and we had mainly to depend upon that imported from abroad. The corn-metage duties, levied to this day, are a remnant of the privileges attaching to these city granaries. Depôts of coals were also attached to the various halls, to be given in hard seasons to the poor; and, finally, the alms-houses of the craft were assembled around them, in which dwelt their almsmen, who were called upon to swell the pageants of their companies on all grand occasions. The liveries of the crafts, in early days, were so bright that, when the companies turned out, they must have made a sight more like those we read of in Italian history than such as we are accustomed to find among Englishmen now a-days. The very names of the colours used are full of picturesqueness. There were murrey and plunket, and murrey and plunket-colestyne, sanguine, mustard villars, scarlet and puke, &c. These were all bright hues, and the wearers of them must have made up a picture, on grand occasions, worthy of a Carnival of Venice. The great fire swept away all this finery, demolished the grand halls, filled its maw with all the pageants hanging in the roofs, melted the "loving-cups" and "grand salts "-marks of demarcation between the upper and lower ends of the tables,—and finally made an end of most of the elements of the picturesque in the habits of the craftsmen. When the halls were rebuilt-and it is wonderful with what alacrity this was done, all the companies occupying their new houses, and going on as of old, within three years of the calamity which made a clean sweep of the city,-it was done in the ugly and formal style of the period, and there is not one of them now existing, in the many out of-the-way corners of the city, that in any way recalls the ancient glories of these famous trading guilds. Some old customs, however, still linger. The swans that they used to breed for their feasts they still go up the river to "count" on Swanhopping-day-the old state barge, the Maria Wood, until lately, being called into requisition for these occasions. Dogget's "coat and badge," the gift of a member of the Fishmongers' Company, is still rowed for by the London watermen, although what possible use the costume can now be of, we do not know. Lord Mayor's Show continues, shorn of its fair proportions, the water processions in the gay barges having been given up within these last two or three years. The picturesque method of declaring the election of masters and wardens of the companies still remains, however. The real elections are made in secret, some days previous to the election dinners, on which occasions, after the sumptuous banquets, which the companies have by no means foregone, the old masters and wardens enter with garlands on their heads; these are taken off, and there is a great make-believe show of seeing whom among the assistants, who form the executive of the company, these garlands will fit. By some singular coincidence it is at last found that they fit those previously chosen to fill these posts of honour and emolument. These garlands are of velvet, ornamented with the badge of the company. It must certainly look rather odd, to see prosaic Englishmen of the present day, with great red faces, buried in stick-up collars, masquerading after this fashion; but, as they swear to do away with no old custom on these occasions, and ratify their oath by quaffing from the "loving cup," they must be left, we suppose, to their devices, until Parliament, some fine day, makes an end of their customs and their charters together. UNA, THE MOON-FAY; OR, THE VISION OF CHASTITY. I. I, TRISTEM, doughty knight and good, And chill my heart to stone, For Una is so fair, so fair, Fair as a star, and yet (I swear) Nor flesh nor blood nor bone. II. I, Tristem, doughty knight and good, And bending o'er me as I dream'd III. Wildly I gazed, in dreamful mood, And made the quick heart moan, And in my dream I seem'd to feel And sudden, strong and free from pain, And open'd eyes and gazed around, That piped with summer tone, VI. All day I search'd the solitude For Una, Lady of the Wood! From bower to bower, from glade to glade, And drank, and watch'd the mirror'd sky And every echo of the shade VII. All day I heard the ringdoves brood, VIII. Wildly I gazed, in frenzied mood, Nor moved she, but stood gleaming there, I clutch'd the moonlit air; Then, backward sinking, white as death, Madly I gazed and gasp'd for breath, Her pallid face ineffable Gleam'd fair above my own, I felt her chilly influence IX. Then shriek'd I, while before me stcod I love thee!" Whereupon there came "I love thee more than men or fame, More than my own great name," I cried; and thro' my thick blood crept A troublous knowledge that she wept; And while beneath the greenwood tree That wondrous Lady answer'd me, And in no human tone, I gazed upon her form in awe, X. "Nor human drink nor human food I loved thee-loved thee to my woe, Till they be purged of clay; And evermore, I feel, thy face Will haunt me nightly in this place, And ever mine will dawn on thee Nightly when thy sad eyes can see The moon with starry zone, And thou wilt dream in sun and sha Of Una, beautiful but made Of flesh nor blood nor bone!" XI. Pale as my woe, erect I stood- Is there no hope ?" She answer'd, "Nay! While I draw nurture faint but fair Haste back to human towns and towers, And turn to me when trouble-wrackt, |