“When this harangue was finished, (during the recital of which, music was heard within the mount, and the mount itself rose up in height,) the device was moved close to the queen, the music sounded, and one of the boys, accompanied by cornets, sung a fresh summons to the fortress; and when that was ended, another boy, turning to the foster-children and their retinue, sung an alarm, ‘with a pleasant voice and a seemly countenance: which ended, the cannons were shot off, the one with sweet powder, and the other with sweet water, very odoriferous and pleasant; and the noise of the shooting was very excellent concent of melody within the mount. And after that, was store of pretty scaling-ladders, and the footmen threw flowers, and such fancies, against the walls, with all such devices as might seem fit shot for Desire: all which did continue till the time the defendants came in.’ “These were about twenty in number, and each accompanied by his servants. Amongst them was Sir Henry Leigh, who came running in as unknown; and, after breaking six lances, went out again. Of this gentleman I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Trumpeters and pages attended, and speeches were severally delivered to the queen, on the part of these knights, several of whom assumed fantastic characters; and surely none more so than Sir Thomas Perrot and Anthony Cook, who thought proper to personate Adam and Eve; being begirt with apples and fruit, and the latter having hair hung all down his helmet. These knights ‘were accompanied by an angel.’ “The messengers, on the part of Sir Thomas Ratcliff, described their master ‘as a forlorn knight, whom despair of achieving the fate of his peerless and sunlike mistress, had driven out of the haunts of men, into a cave of the desert, where moss was his bed, moss his ceiling, moss his candle, and moss, watered with salt tears, his food.’ Even here, the report of this assault on the fortress of Peerless Beauty, reached his ears, and roused him from his solitude—from bondage to a living death; and, in token of his devoted loyalty and inviolable fidelity to his excellent and divine lady, he had sent her his shield, hewn out of the hard cliff, only enriched with moss; which he begged her to accept, as the ensign of her fame, and the instrument of his glory; prostrating himself at her feet, as ready to undertake any adventures, in hopes of her gracious favour. “On the part of the four sons of Sir Thomas Knolles, Mercury appeared, and described them as the legitimate sons of Despair, brethren to hard mishap, suckled with sighs, and swathed up in sorrow, weaned in woe, and dry-nursed by Desire; long time fostered with favourable countenance, and fed with sweet fancies; but now, of late, alas! wholly given over by grief and disgrace, with despair, &c.