Dinner was served for the coronation party in excellent style, but before it was half over it was varied by an _entrée_ of the most extraordinary and novel character. It was after the second course that a courser came prancing in, with a knight of the name of Dymock mounted on the top of the animal. The expression of Henry's astonished countenance gave an extra _plat_, in the shape of calf's head surprised, at the top of the royal table. The wonder of Henry was somewhat abated when the knight put into the royal hand a written offer to fight any knight or gentleman who would maintain that the new king was not a lawful sovereign. The challenge was read six times over, but nobody came forward to accept it; and indeed it was nearly impossible, for care had been taken to exclude all persons likely to prove troublesome, as it was very desirable on the occasion of a coronation to keep the thing respectable. The champion was then presented with "something to drink," in a golden goblet, and pocketed the _poculum_ as a perquisite. Thus passed off the coronation of Henry the Fourth, which is still further remarkable for a story told about the oil used in anointing the head of the new monarch. This precious precursor of all the multitudinous mixtures to which ingenuity and gullibility have since given their heads, was contained in a flask said to have been presented by a good hermit to Henry Duke of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry the Third, who gave it to somebody else, until it came, unspilt, into the possession of Henry of Bolingbroke. We confess we reject the oil, with which our critical acidity refuses to coalesce, and we would almost as soon believe the assertion that it was a flask of salad oil sent from the Holy Land by the famous Saladin.