and this Will Shakespeare, even to the saying that he made sonnets
to my Lord. Howbeit, my Lord was exceeding wroth, and I, to
beguile him, did propose that we should leave our horses and
cargoes of manuscript behind and cross on the ice afoot, which
conceit pleased him mightily. In sooth it chanced well with what
followed, for hardly were we on the river when we saw a great crowd
coming from Westminster, before a caravan of strange animals and
savages in masks, capering and capricolling, dragging after them
divers sledges quaintly fashioned like swannes, in which were
ladies attired as fairies and goddesses and such like heathen and
wanton trumpery, which I, as a plain, blunt man, would have fallen
to cursing, had not my Lord himself damned me under his breath to
hold my peace, for that he had recognized my Lord of Leicester's
colours and that he made no doubt they were of the Court. As
forsooth this did presently appear; also that one of the ladies was
her Gracious Majesty's self--masked to the general eye, the better
to enjoy these miscalled festivities. I say miscalled, for, though
a loyal subject of her Majesty, and one who hath borne arms at
Tilbury Fort in defence of her Majesty, it inflamed my choler, as a
plain and blunt man, that her Mightiness should so degrade her
dignity. Howbeit, as a man who hath his way to make in the world,
I kept mine eyes well upon the anticks of the Great, while my Lord
joined the group of maskers and their follies. I recognized her
Majesty's presence by her discourse in three languages to as many
Ambassadors that were present--though I marked well that she had
not forgotten her own tongue, calling one of her ladies "a sluttish
wench," nor her English spirit in cuffing my Lord of Essex's ears
for some indecorum--which, as a plain man myself, curt in speech
and action, did rejoice me greatly. But I must relate one feat,
the like of which I never saw in England before or since. There