game. There are grey knights in armour at his side and a red cardinal, and though the trumpets blow to honour his coming, their blast is hollow in vanity, and all is for naught.
Again the Centuries play their figure across the outer stage, and at the sound of the trumpet enters the last of the pageant, Edward VI., he is clad as in the Holbein pictures.
THE PROLOCUTOR.
This King is the King of boys, and boys have honoured him to all time, for his boy's heart loved them. They call him the founder; the little founder, for he never grew to be a man. Ye shall know him by his tender, pinched face, a face that is full of love and thought. There is a feather in his cap and jewels in the band of it, there is white samite & ermine on his shoulder, and an order on his breast, great painters have pictured him, and his little face hangs in galleries and halls of piety and great learning, but all this is but as the passing of a pageant, all this is but as the portraiture of a moment taken in the flush of time; for the little King passed out of ken ere the bread that be had cast upon the waters came back. Not unto us, oh Lord, not unto us! But to them that follow after, the children that reap of the little founder's sowing, to them that have builded his England, have honoured his founding, have given her life and her greatness, have spoken with the lips of her learning, in the words of her wisdom, have sprung from her schools and her colleges, to them the little founder has been a symbol of all good things, he cast the bread upon the waters & they have found it after many days.
His too was the book, the book of the Prayers of England, for the tongue that he first spake was the tongue of the Psalms of David, great was the voice, mighty was the burden of it. It came as the call of a trumpet, as a swift light, an awakening. As the fiery cross to the clans it stirred the hearts of the people, it spake with a voice that they knew, a peal that was clear to them. This, this was the gift, the best and the greatest of the gifts of the little founder.
Edward the founder having passed out, the Ten Centuries close the scene with a final treasure, in the course of which they once more throw seed before them, which rises in incense-like fumes before the stage, and they silently disappear.
HERE FOLLOW THE PICTURES OF THE PASSING OF THE EDWARDS OF ENGLAND, FROM EDWARD THE CONFESSOR TO EDWARD THE FOUNDER, DRAWN IN LIEU OF THEIR PRESENTMENT ON THE STAGE.
9
