still extant a note of Edward the Second's for the sum of five shillings, which sum he had borrowed from his barber to play at cross or pile.

MIDDLE AGES.

REPASTS.

AMONG the nobles, dinner was announced by the sound of the horn: this was called in France corner l'eau, because the company washed their hands before they sat down to table. The usual dinner hour was nine in the morning, and that for supper five in the evening. They sat on banks or benches, sometimes high, at others low, and the table was raised or lowered in proportion. From the bank or bench is derived the word banquet. There were tables of gold and silver chased: the wooden tables were covered with double cloths, called doubliers; they were laid to resemble the surface of a river which a breeze has ruffled into little waves.

Napkins are of more modern date. Forks, with which the Romans were unacquainted, were also unknown to the French till the end of the fourteenth century: we meet with them for the first time under Charles V.

Our ancestors, in those days, ate nearly every thing that we do now; nay, their cookery possessed refinements to which we at this day are utter strangers: Roman civilization had not perished in the kitchen. Among the dishes in the highest request, I find mention made of dellegrous, maupigyrum, and karumpie. What were these? There was served up pastry of obscene forms, which were called by their proper names: ecclesiastics, matrons, and young ladies, rendered these grossnesses innocent by a modest ingenuity. Language was then stark naked. The translations of the Bible in those days were quite as crude and more indecent than the text. The Instruction du Chevalier Geoffroy la Tour Landry, gentilhomme angevin, à ses filles will furnish a specimen of the freedom then taken in language and instruction.

Beer, cider, and wine of all sorts, were consumed in abundance. Mention is made of cider under the second race of kings. Clairet was clarified wine to which spices were

added; hypocras, wine sweetened with honey. In 1310 an English abbot entertained six thousand guests, before whom were set three thousand dishes. At the wedding feast of the Earl of Cornwall, in 1243, thirty thousand dishes were served up; and, in 1251, sixty fat oxen were furnished by the Archbishop of York alone, for the marriage of Margaret of England with Alexander III., King of Scotland. The royal repasts were enlivened by intermezzi: all sorts of music were performed; the clercs sang songs, roundelays, and virelays. "When the king (Henry II. of England) goes abroad in the morning," says Pierre of Blois,

you see a multitude of people, running hither and thither, as if they had lost their wits: horses dash one against the other; carriages upset carriages; players, public women, gamesters, cooks. confectioners, singers, barbers, dancers, boon companions, parasites, make a horrible noise : in short, the confusion of foot and horse is so hideous that you would imagine the abyss had opened and hell vomited forth all its devils."

When Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, travelled, he had two hundred horsemen in his train, consisting of knights, esquires, pages, clergymen, and officers of his household.

VOL. I.

D