One might, perhaps, have been disposed to think that the good minstrels of Beverley were only endeavouring to revive usages which had fallen into desuetude; but we find that in the time of Elizabeth the profession of minstrelsy was sufficiently universal to call for the inquiry, in the Injunctions of 1559, "Whether any minstrells, or any other persons, do use to sing any songs or ditties that be vile or unclean." Ben Jonson gives us numerous allusions to them: _e.g._, in the "Tale of a Tub," old Turve talks of "old Father Rosin, the chief minstrel here--chief minstrel, too, of Highgate; she has hired him, and all his two boys, for a day and a half." They were to be dressed in bays, rosemary, and ribands, to precede the bridal party across the fields to church and back, and to play at dinner. And so in "Epicoene," act iii. sc. 1:-- "Well, there be guests to meat now; how shall we do for music?" [for Morose's wedding.] _Clerimont._--The smell of the venison going thro' the street will invite one noise of fiddlers or other. _Dauphine._--I would it would call the trumpeters hither! _Clerimont._--Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all feasts. There's a good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them. And Dryden, so late as the time of William III., speaks of them-- "These fellows Were once the minstrels of a country show, Followed the prizes through each paltry town, By trumpet cheeks and bloated faces known." There were also female minstrels throughout the Middle Ages; but, as might be anticipated from their irregular wandering life, they bore an indifferent reputation. The romance of "Richard Coeur de Lion" says that it was a female minstrel, and, still worse, an Englishwoman, who recognised and betrayed the knight-errant king and his companions, on their return from the Holy Land, to his enemy, the "King of Almain." The passage is worth quoting, as it illustrates several of the traits of minstrel habits which we have already recorded. After Richard and his companions had dined on a goose, which they cooked for themselves at a tavern-- "When they had drunken well afin, A minstralle com therin, And said 'Gentlemen, wittily, Will ye have any minstrelsey?' Richard bade that she should go. That turned him to mickle woe! The minstralle took in mind,[358] And saith, 'Ye are men unkind; And if I may, ye shall for-think[359] Ye gave neither meat nor drink. For gentlemen should bede[360] To minstrels that abouten yede[361] Of their meat, wine, and ale; For los[362] rises of minstrale.' She was English, and well true By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue."