curtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and book." * At these places were regular ordinaries, which Decker tells us were of three kinds; namely," an ordinary of the largest reckoning, whither most of your courtly gallants do resort;" a twelve-penny ordinary frequented by "the justice of peace or young knight;" and a three-penny ordinary, "to which your London usurer, your stale batchelor, and your thrifty attorney do resort." † ተ From the same author we also learn, that it was usual in taverns, especially in the city, to send presents of wine from one room to another, as a complimentary mark of friendship:-" Enquire," directs he, "what gallants sup in the next room; and, if they be any of your acquaintance, do not you, after the city fashion, send them in a potile of wine and your name." This custom, too, is recorded by Shakspeare, as a mode of introduction to a stranger, where Bardolph, at the Garter Inn, Windsor, addressing Falstaff, says, -"Sir John, there's one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack §;" a passage which Mr. Malone has illustrated by the following nearly contemporary anecdote:-" Ben Jonson," he relates, “was at a tavern, and in comes Bishop Corbet, (but not so then,) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for a quart of raw wine, and gives it to the tapster. the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him, I service to him.' The fellow did, and in those words. 6 6 Sirrah,' says he, 6 carry this to sacrifice my • Friend,' says Dr. Corbet, I thank him for his love; but 'pr'ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken; for sacrifices are always burnt." || The most singular and offensive practice, however, at least to * Earle's Microcosmography, reprint by Bliss, pp. 39, 40. + Gull's Horn-book, reprint by Nott, pp. 109. 127, 128. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 91. Ibid. p. 159, 160. Ibid. vol. v. p. 91. note. From Merry Passages and Jeasts, MSS. Harl. 6395. modern manners, which occurred at this period in taverns, a practice common, too, even among the higher ranks, is likewise related by Decker, when giving advice "How a Gallant should behave himself in an Ordinary" of the first class:-" You may rise in dinner time," he tells his "courtly gallant," "to ask for a closestool, protesting to all the gentlemen that it costs you an hundred pounds a year in physick, besides the annual pension which your wife allows her doctor; and, if you please, you may, as your great French lord doth, invite some special friend of yours from the table to hold discourse with you as you sit in that withdrawing chamber; from whence being returned again to the board, you shall sharpen the wits of all the eating gallants about you, and do them great pleasure to ask what pamphlets or poems a man might think fittest to wipe his tail with."* Gross as this habit now appears to us, it was prevalent upon the continent until nearly the close of the last century. To the reign of Elizabeth is to be attributed the introduction of a luxury, which has since become almost universal, the custom of using, or, as it was then called, of taking tobacco. This herb, which was first brought into England by Sir Francis Drake, about the year 1586, met with an early and violent opposition, and gave birth to a multitude of invectives and satires, among which the most celebrated is King James's "Counterblast to Tobacco." This monarch entertained the most rooted antipathy to the use of tobacco in any form, and closes his treatise by asserting that it is "a custom loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."† He also * Gull's Horn-book, pp. 121, 122.-" Let us here remark," adds Dr. Nott, in a note on this passage," that J. Harington is to be considered as the inventor of that cleanly comfort the water-closet; which gave rise to his witty little tract above-mentioned, (Metamorphosis of Ajax, a jakes, 1596,) wherein he humorously recommends the same to Q. Elizabeth; and for which, by the way, he was banished her court." + The Workes of the most High and Mighty Prince, James, &c. &c. folio, 1616. p. 222. tells us in another work, that were he to invite the devil to a dinner, "he should have these three dishes-1. a pig; 2. a poole of ling and mustard; and 3. a pipe of tobacco for digesture.' 66 Tobacco may be said, indeed, to have made many inroads in domestic cleanliness, and, on this account, to have deservedly incurred the dislike of that large portion of the female sex on whom the charge of household economy devolved. Surely," says James, "smoke becomes a kitchin farre better than a dining chamber," a remark which is as applicable now as it was then; but we cannot help smiling when he adds, with his usual credulity, "and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kind of soote, as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened.” ተ 66 Such were, indeed, the tales in common circulation among the lower orders, and which Ben Jonson has very humorously put into the mouth of Cob in Every Man in his Humour :-" By Gods me," says the water-bearer, "I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choak a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them, they say, will ne'er scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an' there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane or rosaker." ‡ It would appear that the prejudices against the use of this narcotic required much time for their extirpation; for Burton, who wrote about thirty years after its introduction, and at the very close of the Apophthegms of King James, 1671. + The Workes of King James, folio, p. 221. Shakspearean era, seems as violent against the common use of tobacco as even James himself:-" A good vomit," says he, "I confesse, a vertuous herbe, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used, but as it is commonly used by most men, which take it as Tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish damn'd tobacco, the ruine and overthrow of body and soule." * Notwithstanding this abuse, however, and the edicts of King James forbidding its consumption in all ale-houses, tobacco soon acquired such general favour, that Stowe tells us in his Annals, "it was commonly used by most men and many women;" and James, appealing to his subjects, exclaims, "Now how you are by this custome disabled in your goods, let the gentry of this land beare witnesse, some of them bestowing three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke;" a sum so enormous, that we must conclude them to have been as determined smokers as the Buckinghamshire parson recorded by Lilly, who " was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco, he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them!" + Snuff-taking was as much in fashion as smoking; and the following passage from Decker proves, that the gallants of his day were as extravagant and ridiculous in their use of it as our modern beaux, whether we regard the splendour of their boxes, or their affectation in applying the contents; it appears also to have been customary to take snuff immediately before dinner. "Before the meat come smoking to the board, our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box, 'and' the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril,-all which artillery be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the price of it; may then let him shew his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c. for these are complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect."§ 66 It * Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 235. col. 1. History of his Life and Times, 8vo. p. 44. + Workes of King James, p. 221. Gull's Horn-book, pp. 119, 120. is singular," remarks Dr. Nott, alluding to the general use of tobacco at this period, “when the introduction of this new indulgence had so engaged the pen of almost every cotemporary playwright and pamphleteer, nay, even of royalty itself, that Shakspeare should have been totally silent upon it." * The residue of the Domestic Economy of this era may be included under the articles of servants and miscellaneous household arrange ments. In the days of Elizabeth servants were more numerous, and considered as a more essential mark of gentility, than at any subsequent period, "The English," observes Hentzner," are lovers of shew, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear their master's arms in silver, fastened to their left arms. They were, also, usually distinguished by blue coats; thus Grumio, enquiring for his master's servants, says,-" Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly combed, their blue coats brushed." We learn, however, from Fynes Moryson, that both silver badges, and blue coats went out of fashion in the reign of James the First; "the servants of gentlemen," he informs us, were wont to weare blew coates, with their master's badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the same livery for colour and ornament." § 66 The very strict regulations to which servants were subjected in the sixteenth century, and the admirable order preserved in the household of the upper classes at that time, will be illustrated in a very satisfactory and entertaining manner, by the "Orders for Household Servantes; first devised by John Haryngton, in the yeare 1566, and renewed by John Haryngton, Sonne of the saide John, in Reprint of Decker's. Gull's Horn-book, p. 17. note 15. + Travels, 8vo. p. 63. § Itinerary, 1617. folio. Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 127. |