circumstances of her reign were promotive of it. Elizabeth was a decided fashionist; nay more, she was in her own person the illustrious personification of the fleeting ideas of this aërial power; she bore no rival near her throne-in her own sex, however,

though in the other she evinced the greatest admiration of those who most successfully rivalled her. Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak proved the "Open Sesame" to the mysterious charmed locks of the court; Sir Christopher Hatton danced himself into the post of keeper of conscience to the Queen; and we doubt whether even the dark Leicester's subtle intrigue and matchless assurance would have bested him, had he not possessed a well-shaped person, set off to the acme of taste by the aid of Fashion.

Nor was it merely in personal characteristics that this period is peculiarly marked by the capricious and variable dicta of Fashion. One author adduces the introduction of soft-beds, about this time, as especially significative of an era of learned leisure, of literary men; and without absolutely slandering the literary and learned as the sole promoters of bodily ease, we may certainly say that now the otium cum dignitate first became understood in England. Henry the Eighth had made literature fashionable, and those in whom a taste for it was awakened were led by the non-existence of stirring excitements to pursue it. Everything was established on a firm basis; nothing was to be got by brawling now; and he who had heretofore shewn his superiority to his

rival in the field, in his martial array, and in the numbers and equipment of his retinue, was now, now that the latter was perforce abridged (see the laws), compelled to choose some other field for display. The appointments of his house, the elegance of his furniture, the recherché style of his banquets, gained that place in his heart and affections which had been heretofore occupied by warlike paraphernalia. And the gentle sex, whose fingers had been occupied in embroidering banners, escutcheons, pennants, scarfs, and other warlike trophies, now found food for their imaginations, and occupations for their fair hands, in the internal decoration, not merely of the festival hall or the private bower, but of those more domestic, more social apartments which were the germ of that room, the focus of friendliness and quiet hospitality-the parlour-the gem of every English mansion a century ago, but now lost in the modern refinements of the day. The parlour was always open and always hospitable; it looked like a room to be used and to be happy in; you were not deterred from occupying a sofa or a footstool, for they looked not only as if they were meant to be used, but as if they were used, and there was space on the table for your hat or your bag or anything you wished to place there. But now the parlour has merged into the drawingroom; and the drawing-room in middle life, is never seen on any but state-occasions, except in an undress of brown-holland or blue-striped furniture

print; and the tables are so crowded with bijouterie, that they remind you of stalls at a fancy fair, and you approach them only with caution, for fear of disarranging any of the paraphernalia; and having carefully edged your card into a vacant space, you gladly make your escape to your own sitting-room or parlour, if you have courage to possess one. Truly it requires some courage to own to it, for every Lilliputian six-roomed house in London has now its " drawing-room."

But there is one other, a most important circumstance, which not only renders this era peculiarly propitious to our purpose, but specially marks it as the most proper period at which to commence our Chronicles. For at this period, namely, the reign of Elizabeth, was first established, in London, a Court of Fashion; then first did the magnates of the land, in spite of laws and legislative enactments, and whistling to the winds the orders of council and the anathemas of the imperious Queen, crowd periodically to London, to partake in the gaieties of the Court, to bask in the smiles of royalty, and display the "pomp and circumstance" of fashion.

Often interrupted, but never totally abrogated, this custom has gradually and surely increased from its first commencement, until now,-the absence of a family of distinction from the metropolis during "the season" would be enough, be their other and higher claims to consideration what they might, to exclude them irrevocably from the pale of FASHION.

VOL. I.

C

CHAPTER I.

BANQUETS AND FOOD.

"Madame, mangez s'il vous plait
Et si tastez de tous nos vins :
J'en ay du plus friandelet
Qui soit point d'icy à Provins.
Sus ho serviteurs barbarins,
Apportez-nous ces hustandeaux,
Poulets et chappons pélerins,
Cignes, paons et perdreaux,
Espaulles, gigots de chevreaulx,
Becquasses, butors, gelinectes,
Lièvres, connins et lappereaulx,
Hérons, pluviers et alouettes."

QUEEN ELIZABETH, we are told, was exceedingly
and habitually abstemious, seldom eating of more
than two dishes, and partaking very moderately of
those. Her example was not without
not without weight
amongst her courtiers, as certainly her court was
not degraded by the absolute gluttony which disfi-
gured that of her successor, James, countenanced
and encouraged by its royal head. Refinement in
eating had indeed been gaining ground for some
period before the accession of Elizabeth, introduced
primarily, it may be by that master in the art of
"savoir-vivre," Cardinal Wolsey; yet, in the reign

of Mary, foreigners were astonished at the enormous quantity of provisions consumed by the English court, though we are told that quantity did not reach a fourth part of what had been usual. Indeed, it sounds like romance to read of 30,000 dishes being served up at one wedding-dinner; and at another, of sixty fat oxen, being only one article of provision for the feast. This sounds like romance, yet it is matter of history.*

"They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars,

By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores.
Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard,

Muttons and fatted beeves, and bacon swine;
Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard,
Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and in fine,
Plum puddings, pancakes, apple-pies and custard.
And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine,
With mead, and ale, and cider of our own;
For porter, punch, and negus were not known."

These gorgeous and wholesale devourings were indeed greatly diminished: still public feasts and banquets were exceedingly magnificent, and, as we shall see hereafter, were sufficiently abundant to leave no cause to lament the huge hecatombs of bygone days.

Indeed, the moderation spoken of as prevailing at this time, can have been only by comparison; for

* Both occurred in the 13th century: one at London, at the Earl of Cornwall's marriage; the other at York, at the marriage of the Princess Margaret to Alexander the Third of Scotland.See Collection of Ordinances for the Government of the Royal Household.