Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Papersa contribution of a mite subscribed by those dozen poorold widows to the treasure of loyalty with which the nationendows the Prince’s bride.Three hundred years ago, when our dread SovereignLady Elizabeth came to take possession of her realmand capital city, Holingshed, if you please (whose pleasinghistory of course you carry about with you), relatesin his fourth volume folio, that—”At hir entring thecitie, she was of the people received maruellous intierlie,as appeared by the assemblies, praiers, welcommings,cries, and all other signes which argued a woonderfullearnest loue:” and at various halting-places on the royalprogress children habited like angels appeared out ofallegoric edifices and spoke verses to her—“Welcome, O Queen, as much as heart can think,Welcome again, as much as tongue can tell,Welcome to joyous tongues and hearts that willnot shrink.God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well!Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had herAlexandrines, and many minstrels have gone before her singingher praises. Mr. Tupper, who begins in very great forceand strength, and who proposes to give her no less thaneight hundred thousand welcomes in the first twenty linesof his ode, is not satisfied with this most liberal amount ofacclamation, but proposes at the end of his poem a stillmore magnificent subscription. Thus we begin, “A hundredthousand welcomes, a hundred thousand welcomes.” (Inmy copy the figures are in the well-known Arabic numerals,but let us have the numbers literally accurate:)—“A hundred thousand welcomes!A hundred thousand welcomes!And a hundred thousand more!O happy heart of England,Shout aloud and sing, laud,As no land sang before;And let the paeans soarAnd ring from shore to shore,A hundred thousand welcomes,292