velvet, richly trimmed with skins, and with a jacket and doublet of black satin.

Then follows a detail of the expenses of the week for wine, malt, wheat, flesh, and fish, amounting to 867.; the wine, of which three hogsheads are put down, costing not more than sixpence per gallon, about double the price of strong malt liquor in the same year: a circumstance, observes Whitaker, "not accounted for by the absence of taxation, but by the perfection of the French vineyards, and the extreme imperfection of English husbandry at this time." The arrangement for the dinners, both on flesh and fish-days, I shall give verbatim.

"For the first course at dinner.

"First, brawn with mustard, served alone, with malmesey; Item, frumetty to pottage; Item, a roe roasted for standart; Item, peacocks, two of (i. e. upon) a dish; Item, swans, two of a dish; Item, a great pike on a dish; Item, conies roasted, 4 of a dish; Item, venison roasted; Item, capon of grease, 3 of a dish; Item, mallards, 4 of a dish; Item, teals, 7 of a dish; Item, pyes, baken with rabits in them; Item, baken oringe; Item, a flampett; Item, stoke fritters; Item, dulcetts, 10 of a dish; Item, a tart.

"Second course.

"First, martens to pottage; Item, for a standart, cranes, 2 of a dish; Item, young lamb, whole roasted; Item, great fresh sammon gollis; Item, heron sewes, 3 of a dish; Item, bytters, 3 of a dish; Item, pheasants, 4 of a dish; Item, a great sturgeon goil; Item, partridges, 8 of a dish; Item, stints, 8 of a dish; Item, plovers, 8 of a dish; Item, curlews, 8 of a dish; Item, a whole roe baken; Item, venison baken, red and fallow; Item, a tart; Item, a marchpane; Item, gingerbread; Item, apples and cheese, stewed with sugar and sage.

"For night.

"First, a play, and streight after the play a mask; and when the mask was done, then the bankett, which was 110 dishes, and all of meat; and then all the gentlemen and ladyes danced; and this continued from Sunday to the Saturday after.

"For Fridays and Saturdays.

"First, leich brayne; Item, fromety to pottage; Item, whole ling and haberdine; Item, great guils of salt salmon; Item, great salt eels; Item, great salt sturgeon guils; Item, fresh ling; Item, fresh

turbut; Item, great pike; Item, great guils fresh salmon; Item, great ruddo; Item, baken turbuts; Item, tarts of 3 several meats.

"Second course.

"First, martens to pottage; Item, a great fresh sturgeon goil; Item, fresh eel roasted; Item, great brett; Item, salmon chins broiled; Item, roasted eels; Item, roasted lampreys; Item, roasted lamprons; Item, great burbuts; Item, salmon baken; Item, fresh eel baken; Item, fresh lampreys baken; Item, clear gilley; Item, gingerbread."

To this list of fish, is to be added as mentioned in the bill of provisions for the week, one seal, and one porpoise. Sewers, seneshalls, marshals, carvers and cup-bearers, attended in magnificent profusion, whilst a knight, sir John Burton, acted as steward, and sir John Nevile's brother, Mr. Stapylton, with a servant, and the bridegroom himself with his servant, waited in the hall.

"Of wild-fowl," observes the commentator, "the catalogue is curious. The crane, the heron sewe, the bittern, the curlew, and the stint, or tringa cinclus. Of tame fowl, beside the swan, of which five would have bought an ox, we have the peacock,

The

and the capon of grease, that is, fat capon, as hart of grease is called cervus de crapitudine. The goose and tame duck are not mentioned; neither is the woodcock.-The same is to be observed of the grouse, which in the immense extent of the Yorkshire moors must have abounded. The catalogue of fish is equally curious; for beside the kinds generally in use at modern tables, which are mentioned, and the trout, which is not, we have the royal sturgeon, then apparently very common. silence of the bill of fare as to the carp favours the opinion, that it was introduced into England rather later than this time. Then there appear haberdines, of which I know not what they were; the rudd, i. e. the cyprinus orfus, yet found in the pools of Holderness; and above all, the seal and porpoise. Eels were sometimes roasted; a mode of cookery prescribed long after by Isaac Walton. I have also to learn what were 'martens to pottage,' whether the bird or the quadruped; for those who could eat porpoises might have endured the sweet mart, if not its stinking relative the pole-cat. Tarts were plainly meat pies. What flampets and leich brayne may have been I leave to the skilful in old cookery to discover.

'Marchpayne,' which the fair Dowsabell was skilled in preparing, was a kind of biscuit (here it was made in part of gingerbread) much used in old desserts. 'Save me a piece of Marchpane,' says the servant, (Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. v.) when the tables were taken away. Their merriment was persevering enough to have subdued modern constitutions, for the dancing continued a whole week: on the wedding-night was first a play, and next a mask; after which followed a 'banket' of 110 dishes. This was in order. In the passage above referred to is a curious scene of bustle and confusion in clearing the hall after dinner for the maskers. Away with the joint-stools-remove the court cupboard-look to the plate, Antony and Potpan! And when the mask is over, old Capulet says, 'Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone; we have a trifling foolish banket toward.'

"After such dinners as had preceded these entertainments, we may presume that the 110 dishes of the 'banket' might be called comparatively trifling, and would somewhat resemble a modern table in lightness. Pike was the only fish served up with the flesh dinners. The arrangement of the first and second course, with respect to fish, &c., seems to