sum in those days, equal to £14 present value. They were originally different from those in use at present; their shape was square, and instead of suits of spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds, their marks were rabbits, pinks, roses, and flowers of columbine. The figured cards were prettily devised: a queen riding with a rabbit beside her, indicating the queen of rabbits or clubs. A rustic-looking man, grotesquely dressed, and standing in a strange attitude, with a pink beside him, signified the knave of pinks or diamonds. The game of draughts was also in use.

Varied and ridiculous modes of dress were much in vogue. Nothing could exhibit a more fantastical appearance than the English beau of the fourteenth century: he wore long pointed shoes, fastened to his knees by gold or silver chains; a stocking of one colour on one leg, and of another colour on the other; short trousers, which scarcely reached to the middle of the thigh; a coat with one half white, the other half blue or some other colour; a long beard; a silk hood or bonnet, buttoned under his chin, embroidered with grotesque figures of animals, and sometimes ornamented with gold and precious stones. This was the height of fashion in the reign of Edward III.

At the battle of Cressy fell the blind king of Bohemia and his two knights,-they all three were slain together; three feathers were taken from the royal helmet, and presented on the spot to Edward the Black Prince,-hence the "the prince of Wales' feathers."

name,

The ladies wore high head-dresses drawn to a peak, or kind of horn, and long trained gowns. In the reign of Richard II. was introduced the fashion of ladies riding on a side-saddle, after the example of the Princess Ann of Bohemia.

Philippa, queen of Edward III., did much to extend the commerce of the kingdom and to raise its industrial classes; she took the woollen manufacture under her special protection; she also obtained a grant from the king of the coal-mines of Tynedale, and in spite of every opposition from the citizens of London, proved the same to be a source of useful and profitable trading in many ways she did much good; Froissart, the

chronicler, who knew her well, says at her death, " And firmly do I believe that her spirit was caught up by the holy angels and carried to heaven."

An incident is related by an old writer, which presents a glimpse of the manners in the reign of Henry II. The apartments of Thomas à Becket were covered every day in winter with clean straw or hay, and in summer with green boughs or rushes, lest the gentlemen who crowded to his presence, but who could not obtain a place at the table, should soil their clothes by sitting on the floor.

General knowledge was at a low ebb. The study of theology, however, was entered into with considerable ardour; astronomy and optics, as also chemistry and mechanics, were known to the illustrious Bacon, a Franciscan friar; but few other persons were acquainted with these subjects in those days: Bacon foretold, amongst other things, that ships would some day move without sails, and carriages without wheels; posterity can prove he was no madman-his "dreams" have come true; the Watt, the Stephensons, the Brunels, the Scott Russell, of our own times, only demonstrate the truths taught by the poor friar.

The Rev. J. S. Brewer, of King's College, London, in his preface to the Monumenta Franciscana,' says, "At this day we contrast the superiority in point of intelligence and education of the town over the country; in the thirteenth century these advantages were reversed; schools and libraries, all that survived of art and science from the Teutonic and Norman deluge, existed only in the great monastic societies. Like the colleges and universities spread throughout the country, monasteries diffused learning and education, habits of order and economy, among the tenants of the soil." However, the strict rules and poverty of the Franciscan order, almost prohibited the possession of books or the necessary materials for study. Roger Bacon had to carry on his researches and experiments without books or instruments, except what he could procure from his friends; he tells the pope, to whom he dedicated his works, that he possessed no мss., that he was not permitted the use of ink or parchment, that nothing but a distinct order from His

Holiness could dispense with the stringency of the rule. "With the friars came the first systematic attention to medical studies, and to natural philosophy in general; not as physics had been studied before, as part of an academical training, but as theology under their treatment was humanised by the necessity of the position, so physics, however feebly, were brought by them into contact with actual experiment. There is scarcely a writer of eminence among them, distinguished as he may be for logical and metaphysical ability, who is not equally interested in experimental philosophy. I use the word advisedly; for many will be prepared to admit the prevalence of physical studies among the schoolmen, and defeat the value of that admission, by assuming that the physics of that age were merely subservient to scholastic logic. I repeat, that the first sustained attempts at experimental philosophy commenced with the friars, and grew out of the actual necessities of their position, as all real progress in science will and must grow; this will be confessed in the case of Roger Bacon. But it would be equally incorrect to overlook the experimental studies of other schoolmen of Bacon's age, as to overlook the scholastic side of Roger Bacon's own writings. In Bacon's 'Observations on the Eye,' it is obvious that he had studied anatomy; in his Treatise upon Vision,' he applies the geometry of Euclid as perfectly well known in those days: the same remark applies to his contemporary, John of Peckham."-See pages xi., xxix., xliii., xliv., of Monumenta Franciscana.' Mr. Brewer is preparing for publication, also under the authority of Her Majesty and the Lords of the Treasury, the "Opus Tertium" and "Opus Minus" of Friar Bacon.

John Cornwall, a schoolmaster, in 1356, made all his pupils translate Latin into English, and by the end of the fourteenth century, studies were chiefly pursued in English; the educa tion of the poor was specially encouraged by John of Peckham, a Franciscan friar; he was raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1279, (died 1292,) and by the pastoral zeal of himself and his clergy did considerable good-teachers were sent to every city, town, and village in his diocese; indeed, the

influence of religion, and the progress of equal justice, were gradually bringing about the freedom of the people.

The cathedrals of York, Salisbury, Winchester, and other admired ecclesiastical edifices, partly owe their existence to this period, which is generally allowed to have produced the fairest models of what is termed the decorated or middle pointed style of Gothic architecture.

The medical art was confined to the clergy, but they seem not to have excelled in the science: the lawyers were infamous for their dishonesty and injustice. The want of skill on the part of his physician, is recorded to have changed the wound of Richard I. to a gangrene, which terminated his life. Astrological inquiries and researches after the "philosopher's stone," were prevalent.

Gardening and agriculture, especially the former, were principally carried on by the monks: Becket and his clergy assisted their neighbours in reaping their corn and housing their hay; wheat was subject to great variations in price,—in 1387 it was sold at Leicester for two shillings per quarter, and in 1390 at sixteen shillings. Every large castle or monastery had its garden and orchard, and frequently its vineyard. The English at this time had a considerable quantity of native wine of their own making, little inferior to that of foreign countries. The population is supposed to have been about three millions.

Poetry flourished under the patronage of the great; and Richard I. deserves to be mentioned as a poet and musician. Sculpture and painting in oil attained some perfection; the apartments not only of the great, but of private persons, were ornamented with historical pictures. The amusements of the common people were bull-baiting, horse-racing, sports on the river, running at a mark, or tilting with wooden spears. In the course of the fourteenth century, the Anglo-Saxon gradually changed into what may be called the English language. The Normans, as they gradually came to be more generally engaged in agriculture and manufactures, found it necessary to speak the language of the common people, into which they introduced many French words and idioms. As men of learning began to compose works in English, they bor

rowed many expressions from the Greek, Latin, and Italian languages, with which they enriched their own; and thus, after undergoing many changes, the latter at length reached considerable perfection in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The researches and industry of Mr. Tytler have curiously illustrated this portion of history. From evidence collected by him from original records, it would appear that Richard II. lived for many years in Scotland, and was supported at the public expense of that country. A story is told by an early historian, that Richard, who is generally supposed to have perished in Pontefract Castle, either by the "fierce hand of sir Pierce Exton," or by the slower and more cruel death of famine, did, in reality, make his escape by subtlety from confinement; that he fled in disguise to the Scottish isles, and was there recognised by a fool or jester, who had been familiar with him in the court of England, as being no other than the dethroned king of that country. Richard being thus discovered, was said to have been given up to the lord Montgomery, who presented him to Robert III., by whom he was honourably maintained during all the years of that prince's life. After the death of Robert, this Richard is asserted to have been supported in magnificence, and even in royal state, by the duke of Albany; to have died in the castle of Stirling, and to have been buried in the church of the friars of that place. This singular legend, for it cannot with certainty be said to be much else, has also been introduced as fact into a late history of Scotland.

The French evidently considered Richard as dead when his child-queen, Isabella, was, in 1406, married to the son of the duke of Orleans. Froissart, however, says, " How Richard died, and by what means, I could not tell when I wrote this chronicle;" so that he must have doubted if the body exposed to view at the obsequies in St. Paul's-Henry being present-on March 14, 1400, were really Richard's; the very vague and contradictory accounts of the manner of the king's death, tend also to lend some sanction to the belief that he did not die at Pontefract Castle.