The play performed on Twelfth Night, 1571, was called Narcissus, in which a live fox was let loose and chased by dogs; so that the introduction of live animals on the stage is not a modern invention. On New Year’s Day 1574, the children of Westminster performed Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy. The scholars on the foundation at Westminster, known as the queen’s scholars, have continued the custom of acting plays to the present time, the performances having for very many years past been one of Terence’s plays, of which four are taken in rotation, and excellent acting is in general exhibited to a select and talented audience; the concluding ceremony of the cap, however, reminds one of the usual termination of the country Christmas play of St. George. In the beginning of this reign there are references to the custom, then called an old one, of scholars being allowed, even by their foundation deed, to bar out their masters a week before Christmas and Easter. At Christmas 1574, she had a company of Italian players, amongst others, one of them was a tumbler. On New Year’s Night 1582, there were also sundry feats of tumbling by the servants of Lord Strange, besides plays during the Christmas, and a mask of ladies. In several following years a tumbler, called Symons, seems to have been famed for divers feats of activity, and the queen apparently took pleasure in such exhibitions. In 1600, a person, called Nycke, tumbled before her, and 14_s._ are charged for his silk hose. In her latter years we find Edward Allen, John Heming, and Thomas Pope, presenting plays before her. The rewards given to the players, vary from £6 13_s._ 4_d._ to £40. As the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ written at the queen’s request, and other of Shakespeare’s plays, were performed at court, we may fairly presume that some of them were performed at Christmas, and that the great Bard himself may have acted before her. In 1592, the vice-chancellor, and heads of colleges, at Cambridge, were directed to act a comedy before the queen, at Christmas; but these unfortunate victims of too much learning were obliged to memorialize the vice-chamberlain, stating their inability to act in English, and asking leave to perform in Latin. They must have been in their glory in the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, the pedant James, whom, on one occasion, they addressed as Jacobissime Jacobe. Like her predecessors, the queen would play at dice at Christmas time, but she had dice set for her that threw the high numbers only, as fives and sixes; and, as she knew not the trick, she was kept in good humour by her success, as she, of course, won; and her courtiers probably thought it worth some sacrifice to avoid incurring the effects of the paternal temper existing in her.