of recent statutes; and he is reported to have held
the doctrine, at that time a novel one, that neither fire nor steel
ought ever to be employed on a religious account.

The chancellor, besides his other merits and accomplishments, was a
cultivator of the drama. In 1568 a tragedy was performed before her
majesty, and afterwards published, entitled Tancred and Gismund, or
Gismonde of Salerne, the joint performance of five students of the
Temple, who appear each to have taken an act; the fourth bears the
signature of Hatton. It is also probable that he gave the queen some
assistance in similar pursuits, as her translation of a part of the
tragedy of Hercules Oetaeus, preserved in the Bodleian, is in his
handwriting.

But it was never forgotten by others, nor apparently by himself, that he
was brought into notice by his dancing; and we learn from a contemporary
letter-writer, that even after he had attained the dignity of lord
chancellor he laid aside his gown to dance at the wedding of his nephew.
The circumstance is pleasantly alluded to by Gray in the description of
Stoke-Pogeis house with which his "Long Story" opens.

"In Britain's isle, no matter where,
An ancient pile of building stands;
The Huntingdons and Hattons there
Employed the power of fairy hands

To raise the ceiling's fretted height,
Each pannel in achievements clothing,
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.

Full oft within the spacious walls,
When he had fifty winters o'er him,
My grave lord keeper led the brawls,
The seal and maces danced before him.

His bushy beard and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat and satin doublet,
Moved the stout heart of England's queen,
Though pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."

As chancellor of Oxford, Hatton was succeeded by lord Buckhurst, to the
fresh mortification of Essex, who again advanced pretensions to this
honorary office, and was a second time baffled by her majesty's open
interference in behalf of his competitor.

The more important post of lord chancellor remained vacant for some
months, the seals being put in commission; after which serjeant
Pickering was appointed lord keeper,--a person of respectable character,
who appears to have performed the duties of his office without taking
any conspicuous part in the court factions, or exercising any marked
influence over the general administrat