d relieved Leicester from the
horrible state of constraint and dissimulation in which the result of
his own duplicity had placed him.

The masque which entered consisted of four separate bands, which
followed each other at brief intervals, each consisting of six principal
persons and as many torch-bearers, and each representing one of the
various nations by which England had at different times been occupied.

The aboriginal Britons, who first entered, were ushered in by two
ancient Druids, whose hoary hair was crowned with a chaplet of oak, and
who bore in their hands branches of mistletoe. The maskers who followed
these venerable figures were succeeded by two Bards, arrayed in white,
and bearing harps, which they occasionally touched, singing at the
same time certain stanzas of an ancient hymn to Belus, or the Sun. The
aboriginal Britons had been selected from amongst the tallest and most
robust young gentlemen in attendance on the court. Their masks were
accommodated with long, shaggy beards and hair; their vestments were
of the hides of wolves and bears; while their legs, arms, and the upper
parts of their bodies, being sheathed in flesh-coloured silk, on which
were traced in grotesque lines representations of the heavenly bodies,
and of animals and other terrestrial objects, gave them the lively
appearance of our painted ancestors, whose freedom was first trenched
upon by the Romans.

The sons of Rome, who came to civilize as well as to conquer, were next
produced before the princely assembly; and the manager of the revels had
correctly imitated the high crest and military habits of that celebrated
people, accommodating them with the light yet strong buckler and the
short two-edged sword, the use of which had made them victors of the
world. The Roman eagles were borne before them by two standard-bearers,
who recited a hymn to Mars, and the classical warriors followed with the
grave and haughty step of men who aspired at universal conquest.

The third quadrille represented the Saxons, clad in the bearskins which
they had brought with them from the German forests, and bearing in
their hands the redoubtable battle-axes which made such havoc among the
natives of Britain. They were preceded by two Scalds, who chanted the
praises of Odin.

Last came the knightly Normans, in their mail-shirts and hoods of steel,
with all the panoply of chivalry, and marshalled by two Minstrels, who
sang of war and ladies' love.

The