power over their villains (or socage tenants), and had all of them no doubt such places for punishment.

It was well that all castles had dungeons, and so, I believe, had monasteries: for they had often within themselves power of life or death.

In days of yore lords and gentlemen lived in the country like petty kings, had jura regalia belonging to Seignories, had castles and boroughs, had gallows within their liberties where they could try, condemn and execute: never went to Londen but in Parliament time, or once a year, to do their homage to the king. They always eat in their Gothic Halls at the high table or orsille (which is a little room at the upper end of the hall where stands a table) with the folks at the side table. The meat was served up by watchword. Jacks are but of late invention: the poor boys did turn the spit, and licked the dripping for their pains: the beds of the men servants and retainers were in the hall, as now in the guard or privy chamber here. In the hall mumming and loaf stealing and other Christmas sports were performed. The Hearth was commonly in the middle, whence the saying Round about our coal fire.

The halls of the Justice of Peace 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.

Public inns were rare: travellers were entertained at religious houses for three days together, if occasion served. The meetings of the gentry were not at taverns but in the fields or forests with their hawks and hounds, and their bugle horns in silken bawderies.

Before the Reformation there were no poor's rates: the charitable doles given at the religious houses, and the church ale in every parish, did the business.

In every parish there was a church-house, to which belonged spits, potts, etc., for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met, and were merry and gave their charity. The young people came there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, etc. Mr. A. Wood assures me there were few or no alms-houses before the time of Henry VIII. that at Oxon, opposite Christ Church, was one of the most ancient in England.

In every church there was a poor's box, and the like at great inns.

Before the wake or feast of the dedication of the church, they sat there all night, fasting and praying, viz. on the eve of the wake.

The solemnity attending processions in and about churches, and the perambulations in the fields were great diversions also of those times.

Glass windows in churches and gentlemen's houses were rare before the time of Henry VIII. In my own remembrance, before the civil wars, copyholders and poor people had none. In Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Salop, it is so still. About 90 years ago, noblemen's and gentlemen's coats were of the fashion of the

beadles and yeomen of the guard, (i.e.) gather'd at the middle. The benchers in the Inns of Court yet retain that fashion in the make of their gowns.

Captain Silas Taylor says, that, in days of yore, when a church was to be built, they watched and prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that part of the horison when the sun arose for the East, which makes that variation, so that few stand true except those built between the two equinoxes.

From the time of Erasmus to about 20 years last past the learning was downright pedantry. The conversation and habits of those times were as starcht as their bands and square beads, and gravity was then taken for wisdom. The doctors in those days were but old boys, when quibbles passed for wit even in their sermons. The gentry and citizens had little learning of any kind and their way of breeding up their children was suitable to the rest. They were as severe to their children as their schoolmasters, and their schoolmasters as severe as masters of the house of correction. The child perfectly loathed the sight of his parent as the slave to his torture. Gentlemen of thirty or forty years old were to stand like mutes and fools bareheaded before their parents, and the daughters (well grown women) were to stand at the cupboard-side during the whole time of the proud mother's visits unless (as the fashion was) leave was forsooth desired that a cushion should be given them to kneel upon, brought them by the serving man, after they had done sufficient penance in standing.

The boys (I mean young fellows) had their foreheads turned up, and stiffened : they were to stand mannerly forsooth, thus-the foretop ordered as before, with one hand at the band-string, the other behind.

The gentlemen then had prodigious fans, as is to be seen in old pictures, like that instrument which is used to drive feathers: and it had a handle at least half as long with which their daughters oftentimes were corrected.

Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice, rode the circuit with such a fan: Sir William Dugdale told me he was an eye-witness of it.

The Earl of Manchester also used such a fan: but the fathers and mothers slasht their daughters, in the time of their besom discipline, when they were perfect

women.

At Oxford (and I believe also at Cambridge), the rod was frequently used by the tutors and deans: and Dr. Potter of Trinity College, I knew right well, whipt his pupil with his sword by his side, when he came to take leave of him to go to the Inns of Court."

Misson, whose travels in England were published at the Hague in 1698, and a few years later were translated into English, says that he "sometimes "-as if the thing was common-met in London a procession consisting of a woman bearing the effigy of a man in straw with horns upon his head, preceded by a drum and followed by a mob making a noise with tongs, gridirons, frying-pans, and saucepans.

What

should we understand if we met a procession at Charing Cross consisting of four men carrying another man, bagpipes and a shawm played before him, a drum beating, and twenty links burning around him? The significance of this ceremony would be wholly lost and thrown away upon us. It was, however, one of many processions which survived from Mediæval London, and were understood by everybody. The meaning of it was that a woman had given her husband a sound beating for accusing her of infidelity, and that upon such occasions, some kind neighbour of the poor innocent injured creature-which ?—" performed this ceremony.'

Again, when Prynne rode up to London to join the Long Parliament, he was accompanied by many thousands of horse and foot wearing rosemary and bay in their hats and carrying them in their hands, and this was considered the greatest affront possible to the judges who had questioned him. Why?

Of Horn Fair I have elsewhere spoken. This fair kept up to the end its semiallegorical character. No one seems to have known why it was kept on October 18, which is St. Luke's Day, but the Evangelist is always figured with a bull's head in the corner of his portrait. The common people, however, associated horns, for some unknown reason, with the infidelity of the wife. They therefore assembled at Cuckold's Point opposite Ratcliffe, coming down the river from London, and there forming themselves into a procession, marched through Deptford and Greenwich to Charlton with horns upon their heads. At the fair horns of all kinds, and things made out of horn, were sold; the staple of the fair was work in horn, just as the staple of Bartholomew Fair was cloth. Besides the casual processions of the mob, a more formal procession was organised in London itself, especially at certain inns in Bishopsgate. This procession, which seems to have been arranged with some care and to have been interesting, consisted of a king, a queen, a miller, and other personages; they wore horns in their hats, and on arriving at Charlton, walked round the church three times. The occasion gave rise to many coarse and ribald jokes, and to much unseemliness of all kinds-hence a proverb, "All's fair at Horn Fair."

In this place the fair is mentioned as one of the last places where processions were organised, having meanings which were well understood at that time, but which would be now forgotten. The City procession, which everybody could read and understand like a printed book, lingered long, falling steadily into disuse and disrepute, until the wedding march was abandoned; the funeral, stripped of its coats of arms, the black gowns, and its torches, and even at last, the march of the milkmaids and the Mayday Jack in the Green, were seen no more.

APPENDICES