Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/137



And so have flourished in this fairer clime Successively from that to this our time, Still offering up to our immortal powers Sweet incense, wine, and odoriferous flowers, While sacred Vesta, in her virgin tire, With vows and wishes tends the hallowed fire. Now seeing that thy majesty we see, Greater than country gods, more good than we, We render up to thy more powerful guard This house. This knight is thine, he is thy ward; For by thy helping and auspicious hand He and his home shall ever, ever stand, And flourish in despite of envious Fate, And then live, like Augustus, fortunate. And long, long mayest thou live! To which both men, God, saints, and angels, say, "Amen, Amen!"

The Second Tutelar God begins:—

The First God begins again:—

This is doubtless the same pageant thus recorded in Nicholas Assheton's Journal:—"Then, about ten or eleven o'clock, a mask of noblemen, knights, gentlemen, and courtiers, afore the King, in the middle round, in the garden. Some speeches; of the rest, dancing the Huckler, Tom Bedlo, and the Coup Justice of Peace." The Rev. Canon Raines, who edited the journal for the Chetham Society, observes—"These ancient and fashionable Lancashire dances have passed away and are