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232
THE ELIZABETHAN PEOPLE

ger of Desire's foster children, without making any precise reverence at all, uttered these speeches of defiance from his masters to her majesty, the effect whereof ensueth."

There follows in the original account a long Euphuistic harangue that sets forth in part a description of the sports that are to take place on the morrow.

"The said day being come, the four foster children had made preparation to beseige the Fortress of Beauty; and thereto had provided a frame of wood which was covered with canvas, and painted outwardly in such excellent order, as if it had been very natural earth or mold, and carried the name of a rowling trench which went on wheels wherever the persons within it did drive it. Upon the top whereof were placed two cannons of wood, so passing well coloured, that they seemed to be indeed two field pieces of ordinance, and by them was placed two men for gunners, clothed in crimson sarcenet, with their baskets of earth for defence of their bodies by them. And also there stood on the top of the trench an ensign bearer, in the same suit with the gunners, displaying his ensign; and within the said trench was cunningly conveyed divers kinds of most excellent music against the Castle of Beauty. These things thus all in a readiness, the challengers ap-