CHAPTER V.

A VIEW OF COUNTRY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE;—ITS MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.—RURAL CHARACTERS.

It may be necessary, in the commencement of this chapter, to remark, that rural life, in the strict acceptation of the term, will be at present the exclusive object of attention; a survey of the manners and customs of the metropolis, and of the superior orders of society, being deferred to a subsequent portion of the work.

No higher character will, therefore, be introduced in this sketch than the _country squire_, constituting according to Harrison, who wrote about the year 1580, one of the second order of gentlemen; for these, he remarks, "be divided into two sorts, as the baronie or estate of lords (which conteineth barons and all above that degree), and also those that be no lords, as knights, esquires, and simple gentlemen."[68:A] He has also furnished us, in another place, with a more precise definition of the character under consideration. "Esquire (which we call commonlie squire) is a French word, and so much in Latine as Scutiger vel Armiger, and such are all those which beare armes, or armoires, testimonies of their race from whence they be descended. They were at the first costerels or bearers of the armes of barons, or knights, and thereby being instructed in martiall knowledge, had that name for a dignitie given to distinguish them from common souldiers called Gregarii Milities when they were together in the field."[68:B]

It is curious to mark the minute distinctions of gentlemen as detailed at this period, in the various books of _Armorie_ or _Heraldrie_. The science, indeed, was cultivated, in the days of Shakspeare, with an enthusiasm which has never since been equalled, and the treatises on the subject were consequently multitudinous.

"—— If no gentleman, why then no arms,"[69:A]

exclaims our poet; the aspirants, therefore, to this distinction were numerous, and in the _Gentleman's Academie_; or, _The Booke of St. Albans_, published by Gervase Markham in 1595, which he says in the dedication was _then_ absolutely "necessarie and behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentlemen of this flourishing ile—in the heroicall and excellent study of Armory," we find "nine sortes" and "foure maner" of gentlemen expressly distinguished.

"Of nine sortes of gentlemen:

"First, there is a gentleman of ancestry and blood.

"A gentleman of blood.

"A gentleman of coat-armour, and those are three, one of the kings badge, another of lordship, and the third of killing a pagan.

"A gentleman untriall: a gentleman Ipocrafet: a gentleman spirituall and temporall: there is also a gentleman spirituall and temporall.—

"The divers manner of gentlemen:

"There are foure maner of gentlemen, to wit, one of auncestrie, which must needes bee of blood, and three of coate-armour, and not of blood: as one a gentleman of coate-armour of the kings badge, which is of armes given him by an herauld: another is, to whome the king giveth a lordeshippe, to a yeoman by his letters pattents, and to his heires for ever, whereby hee may beare the coate-armour of the same lordeshippe: the thirde is, if a yeoman kill a gentleman, Pagan or Sarazen, whereby he may of right weare his coate-armour: and some holde opinion, that if one Christian doe kill an other, and if it be lawfull battell, they may weare each others coate-armour, yet it is not so good as where the Christian killes the Pagan."

We have also the virtues and vices proper or contrary to the character of the gentleman, the former of which are divided into five amorous and four sovereign: "the five amorous are these,—lordly of countenance, sweet in speech, wise in answere, perfitte in government and cherefull to faithfulnes: the foure soveraigne are these fewe,—oathes are no swearing, patient in affliction, knowledge of his owne birth, and to feare to offend his soveraigne."[70:A] The vices which are likewise enumerated as _nine_, are all modifications of cowardice, lechery, and drunkenness.

That the character of the gentleman was still estimated, in the reign of Elizabeth, according to this definition of the Prioress of Sopewell, we have consequently the authority of Markham to assert, who tells us, that the study of his modernised edition of the Booke of St. Albans was still "behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentleman" of 1595.

The mansion-houses of the country-gentlemen were, in the days of Shakspeare, rapidly improving both in their external appearance, and in their interior comforts. During the reign of Henry the Eighth, and even of Mary, they were, if we except their size, little better than cottages, being thatched buildings, covered on the outside with the coarsest clay, and lighted only by lattices; when Harrison wrote, in the age of Elizabeth, though the greater number of manor-houses still remained framed of timber, yet he observes, "such as be latelie builded, are cōmonlie either of bricke or hard stone, or both; their roomes large and comelie, and houses of office further distant from their lodgings."[72:A] The old timber mansions, too, were now covered with the finest plaster, which, says the historian, "beside the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with more exactnesse[73:A]:" and at the same time, the windows, interior decorations, and furniture were becoming greatly more useful and elegant. "Of old time our countrie houses," continues Harrison, "instead of glasse did use much lattise, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oke in chekerwise. I read also that some of the better sort, in and before the time of the Saxons, did make panels of horne insteed of glasse, and fix them in woodden calmes. But as horne in windows is now quite laid downe in everie place, so our lattises are also growne into lesse use, because glasse is come to be so plentifull, and within a verie little so good cheape if not better then the other.—The wals of our houses on the inner sides in like sort be either hanged with tapisterie, arras worke, or painted cloths, wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our owne, or wainescot brought hither out of the east countries, whereby the roomes are not a little commanded, made warme, and much more close than otherwise they would be. As for stooves we have not hitherto used them greatlie, yet doo they now begin to be made in diverse houses of the gentrie.—Likewise in the houses of knights, gentlemen, &c. it is not geson to behold generallie their great provision of Turkie worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords of plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds, to be deemed by estimation."[73:B]

The house of every country-gentleman of property included a neat chapel and a spacious hall; and where the estate and establishment were considerable, the mansion was divided into two parts or sides, one for the state or banqueting-rooms, and the other for the household; but in general, the latter, except in baronial residences, was the only part to be met with, and when complete had the addition of parlours; thus Bacon, in his Essay on Building, describing the houshold side of a mansion, says, "I wish it divided at the first into a hall, and a chappell, with a partition betweene; both of good state and bignesse: and those not to goe all the length, but to have, at the further end, a winter, and a summer parler, both faire: and under these roomes a faire and large cellar, sunke under ground: and likewise, some privie kitchins, with butteries and pantries, and the like."[74:A] It was the custom also to have windows opening from the parlours and passages into the chapel, hall, and kitchen, with the view of overlooking or controlling what might be going on; a trait of vigilant caution, which may still be discovered in some of our ancient colleges and manor-houses, and to which Shakspeare alludes in King Henry the Eighth, where he describes His Majesty and Butts the physician entering at a window above, which overlooks the council-chamber.[74:B] We may add, in illustration of this system of architectural espionage, that Andrew Borde, when giving instructions for building a house in his _Dietarie of Health_, directs "many of the chambers to have a view into the chapel:" and that Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a letter, dated 1573, says, "if it please Her Majestie, she may come in through my gallerie, and see the disposition of the hall in dynner-time, at _a window opening thereunto_."[74:C]

The hall of the country-squire was the usual scene of eating and hospitality, at the upper end of which was placed the orsille or high table, a little elevated above the floor, and here the master of the mansion presided, with an authority, if not a state, which almost equalled that of the potent baron. The table was divided into upper and lower messes, by a huge saltcellar, and the rank and consequence of the visitors were marked by the situation of their seats above, and below, the saltcellar; a custom which not only distinguished the relative dignity of the guests, but extended likewise to the nature of the provision, the wine frequently circulating only above the saltcellar, and the dishes below it, being of a coarser kind than those near the head of the table. So prevalent was this uncourteous distinction, that Shakspeare, in his Winter's Tale, written about the year 1604, or 1610, designates the inferior orders of society by the term "_lower messes_."

————————— "Lower messes, Perchance, are to this business purblind."[75:A]

Dekkar, likewise, in his play called _The Honest Whore_, 1604, mentions in strong terms the degradation of sitting beneath the salt: "Plague him, set him beneath the salt; and let him not touch a bit, till every one has had his full cut."[75:B] Hall too, in the sixth satire of his second book, published in 1597, when depicting the humiliated state of the squire's chaplain, says, that he must not

"ever presume to sit _above the salt_:"

and Jonson, in his Cynthia's Revells, speaking of a coxcomb, says, "his fashion is, not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinkes _below the salt_." See act i. sc. 2.

This invidious regulation appears to have extended far into the seventeenth century; for Massinger in his _City Madam_, acted in 1632, thus notices it:

——————— "My proud lady Admits him to her table, marry, ever _Beneath the salt_, and there he sits the subject Of her contempt and scorn:"[75:C]

and Cartright still later:

——— "Where you are best esteem'd, You only pass under the favourable name Of humble cousins that sit _beneath the salt_." _Love's Convert._

The luxury of eating and of good cooking were well understood in the days of Elizabeth, and the table of the country-squire frequently groaned beneath the burden of its dishes; at Christmas and at Easter especially, the hall became the scene of great festivity; "in gentlemen's houses, at Christmas," says Aubrey, "the first dish that was brought to table was a boar's head, with a lemon in his mouth. At Queen's Coll. Oxon. they still retain this custom, the bearer of it bringing it into the hall, singing to an old tune an old Latin rhyme, _Apri caput defero, &c._ The first dish that was brought up to table on Easter-day was a red-herring riding away on horseback; _i. e._ a herring ordered by the cook something after the likeness of a man on horseback, set in a corn sallad. The custom of eating a gammon of bacon at Easter (which is still kept up in many parts of England) was founded on this, _viz._ to shew their abhorrence of Judaism at that solemn commemoration of our Lord's resurrection."[76:A]

Games and diversions of various kinds, such as mumming, masqueing, dancing, loaf-stealing, &c. &c. were allowed in the hall on these days; and the servants, or heralds, wore the coats of arms of their masters, and cried '_Largesse_' thrice. The hall was usually hung round with the insignia of the squire's amusements, such as hunting, shooting, fishing, &c.; but in case he were a justice of the peace, it assumed a more terrific aspect. "The halls of the justice of peace," observes honest Aubrey, "were dreadful to behold. The skreen was garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouths, with coats of mail, launces, pikes, halberts, brown bills, bucklers."[76:B]

The following admirable description of an old English hall, which still remains as it existed in the days of Elizabeth, is taken from the notes to Mr. Scott's recent poem of Rokeby, and was communicated to the bard by a friend; the story which it introduces, I have also added, as it likewise occurred in the same reign, and affords a curious though not a pleasing trait of the manners of the times; as, while it gives a dreadful instance of ferocity, it shows with what ease justice, even in the case of the most enormous crimes, might be set aside.

Littlecote-House stands in a low and lonely situation. On three sides it is surrounded by a park that spreads over the adjoining hill; on the fourth, by meadows which are watered by the river Kennet. Close on one side of the house is a thick grove of lofty trees, along the verge of which runs one of the principal avenues to it through the park. It is an irregular building of great antiquity, and was probably erected about the time of the termination of feudal warfare, when defence came no longer to be an object in a country-mansion. Many circumstances in the interior of the house, however, seem appropriate to feudal times. The hall is very spacious, floored with stones, and lighted by large transom windows, that are clothed with casements. Its walls are hung with old military accoutrements, that have long been left a prey to rust. At one end of the hall is a range of coats of mail and helmets, and there is on every side abundance of old-fashioned pistols and guns, many of them with matchlocks. Immediately below the cornice hangs a row of leathern jerkins, made in the form of a shirt, supposed to have been worn as armour by the vassals. A large oak-table, reaching nearly from one end of the room to the other, might have feasted the whole neighbourhood, and an appendage to one end of it made it answer at other times for the old game of shuffle-board. The rest of the furniture is in a suitable style, particularly an arm-chair of cumbrous workmanship, constructed of wood, curiously turned, with a high back and triangular seat, said to have been used by Judge Popham in the reign of Elizabeth. The entrance into the hall is at one end by a low door, communicating with a passage that leads from the outer door, in the front of the house, to a quadrangle within; at the other it opens upon a gloomy staircase, by which you ascend to the first floor, and, passing the doors of some bed-chambers, enter a narrow gallery, which extends along the back front of the house from one end to the other of it, and looks upon an old garden. This gallery is hung with portraits, chiefly in the Spanish dresses of the sixteenth century. In one of the bed-chambers, which you pass in going towards the gallery, is a bedstead with blue furniture, which time has now made dingy and threadbare, and in the bottom of one of the bed-curtains you are shewn a place where a small piece has been cut out and sown in again; a circumstance which serves to identify the scene of the following story:

"It was a dark rainy night in the month of November, that an old midwife sate musing by her cottage fire-side, when on a sudden she was startled by a loud knocking at the door. On opening it she found a horseman, who told her that her assistance was required immediately by a person of rank, and that she should be handsomely rewarded, but that there were reasons for keeping the affair a strict secret, and, therefore, she must submit to be blind-folded, and to be conducted in that condition to the bed-chamber of the lady. After proceeding in silence for many miles through rough and dirty lanes, they stopped, and the midwife was led into a house, which, from the length of her walk through the apartment, as well as the sounds about her, she discovered to be the seat of wealth and power. When the bandage was removed from her eyes, she found herself in a bed-chamber, in which were the lady on whose account she had been sent for, and a man of a haughty and ferocious aspect. The lady was delivered of a fine boy. Immediately the man commanded the midwife to give him the child, and, catching it from her, he hurried across the room, and threw it on the back of the fire, that was blazing in the chimney. The child, however, was strong, and by its struggles rolled itself off upon the hearth, when the ruffian again seized it with fury, and, in spite of the intercession of the midwife, and the more piteous entreaties of the mother, thrust it under the grate, and raking the live coals upon it, soon put an end to its life. The midwife, after spending some time in affording all the relief in her power to the wretched mother, was told that she must be gone. Her former conductor appeared, who again bound her eyes, and conveyed her behind him to her own home; he then paid her handsomely, and departed. The midwife was strongly agitated by the horrors of the preceding night; and she immediately made a deposition of the fact before a magistrate. Two circumstances afforded hopes of detecting the house in which the crime had been committed; one was, that the midwife, as she sate by the bed-side, had, with a view to discover the place, cut out a piece of the bed-curtain, and sown it in again; the other was, that as she had descended the staircase, she had counted the steps. Some suspicions fell upon one Darrell, at that time the proprietor of Littlecote-House and the domain around it. The house was examined, and identified by the midwife, and Darrell was tried at Salisbury for the murder. By corrupting his judge, he escaped the sentence of the law; but broke his neck by a fall from his horse in hunting, in a few months after. The place where this happened is still known by the name of Darrell's Hill: a spot to be dreaded by the peasant whom the shades of evening have overtaken on his way.

"Littlecote-House is two miles from Hungerford, in Berkshire, through which the Bath road passes. The fact occurred in the reign of Elizabeth. All the important circumstances I have given exactly as they are told in the country." Rokeby, 4to. edit. notes, p. 102-106.

The usual fare of country-gentlemen, relates Harrison, was "foure, five, or six dishes, when they have but _small resort_;" and accordingly, we find that Justice Shallow, when he invites Falstaffe to dinner, issues the following orders: "Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook."[79:A] But on feast-days, and particularly on the festivals above-mentioned, the profusion and cost of the table were astonishing. Harrison observes that the country-gentlemen and merchants contemned butchers meat on such occasions, and vied with the nobility in the production of rare and delicate viands, of which he gives a long list[79:B]; and Massinger says,

"Men may talk of _country-christmasses_— Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps tongues, Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris, the carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts Were fasts, compared with the city's."[80:A]

It was the custom in the houses of the country-gentlemen to retire after dinner, which generally took place about eleven in the morning, to the garden-bower or an arbour in the orchard, in order to partake of the banquet or dessert; thus Shallow, addressing Falstaffe after dinner, exclaims, "Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an _arbour_, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways, and so forth."[80:B] From the banquet it was usual to retire to evening prayer, and thence to supper, between five and six o'clock; for in Shakspeare's time, there were seldom more than two meals, dinner and supper; "heretofore," remarks Harrison, "there hath beene much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonlie is in these daies, for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoone, beverages, or nuntions after dinner, and thereto reare suppers generallie when it was time to go to rest. Now these od repasts, thanked be God, are verie well left, and ech one in manner (except here and there some yoong hungrie stomach that cannot fast till dinner time) contenteth himselfe with dinner and supper onelie. The nobilitie, _gentlemen_, and merchantmen, especiallie at great meetings, doo sit commonlie till two or three of the clocke at afternoone, so that with manie is an hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening praier, and returne from thence to come time enough to supper."[81:A]

The supper which, on days of festivity, was often protracted to a late hour, and often too as substantial as the dinner, was succeeded, especially at Christmas, by gambols of various sorts, and sometimes the squire and his family would mingle in the amusements, or retiring to the tapestried parlour, would leave the hall to the more boisterous mirth of their household; then would the BLIND HARPER, who sold his _FIT of mirth for a groat_, be introduced, either to provoke the dance, or to rouse their wonder by his minstrelsy; his "matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rimes, made purposely for recreation of the common people at Christmasse dinners and brideales."[81:B] Nor was the evening passed by the parlour fire-side dissimilar in its pleasures; the harp of history or romance was frequently made vocal by one of the party. "We ourselves," says Puttenham, who wrote in 1589, "have written for pleasure a little brief romance, or historical ditty, in the English tong of the Isle of Great Britaine, in short and long meetres, and by breaches or divisions, to be more commodiously sung to the harpe in places of assembly, where the company shal be desirous to heare of old adventures, and valiaunces of noble knights in times past, as are those of King Authur and his Knights of the Round Table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, and others like."[81:C]

The _posset_ at bed-time, closed the joyous day, a custom to which Shakspeare has occasionally alluded; thus Lady Macbeth says of the "surfeited grooms," "I have drugg'd their possets[82:A];" Mrs. Quickly tells Rugby, "Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire[82:B];" and Page, cheering Falstaffe, exclaims, "Thou shall eat a posset to-night at my[82:C] house." Thomas Heywood also, a contemporary of Shakspeare, has particularly noticed this refection as occurring just before bed-time: "Thou shall be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding; and my daughter Nell shall pop a _posset_ upon thee when thou goest to bed."[82:D]

In short, hospitality, a love of festivity, and an ardent attachment to the sports of the field, were prominent traits in the character of the country-gentleman in Shakspeare's days. The floor of his hall was commonly occupied by his greyhounds, and on his hand was usually to be found his favorite hawk. His conversation was very generally on the subject of his diversions; for as Master Stephen says, "Why you know, an'a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages now-a-dayes, I'll not give a rush for him. They are more studied than the _Greeke_, or the _Latine_."[82:E] Classical acquirements were, nevertheless, becoming daily more fashionable and familiar with the character which we are describing; but still an intimacy with heraldry, romance, and the chroniclers, constituted the chief literary wealth of the country-gentleman. In his dress he was plain, though occasionally costly; yet Harrison complains in 1580, that the gaudy trappings of the French were creeping even into the rural and mercantile world: "Neither was it merrier," says he, "with England, than when an Englishman was knowne abroad by his owne cloth, and contented himselfe at home with his fine carsie hosen, and a meane slop: his coat, gowne, and cloak of browne, blue, or puke, with some pretie furniture of velvet or furre, and a doublet of sad tawnie, or blacke velvet, or other comelie silke, without such cuts and gawrish colours as are worne in these daies, and never brought in but by the consent of the French, who thinke themselves the gaiest men, when they have most diversities of jagges and change of colours about them."[83:A]

Of the female part of the family of the country-gentleman, we must be indulged in giving one description from Drayton, which not only particularizes the employments and dress of the younger part of the sex, but is written with the most exquisite simplicity and beauty; he is delineating the well-educated daughter of a country-knight:

"He had, as antique stories tell, A daughter cleaped Dawsabel, A maiden fair and free: And for she was her father's heir, Full well she was ycond the leir Of mickle courtesy.

The silk well couth she twist and twine, And make the fine march-pine, And with the needle work: And she couth help the priest to say His mattins on a holy day, And sing a psalm in kirk.

She wore a frock of frolic green, Might well become a maiden queen, Which seemly was to see; A hood to that so neat and fine, In colour like the columbine, Ywrought full featously.

Her features all as fresh above, As is the grass that grows by Dove, And lythe as lass of Kent. Her skin as soft as Lemster wool, As white as snow on Peakish Hull, Or swan that swims in Trent.

This maiden in a moon betime, Went forth when May was in the prime, To get sweet setywall, The honey-suckle, the harlock, The lily, and the lady-smock, To deck her summer-hall."[84:A]

Some heightening to the picture of the country-gentleman which we have just given, may be drawn from the character of the upstart squire or country-knight, as it has been pourtrayed by Bishop Earle, towards the commencement of the seventeenth century; for the absurd imitation of the one is but an overcharged or caricature exhibition of the costume of the other. The upstart country-gentleman, remarks the Bishop, "is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not the stuff of himself, for he bare the kings sword before he had arms to wield it; yet being once laid o'er the shoulder with a knighthood, he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock, though but a tanner or usurer; he purchased the land, and his son the title. He has doffed off the name of a country-fellow, but the look not so easy, and his face still bears a relish of churne-milk. He is guarded with more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country, yet his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping is seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with his [84:B]jesses. A justice of peace he is to domineer in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. He will be drunk with his hunters for company, and stain his gentility with droppings of ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the assize-week as much as the prisoner. In sum, he's but a clod of his own earth, or his land is the dunghill and he the cock that crows over it: and commonly his race is quickly run, and his children's children, though they scape hanging, return to the place from whence they came."[85:A]

Notwithstanding the hospitality which generally prevailed among the country-gentlemen towards the close of the sixteenth century, the injurious custom of deserting their hereditary halls for the luxury and dissipation of the metropolis, began to appear; and, accordingly, Bishop Hall has described in a most finished and picturesque manner the deserted mansion of his days;

"Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound With double echoes doth againe rebound; But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee, Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see: All dumb and silent, like the dead of night, Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite! The marble pavement hid with desert weed, With house-leek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed.— Look to the towered chimnies, which should be The wind-pipes of good hospitalitie:—— Lo, there th'unthankful swallow takes her rest, And fills the tunnel with her circled nest."[85:B]

That it was no very uncommon thing for country-gentlemen to spend their Christmas in London at this period, is evident from a letter preserved by Mr. Lodge, in his Illustrations of British History; it is written by William Fleetwood, afterwards Queen's Serjeant, to the Earl of Derby; is dated New Yere's Daye, 1589, and contains the following passage:—"The gentlemen of Norff. and Suffolk were commanded to dep{r}te from London before Xtemmas, and to repaire to their countries, and there to kepe hospitalitie amongest their neighbours.[86:A]" The fashion, however, of annually visiting the capital did not become general, nor did the character of the country-squire, such as it was in the days of Shakspeare, alter materially during the following century.[86:B]

The _country-clergyman_, the next character we shall attempt to notice, was distinguished, in the time of Shakspeare, by the appellation of _Sir_: a title which the poet has uniformly bestowed on the inferior orders of this profession, as _Sir_ Hugh in the Merry Wives of Windsor, _Sir_ Topas in the Twelfth Night, _Sir_ Oliver in As You like It, and _Sir_ Nathaniel in Love's Labour's lost. This custom, which was not entirely discontinued until the close of the reign of Charles II., owes its origin to the language of our universities, which confers the designation of _Dominus_ on those who have taken their first degree or bachelor of arts, and not, as has been supposed, to any claim which the clergy had upon the order of knighthood. The word _Dominus_ was naturally translated _Sir_; and as almost every clergyman had taken his first degree, it became customary to apply the term to the lower class of the hierarchy. "_Sir_ seems to have been a title," remarks Dr. Percy, "formerly appropriated to such of the inferior clergy as were only _readers_ of the service, and not admitted to be preachers, and therefore were held in the lowest estimation, as appears from a remarkable passage in Machell's MS. _Collections for the History of Westmoreland and Cumberland_, in six volumes, folio, preserved in the Dean and Chapter's library at Carlisle. The Rev. Thomas Machell, author of the Collections, lived temp. Car. II. Speaking of the little chapel of Martindale in the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland, the writer says, 'There is little remarkable in or about it, but a neat chapel yard, which, by the peculiar care of the old reader, _Sir Richard_[89:A], is kept clean, and as neat as a bowling-green.'

"Within the limits of myne own memory all _readers_ in chapels were called _Sirs_[89:B], and of old have been writ so; whence, I suppose, such of the laity as received the noble order of knighthood being called _Sirs_ too, for distinction sake had _Knight_ writ after them; which had been superfluous, if the title _Sir_ had been peculiar to them."[90:A]

Shakspeare has himself indeed sufficiently marked the distinction between priesthood and knighthood, when he makes Viola say, "I am one that had rather go with _Sir Priest_ than _Sir Knight_."[90:B]

Were we to estimate the diameter of the country-clergy, during the age of Elizabeth, from the sketches which Shakspeare has given us of them, I am afraid we should be induced to appreciate their utility and moral virtue on too low a scale. It will be a fairer plan to exhibit the picture from the delineation of one of their own order, a competent judge, and who was likewise a contemporary. "The apparell of our clergiemen," records Harrison, "is comlie, and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the popish church: before the universities bound their graduats unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by the blind Sir Johns. For if you peruse well my chronolojie, you shall find, that they went either in diverse colors, like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red, greene, &c.: with their shoes piked, their haire crisped, their girdles armed with silver; their shoes, spurres, bridles, &c. buckled with like metall: their apparell (for the most part) of silke, and richlie furred; their cappes laced and butned with gold: so that to meet a priest in those daies, was to behold a peacocke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne: which now (I saie) is well reformed. Touching hospitalitie, there was never any greater used in England, sith by reason that marriage is permitted to him that will choose that kind of life, their meat and drinke is more orderly and frugallie dressed; their furniture of houshold more convenient, and better looked unto; and the poore oftener fed generallie than heretofore they have beene." Then, alluding to those who reproach the country-clergy for not being so prodigal of good cheer as in former days, he adds, "To such as doo consider of the curtailing of their livings, or excessive prices wherevnto things are growen, and how their course is limited by law, and estate looked into on every side, the cause of their so dooing is well inough perceived. This also offendeth manie, that they should after their deaths leave their substances to their wives and children: whereas they consider not, that in old time such as had no lemans nor bastards (verie few were there God wot of this sort) did leave their goods and possessions to their brethren and kinsfolk, whereby (as I can shew by good record) manie houses of gentilitie have growen and beene erected. If in anie age some one of them did found a college, almes-house, or schoole, if you looke unto these our times, you shall see no fewer deeds of charitie doone, nor better grounded upon the right stub of pietie than before. If you saie that their wives be fond, after the decease of their husbands, and bestow themselves not so advisedlie as their calling requireth, which God knoweth these curious surveiors make small accompt of in truth, further than thereby to gather matter of reprehension: I beseech you then to look into all states of the laitie, and tell me whether some duchesses, countesses, barons, or knights' wives, doo not fullie so often offend in the like as they: for Eve will be Eve, though Adam would saie naie. Not a few also find fault with our thread-bare gowns, as if not our patrons but our wives were causes of our wo: but if it were knowne to all, that I know to have beene performed of late in Essex, where a minister taking a benefice (of lesse than twentie pounds in the Quéen's bookes so farre as I remember) was inforced to paie to his patrone, twentie quarters of otes, ten quarters of wheat, and sixtéene yéerlie of barleie, which he called hawkes-meat; and another left the like in farme to his patrone forten pounds by the yéere, which is well worth fortie at the least, the cause of our thread-bare gowns would easilie appeere, for such patrones doo scrape the wooll from our clokes."[91:A]

This delineation is, upon the whole, a favourable one; but the author in the very next page admits that the country-clergy had notwithstanding fallen into "general contempt" and "small consideration;" that the cause of this was not merely owing to the poverty of the ministry, but was for the most part attributable either to the iniquity of the patron or the immorality of the priest, will but too clearly appear from the relation of Harrison himself, and from other contemporary evidence. The historian declares that it was the custom of some patrons to "bestow advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekéepers, insted of other recompence for their long and faithfull service[92:A];" and the following letter from the Talbot papers presents us with a frightful view of the manners of the country-clergy at the commencement of the reign of James I.

"Ad. Slack to the Lady Bowes.

"Right wor{ll}.

"I understand that one Raphe Cleaton ys curate of the chappell at Buxton; his wages are, out of his neighbour's benevolence, about v{li} yearely: S{r} Charles Cavendishe had the tythes there this last yeare, ether of his owne right or my Lords, as th' inhabitants saye. The minister aforenamed differeth litle from those of the worste sorte, and hath dipt his finger both in manslaughter and p'jurie, &c. The placinge or displacing of the curate there resteth in Mr. Walker, commissarie of Bakewell, of which churche Buxton is a chappell of ease.

"I humbly thanke yo{r} Wor{pp} for yo{re} l{re} to the justices at the cessions; for S{r} Peter Fretchvell, togither w{th} Mr. Bainbrigg, were verie earnest against the badd vicar of Hope; and lykewyse S{r} Jermane Poole, and all the benche, savinge Justice Bentley, who use some vaine —— on his behalfe, and affirmed that my La. Bowes had been disprooved before My Lord of Shrowesburie in reports touching the vicar of Hope; but such answere was made therto as his mouthe was stopped: yet the latter daie, when all the justic's but himselffe and one other were rysen, he wold have had the said vicar lycensed to sell ale in his vicaredge, althoe the whole benche had comanded the contrarye; whereof S{r} Jermane Poole being adv'tised, retyrned to the benche (contradicting his speeche) whoe, w{th} Mr. Bainbrigge, made their warrant to bringe before them, him, or anie other person that shall, for him, or in his vicaridge, brue, or sell ale, &c. He ys not to bee punished by the Justices for the multytude of his women, untyll the basterds whereof he is the reputed father bee brought in. I am the more boulde to wryte so longe of this sorrie matter, in respect you maye take so much better knowledge of S{r} Jo. Bentley, and his p'tialytie in so vile a cause; and esteeme and judge of him accordinge to y{r} wisdome and good discretion. Thus, humbly cravinge p'don, I com̄itt y{r} good Wors. to the everlasting Lorde, who ever keepe you. This 12th of Octob. 1609.

"Yo{r} La' humble poore tenant, at comandm{t}.

"AD. SLACK.[93:A]

"To the right wor{ll} my good Ladie, the La. Bowes of Walton, geive theise."

That men who could thus debase themselves should be held in little esteem, and their services ill requited, cannot excite our wonder; and we consequently read without surprise, that in the days of Elizabeth, the minstrel and the cook were often better paid than the priest;—thus on the books of the Stationers' Company for the year 1560, may be found the following entry:

_s._ _d._ "Item, payd to the preacher vi 2 Item, payd to the minstrell xij 0 Item, payd to the coke xv 0"[93:B]

Let us not conclude, however, that the age of Shakspeare was without instances of a far different kind, and that religion and virtue were altogether excluded from what ought to have been their most favoured abode; it will be sufficient to mention the name of _Bernard Gilpin_, the most exemplary of parish-priests, whose humility, benevolence, and exalted piety were never exceeded, and whose ministerial labours were such as to form a noble contrast to the shameful neglect of the pastoral care which existed around him. Indeed we are inclined to infer, notwithstanding the numerous individual instances of profligacy and dissipation which may be brought forward, that the country clergy then, as now, if considered in the aggregate, possessed more real virtue and utility than any other equally numerous body of men; but that aberrations from the stricter decency of their order were, as is still very properly the case in the present day, marked with avidity, and censured with abhorrence. To the younger clergy in the country, also, was frequently committed the task of education, a labour of unspeakable importance, but in the period of which we are writing, attended too often with the most undeserved contumely and contempt. In the Scholemaster of Ascham may be found the most bitter complaints of the barbarous and disgraceful treatment of the able instructor of youth; and the following sketches of the clerical tutor from Peacham and Hall, will still further heighten and authenticate the picture. The former of these writers observes, "Such is the most base and ridiculous parsimony of many of our Gentlemen, (if I may so terme them) that if they can procure some poore Batchelor of Art from the Universitie to teach their children to say grace, and serve the cure of an impropriation, who wanting meanes and friends, will be content upon the promise of ten pounds a yeere at his first comming, to be pleased with five; the rest to be set off in hope of the next advouson, (which perhaps was sold before the young man was borne): Or if it chance to fall in his time, his lady or master tels him; 'Indeed Sir we are beholden unto you for your paines, such a living is lately falne, but I had before made a promise of it to my butler or bailiffe, for his true and extraordinary service.'

"Is it not commonly seene, that the most Gentlemen will give better wages, and deale more bountifully with a fellow who can but a dogge, or reclaime a hawke, than upon an honest, learned, and well qualified man to bring up their children? It may be, hence it is, that dogges are able to make syllogismes in the fields, when their young masters can conclude nothing at home, if occasion of argument or discourse be offered at the table."[95:A]

The domestic chaplain of Bishop Hall is touched with a glowing pencil, and while it faithfully exhibits the servile and depressed state of the poor tutor, is, at the same time, wrought up with much point and humour.

"A gentle squire would gladly entertaine Into his house some trencher-chapelaine; Some willing man, that might instruct his sons. And that would stand to good conditions. First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, While his young maister lieth o'er his head: Second, that he do, upon no default, Never presume to sit above the salt: Third, that he never change his trencher twise; Fourth, that he use all common courtesies; Sit bare at meales, and one half rise and wait: Last, that he never his young maister beat; But he must aske his mother to define How manie jerks she would his breech should line. All these observ'd, he could contented be, To give five markes, and winter liverie."[95:B]

From the description of the character of the country clerical tutor, it is an easy transition to that of the _rural pedagogue or schoolmaster_, a personage of not less consequence in the days of Elizabeth, than in the present period. He frequently combined, indeed, in the sixteenth century, the reputation of a conjuror with that of a schoolmaster, and accordingly in the _Comedy of Errors_, _Pinch_, in the dramatis personæ, is described as "a schoolmaster, and a conjuror," and the following not very amiable portrait of his person is given towards the conclusion of the play:—

"They brought one Pinch; a hungry lean-faced villain, A meer anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller; A needy, hollow-eye'd, sharp-looking wretch, A living dead man: this pernicious slave, Forsooth, took him on as conjuror."[96:A]

Ben Jonson also alludes to this union of occupations when he says, "I would have ne'er a cunning _schoolemaster_ in England, I mean a Cunningman as a schoolemaster; that is, a Conjurour."[96:B]

A less formidable figure of a schoolmaster has been given us by Shakspeare, under the character of Holofernes, in _Love's Labour's Lost_, where he has drawn a full-length caricature of the too frequent pedantry of this profession. Yet Holofernes, though he speak _a leash of languages at once_, is not deficient either in ability or discrimination; he ridicules with much good sense and humour the literary fops of his day, the "rackers of orthography;" and his conversation is described by his friend, Sir Nathaniel, the Curate, as possessing all the requisites to perfection. "Sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy."[96:C] "It is very difficult," remarks Dr. Johnson, "to add any thing to this character of the schoolmaster's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited."[96:D]

The country-schoolmasters in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, were, however, if we trust to the accounts of Ascham and Peacham, in general many degrees below the pedagogue of Shakspeare in ability; tyranny and ignorance appear to have been their chief characteristics; to such an extent, indeed, were they deficient in point of necessary knowledge, that Peacham, speaking of bad masters, declares, "it is a generall plague and complaint of the whole land; for, for one discreet and able teacher, you shall finde twenty ignorant and carelesse; who (among so many fertile and delicate wits as _England_ affordeth) whereas they make one scholler, they marre ten."[97:A]

Ascham had endeavoured, by every argument and mode of persuasion in his power, to check the severe and indiscriminate discipline which prevailed among the teachers in his time; it would seem in vain; for Peacham, about the year 1620, found it necessary to recommend lenity in equally strenuous terms, and has given a minute and we have no doubt a faithful picture of the various cruelties to which scholars were then subjected; a summary of the result of this conduct may be drawn, indeed, from his own words, where he says, "Masters for the most part so behave themselves, that their very name is hatefull to the scholler, who trembleth at their comming in, rejoyceth at their absence, and looketh his master (returned) in the the face, as his deadly enemy."[97:B]

To the charges of undue severity and defective literature, we must add, I am afraid, the infinitely more weighty accusation of frequent immorality and buffoonery. Ludovicus Vives, who wrote just before the age of Shakspeare, asserts, that "some schoolmasters taught Ovid's books of love to their scholars, and some made expositions, and expounded the vices[97:C];" and Peacham, at the close of the era we are considering, censures in the strongest terms their too common levity and misconduct: "the diseases whereunto some of them are very subject, are _humour_ and _folly_ (that I may say nothing of the grosse ignorance and insufficiency of many) whereby they become ridiculous and contemptible both in the schoole and abroad. Hence it comes to passe, that in many places, especially in Italy, of all professions that of _pedanteria_ is held in basest repute: the schoole-master almost in every comedy being brought upon the stage, to paralell the _Zani_ or _Pantaloun_. He made us good sport in that excellent comedy of _Pedantius_, acted in our Trinity Colledge in _Cambridge_, and if I be not deceived, in _Priscianus Vapulans_, and many of our English plays.

"I knew one, who in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning, whip his boyes over for no other purpose than to get himselfe a heat: another beat them for swearing, and all the while he sweares himself with horrible oathes, he would forgive any fault saving that.

"I had I remember myselfe (neere _S. Albanes_ in _Hertfordshire_, where I was borne) a master, who by no entreaty would teach any scholler he had, farther than his father had learned before him; as, if he had onely learned but to reade English, the sonne, though he went with him seven yeeres, should goe no further: his reason was, they would then proove saucy rogues, and controule their fathers; yet these are they that oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and tuition, to bring them in science and civility."[98:A]

We must, I apprehend, from these representations, be induced to conclude, that ignorance, despotism, and self-sufficiency were leading features in the composition of the country-schoolmaster, during this period of our annals; it would not be just, however, to infer from these premises that the larger schools were equally unfortunate in their conductors; on the contrary, most of the public seminaries of the capital, and many in the large provincial towns, were under the regulation of masters highly respectable for their erudition, men, indeed, to whom neither Erasmus nor Joseph Scaliger would have refused the title of ripe and good scholars.

We shall now pass forward, in the series of our rural characters, to the delineation of one of great importance in a national point of view, that of the substantial Farmer or Yeoman, of whom Harrison has left us the following interesting definition:—"This sort of people have a certaine preheminence, and more estimation than labourers and the common sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, kéepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and kéeping of servants (not idle servants, as the gentlemen doo, but such as get both their owne and part of their masters living) do come to great welth, in somuch that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the universities, and to the Ins of the court; or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, doo make them by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called master, as gentlemen are, or sir as to knights apperteineth, but onelie John and Thomas, &c.: yet have they beene found to have doone verie good service: and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to remaine among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings did amongst their horssemen: the prince thereby shewing where his chiefe strength did consist."[99:A]

After this description of the rank which the farmer held in society, we shall proceed to state the mode in which he commonly lived in the age of Elizabeth; and in doing this we have chosen, as usual, to adopt at considerable length the language of our old writers; a practice to which we shall in future adhere, while detailing the manners, customs, &c. of our ancestors, a practice which has indeed peculiar advantages; for the authenticity of the source is at once apparent, the diction possesses a peculiar charm from its antique cast, and the expression has a raciness and force of colouring, which owes its origin to actual inspection, and which, consequently, it is in vain to expect, on such subjects, from modern composition.

The houses or cottages of the farmer were built, in places abounding in wood, in a very strong and substantial manner, with not more than four, six, or nine inches between stud and stud; but in the open and champaine country, they were compelled to use more flimsy materials, with here and there a girding to which they fastened their splints, and then covered the whole with thick clay to keep out the wind. "Certes this rude kind of building," says Harrison, "made the Spaniards in quéene Maries daies to wonder, but chéeflie when they saw what large diet was used in manie of these so homelie cottages, in so much that one of no small reputation amongst them said after this manner: 'These English (quoth he) have their houses made of sticks and durt, but they fare commonlie so well as the king.' Whereby it appeareth that he liked better of our good fare in such coarse cabins, than of their owne thin diet in their prince-like habitations and palaces."[100:A] The cottages of the peasantry usually consisted of but two rooms on the ground-floor, the outer for the servants, the inner for the master and his family, and they were thatched with straw or sedge; while the dwelling of the substantial farmer was distributed into several rooms above and beneath, was coated with white lime or cement, and was very neatly roofed with reed; hence Tusser, speaking of the farm-house, gives the following directions for repairing and preserving its thatch in the month of May:

"Where houses be reeded (as houses have need) Now pare of the mosse, and go beat in the reed: The juster ye drive it, the smoother and plaine, More handsome ye make it, to shut off the raine."[100:B]

A few years before the era of which we are treating, the venerable Hugh Latimer, describing in one of his impressive sermons the economy of a farmer in his time, tells us that his father, who was a yeoman, had no land of his own, but only "a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the utmost; and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for an hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He kept his son at school till he went to the university, and maintained him there; he married his daughters with five pounds or twenty nobles a piece; he kept hospitality with his neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did out of the said farm."[101:A]

Land let, at this period, it should be remembered, at about a shilling per acre; but in the reign of Elizabeth its value rapidly increased, together with a proportional augmentation of the comfort of the farmer, who even began to exhibit the elegancies and luxuries of life. Of the change which took place in rural economy towards the close of the sixteenth century, the following faithful and interesting picture has been drawn by the pencil of Harrison, who, noticing the additional splendour of gentlemen's houses, remarks,—"In times past the costlie furniture staied _there_, whereas now it is descended yet lower, even unto manie farmers, who by vertue of their old and not of their new leases, have for the most part learned also to garnish their cupbords with plate, their ioined beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie (God be praised therefore, and give us grace to imploie it well) dooth infinitlie appeare. Neither doo I speake this in reproch of anie man, God is my judge, but to shew that I do rejoise rather, to see how God hath blessed us with his good gifts; and whilest I behold how that in a time wherein all things are growen to most excessive prices, and what commoditie so ever is to be had, is daily plucked from the commonaltie by such as looke in to everie trade, we doo yet find the means to obtein and atchive such furniture as here to fore hath beene unpossible. There are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remaine, which have noted three things to be marvellouslie altered in England within their sound remembrance; and other three things too too much encreased. _One_ is, the multitude of chimnies latelie erected, wheras in their yoong daies there were not above two or three, if so manie in most uplandish townes of the realme, (the religious houses, and manor places of their lords alwaies excepted, and peradventure some great personages) but ech one made his fire against a rere dosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat.

"The _second_ is the great (although not generall) amendment of lodging, for (said they) our fathers (yea and wee ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered onlie with a shéet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hop harlots (I use their owne termes) and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers or the good man of the house, had within seven yeares after his mariage purchased a matteres or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of the towne, that peradventure laie seldome in a bed of downe or whole fethers; so well were they contented, and with such base kind of furniture: which also is not verie much amended as yet in some parts of Bedfordshire, and elsewhere further off from our southerne parts. Pillowes (said they) were thought méet onelie for women in child bed. As for servants, if they had anie shéet above them it was well, for seldome had they anie under their bodies, to kéepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides.

"The _third_ thing they tell of, is the exchange of vessell, as of treene platters into pewter, and wodden spoones into silver or tin. For so common was all sorts of tréene stuff in old time, that a man should hardlie find four péeces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmer's house, and yet for all this frugalitie (if it may so be justly called) they were scarce able to live and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a cow, or an horsse, or more, although they paid but foure pounds at the uttermost by the yeare. Such also was their povertie, that if some one od farmer or husbandman had béene at the alehouse, a thing greatlie used in those daies, amongst six or seven of his neighbours, and there in a braverie to shew what store he had, did cast downe his purse, and therein a noble or six shillings in silver unto them (for few such men then cared for gold because it was not so readie paiment, and they were oft inforced to give a penie for the exchange of an angell) it was verie likelie that all the rest could not laie downe so much against it: whereas in my time, although peradventure foure poundes of old rent be improved to fortie, fiftie, or an hundred pounds, yet will the farmer as another palme or date trée thinke his gaines verie small toward the end of his terme, if he have not six or seven yeares rent lieing by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire garnish of pewter on his cupbord, with so much in od vessell going about the house, thrée or foure feather beds, so manie coverlids and carpets of tapistrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine (if not an whole neast) and a dozzen of spoones to furnish up the sute."[103:A]

To this curious delineation of the furniture and household accommodation of the farmer, it will be necessary, in order to complete the sketch, to add a few things relative to his diet and hospitality. Contrary to what has taken place in modern times, the hours for meals were later with the artificer and the husbandman than with the higher order of society; the farmer and his servants usually sitting down to dinner at one o'clock, and to supper at seven, while the nobleman and gentleman took the first at eleven in the morning, and the second at five in the afternoon.

It would appear that, from the cottage to the palace, good eating was as much cultivated in the days of Elizabeth as it has been in any subsequent period; and the rites of hospitality, more especially in the country, were observed with a frequency and cordiality which a further progress in civilisation has rather tended to check, than to increase.

Of the larder of the cotter and the shepherd, and of the hospitality of the former, a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from the simple yet beautiful strains of an old pastoral bard of Elizabeth's days, who, describing a nobleman fatigued by the chase, the heat of the weather, and long fasting, adds that he—

"Did house him in a peakish graunge, Within a forrest great:

Wheare, knowne, and welcom'd, as the place And persons might afforde, Browne bread, whig, bacon, curds, and milke, Were set him on the borde:

A cushion made of lists, a stoole Half backed with a houpe, Were brought him, and he sitteth down Besides a sorry coupe.

The poor old couple wish't their bread Were wheat, their whig were perry, Their bacon beefe, their milke and curds Weare creame, to make him mery."[104:A]

The picture of the shepherd youth is so exquisitely drawn that, though only a portion of it is illustrative of our subject, we cannot avoid giving so much of the text as will render the figure complete.

"Sweet growte, or whig, his bottle had As much as it might hold:

A sheeve of bread as browne as nut, And cheese as white as snowe, And wildings, or the season's fruite, He did in scrip bestow:

And whil'st his py-bald curre did sleepe, And sheep-hooke lay him by, On hollow quilles of oten strawe He piped melody:—

— — — — — — — With the sun He doth his flocke unfold, And all the day on hill or plaine He merrie chat can hold:

And with the sun doth folde againe; Then jogging home betime, _He turnes a crab_, or tunes a round, Or sings some merrie ryme:

_Nor lackes he gleeful tales to tell, Whil'st round the bole doth trot_; And sitteth singing care away, Till he to bed hath got.

Theare sleeps he soundly all the night, Forgetting morrow cares, Nor feares he blasting of his corne Nor uttering of his wares,

Or stormes by seas, or stirres on land, Or cracke of credite lost, Not spending franklier than his flocke Shall still defray the cost.

Wel wot I, sooth they say that say: More quiet nightes and daies The shepheard sleepes and wakes than he Whose cattel he doth graize."[105:A]

The lines in Italics allude to the favourite beverage of the peasantry, and the mode in which they recreated themselves over the spicy bowl. To _turne a crab_ is to roast a wilding or wild apple in the fire for the purpose of being thrown hissing hot into a bowl of nut-brown ale, into which had been previously put a toast with some spice and sugar. To this delicious compound Shakspeare has frequently referred; thus in _Love's Labour's Lost_ one of his designations of winter is,

"When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl:"[105:B]

and Puck, describing his own wanton tricks in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, says—

"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob."[106:A]

The very expression to _turn a crab_ will be found in the following passages from two old plays, in the first of which the good man says he will

"Sit down in _his_ chaire by _his_ wife faire Alison, And _turne a crabbe_ in the fire;"[106:B]

and in the second, Christmas is personified

—— "sitting in a corner _turning crabs_, Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale."[106:C]

Nor can we omit, in closing this series of quotations, the following stanza of a fine old song in the curious comedy of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, first printed in 1575:

"I love no rost, but a nut brown toste, and _a crab layde in the fyre_; A lytle bread shall do me stead, much bread I not desyre.

No froste nor snow, no winde, I trow, can hurte me if I wolde, I am so wrapt, and throwly lapt of joly good ale, and olde.

Back and syde go bare, go bare, booth foote and hande go colde; But belly, God sende thee good ale ynoughe, whether it be newe or olde."[106:D]

To tell gleeful tales, "whilst round the bole doth trot," was an amusement much more common among our ancestors, during the age of Elizabeth, and the subsequent century, than it has been in any later period. The _Winter's Tale_ of Shakspeare owes its title to this custom, of which an example is placed before us in the first scene of the second act.

_Her._ Come Sir— —— Pray you, sit by us, And tell 's a _tale_.

_Mam._ Merry, or sad, shal't be?

_Her._ As merry as you will.[107:A]

And Burton, the first edition of whose Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1617, enumerates, among the ordinary recreations of Winter, "merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fayries, goblins, friars, &c.—which some delight to hear, some to tell; all are well pleased with;" and he remarks shortly afterwards, "when three or four good companions meet, they tell old stories by the fire-side, or in the sun, as old folks usually do, remembering afresh and with pleasure antient matters, and such like accidents, which happened in their younger years."[107:B] Milton also, in his _L'Allegro_, first printed in 1645, gives a conspicuous station

—— "to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat:"

and adds,

"Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lull'd to sleep."[107:C]

The farmer's daily diet may be drawn with sufficient accuracy from the curious old Georgic of Tusser, a poem which, more than any other that we possess, throws light upon the agricultural manners and customs of the age. In Lent, says this entertaining bard, the farmer must in the first place consume his red herring, and afterwards his salt fish, which should be kept in store, indeed, and considered as good even when Lent is past, and with these leeks and peas should be procured for pottage, with the view of saving milk, oatmeal, and bread: at Easter veale and bacon are to be the chief articles; at Martilmas salted beef, "when country folk do dainties lack:" at Midsummer, when mackrel are out of season, grasse (that is sallads, &c.) fresh beef and pease: at Michaelmas fresh herring and fatted [108:A]crones: at All Saints pork and souse, sprats and spurlings: at Christmas he enjoins the farmer to "plaie and make good cheere," and he concludes by advising him, as was the custom in Elizabeth's time, to observe Fridays, Saturdays, and Wednesdays as fish-days; to "keep embrings well and fasting dayes," and of fish and fruit be scarce, to supply their want with butter and cheese.[108:B] To these recommendations he adds, in another place, that

"Good ploughmen look weekly of custom and right, For rostmeat on sundaies, and thursday at night:"

and he subsequently gives directions for writing what he terms "husbandlie posies," that is, economical proverbs in rhyme, to be hung up in the Hall, the parlour, the Ghest's chamber, and the good man's own bed chamber.[108:C]

If the farmer have a visitor, our worthy bard is not illiberal in his allowance, but advises him to place three dishes on his table at dinner, well dressed, which, says he, will be sufficient to pleese your friend, and will _become_ your Hall.[109:A]

On days of feasting and rejoicing, however, it appears to have been a common custom for the guests to bring their victuals with them, forming as it were a pic-nic meal; thus, Harrison, describing the occasional mirth and hospitality of the farmer, says,—"In feasting the husbandmen doo exceed after their maner: especiallie at bridales, purifications of women, and such od meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, ech one bringing such a dish, or so manie with him as his wife and he doo consult upon, but alwaies with this consideration, that the léefer fréend shall have the better provision. This also is commonlie séene at these bankets, that the good man of the house is not charged with any thing saving bread, drink, sauce, houseroome, and fire. (He then gives us the following naïve and pleasing picture of their festivity and content.) The husbandmen are sufficientlie liberall, and verie fréendlie at their tables, and when they méet, they are so merie without malice, and plaine without inward Italian or French craft and subtiltie, that it would doo a man good to be in companie among them. Herein only are the inferiour sort somewhat to be blamed, that being thus assembled, their talke is now and then such as savoureth of scurrilitie and ribaldrie, a thing naturallie incident to carters and clowns, who thinke themselves not to be merie and welcome, if their foolish veines in this behalfe be never so little restreined. This is moreover to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble upon a péece of venison, and a cup of wine or verie strong beere or ale (which latter they commonlie provide against their appointed daies) they thinke their chéere so great, and themselves to have fared so well, as the lord Maior of London, with whome when their bellies be full they will not often sticke to make comparison, (saying, _I have dined so well as my lord maior_) because that of a subject there is no publike officer of anie citie in Europe, that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office."[109:B]

The dress of the farmer during the middle of the sixteenth century was plain and durable; consisting, for common purposes, of coarse gray cloth or fustian, in the form of trunk-hose, frock, or doublet.

To this account of the farmer's mode of living, it will be proper to add a brief description of his coadjutor in domestic economy, the English housewife, a personage of no small importance; for, as honest Tusser has justly observed,

"House keping and husbandry, if it be good, must love one another, as cousinnes in blood. The wife to, must husband as well as the man, or farewel thy husbandry, doe what thou can."[110:A]

Of the qualifications necessary to constitute this useful character, Gervase Markham has given us a very curious detail, in his work entitled "The English Housewife;" which, though not published until the close of the Shakspearian era, appears, from the dedication to Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter, to have been written long anterior to its transmission to the press; for it is there said, "That much of it was a manuscript which many years ago belonged to an honourable Countess, one of the greatest glories of our[110:B] kingdom." It is a delineation which, as supposed of easy practical application, does honour to the sex and to the age. After expatiating on the necessity of a religious example to her household, on the part of the good housewife, he thus proceeds:

"Next unto her sanctity and holiness of life, it is meet that our _English_ Housewife be a woman of great modesty and temperance, as well inwardly as outwardly; inwardly, as in her behaviour and carriage towards her husband, wherein she shall shun all violence of rage, passion and humour, coveting less to direct than to be directed, appearing ever unto him pleasant, amiable and delightful; and, tho' occasion of mishaps, or the mis-government of his will may induce her to contrary thoughts, yet vertuously to suppress them, and with a mild sufferance rather to call him home from his error, than with the strength of anger to abate the least spark of his evil, calling into her mind, that evil and uncomely language is deformed, though uttered even to servants; but most monstrous and ugly, when it appears before the presence of a husband: outwardly, as in her apparel, and dyet, both which she shall proportion according to the competency of her husband's estate and calling, making her circle rather strait than large: for it is a rule, if we extend to the uttermost, we take away increase; if we go a hairs bredth beyond, we enter into consumption: but if we preserve any part, we build strong forts against the adversaries of fortune, provided that such preservation be honest and conscionable: for as lavish prodigality is brutish, so miserable covetousness is hellish. Let therefore the Housewife's garments be comely and strong, made as well to preserve the health, as to adorn the person, altogether without toyish garnishes, or the gloss of light colours, and as far from the vanity of new and fantastick fashions, as near to the comely imitation of modest matrons. Let her dyet be wholesome and cleanly, prepared at due hours, and cook'd with care and diligence, let it be rather to satisfie nature, than her affections, and _apter_ to kill _hunger_ than revive _new_ appetites; let it proceed _more_ from the provision of her own yard, than the furniture of the markets; and let it be rather esteemed for the familiar acquaintance she hath without it, than for the strangeness and rarity it bringeth from other countries.

"To conclude, _our English_ Housewife must be of chast thoughts, stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleasant, constant in friendship, full of good neighbour-hood, wise in discourse, but not frequent therein, sharp and quick of speech, but not bitter or talkative, secret in her affairs, comfortable in her counsels, and generally skilful in the worthy knowledges which do belong to her vocation."[111:A]

These knowledges, he then states, should consist in an intimacy with domestic physic, with cookery, with the distillation of waters, with the making and preserving of wines, with the making and dying of cloth, with the conduct of dairies, and with malting, brewing, and baking; for all which he gives very ample directions. Markham, indeed, seems to have taken the greater part of this picture from his predecessor Tusser, in whose poems on husbandry may be found, among many others, the following excellent precepts for the conduct of the good house-wife:—

"In Marche and in Aprill from morning to night: in sowing and setting good huswives delight. To have in their garden or some other plot: to trim up their house and to furnish their pot.

Have millons at Mihelmas, parsneps in lent: in June, buttred beanes, saveth fish to be spent. With those and good pottage inough having than: thou winnest the heart of thy laboring man.

From Aprill begin til saint Andrew be past: so long with good huswives their dairies doe last. Good milche bease and pasture, good husbandes provide: good huswives know best all the rest how to guide.

But huswives, that learne not to make their owne cheese: with trusting of others, have thes for their feese. Their milke slapt in corners their creame al to sost: their milk pannes so flotte, that their cheeses be lost.

Where some of a kowe maketh yerely a pounde: these huswives crye creake for their voice will not sounde. The servauntes suspecting their dame, lye in waighte: with one thing or other they trudge away straight.

Then neighbour (for god's sake) if any such be: if you know a good servant, waine her to me. Such maister, suche man, and such mistres such mayde: such husbandes and huswives, suche houses araide.

For flax and for hemp, for to have of her owne: the wife must in May take good hede it be sowne. And trimme it and kepe it to serve at a nede: the femble to spin and the karle for her fede.

Good husbandes abrode seketh al wel to have: good huswives at home seketh al wel to save. Thus having and saving in place where they meete: make profit with pleasure suche couples to greete.[113:A]"

But it is in "The points of _Huswifry_ united to the comfort of _Husbandry_," of the good old poet, that we recognise the most perfect picture of the domestic economy of agricultural life in the days of Elizabeth. This material addition to the husbandry of our author appeared in 1570, and embraces a complete view of the province of the _Huswife_, with all her daily labours and duties, which are divided into—1st, _Morning Works_; 2dly, _Breakfast Doings_; 3dly, _Dinner Matters_; 4thly, _Afternoon Works_; 5thly, _Evening Works_; 6thly, _Supper-Matters_; and 7thly, _After-Supper Matters_.

From the details of this arrangement we learn, that the servants in summer rose at four, and in winter at five o'clock; that in the latter season they were called to breakfast on the appearance of the day-star, and that the huswife herself was the carver and distributer of the meat and pottage. We find, likewise, and it is the only objectionable article in the admonitions of the poet, that he recommends his dame not to scold, but to thrash heartily her maids when refractory; and he adds a circumstance rather extraordinary, but at the same time strongly recommendatory of the effects of music, that

"Such servants are oftenest painfull and good, That sing in their labour, as birds in the wood."

Dinner, he enjoins, should be taken at noon; should be quickly dispatched; and should exhibit plenty, but no dainties.

The bare table, he observes, will do as well, as if covered with a cloth, which is liable to be cut; and that wooden and pewter dishes and tin vessels for liquor are the best, as most secure; and then, with his accustomed piety, he advises the regular use of grace—

"At dinner, at supper, at morning, at night, Give thanks unto God."

As soon as dinner is over, the servants are again set to work, and he very humanely adds,

"To servant in seikness, see nothing ye grutch, A thing of a trifle shall comfort him much."

Many precepts, strictly economical, then follow, in which the huswife is directed to save her parings, drippings, and skimmings for the sake of her poultry, and for "medicine for cattle, for cart, and for shoe;" to employ the afternoon, like a good sempstress, in making and mending; to keep her maids cleanly in their persons, to call them quarterly to account, to mark and number accurately her linen, to save her feathers, to use little spice, and to make her own candle.

The business of the evening commences with preparations for supper, as soon as the hens go to roost; the hogs are then to be served, the cows milked, and as night comes on, the servants return, but none empty-handed, some bringing in wood, some logs, &c. The cattle, both without and within doors, are next to be attended to, all clothes brought into the house, and no door left unbolted, and the duties of the evening close with this injunction:

"Thou woman, whom pity becometh the best, Grant all that hath laboured time to take rest."

Supper now is spread, and the scene opens with an excellent persuasive to cheerfulness and hospitality:

"Provide for thy husband, to make him good cheer, Make merry together, while time ye be here. A-bed and at board, howsoever befall, Whatever God sendeth, be merry withall. No taunts before servants, for hindering of fame, No jarring too loud, for avoiding of shame."

The servants are then ordered to be courteous, and attentive to each other, especially at their meals, and directions are given for the next morning's work.

The last section, entitled "After-supper matters," is introduced and terminated in a very moral and impressive manner. The first couplet tells us to

"Remember those children, whose parents be poor, Which hunger, yet dare not to crave at thy door;"

the bandog is then ordered to have the bones and the scraps; the huswife looks carefully to the fire, the candle, and the keys; the whole family retire to rest, at nine in winter, and at ten in summer, and the farmer's day closes with four lines which ought to be written in letters of gold, and which, if duly observed, would ensure a great portion of the happiness obtainable by man:

"Be lowly, not sullen, if aught go amiss, What wresting may lose thee, that win with a kiss. Both bear and forbear, now and then as ye may, Then wench, God a mercy! thy husband will say."[115:A]

Frugality and domestic economy were not, however, the constant attributes of the farmer's wife in the age of which we are treating; the luxury of dress, both in England and Scotland, had already corrupted the simplicity of country-habits. Stephen Perlet, who visited Scotland in 1553, and Fines Moryson, who made a similar tour in 1598[118:A], agree in describing the dress of the common people of both countries as nearly if not altogether the same; the picture, therefore, which Dunbar has given us of the dress of a rich farmer's wife, in Scotland, during the middle of the sixteenth century, will apply, with little fear of exaggeration, to the still wealthier dames of England. He has drawn her in a robe of fine scarlet with a white hood; a gay purse and gingling keys pendant at her side from a silken belt of silver tissue; on each finger she wore two rings, and round her waste was bound a sash of grass-green silk, richly embroidered with silver.[118:B] To this rural extravagancy in dress, Warner will bear an equal testimony; for, describing two old gossips cowering over their cottage-fire, and chatting how the world was changed in their time,

"When we were maids (quoth one of them) Was no such new found pride: Then wore they shooes of ease, now of An inch-broad, corked hye: Black karsie stockings, worsted now, Yea silke of youthful'st dye:

Garters of lystes, but now of silke, Some edged deep with gold: With costlier toyes, for courser turns, Than us'd, perhaps of old.

Fring'd and ymbroidered petticoats Now begge. But heard you nam'd, Till now of late, busks, perrewigs, Maskes, plumes of feathers fram'd,

Supporters, posters, fardingales Above the loynes to waire, That be she near so bombe-thin, yet She crosse-like seems foure-squaire?

Some wives, grayheaded, shame not locks Of youthfull borrowed haire: Some, tyring arte, attyer their heads With only tresses bare:

Some, (grosser pride than which, think I, No passed age might shame) By arte, abusing nature, heads Of antick't hayre doe frame.

Once starching lack't the tearme, because Was lacking once the toy, And lack't we all these toyes and tearmes, It were no griefe but joy.—

Now dwels ech drossell in her glas: When I was yong, I wot, On holly-dayes (for sildome els Such ydell times we got) A tubb or paile of water cleere Stood us in steede of glas."[119:A]

Luxury and extravagance soon spread beyond the female circle, and the _Farmer's Heir_ of forty pounds a year, is described by Hall, in 1598, as dissipating his property on the follies and fopperies of the day.

"Vilius, the wealthy farmer, left his heire Twice twenty sterling pounds to spend by yeare:— But whiles ten pound goes to his wife's new gowne, Nor little lesse can serve to suit his owne; Whiles one piece pays her idle waiting-man, Or buys an hoode, or silver-handled fanne, Or hires a Friezeland trotter, halfe yard deepe, To drag his tumbrell through the staring Cheape; Or whiles he rideth with two liveries, And's treble rated at the subsidies; One end a kennel keeps of thriftlesse hounds; What think ye rests of all my younker's pounds To diet him, or deal out at his doore, To coffer up, or stocke his wasting store?"[119:B]

In contrast to this character, who keeps a pack of hounds, and sports a couple of liveries, it will be interesting to bring forward the picture of the _poor copyholder_, as drawn by the same masterly pencil; the description of the wretched hovel is given in all the strength of minute reality, and the avidity of the avaricious landlord is wrought up with several strokes of humour.

"Of one bay's breadth, God wot, a silly cote, Whose thatched spars are furr'd with sluttish soote A whole inch thick, shining like black-moor's brows, Through smoke that downe the headlesse barrel blows. At his bed's feete feeden his stalled teame, His swine beneath, his pullen o'er the beame. A starved tenement, such as I guesse Stands straggling on the wastes of Holdernesse: Or such as shivers on a Peake hill side, &c.— Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord's hall With often presents at each festivall: With crammed capons everie new-yeare's morne, Or with greene cheese when his sheepe are shorne: Or many maunds-full of his mellow fruite, To make some way to win his weighty suite.— The smiling landlord shews a sunshine face, Feigning that he will grant him further grace; And leers like Esop's foxe upon the crane, Whose neck he craves for his chirurgian."[120:A]

We shall close these characters, illustrative of rural manners, as they existed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James 1st, with a delineation of the _plain Country Fellow or down right Clown_, from the accurate pen of Bishop Earle, who has touched this homely subject with singular point and spirits.

"A _plain country fellow_ is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lye fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. He seems to have the punishment of _Nebuchadnezzar_, for his conversation is among beasts, and his tallons none of the shortest, only he eats not grass, because he loves not sallets. His hand guides the plough, and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let out smoak, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastner on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copy-hold, which he takes from his land-lord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes to church in his best cloaths, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain, and fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but on _good ground_. Sunday, he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bag-pipe as essential to it as evening prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse. He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of corn or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not."[122:A]

The _nine_ characters which have now passed in brief review before us, namely, the _Rural Squire_; the _Rural Coxcomb_; the _Rural Clergyman_; the _Rural Pedagogue_; the _Farmer_ or _substantial Yeoman_; the _Farmer's Wife_; the _Farmer's Heir_; the _Poor Copyholder_, and the mere _Ploughman_ or _Country Boor_, will, to a certain extent, point out the personal manners, condition, and mode of living of those who inhabited the country, during the period in which Shakspeare flourished. They have been given from the experience, and, generally, in the very words of contemporary writers, and may, therefore, be considered as faithful portraits. To complete the picture, a further elucidation of the customs of the country, as drawn from its principal occurrences and events, will be the subject of the ensuing chapter, in which the references to the works of our immortal bard will be more frequent than could take place while collecting mere out-line draughts of rural character.

FOOTNOTES:

[68:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, edit. of 1807, in six vols. 4to. vol. i. p. 276.

[68:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 273.

[69:A] Taming of the Shrew, act ii. sc. 1.

[70:A] Of the very rare tract from which these extracts are taken, the following is the entire title-page:—"The Gentleman's Academie; or, the Booke of St. Albans: containing three most exact and excellent Bookes: the first of Hawking, the second of all the proper Termes of Hunting, and the last of Armorie: all compiled by Juliana Barnes, in the Yere from the Incarnation of Christ 1486. And now reduced into a better method, by G. M. London. Printed for Humphrey Lownes, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, 1595." This curious edition of the _Booke of St. Albans_, accommodated to the days of Shakspeare, contains 95 leaves 4to. and I shall add the interesting dedication:

"To the Gentlemen of England: and all good fellowship of Huntsmen and Falconers.

"Gentlemen, this booke, intreting of Hawking, Hunting, and Armorie; the originall copie of the which was doone at St. Albans, about what time the excellent arte of printing was first brought out of Germany, and practised here in England: which booke, because of the antiquitie of the same, and the things therein contained, being so necessarie and behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentlemen of this flourishing ile, and others which take delight in either of these noble sports, or in that heroicall and excellent study of Armory, I have revived and brought again to light the same which was almost altogether forgotten, and either few or none of the perfect copies thereof remaining, except in their hands, who wel knowing the excellency of the worke, and the rarenesse of the booke, smothered the same from the world, thereby to inrich themselves in private with the knowledge of these delights. Therfore I humbly crave pardon of the precise and judicial reader, if sometimes I use the words of the ancient authour, in such plaine and homely English, as that time affoorded, not being so regardful, nor tying myself so strictly to deliver any thing in the proper and peculiar wordes and termes of arte, which for the love I beare to antiquitie, and to the honest simplicitie of those former times, I observe as wel beseeming the subject, and no whit disgracefull to the worke, our tong being not of such puritie then, as at this day the poets of our age have raised it to: of whom, and in whose behalf I wil say thus much, that our nation may only thinke herself beholding for the glory and exact compendiousnes of our longuage. Thus submitting our academy to your kind censures and friendly acceptance of the same, and requesting you to reade with indifferency, and correct with judgement; I commit you to God.

G. M."

From this dedication we learn that the original edition of the Booke of St. Albans was as scarce towards the close of the sixteenth century as at the present day; that "few or none of the perfect copies" were to be obtained; for that those were in the hands of _Bibliomaniacs_ who (like too many now existing) "smother'd them from the world." We have, therefore, every reason to conclude, from "the rarenesse (and consequent value) of the booke" of 1486, that the copy of Juliana's work in the library of Shakspeare, was the edition by Markham of 1595. I shall just add, that the copy now before me, was purchased at the Roxburgh sale, for 9_l._ 19_s._ 6_d._! It is, notwithstanding, probable, from the _peculiarities_ attending Markham's re-impression, that this sum, great as it may appear, will be exceeded at some future sale.

The attachment of _Gervase Markham_ to the subjects which employed the pen of his favourite Prioress, is very happily introduced by Mr. Dibdin, while alluding to the similar propensities of the _modern Markham_, Mr. Haslewood. "Up starts FLORIZEL, and blows his bugle, at the annunciation of any work, new or old, upon the diversions of _Hawking_, _Hunting_, or _Fishing_! Carry him through CAMILLO'S cabinet of Dutch pictures, and you will see how instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than Guido's Madonna:—how he envies every rider upon his white horse!—how he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of heaven! Here he recognises _Gervase Markham_, spurring his courser; and there he fancies himself lifting _Dame Juliana_ from her horse! Happy deception! dear fiction! says Florizel—while he throws his eyes in an opposite direction, and views every printed book upon the subject, from _Barnes_ to _Thornton_." Bibliomania, p. 729, 730.

The following very amusing description of "the difference twixt Churles and Gentlemen," will prove an adequate specimen of Markham's edition, will be appropriate to the subject in the text, and may be compared with the accurate reprint of the edition of W. De Worde by Mr. Haslewood.

"There was never gentleman, nor churle ordained, but hee had father and mother: Adam and Eve had neither father nor mother, and therefore in the sonnes of Adam and Eve, first issued out both gentleman and churle. By the sonnes of Adam and Eve, to wit, Seth, Abell, and Caine, was the royall blood divided from the rude and barbarous, a brother to murder his brother contrary to the law, what could be more ungentlemanly or vile? in that, therefore, became Caine and al his ofspring churles, both by the curse of God, and his owne father. Seth was made a gentleman through his father and mother's blessing, from whose loynes issued Noah, a gentleman by kind and linage. Noah had three sonnes truely begotten, two by the mother, named Cham and Sem, and the third by the father called Japhet, even in these three, after the world's inundation, was both gentlenes and vilenes discerned, in Cham was grose barbarisme founde towardes his owne father in discovering his privities, and deriding from whence hee proceeded. Japhet the yongest gentlemanlike reproved his brother, which was to him reputed a vertue, where Cham for his abortive vilenes became a churle both through the curse of God and his father Noah. When Noah awoke, hee said to Cham his sonne knowest not thou how it is become of Caine the sonne of Adam, and of his churlelike blood, that for them all the worlde is drowned save eight persons, and wilt thou nowe begin barbarisme againe, whereby the world in after ages shall be brought to consummation? well upon thee it shall bee and so I pray the Great one it maye fall out, for to thee I give my curse, and withall the north part of the world, to draw thine habitation unto, for there shall it be where sorrow, care, colde, and as a mischievous and unrespected churle thou shall live, which part of the earth shall be termed Europe, which is the country of churles. Japhet come hither my sonne, on thee will I raine my blessing, deare insteede of Seth: Adams sonne, I make thee a gentleman, and thy renowne shall stretch through the west part of the world, and to the end of the Occident, where wealth and grace shall flourish, there shall be thine habitation, and thy dominion shall bee called Asia, which is the cuntrie of gentlemen. And Sem my sonne, I make thee a gentleman also, to multiply the blood of Abell slaine so undeservedlie, to thee I give the orient, that part of the world which shal be called Africa, which is the country of temperateres: and thus divided Noah the world and his blessings. From the of-spring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham, Moyses, Aaron and the Prophets, and also the king of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman Jesus was borne, perfite God and perfite man, according to his manhood king of the lande of Juda and the Jewes, and gentleman by his mother Mary princesse of coat armor." Fol. 44.

[72:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 316.

[73:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315.

[73:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315. 317.

[74:A] Bacon's Essayes or Counsels, 4to. edit., 1632, p. 260.

[74:B] Act v. sc. 2.

[74:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 184. note 5. by Steevens.

[75:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 236.

[75:B] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 531.

[75:C] Massinger's Plays, _apud_ Gifford, vol. iv. p. 7.

[76:A] From a MS. of Aubrey's in the Ashmole Museum, as quoted by Mr. Malcolm in his Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London, part i. p. 220. 4to.

[76:B] Aubrey's MS. Malcolm, p. 221, 222.

[79:A] Henry IV. part ii. act v. sc. 1.

[79:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 281. The particulars of the diet of our ancestors in the age of Shakspeare will be given in a subsequent part of the work.

[80:A] City Madam, act ii. sc. 1.

Gervase Markham in his English House-Wife, the first edition of which was published not long after Shakspeare's death, after mentioning in his second chapter, which treats of cookery, the manner of "ordering great feasts," closes his observations under this head, with directions for "a more humble feast, or an ordinary proportion which any good man may keep in his family, for the entertainment of his true and worthy friend;" this _humble feast_ or _ordinary proportion_, he proceeds to say, should consist for the first course of "sixteen full dishes, that is, dishes of meat that are of substance, and not empty, or for shew—as thus, for example; first, a shield of brawn with mustard; secondly, a boyl'd capon; thirdly, a boyl'd piece of beef; fourthly, a chine of beef rosted; fifthly, a neat's tongue rosted; sixthly, a pig rosted; seventhly, chewets bak'd; eighthly, a goose rosted; ninthly, a swan rosted; tenthly, a turkey rosted; the eleventh, a haunch of venison rosted; the twelfth, a pasty of venison; the thirteenth, a kid with a pudding in the belly; the fourteenth, an olive-pye; the fifteenth, a couple of capons; the sixteenth, a custard or dowsets. Now to these full dishes may be added sallets, fricases, quelque choses, and devised paste, as many dishes more which make the full service no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can conveniently stand on one table, and in one mess; and after this manner you may proportion both your second and third course, holding fulness on one half of the dishes, and shew in the other, which will be both frugal in the spendor, contentment to the guest, and much pleasure and delight to the beholders." P. 100, 101. ninth edition of 1683, small 4to.

[80:B] Henry IV. part ii. act v. sc. 3.

[81:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 287.

[81:B] Puttenham's Art of English Poesie, p. 69, reprint of 1811.

[81:C] Ibid. p. 33.

[82:A] Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2.

[82:B] Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 4.

[82:C] Merry Wives of Windsor, act v. sc. 5.

[82:D] Heywood's Edward II. p. 1.

[82:E] Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, act i. sc. 1. Acted in the year 1598.

[83:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 290.

[84:A] Chalmers' Poets, vol. iv. p. 435, 436. Drayton, Fourth Eclogue.

[84:B] "A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which are fastened to the hawk's legs, by which he is held on the fist, or joined to the leash." Bliss.

[85:A] Earle's Microcosmography; or a Piece of the World discovered, in Essays and Characters. Edition of 1811, by Philip Bliss.

[85:B] Hall's Satires, book v. sat. 2. printed in 1598.

[86:A] Lodge's Illustrations of British History, Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I., vol. ii. p. 383.

That this evil kept gradually increasing during the reign of James I., may be proved from the testimony of Peacham and Brathwait; the former, in his _Compleat Gentleman_, observes,—"Much doe I detest that effeminacy of the most, that burne out day and night in their beds, and by the fire side; in trifles, gaming, or courting their yellow mistresses all the winter in a city; appearing but as cuckoes in the spring, one time in the yeare to the countrey and their tenants, leaving the care of keeping good houses at Christmas, to the honest yeomen of the countrey;" (p. 214.) and the latter, in his _English Gentleman_, addressing the rural fashionables of his day, exclaims,—"Let your countrey (I say) enjoy you, who bred you, shewing there your hospitality, where God hath placed you, and with sufficient meanes blessed you. I doe not approve of these, who fly from their countrey, as if they were ashamed of her, or had committed something unworthy of her. How blame-worthy then are these _Court-comets_, whose onely delight is to admire themselves? These, no sooner have their bed-rid _fathers_ betaken themselves to their last home, and removed from their crazie couch, but they are ready to sell a mannor for a coach. They will not take it as their fathers tooke it: their countrey houses must bee barred up, lest the poore passenger should expect what is impossible to finde, releefe to his want, or a supply to his necessity. No, the cage is opened, and all the birds are fled, not one crum of comfort remaining to succour a distressed poore one. Hospitality, which was once a _relique_ of _gentry_, and a knowne _cognizance_ to all ancient houses, hath lost her title, meerely through discontinuance: and _great houses_, which were at first founded to releeve the poore, and such needfull passengers as travelled by them, are now of no use but onely as _waymarkes_ to direct them. But whither are these _Great ones_ gone? To the _Court_; there to spend in boundlesse and immoderate riot, what their provident ancestors had so long preserved, and at whose doores so many needy soules have beene comfortably releeved." Second edition, 1633. p. 332.

In the margin of the page from which this extract is taken, occurs the following note:—"This is excellently seconded by a Princely pen, in a pithy poem directed to all persons to ranke or quality to leave the Court, and returne into their owne countrey."

[86:B] In confirmation of this remark, I shall beg leave to give, for the entertainment of my readers, the two following sketches of country-squires, as they existed towards the middle of the seventeenth, and commencement of the eighteenth century. "Mr. Hastings," relates Gilpin from Hutchin's History of Dorsetshire, "was low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy complexion with flaxen hair. His cloaths were always of green cloth, his house was of the old fashion; in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds. He had a long narrow bowling green in it; and used to play with round sand bowls. Here too he had a banquetting room built, like a stand, in a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger: and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones; and full of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it was hung with fox-skins, of this and the last year's killing. Here and there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great abundance. The parlour was a large room, compleatly furnished in the same style. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always attended him at dinner, and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to defend it, if they were too troublesome. In the windows which were very large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and other accoutrements. The corners of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His oyster table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant use twice a day, all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters both at dinner and supper; with which the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a double desk; one side of which held a CHURCH BIBLE; the other the BOOK OF MARTYRS. On different tables in the room lay hawk's-hoods, bells, old hats, with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant eggs; tables, dice, cards, and store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer and wine; which never came out but in single glasses, which was the rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself nor permitted others to exceed. Answering to this closet, was a door into an old chapel; which had been long disused for devotion; but in the pulpit, as the safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pye, with thick crust well baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all, but beef and mutton; except on Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding; and he always sang it in with "_My part lies therein-a_." He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack; and had always a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred; and never lost his eye sight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to the death of the stag, till he was past four score." Gilpin's Forest Scenery; vol. ii. p. 23. 26.

Mr. Dibdin, in the second edition of his Bibliomania, the most pleasing and interesting book which Bibliography has ever produced, has quoted the above passage, and thus alludes, in his text, to the character which it describes:—"But what shall we say to Lord Shaftesbury's eccentric neighbour, HENRY HASTINGS? who, in spite of his hawks, hounds, kittens, and oysters, could not forbear to indulge his book-propensities, though in a moderate degree! Let us fancy we see him, in his eightieth year, just alighted from the toils of the chase, and listening, after dinner, with his 'single glass' of ale by his side, to some old woman with 'spectacle on nose,' who reads to him a choice passage out of John Fox's _Book of Martyrs_! A rare old boy was this Hastings." Bibliomania, p. 379.

Mr. Grose, the antiquary, has given us, in his sketches of some worn-out characters of the last age, a most amusing portrait of the country squire of Queen Anne's days: "I mean," says he, "the little independant gentleman of three hundred pounds per annum, who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance of the county town, and that only at assize and session time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market town, with the attornies and justices. This man went to church regularly, read the Weekly Journal, settled the parochial disputes between the parish officers at the vestry, and afterwards adjourned to the neighbouring ale-house, where he usually got drunk for the good of his country. He never played at cards but at Christmas, when a family pack was produced from the mantle-piece. He was commonly followed by a couple of grey-hounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a neighbours house by smacking his whip, or giving the view-halloo. His drink was generally ale, except on Christmas, the fifth of November, or some other gala days, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy punch garnished with a toast and nutmeg. A journey to London was, by one of these men, reckoned as great an undertaking, as is at present a voyage to the East Indies, and undertaken with scarce less precaution and preparation.

"The mansion of one of these 'Squires was of plaister striped with timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick, large casemented bow windows, a porch with seats in it, and over it a study; the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set round with holly-hocks. Near the gate a horse-block for the conveniency of mounting.

"The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantle-piece with guns and fishing rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the broad sword, partizan, and dagger, borne by his ancestor in the civil wars. The vacant spaces were occupied by stag's horns. Against the wall was posted King Charles's Golden Rules, Vincent Wing's Almanack, and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's Chronicle, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Glanvil on Apparitions, Quincey's Dispensatory, the Complete Justice, and a Book of Farriery.

"In the corner, by the fire side, stood a large wooden two-armed chair with a cushion; and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats. Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants assembled round a glowing fire made of the roots of trees, and other great logs, and told and heard the traditionary tales of the village respecting ghosts and witches, till fear made them afraid to move. In the mean time the jorum of ale was in continual circulation.

"The best parlour, which was never opened but on particular occasions, was furnished with Turk-worked chain, and hung round with portraits of his ancestors; the men in the character of shepherds, with their crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes: others in complete armour or buff coats, playing on the base viol or lute. The females likewise as shepherdesses, with the lamb and crook, all habited in high heads and flowing robes.

"Alas! these men and these houses are no more!" _Grose's Olio_, 2nd edit. 1796. p. 41-44.

[89:A] Richard Berket Reader, æt. 74. MS. note.

[89:B] In the margin is a MS. note seemingly in the hand-writing of Bishop Nicholson, who gave these volumes to the library:

"Since I can remember there was not a reader in any chapel but was called _Sir_."

[90:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 8. note.

[90:B] Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 4.

[91:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 233, 234.

[92:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 231.

[93:A] Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 391.

[93:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 221. note 7.

[95:A] The Compleat Gentleman. Fashioning him absolut, in the most necessary and commendable Qualities concerning Minde or Body that may be required in a Noble Gentleman. By Henry Peacham Master of Arts: Sometime of Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge.

This book, which is written in an easy and elegant style, was published in 1622, and has been several times reprinted; it is a work of considerable interest and amusement, and throws much light on the education and literature of its times.

[95:B] Hall's Satires, Book ii. sat. 6.

[96:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 451.

[96:B] The Staple of Newes, the third Intermeane after the third act.

[96:C] Act v. sc. 1.

[96:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 132. note 7.

[97:A] Compleat Gentleman, p. 22. edit. of 1634.

[97:B] Ibid. p. 25.

[97:C] Instruction of a Christian Woman, 4to. edit. of 1557.

[98:A] Compleat Gentleman, p. 26, 27.

[99:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 275.

[100:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315.

[100:B] Three editions of Tusser's Poem on Husbandry are now before me; the first printed in 1557, entitled _A Hundreth good Pointes of Husbandrie_; the 4to. edition of 1586, termed _Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie_; and _Tusser Redivivus_, by Daniel Hilman, first published in 1710, and again in 1744; the quatrain just quoted is from the copy of 1744, p. 56.

[101:A] Gilpin's Life of Latimer, p. 2.

[103:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 317, 318.

[104:A] Warner's Albion's England, chap. 42. Chalmers's English Poets, vol. iv. p. 602.

[105:A] Warner in Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 552, 553.

[105:B] Act v. sc. 2. Song at the conclusion.

[106:A] Act ii. sc. 1.

[106:B] Damon and Pithias, 1582.

[106:C] Summer's Last Will and Testament, by Nash, 1600.

[106:D] Introductory Song to the second acte. Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. i.

[107:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 255.

[107:B] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 172, 173., eighth edition of 1676.

[107:C] Milton's Poems by Warton, second edition, p. 56. 61.

[108:A] Crones are ewes whose teeth are so worn down, that they can no longer live in their sheep-walk; but will sometimes, if put into good pasture, thrive exceedingly.

[108:B] Tusser, 4to. edit. 1586., chap. 12. fol. 25, 26.

[108:C] Tusser, 4to. edit. 1586., fol. 138. 144, 145.

[109:A] Tusser, 4to. of 1586. fol. 133.

[109:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 282.

[110:A] Tusser, first edit. of 1557. title-page.

[110:B] The English House-Wife, containing the inward and outward vertues which ought to be in a Compleat Woman. Ninth edition, 1683. Dedication.

[111:A] English House-Wife, p. 2, 3, 4.

[113:A] Tusser, first edit. p. 14, 15.

[115:A] Mayor's Tusser, p. 247. ad p. 270.

Even this, and every other description of the duties of the Huswife, may be traced to "The Book of Husbandry," written by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, of Norbury, in Derbyshire.

This gentleman, who was a Judge of the Common Pleas, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, is justly entitled to the appellation of "the father of English Husbandry." His work, the first edition of which was printed by Richard Pynson, in 1528, 4to., underwent not less than eleven editions during the sixteenth century, and soon excited among his countrymen a most beneficial spirit of emulation. Notwithstanding these numerous impressions, there are probably not ten complete copies left in the kingdom.

One of these is, however, now before me included in a thick duodecimo, of which the _first article_ is "Xenophon's treatise of householde," black letter, title wanting; the colophon, "Imprinted At London in fletestrete in the house of Thomas Berthelet. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." No date. The _second article_ is "The booke of Husbandrye verye profitable and necessary for all maner of persons, newlye corrected and amended by the auctor fitzherbard, with dyvers addicions put thereunto. Anno do. 1555," black letter. Colophon, "Imprinted at London in Flete strete at the signe of the Sunne over agaynst the Conduit by John Weylande." Sixty-one leaves, exclusive of the table. The _third article_ is entitled "Surveyinge," An. 1546. Colophon, "Londini in ædibus Thome Berthelet typis impress. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum." Contains sixty leaves, black letter.

From "The booke of husbandrye," I shall extract the detail of huswifely duties, as a specimen of the work, and as a proof of the assertion at the commencement of this note.

"What workes a wyfe shoulde doe in generall.

"First in the mornyng when thou art wakēd and purpose to rise, lift up thy hand, and blis the and make a signe of the holy crosse. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti. Amen. In the name of the father y{e} sonne, and the holy gost. And if thou saye a Paternoster, an Ave and a Crede, and remembre thy maker thou shalte spede much the better, and when thou art up and readye, then firste swepe thy house; dresse up the dysshe bord, and set al thynges in good order within thy house, milke y{e} kie, socle thy calves, sile by thy milke, take up thy children, and aray them, and provide for thy husbande's breakefaste, diner, souper, and for thy children and servauntes, and take thy parte wyth them. And to ordeyne corne and malt to the myll, to bake and brue withal when nede is. And mete it to the myl and fro the myl, and se that thou have thy mesure agayne besides the tole or elles the mylner dealeth not truly wyth the, or els thy corne is not drye as it should be, thou must make butter and chese when thou may, serve thy swine both mornynge and eveninge, and give thy polen meate in the mornynge, and when tyme of yeare cometh thou must take hede how thy henne, duckes and geese do ley, and to gather up their egges and when they waxe broudy to set them there as no beastes, swyne, nor other vermyne hurt them, and thou must know that al hole foted foule wil syt a moneth and all cloven foted foule wyll syt but three wekes except a peyhen and suche other great foules as craynes, bustardes, and suche other. And when they have brought forth theyr birdes to se that they be well kepte from the gleyd, crowes fully martes and other vermyn, and in the begynyng of March, or a lytle before is time for a wife to make her garden and to get as manye good sedes and herbes as she can, and specyally such as be good for the pot and for to eate and as ofte as nede shall require it must be weded, for els the wede wyll over grow the herbes, and also in Marche is time to sowe flaxe and hempe for I have heard olde huswyves say, that better is Marche hurdes than Apryll flaxe, the reason appereth, but howe it shoulde bee sowen, weded, pulled, repealed, watred, washen, dried, beten, braked, tawed, hecheled, spon, wounden, wrapped and oven, it nedeth not for me to shewe, for they be wyse ynough, and thereof may they make shetes, bordclothes, towels, shertes, smockes, and suche other necessaryes, and therefore lette thy dystaffe be alwaye redy for a pastyme, that thou be not ydell. And undoubted a woman can not get her livinge honestly with spinning on the dystaffe, but it stoppeth a gap and must nedes be had. The bolles of flaxe when they be rypled of, must be rediled from the wedes and made dry with the sunne to get out the sedes. Now be it one maner of linsede called loken sede wyll not open by the sunne, and therefore when they be drye they must be sore brusen and broken the wyves know how, and then wynowed and kept dry til peretime cum againe. Thy femell hempe must be pulled fro the chucle hempe for this beareth no sede and thou must doe by it as thou didest by the flaxe. The chucle hempe doth beare sede, and thou must be ware that birdes eate it not as it groweth, the hempe thereof is not so good as the femel hempe, but yet it wil do good service. It may fortune sometime that thou shalte have so many thinges to do that thou shalte not wel know where is best to begyn. Then take hede which thing should be the greatest losse if it were not done and in what space it woulde be done, and then thinke what is the greatest los and ther begin. But I put case that, that thing that is of the greatest losse wyll be longe in doing, that thou might do thre or iiij other thinges in the meane whyle then loke wel if all these thinges were set togyther whiche of them were greatest losse, and yf these thynges be of greater losse, and may be al done in as shorte space as the other, then do thy many thinges fyrst. It is convenient for a husbande to have shepe of his owne for many causes, and then may his wife have part of the wooll to make her husbande and her selfe sum clothes. And at the least waye she may have the lockes of the shepe therwith to make clothes or blankets, and coverlets, or both. And if she have no wol of her owne she maye take woll to spynne of cloth makers, and by that meanes she may have a convenient living, and many tymes to do other workes. It is a wives occupacion to winow al maner of cornes, to make malte wash and wring, to make hey, to shere corne, and in time of nede to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or donge carte, dryve the plough, to lode hey corne and such other. Also to go or ride to the market to sell butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekens, kapons, hennes, pygges, gees, and al maner of corne. And also to bye al maner of necessary thinges belonging to a houshold, and to make a true rekening and accompt to her husband what she hath receyved and what she hathe payed. And yf the husband go to the market to bye or sell as they ofte do, he then to shew his wife in lyke maner. For if one of them should use to disceive the other, he disceyveth himselfe, and he is not lyke to thryve, and therfore they must be true ether to other. I could peraventure shew the husbande of divers pointes that the wives disceve their husbandes in, and in like maner how husbandes deceve their wives. But yf I should do so, I shuld shew mo subtil pointes of disceite then other of them knew of before. And therfore me semeth best to holde my peace, leste I shuld do as the knight of the tower did the which had many faire doghters, and of fatherlie love that he oughte to them he made a boke unto a good intent that they mighte eschewe and flee from vices and folowe vertues in the which boke he sheweth that yf they were woed, moved, or styrred by any man after such a maner as is there shewed that they shuld withstande it, in the which booke he shewed so manye wayes how a man shuld attaine to his purpose to bryng a woman to vice, the which waies were so naturall and the wayes to come to theyr purpose was so subtylly contrived and craftely shewed that hard it wolde be for any woman to resist or deny their desyre. And by the sayd boke hath made both the man and the woman to know mo vyces subtylty and crafte then ever they shoulde have knowen if the boke had not bene made, the which boke he named him selfe the knighte of the tower. And thus I leave the wyves to use theyr occupations at theyr owne discression." Fol. 45, 46, 47.

[118:A] See Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i. p. 236; and Moryson's Itinerary, part iii. fol. 1617.

[118:B] The Freirs of Berwick; Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 12mo. 2 vols. 1786. v. 2. p. 70.

[119:A] Warner's Albion's England, book ix. chap. xlvii.

[119:B] Hall's Satires, book v. satire 4.

[120:A] Hall's Satires, book v. satire 4.

[122:A] Earle's Microcosmography, p. 64. et seq. edit. of 1811, by Philip Bliss.