! O joyfull daie!'"

[Sidenote: A QUEEN'S DIVERSIONS]

These preliminaries over, the fun began. At breakfast next morning three
oxen and a hundred and forty geese were devoured. On Monday, August
17th, Elizabeth rode to her bower in the park, took a crossbow from a
nymph who sang a sweet song, and with it shot "three or four" deer,
carefully brought within range. After dinner, standing on one of the
turrets she watched sixteen bucks "pulled down with greyhounds" in a
lawn. On Tuesday, the Queen was approached by a pilgrim, who first
called her "Fairest of all creatures," and expressed the wish that the
world might end with her life and then led her to an oak whereon were
hanging escutcheons of her Majesty and all the neighbouring noblemen and
gentlemen. As she looked, a "wilde man" clad all in ivy appeared and
delivered an address on the importance of loyalty. On Wednesday, the
Queen was taken to a goodlie fish-pond (now a meadow) where was an
angler. After some words from him a band of fishermen approached,
drawing their nets after them; whereupon the angler, turning to her
Majesty, remarked that her virtue made envy blush and stand amazed.
Having thus spoken, the net was drawn and found to be full of fish,
which were laid at Elizabeth's feet. The entry for this day ends with
the sentence, "That evening she hunted." On Thursday the lords and
ladies dined at a table forty-eight yards long, and there was a country
dance with tabor and pipe, which drew from her Majesty "gentle
applause." On Friday, the Queen knighted six gentlemen and passed on to
Chichester.

[Sidenote: A DESPERADO POET]

A year later the first Lord Montagu died. He was succeeded by another
Anthony, the author of the "Book of Orders and Rules" for the use of the
family at Cowdray, and the dedicatee of Anthony Copley's _Fig for
Fortune_, 1596. Copley has a certain Sussex interest of his own, having
astonished not a little the good people of Horsham. A contemporary
letter describes him as "the most desperate youth that liveth. He did
shoot at a gentleman last summer, and did kill an ox with a musket, and
in Horsham church he threw his dagger at the parish clerk, and it stuck
in a seat of the church. There liveth not his like in England for sudden
attempts." Subsequently the conspirator-poet must have calmed down, for
he states in the dedication to my lord that he is "now winnowed by the
fan of grace and Zionry." To-day he would say "saved." Copley, aft