night that He would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work.' Alderman Allan took advantage of these words to observe, that it was not yet too late to undo what had been done; but Cromwell instantly charged him with peculation, and gave him into custody. When all were gone, fixing his eye on the mace, What,' said he, shall we do with this fool's bauble? Here, carry it away.' Then, taking the act of dissolution from the clerk, he ordered the doors to be locked, and, accompanied by the military, returned to Whitehall.

That afternoon the members of the council assembled in their usual place of meeting. Bradshaw had just taken the chair, when the Lord-general entered and told them that if they were there as private individuals, they were welcome; but if as the Council of State, they must know that the parliament was dissolved, and with it also the council. 'Sir,' replied Bradshaw, with the spirit of an ancient Roman, 'we have heard what you did at the House this morning, and before many hours all England will know it. But, sir, you are mistaken to think that the parliament is dissolved. No power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore, take you notice of that.' After this protest they withdrew. Thus, by the parricidal hands of its own children, perished the Long Parliament, which, under a variety of forms, had, for more than twelve years, defended and invaded the liberties of the nation. It fell without a struggle or a groan, unpitied and unregretted. The members slunk away to their homes, where they sought by submission to purchase the forbearance of their new master; and their partisans, if partisans they had, reserved themselves in silence for a day of retribution, which came not before Cromwell slept in his grave. The royalists congratulated each other on an event which they deemed a preparatory step to the restoration of the king; the army and navy, in numerous addresses, declared that they would live and die, stand | and fall, with the Lord-general; and in every part of the country the congregations of the saints magnified the arm of the Lord, which had broken the mighty, that in lieu of the sway of mortal men, the fifth monarchy, the reign of Christ might be established on earth.

It would, however, be unjust to the memory of those who exercised the supreme power after the death of the king, not to acknowledge that there existed among them men capable of wielding with energy the destinies of a great empire. They governed only four years; yet, under their auspices, the conquests of Ireland and Scotland were achieved, and a navy was created, the rival of that of Holland, and the terror of the rest of Europe. But there existed an essential error in their form of government. Deliberative assemblies are always slow in their proceedings; yet the pleasure of parliament, as the supreme power, was to be taken on every subject connected with the foreign relations or the internal administration of the country; and hence it happened that, among the immense variety of questions which came before it, those commanded immediate attention which were deemed of immediate necessity; while the others, though often of the highest importance to the national welfare, were first postponed, then neglected, and ultimately forgotten. To this habit of procrastination was perhaps owing the extinction of its authority. It disappointed the hopes of the country, and supplied Cromwell with the most plausible arguments in defence

of his conduct.

Besides his elaborate History of England, Dr Lingard was author of a work evincing great erudition and research, on the Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, published in 1809. Dr Lingard died at Hornby, near Lancaster, his birthplace, in July 1851, aged eighty.

The great epoch of the English Commonwealth, and the struggle by which it was preceded, has been illustrated by MR GEORGE BRODIE'S History

of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles I. to the Restoration, four volumes, 1822, and by MR WILLIAM GODWIN'S History of the Commonwealth of England, four volumes, 18241827. The former work is chiefly devoted to an exposure of the errors and misrepresentations of Hume; while Mr Godwin writes too much in the spirit of a partisan, without the calmness and dignity of the historian. Both works, however, afford new and important facts and illustrations of the momentous period of which they treat. Mr Brodie was Historiographer Royal of Scotland; he died January 2, 1867.

W. ROSCOE-M. LAING-JOHN PINKERTON. WILLIAM ROSCOE (1753-1831), as the author of the Life of Lorenzo de Medici, and the Life and Pontificate of Leo X., may be more properly classed with our historians than biographers. The two works contain an account of the revival of letters, and fill up the blank between Gibbon's Decline and Fall and Robertson's Charles V. Mr Roscoe was a native of Liverpool, the son of humble parents, and while engaged as clerk to an attorney, he devoted his leisure hours to the cultivation of his taste for poetry and elegant literature. He French, and Italian languages. After the compleacquired a competent knowledge of the Latin, tion of his clerkship, Mr Roscoe entered into business in Liverpool, and took an active part in every scheme of improvement, local and national. He wrote a poem on the Wrongs of Africa, to illustrate the evils of slavery, and also a pamphlet on the same subject, which was translated into French by Madame Necker. The stirring times in which he lived called forth several short political dissertations from his pen; but about the year 1789, he applied himself to the great task he Lorenzo de' Medici. He procured much new and had long meditated, a biographical account of valuable information, and in 1796 published the result of his labours in two quarto volumes, entitled The Life of Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent. The work was highly successful, and at once elevated Mr Roscoe into the proud situation of one of the most popular authors of the day. A second edition was soon called for, and Messrs Cadell and Davies purchased the copyright for £1200. About the same time he relinquished the practice of an attorney, and studied for the bar, but ultimately settled as a banker in Liverpool. His next literary appearance was as the translator of The Nurse, a poem from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo. In 1805 was published his second great work, The Life and Pontificate of Leo X., four volumes quarto, which, though carefully prepared, and also enriched with new information, did not experience the same success as his Life of Lorenzo. 'The history of the reformation of religion,' it has been justly remarked, 'involved many questions of subtle disputation, as well as many topics of character and conduct; and, for a writer of great candour and discernment, it was scarcely possible to satisfy either the Papists or the Protestants.' The liberal sentiments and accomplishments of Mr Roscoe recommended him to his townsmen as a fit person to represent them in parliament, and he was accordingly elected in 1806. He spoke in favour of the abolition of the slave-trade, and of the

civil disabilities of the Catholics, which excited against him a powerful and violent opposition. Inclined to quiet and retirement, and disgusted with the conduct of his opponents, Mr Roscoe withdrew from parliament at the next dissolution, and resolutely declined offering himself as a candidate. He still, however, took a warm interest in passing events, and published several pamphlets on the topics of the day. He projected a History of Art and Literature, a task well suited to his talents and attainments, but did not proceed with the work. Pecuniary embarrassments also came to cloud his latter days. The banking establishment of which he was a partner was forced in 1816 to suspend payment, and Mr Roscoe had to sell his library, pictures, and other works of art. His love of literature continued undiminished. He gave valuable assistance in the establishment of the Royal Institution of Liverpool, and on its opening, delivered an inaugural address on the Origin and Vicissitudes of Literature, Science, and Art, and their Influence on the present State of Society. In 1827 Mr Roscoe received the great gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature for his merits as an historian. He had previously edited an edition of Pope, in which he evinced but little research or discrimination.

MALCOLM LAING, a zealous Scottish historian, was born in the year 1762 at Strynzia, his paternal estate, in Orkney. He was educated for the Scottish bar, and passed advocate in 1785. He appeared as an author in 1793, having completed Dr Henry's History of Great Britain after that author's death. The sturdy Whig opinions of Laing formed a contrast to the tame moderatism of Henry; but his attainments and research were far superior to those of his predecessor. In 1800 he published The History of Scotland from the Union of the Crowns on the Accession of King James VI. to the Throne of England, to the Union of the Kingdoms in the Reign of Queen Anne; with two Dissertations, Historical and Critical, on the Gowrie Conspiracy, and on the supposed Authenticity of Ossian's Poems. This is an able work, marked by strong prejudices and predilections, but valuable to the historical student for its acute reasoning and analysis. Laing attacked the translator of Ossian with unmerciful and almost ludicrous severity; in revenge for which, the Highland admirers of the Celtic Muse attributed his sentiments to the prejudice natural to an Orkney man, caused by the severe checks given by the ancient Caledonians to their predatory Scandinavian predecessors! Laing replied by another publication-The Poems of Ossian, &c., containing the Poetical Works of James Macpherson, Esq., in Prose and Rhyme, with Notes and Illustrations. In 1804, he published another edition of his History of Scotland, to which he prefixed a Preliminary Dissertation on the Participation of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Murder of Darnley. The latter is a very ingenious historical argument, the ablest of Mr Laing's productions, uniting the practised skill and acumen of the Scottish lawyer with the knowledge of the antiquary and historian. The latter portion of Mr Laing's life was spent on his paternal estate in Orkney, where he entered upon a course of local and agricultural improvement with the same ardour that he devoted to his literary pursuits. He died in the year 1818. 'Mr Laing's merit,'

says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, 'as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative, was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.'

JOHN PINKERTON (1758-1826) distinguished himself by the fierce controversial tone of his historical writings, and by the violence of his prejudices, yet was a learned and industrious collector of forgotten fragments of ancient history and of national antiquities. He was a native of Edinburgh, and bred to the law. The latter, however, he soon forsook for literary pursuits. He commenced by writing imperfect verses, which, in his peculiar antique orthography, he styled Rimes, from which he diverged to collecting Select Scottish Ballads, 1783, and inditing an Essay on Medals, 1784. Under the name of Heron, he published some Letters on Literature, and was recommended by Gibbon to the booksellers as a fit person to translate the monkish historians. He afterwards (1786) published Ancient Scottish Poems, being the writings of Sir Richard Maitland and others, extracted from a manuscript in the Pepys Library at Cambridge. But Pinkerton was an unfaithful editor. His first historical work was A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians, or Goths, in which he laid down that theory which he maintained through life, that the Celts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland are savages, and have been savages since the world began ! His next important work was an Inquiry into the History of Scotland preceding the Reign of Malcolm III., or 1056, in which he debates at great length, and, as Sir Walter Scott remarks, with much display of learning, on the history of the Goths, and the conquests which he states them to have obtained over the Celts in their progress through all Europe. In 1796, he_published a History of Scotland during the Reign of the Stuarts, the most laborious and valuable of his works. He also compiled a Modern Geography, edited a Collection of Voyages and Travels, was some time editor of the Critical Review, wrote a Treatise on Rocks, and was engaged on various other literary tasks. Pinkerton died in want and obscurity in Paris.

SIR JOHN FENN, MR GAIRDNER, AND THE
PASTON LETTERS.

JOHN FENN (1739-1794), a country gentleman residing at East Dereham in Norfolk, described by Horace Walpole as 'a smatterer in antiquity, and a very good sort of man,' conferred an invaluable boon on all historical readers, and on all students of the English language and English social life in former times, by editing and publishing the series of family archives known as The Paston Letters. The first publication of the Letters took place in 1787, when two quarto volumes were issued from the press, containing original letters written by various persons of rank and conse

quence during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. In 1789 a third and fourth volume were published; and in 1823 a fifth and concluding volume appeared, bringing down the correspondence to the end of Henry VII.'s reign.

A very complete edition of these Letters was published in 1872-75, containing upwards of five hundred letters previously unpublished, and edited by MR JAMES GAIRDNER of the Public Record Office: vol. i. comprising the reign of Henry VI.; vols. ii. and iii. Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., and Henry VII.* Mr Gairdner prefixed a valuable Introduction to this new edition, and added illustrative notes. The genuineness of the letters is undoubted. It appears that, in the village of Paston, about twenty miles north of Norwich, lived for several centuries a family which took its surname from the place, the head of which, in the reign of Henry VI., was William Paston, a justice of the Common Pleas, celebrated as 'the good judge.' The last representative of the family was William, Baron Paston and Earl of Yarmouth (second baron and earl), who died in 1732. The correspondence of this family supplies a blank in English history during the Wars of the Roses, but is chiefly interesting and curious for the light it throws on the social life of England at that period-the round of domestic duties and employments, dress, food, entertainments, &c. pertaining to a good county family.

As a specimen, we quote a paper of instructions addressed by Mrs Agnes Paston to some member of her household in London :

Erands to London of Augnes Paston the xxviii day of Fenure, the yer of Kyng Henry the Sext, xxxvi (1458). To prey Grenefeld to send me feythfully word, by wrytyn, who Clement Paston hath do his dever in lernyng. And if he hathe nought do well, nor wyll nought amend, prey hym that he wyll trewly belassch hym, tyl he wyll amend; and so ded the last maystr, and the best that ever he had, att Caumbrage. And sey Grenefeld that if he wyll take up on hym to brynge hym in to good rewyll and lernyng, that I may verily know he doth hys dever, I wyll geve hym x marcs for hys labor; for I had lever he wer fayr beryed than lost for defaute.

Item, to se who many gownys Clement hathe; and the that be bar, late hem be reysyd. He hath achort grene gowne, and achort musterdevelers gowne, wer never reysyd; and achort blew gowne that was reysyd, and mad of a syde gowne, whan I was last in London; and a syde russet gowne, furryd with bevyr, was mad this tyme ii yer; and a syde murry gowne was mad this tyme twelmonth.

Item, to do make me vi sponys, of viii ounce of troy wyght, well facyond, and dubbyl gylt.

And say Elyzabet Paston that she must use hyr selfe to werke redyly, as other jentylwomen done, and sumwhat to help hyr selfe ther with.

Item, to pay the Lady Pole xxvis. viiid. for hyr bord. And if Grenefeld have do wel hys dever to Clement, or wyll do hys dever, geffe hym the nobyll.

AGNES PASTON.

[To pray Greenfield to send me faithfully word, by writing, how Clement Paston hath done his devoir (or

The publisher of this work, Mr Edward Arber, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, deserves the thanks of all lovers of our early literature, for his series of cheap and correct reprints of works previously scarce or only attainable at high prices. By his enterprise and literary taste, many of the choice and rare Elizabethan poems and tracts are now within the reach of all classes of readers.

duty) in learning. And if he hath not done well, nor will not amend, pray him that he will truly be-lash him till he will amend; and so did the last master, and the best he ever had, at Cambridge. And say (to) Greenfield that if he will take upon him to bring him into good rule and learning, that I may verily know he doth his had liefer he were fair buried than lost for default.

duty, I will give him ten marks for his labour; for I

Item, to see how many gowns Clement hath; and they that be bare, let them be raised.1 He hath a short green gown, and a short musterdevelus gown, were never raised; and a short blue gown that was raised, and made of a syde3 gown, when I was last at London; and a syde russet gown, furred with beaver, was made this time two-year; and a syde murry gown was made this time twelvemonth. Item, to do make me (get me made) six spoons, of eight ounce of Troy weight, well fashioned, and double gilt.. self to work readily, as other gentlewomen (hath) done, And say (to) Elizabeth Paston that she must use herand somewhat to help herself therewith.

Item, to pay the Lady Pole 26s. 8d. for her board. And if Greenfield have done well his duty to Clement, or will do his duty, give him the noble.

AGNES PASTON.

The following affecting farewell letter (the spelling modernised) possesses historical interest:

The Duke of Suffolk to his Son, April 30, 1450. MY DEAR AND ONLY WELL-BELOVED SON-I beseech our Lord in heaven, the Maker of all the world, to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love Him and to dread Him; to the which as far as a father may charge his child, I both charge you and pray you to set all spirits and wits to do, and to know His holy laws and commandments, by the which ye shall with His great mercy pass all the great tempests and troubles of this wretched world. And that also, wittingly, ye do nothing for love nor dread of any earthly creature that should displease Him. And thus as any frailty maketh you to fall, beseecheth His mercy soon to call you to Him again with repentance, satisfaction, and contrition of your heart never more in will to offend Him.

Secondly, next Him, above all earthly thing, to be true liegeman in heart, in will, in thought, in deed, unto the king our aldermost high and dread sovereign lord, to whom both ye and I be so much bound to; charging you as father can and may, rather to die than to be the contrary, or to know anything that were against the welfare or prosperity of his most royal person, but that, as far as your body and life may stretch, ye live and die to defend it, and to let his Highness have knowledge thereof in all the haste ye can.

Thirdly, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, alway, as ye be bounden by the commandment of God, to do, to love, to worship your lady and mother, and also that ye obey alway her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in all your works, the which dreaded not, but shall be best and truest to you. And if any other body would stir you to the contrary, to flee the counsel in any wise, for ye shall find it naught and evil.

Furthermore, as far as father may and can, I charge you in any wise to flee the company and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and of flattering men, the

1 A new nap or pile raised on the bare cloth. Thus in Shakspeare: Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.'-Hen. VI. Part II. 2 A kind of mixed gray woollen cloth, which continued in use to Elizabeth's reign.-HALLIWELL.

3 Syde gown-a low-hanging gown. See Sir David Lindsay, ante, vol. i. page 49.

4 Murry or Murray colour was a dark red. 5 The noble, a gold coin, value 6s. 8d.

more especially and mightily to withstand them, and not to draw nor to meddle with them, with all your might and power. And to draw to you and to your company good and virtuous men, and such as be of good conversation, and of truth, and by them shall ye never be deceived, nor repent you of. Moreover, never follow your own wit in no wise, but in all your works, of such folks as I write of above, asketh your advice and counsel, and doing thus, with the mercy of God, ye shall do right well, and live in right much worship and great heart's rest and ease. And I will be to you as good lord and father as my heart can think.

And last of all, as heartily and as lovingly as ever father blessed his child in earth, I give you the blessing of our Lord and of me, which of His infinite mercy increase you in all virtue and good living. And that your blood may, by His grace, from kindred to kindred multiply in this earth to His service, in such wise as, after the departing from this wretched world here, ye and they may glorify Him eternally among His angels in heaven.

Written of mine hand the day of my departing from this land. Your true and loving father,

HENRY HALLAM.

SUFFOLK.*

The greatest historical name in this period, and one of the most learned of our constitutional writers and critics, was MR HENRY HALLAM, son of Dr Hallam, Dean of Wells. He was born in 1778, was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple. He was early appointed a Commissioner of Audit, an office which at once afforded him leisure and a competency, and enabled him to prosecute those studies on which his fame rests. Mr Hallam was one of the early contributors to the Edinburgh Review. Scott's edition of Dryden was criticised by Mr Hallam in the Review for October 1808, with great ability and candour. His first important work was a View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, two volumes quarto, 1818, being an account of the progress of Europe from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fifteenth century. To this work he afterwards added a volume of Supplemental Notes. In 1827 he published The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II., also in two volumes; and in 1837-38 an Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, in four volumes. With vast stores of knowledge, and indefatigable application, Mr Hallam possessed a clear and independent judgment, and a style grave and impressive, yet enriched with occasional imagery and rhetorical graces. His Introduction to the Literature of Europe is a great monument of his erudition. His knowledge of the language and literature of each nation was critical, if not profound, and his opinions were conveyed in a style remarkable for its succinctness and perspicuity. In his first two works, the historian's views of political questions are those generally

* The duke embarked on Thursday the 30th April 1450, having been sentenced to five years' banishment from England. He was accused of having, in his communications with the French, been invariably opposed to the interests of England, and in particular that he had been bribed to deliver up Anjou and Maine to France. The pinnace in which he sailed was boarded off Dover by a ship called Nicholas of the Tower, the master of which saluted him with the words, 'Welcome, traitor;' and he was barbarously murdered, his body brought to land, and thrown

upon the sands at Dover.

adopted by the Whig party, but are stated with calmness and moderation. He was peculiarly a supporter of principles, not of men. Mr Hallam, like Burke, in his latter years 'lived in an inverted order: they who ought to have succeeded him had gone before him; they who should have been to him as posterity were in the place of ancestors.' His eldest son, Arthur Henry Hallam-the subject of Tennyson's In Memoriam-died in 1833; and another son, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, was taken from him, shortly after he had been called to the bar, in 1850. The afflicted father collected and printed for private circulation the Remains, in Verse and Prose, of Arthur Henry Hallam (1834), and some friend added memorials of the second son. Both were eminently accomplished, amiable, and promising young men. The historian died January 21, 1859, having reached the age of eighty-one.

Effects of the Feudal System.

From the View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. It is the previous state of society, under the grandchildren of Charlemagne, which we must always keep in mind, if we would appreciate the effects of the feudal system upon the welfare of mankind. The institutions of the eleventh century must be compared with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civilisation of modern times. The state of anarchy which we usually term feudal was the natural result of a vast and barbarous empire feebly administered, and the cause, rather than the effect, of the general establishment of feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual relations of the whole, kept alive the feeling of a common country and common free constitution of England, the firm monarchy of duties; and settled, after the lapse of ages, into the France, and the federal union of Germany.

The utility of any form of policy may be estimated by its effects upon national greatness and security, upon civil liberty and private rights, upon the tranquillity and order of society, upon the increase and diffusion of wealth, or upon the general tone of moral sentiment and energy. The feudal constitution was little adapted for the defence of a mighty kingdom, far less for schemes of conquest. But as it prevailed alike in several adjacent countries, none had anything to fear from the military superiority of its neighbours. It was this inefficiency of the feudal militia, perhaps, that saved Europe, during the middle ages, from the danger of universal monarchy. In times when princes had little notions of confederacies for mutual protection, it is hard to say what might not have been the successes of an Otho, a Frederic, or a Philip Augustus, if they could have wielded the whole force of their subjects whenever their ambition required. If an empire equally extensive with that of Charlemagne, and supported by military despotism, had been formed about the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, the seeds of commerce and liberty, just then beginning to shoot, would have perished; and Europe, reduced to a barbarous servitude, might have fallen before the free barbarians of Tartary. freedom, it bears a noble countenance. To the feudal If we look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil law it is owing that the very names of right and privilege were not swept away, as in Asia, by the desolating hand of power. The tyranny which, on every favourable moment, was breaking through all barriers, would have rioted without control, if, when the people were poor and disunited, the nobility had not been brave and free. So far as the sphere of feudality extended, it diffused the spirit of liberty and the notions of private right. Every one will acknowledge this who considers the limitations of the services of vassalage, so cautiously marked in those law-books which are the records of

customs; the reciprocity of obligation between the lord and his tenant; the consent required in every measure of a legislative or general nature; the security, above all, which every vassal found in the administration of justice by his peers, and even-we may in this sense say-in the trial by combat. The bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded by servitude; but this had no connection with the feudal tenures.

The peace and good order of society were not promoted by this system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal customs, it is impossible to doubt that they were perpetuated by so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its universal establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of warfare are totally irreconcilable with those of industry, not merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occupations which they produce, the feudal system must have been intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the improvement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the labours of mankind.

But, as the school of moral discipline, the feudal institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several centuries after the dissolution of the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity; where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general infamy. The feudal lawbooks breathe throughout a spirit of honourable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener feeling, as well as readier perception, of moral as well as of legal distinctions. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, there was ample scope for every magnanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances that have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occasions could be more favourable than the protection of a faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent sovereign, against such powerful aggression as left little prospect except of sharing in his ruin.

The Houses and Furniture of the Nobles in the Middle Ages. From the same.

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in stately, or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of an entrance-passage running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above; and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from the documents and engravings, but, as to the latter period, from the buildings themselves-sometimes, though not very frequently, occupied by families of consideration, more often converted into farm-houses, or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men of great estates during the reigns of Henry IV. and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and such has been the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least must be extremely few.

The two most essential improvements in architecture during this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing apparently can be more simple than the former; yet the wisdom of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery, of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was made, perhaps, by some forgotten semi-barbarian! About the middle of the fourteenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our castles which bear a much older date. This country seems to have lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish the windows in some new churches in the seventh century. It is said that, in the reign of Henry III., a few ecclesiastical buildings had glazed windows. Suger, however, a century before, had adorned his great work, the Abbey of St Denis, with windows, not only glazed but painted; and I presume that other churches of the same class, both in France and England, especially after the lancet-shaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not to have been employed in the domestic architecture of France before the fourteenth century; and its introduction into England was probably by no means earlier. Nor, indeed, did it come into general use during the period of the middle ages. Glazed windows were considered as movable furniture, and probably bore a high price. When the Earls of Northumberland, as late as the reign of Elizabeth, left Alnwick Castle, the windows were taken out of their frames and carefully laid by.

But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommodations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot, or even plaster, except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and that, perhaps, hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is unnecessary to add, that neither libraries of books nor pictures could have found a place among furniture. Silver-plate was very rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furniture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency. And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian trader, at his house in St Botolph's Lane, A.D. 1481. There appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows are especially noted as movable furniture. No mention, however, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare his account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honour of the Earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the north, not at the same period-for I have not found any inventory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient-but in 1572, after almost a century of continual improvement, we shall be astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle, nor had any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or carpets. It is in this sense, probably, that we must understand Æneas Sylvius, if he meant anything more than to express a traveller's discontent, when he declares that the kings of Scotland would rejoice to be as well lodged as the second class of citizens at Nuremberg. Few burghers of that town had mansions, I presume, equal to the palaces of Dunfermline or Stirling; but it is not unlikely that they were better furnished.

It has been justly remarked, that in Mr Hallam's Literature of Europe there is more of sentiment