the king entered the city in his progress from Woodstock. If Warton's
notion is correct, scarcely the iron cross in the pavement that marks
the spot where the bishops were burned, or the solemn chamber in which
they were tried, yea, scarcely Guy Fawkes's lantern, which they show
you at the Bodleian, or the Brazen Nose itself, are memorials as
interesting as the archway leading into the quadrangle of St. John's
College, under whose carving, quaint and graceful, one now gets the
lovely glimpse into the green and bloom of the gardens at the back. At
this gate, three youths dressed like witches met the king, declaring
they were the same that once met Macbeth and Banquo, prophesying a
kingdom to one and to the other a generation of monarchs, that they
now appeared to show the confirmation of the prediction. Warton's
conjecture is that Shakespeare heard of this, or perhaps was himself
in the crowd that watched the boys as they came whirling out in their
weird dance, and that then and there was conceived what was to become
so mighty a product of the human brain,--Macbeth.

King James, however, received it all coldly. The University, kindled
by the traditions of Elizabeth's visit, did its best. Leland gives a
glimpse of the stage arrangements in Christ Church Hall. Towards the
end "was a scene like a wall, painted and adorned by stately pillars,
which pillars would turn about, by reason whereof, with the help of
other painted cloths, their stage did vary three times." But the
king liked the scholastic hair-splitting with which he was elsewhere
entertained better than the plays. In Christ Church Hall he yawned
and even went to sleep, saying it was all mere childish amusement. In
fact, the poor boys had to put up with even a worse rebuff; the
king spoke many words of dislike, and when, in one of the plays, a
pastoral, certain characters came in somewhat scantily attired, the
queen and maids of honour took great offence, in which the king, who