well to Norwich;" and thus
terminated this season of rejoicing, but not with it the results of the
royal visitation.

The train of gay carriages that had formed the retinue of the fair queen,
were said to have left behind them the infection of the plague; and
scarcely had the last echoes of merriment and joy faded upon the ear,
when the deep thrilling notes of wailing and lamentation broke forth from
crushed hearts. Death held his reign of terror, threw his black mantle
of gloom over the stricken city, and wrapped its folds around each hearth
and home, and banquet chamber--sunshine was followed by clouds and storm,
and thunders of wrath--feast-makers, devisors, and players--Gurgunt,
Mercury, Cupid, and Apollo, laid down their trappings, and in their
stricken houses died alone. The finger-writing upon the door-posts
marked each smitten home with the touching prayer, "The Lord have mercy
upon us!" The insignia of the white wand borne by the infected ones, who
issued forth into the streets from their tainted atmospheres, warned off
communion with their fellow men, and sorrow filled all hearts;--a year of
sadness and gloom followed--men's hearts failing them for fear. Scarcely
had the plague lifted its hand from oppressing the people, ere the
benumbed faculties of the woe-begone mourners were roused to fresh
terror, by the grumbling murmurs of an earthquake;--storms, lightnings,
hailstones, and tempests spread desolation in their course through all
parts of the country in quick succession--a very age of trouble.

But turning from dark scenes of history once more to the sports and
pastimes that gladdened the hearts and eyes of the good old citizens of
yore, we must not fail to chronicle the famous visit of Will Kempe, the
morris dancer, whose "nine days' wonder," or dance from London to Norwich
in nine days, has been recorded by himself in a merry little pamphlet
bearing internal evidence of a lightness of heart rivalling the lightness
of toe that gained for him his Terpsichorean fame. His name receives a
fresh halo of interest from its association with that of one of the great
ones of the earth, Will Shakespeare, in whose company of players at the
Globe, Blackfriars, he was a comedian; and his signature and that of the
dramatist's stand together at the foot of a counter petition presented at
the same time with one got up by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood
against the continuance of plays in that house. Kempe play