gotten Worthies" and Raleigh, no doubt hated those nasty new oak houses and chimnies,' and sighed for the good old times: "And yet see the change, for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie through Persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration. . . Now haue we manie chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs and poses. Then had we none but reredosses, and our heads did neuer ake.2 For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house; so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quack or pose, wherewith as then verie few were oft acquainted." Harrison, i. 212, col. 1, quoted by Ellis. If rich men and masters were dirty, poor men and servants must have been dirtier still. William Langlande's description of Hawkyn's one metaphorical dress in which he slept o' nightes as well as worked by day, beslobbered (or by-moled, bemauled) by children, was true of the real smock; flesh-moths must have been plentiful, and the sketch of Coveitise, as regards many men, hardly an exaggeration : as a bonde-man of his bacon his berd was bi-draveled, See Mr Froude's noble article in The Westminster Review, No. 3, July, 1852 (lately republished by him in a collection of Essays, &c.). 2 Their eyes must have smarted. The natives' houses in India have (generally) no chimneys still, and Mr Moreshwar says the smoke does make your eyes water. 3 Mouffet is learned on the Louse. "In the first beginning whilest man was in his innocency, and free from wickednesse, he was subject to no corruption and filth, but when he was seduced by the wickednesse of that great and cunning deceiver, and proudly affected to know as much as God knew, God humbled him with divers diseases, and divers sorts of Worms, with Lice, Hand-worms, Belly-worms, others call Termites, small Nits and Acares.. a Lowse. . is a beastly Creature, and known better in Innes and Armies then it is wellcome. The profit it bringeth, Achilles sheweth, Iliad I. in these words: I make no more of him then I doe of a Lowse; as we have an English Proverb of a poor man, He is not worth a Lowse. The Lice that trouble men are either tame or wilde ones, those the English call Lice, and these Crab-lice; the North English call them Pert-lice, that is, a petulant Lowse comprehending both kindes; it is a certain sign of misery, and is sometimes the inevitable scourge of She sholde noght han walked on that welthe so was it thred-bare, (Vision, Passus V. vol. 1, 1. 2859-70, ed. Wright.) In the Kinge and Miller, Percy folio, p. 236, when the Miller proposes that the stranger should sleep with their son, Richard the son says to the King "Nay, first," quoth Richard, "good fellowe, tell me true, hast thou noe creepers in thy gay hose? art thou not troabled with the Scabbado?” The colour of washerwomen's legs was due partly to dirt, I suppose. The princess or queen Clarionas, when escaping with the laundress as her assistant, is obliged to have her white legs reduced to the customary shade of grey: Right as she should stoupe a-douñ, More slotered thei most be.” Asshes with the water she menged, And her white legges al be-sprenged. ab. 1440 A.D., Syr Generides, p. 218, 11. 7060-8. If in Henry the Eighth's kitchen, scullions lay about naked, or tattered and filthy, what would they do elsewhere? Here is the King's Ordinance against them in 1526: God." Rowland's Mouffet's Theater of Insects, p. 1090, ed. 1658 (published in Latin, 1634). By this date we had improved. Mouffet says, "These filthy creatures .. are hated more than Dogs or Vipers by our daintiest Dames," ib. p. 1093; and again, p. 1097, "Cardan, that was a fancier of subtilties, writes that the Carthusians are never vexed with Wall-lice, and he gives the cause, because they eat no flesh... He should rather have alledged their cleanliness, and the frequent washing of their beds and blankets, to be the cause of it, which when the French, the Dutch, and Italians do less regard, they more breed this plague. But the English that take great care to be cleanly and decent, are seldom troubled with them." Also, on p. 1092, he says, 'As for dressing the body : all Ireland is noted for this, that it swarms almost with Lice. But that this proceeds from the beastliness of the people, and want of cleanly women to wash them is manifest, because the English that are more careful to dress themselves, changing and washing their shirts often, having inhabited so long in Ireland, have escaped that plague... Remedies. The Irish and Iseland people (who are frequently troubled with Lice, and such as will fly, as they say, in Summer) anoint their shirts with Saffron, and to very good purpose, to drive away the Lice, but after six moneths they wash their shirts again, putting fresh Saffron into the Lye.' Rowland's Mouffet (1634), Theater of Insects, p. 1092, ed. 1658. f "And for the better avoydyng of corruption and all uncleannesse out of the Kings house, which doth ingender danger of infection, and is very noisome and displeasant unto all the noblemen and others repaireing unto the same; it is ordeyned by the Kings Highnesse, that the three master cookes of the kitchen shall have everie of them by way of reward yearly twenty marks, to the intent they shall prouide and sufficiently furnish the said kitchens of such scolyons as shall not goe naked or in garments of such vilenesse as they now doe, and have been acustomed to doe, nor lie in the nights and dayes in the kitchens or ground by the fireside; but that they of the said money may be found with honest and whole course garments, without such uncleannesse as may be the annoyance of those by whom they shall passe ". . . That our commonalty, at least, in Henry VIII.'s time did stink (as is the nature of man to do) may be concluded from Wolsey's custom, when going to Westminster Hall, of "holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, passing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors." (Cavendish, p. 43.) On the dirt in English houses and streets we may take the testimony of a witness who liked England, and lived in it, and who was not likely to misrepresent its condition,-Erasmus. In a letter to Francis, the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, says Jortin, "Erasmus ascribes the plague (from which England was hardly ever free) and the sweating-sickness, partly to the incommodious form and bad exposition of the houses, to the filthiness of the streets, and to the sluttishness within doors. The floors, says he, are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease (?), fragments, bones, spittle, excrements [t. i. urine] of dogs and cats [t. i. men,] and every thing that is nasty, &c." (Life of Erasmus, i. 69, ed. 1808, referred to in Ellis, i. 328, note.) The great scholar's own words are, Tum sola fere sunt argilla, tum scirpis palustribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas. Hinc mutato cœlo vapor quidam exhalatur, mea sententia minime salubris humano corpori. After speaking also De salsamentis (rendered salt meat, beef, pork, &c.,' by Jortin, but which Liber Cure Cocorum authorises us in translating 'Sauces ''), quibus vulgus mirum in modum delectatur, he says the English would be more healthy if their windows were made so as to shut out noxious winds, and then continues, "Conferret huc, si vulgo parcior victus persuaderi posset, ac salsamentorum moderatior usus. Tum si publica cura demandaretur Ædilibus, ut viæ mundiores essent a cono, mictuque : Curarentur et ea quæ civitati vicina sint. Jortin's Life of Erasmus, ed. 1808, iii. 44 (Ep. 432, C. 1815), No. VIII. Erasmus Rot. Francisco. Cardinalis Eboracencis Medico, S. If it be objected that I have in the foregoing extracts shown the dark side of the picture, and not the bright one, my answer is that the bright one of the riches and luxury in England-must be familiar to all our members, students (as I assume) of our early books, that the Treatises in this Volume sufficiently show this bright side, and that to me, as foolometer of the Society, this dark side seemed to need showing. But as The Chronicle of May 11, 1867, in its review of Mr Fox Browne's English Merchants, seems to think otherwise, I quote its words, p. 155, col. 2. "All the nations of the world, says Matthew of Westminster, were kept warm by the wool of England, made into cloth by the men of Flanders. And while we gave useful clothing to other countries, we received festive garments from them in return. For most of our information on these subjects we are indebted to Matthew Paris, who tells us that when Alexander III. of Scotland was married to Margaret, daughter of Henry III., one thousand English knights appeared at the wedding in cointises of silk, and the next day each knight donned a new robe of another kind. This grand entertainment was fatal to sixty oxen, and cost the then Archbishop of York no less a sum than 4000 marks. Macpherson remarks on this great display of silk as a proof of the wealth of England under the Norman kings, a point which has not been sufficiently elaborated. In 1242 the streets of London were covered or shaded with silk, for the reception of Richard, the King's brother, on his return from the Holy Land. Few English 1 Prof. Brewer says that Erasmus, rejecting the Medieval Latin and adopting the Classical, no doubt used salsamenta in its classical sense of salt-meat, and referred to the great quantity of it used in England during the winter, when no fresh meat was eaten, but only that which had been killed at the annual autumn slaughtering, and then salted down. Stall-fattening not being practised, the autumn was the time for fat cattle. Salsamentum, however, is translated in White and Riddle's Dictionary, "A. Fish-pickle, brine; B. Salted or pickled fish (so usually in plural).” men are aware of the existence of such magnificence at that early period; while every story-book of history gives us the reverse of the picture, telling us of straw-covered floors, scarcity of body linen, and the like. Long after this, in 1367, it is recorded, as a special instance of splendour of costume, that 1000 citizens of Genoa were clothed in silk; and this tale has been repeated from age to age, while the similar display, at an earlier date, in England, has passed unnoticed." Turning at last to notice the several pieces in the present volume, I have only to say of number 1, The Babees Boke, that I have not had time to search for its Latin original, or other copies of the text. Its specialty is its attributing so high birth to the Bele Babees whom it addresses, and its appeal to Lady Facetia to help its writer. Of the short alphabetic poems that follow,-The A B C of Aristotle, Nos. 2 and 3,-copies occur elsewhere; and that in Harl. MS. 1304, which has a different introduction, I hope to print in the companion volume to this, already alluded to. No. 4, Vrbanitatis, I was glad to find, because of the mention of the booke of urbanitie in Edward the Fourth's Liber Niger (p. ii. above), as we thus know what the Duke of Norfolk of "Flodden Field" was taught in his youth as to his demeanings, how mannerly he should eat and drink, and as to his communication and other forms of court. He was not to spit or snite before his Lord the King, or wipe his nose on the table-cloth. Nos. 5 and 6, The Lytylle Chyldrenes Lytil Boke or Edyllys Be1 (a title made up from the text) and The Young Children's Book, are differing versions of one set of maxims, and are printed opposite one another for contrast sake. The Lytil Boke was printed from a later text, and with an interlinear French version, hy Wynkyn de Worde in Here begynneth a lytell treatyse for to lerne Englisshe and Frensshe.' This will be printed by Mr Wheatley in his Collection of Early Treatises on Grammar for the Society, as the copy in the Grenville Library in the Brit. Mus. is the only one known. (By the way, what member will find some additional tracts for this volume? There must be some lying about somewhere.) 1 What this Edyllys Be means, I have no idea, and five or six other men I have asked are in the same condition. A.S. æpel is noble, apeling, a prince, a noble; that may do for edyllys. Be may be for A B C, alphabet, elementary grammar of behaviour. |