not meet them by and by, as our unfading flowers? Oh! could we but realize their happiness around the throne, what grateful emotions would kindle in the bosom of grief over the thought of their redemption from the evils of life. With feelings of inexpressible delight, I looked on that happy circle again with an exclamation of joy springing up in my heart, "Flowers of Paradise."

Once more my eye glanced over the plains of eternal day, and as the songs of the glorified struck my ear in tones of sweetest melody, I fell upon my knees to implore my guide to let me enter the temple of song. Waiting for a response, with all the interest that had been inspired by the heavenly vision, the spirit of slumber passed. It was a dream; but there was so much of glory in it, I could but thank God for my journey beyond the stars and a pleasing glimpse of eternal glories. L. J. M.

SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO; OR, ENGLAND IN

FEUDAL TIMES.

CHAPTER III.

EMPLOYMENTS OF THE PEOPLE-HOW ROYALTY LIVED, FROM WHICH WE MAY INFER SOMETHING AS TO THE CONDITION OF THE SUBJECT —WHAT OUR FOREFATHERS ATE, AND HOW THEY ATE IT.

James Wilson."I do not know that I can introduce the next part of our subject better than by quoting a passage from Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present.' Seven hundred years ago there lived at the monastery of St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk a monk named Jocelyn of Brakelond. He has left us a chronicle of things said and done by a certain noted abbot of that monastery, Samson by name. And a very clear-headed, able, energetic fellow this abbot Samson was. Mr. Carlyle, however, taking Jocelyn's chronicle as a text, has given us in the book just mentioned a very characteristic and striking commentary, throwing a wonderful amount of life and reality into his picture of those long by-gone times.

At the town of St. Edmundsbury the body of a certain Saxon saint, named Edmund, was long preserved. First, a wooden chapel was erected to his memory; afterwards a large and handsome stone-built abbey,lights being kept perpetually burning over his shrine. Of this abbey I believe there are still interesting remains."

Fanny." Is that why in the geography-book and atlas the place is called Bury St. Edmunds, because St. Edmund was buried there?

James W.-"Not exactly, Fanny, although the question is a very natural one. I remember when a boy, being myself struck with the name of this town and thinking it must have been given on account of some one who was buried there. But the word Bury in this connexion is the same as Borough, or Burgh; so that Bury St. Edmund's means simply town of St. Edmund. But to proceed with my extract::

"Dim,' says Carlyle, 'as through a long vista of seven centuries, dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us; the ever-surprising circumstance this, that it is a fact, and no dream-that we see it there, and gaze into

the very eyes of it! Smoke rises daily from those culinary chimney-throats; there are living beings there, who chant, loud braying, their matins, nones, and vespers; awakening echoes, not to the bodily ear alone. St. Edmund's

shrine, perpetually illuminated, glows ruddy through the night, and through the night of centuries withal; St. Edmundsbury town paying yearly forty pounds for that express end. Bells clang out; on great occasions all the bells. We have processions, preachings, Christmas plays, Mysteries (a kind of sacred drama) shown in the churchyard, at which latter the townsfolk sometimes quarrel.'

"Indisputable, though very dim to modern vision, rests on its hill-slope that same Bury, Stow, or town of St. Edmund; already a considerable place, [that is, as you will understand, considerable' for that day] not without traffic, nay manufactures, would Jocelyn only tell us what. Jocelyn is totally careless of telling, but through dim, fitful apertures we can see fullers, see cloth making; looms dimly going, dye-vats, and old women spinning yarn. We have fairs too in due course; and the Londoners give us much trouble, pretending that they as a metropolitan people are exempt from toll. Besides, there is field-husbandry, with perplexed settlement of convent-rents: corn-ricks pile themselves within burgh in their season; and cattle depart and enter; and even the poor weaver has his cow,—with dungheaps lying quiet at most doors, for the town has as yet no improved police. Watch and ward, nevertheless, we do keep, and have gates, as what town must not; thieves so abounding; war such a frequent thing! Our thieves at the abbot's judgment bar deny; claim wager of battle; fight, are beaten and then hanged. Ketel the thief' took this course; and it did nothing for him, merely brought us, and indeed himself, new trouble! Everyway a most foreign time. What difficulty, for example, has our cellarer to collect the reaping-silver,' a penny which each householder is bound to pay for cutting down the convent grain! Richer people pretend that it is commuted, that it is this and the other; that in short, they won't pay it. Our cellarer gives up calling on the rich. In the houses of the poor, our cellarer finding in like manner neither penny, nor good promise, snatches without ceremony what pledge he can come at,- -a joint-stool, kettle, nay the very house-door; and old women, thus exposed to the unfeeling gaze of the public, rush out after him with their distaffs and angriest shrieks.

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"What an historical picture, glowing visible, as St. Edmund's shrine by night, after seven long centuries or so! My venerable ancient spinning grandmothers-ah, and ye too have to shriek and rush out with your distaffs; and become female chartists, and scold all evening with void doorway ;and in old Saxon, as we in modern, would fain demand some five-point charter, could it be fallen in with, the earth being too tyrannous! Wise lord abbots, hearing of such phenomena, did in time abolish or commute the reap-penny, and one nuisance was abated. But the image of these justly offended old women, with their old wool costumes, with their angry features, and spindles brandished, lives for ever in the historical memory. Thanks to thee, Jocelyn Boswell !'

Miss Mayfield" And thanks to Thomas Carlyle too, I say. But what an extraordinary writer he is, expressing himself so grotesquely and almost wildly, and yet oftentimes with such beauty and power!"

James W.-" And, for a wonder, there is nothing in this passage about eternities,' or 'immensities.'

Miss M.-" Nor invectives against shams' and 'simulacra!' But to return to your subject, there was one circumstance mentioned relative to the troubles of the good people of St. Edmundsbury which reminded me of what I saw at Leicester some months ago. Spending a few days there, I was taken to see the Museum, in the New Walk. In one part of it I found a very interesting collection of Roman and Medieval remains, and amongst these latter I remember observing a charter of King John's granting to the inhabitants of Leicester, exemption from toll into whatever part of England they might travel. I suppose that would be a similar privilege to the one Jocelyn speaks of as claimed by the Londoners."

George" I guess Uncle William, in Gallow-tree Gate, travelling about as he does, would be glad for that charter of King John's to stand good now."

Mr. Wilson.- "But we, in our town, should not be satisfied, nor, I think, would Emily and her friends at Nottingham."

Miss M.-" Indeed we should not. We would not have favouritism." James." There's poor human nature! It can't bear the doctrine of Election. Just as though a king may not confer a privilege upon one part of his subjects without all the rest turning jealous. Oh, Man, Man!"

Miss Mayfield." And I don't think that Calvinistic election was meant for human nature."

Mrs. Wilson. (Laughing.)" Excuse me, James, but we are getting off again from our evening's topic. From what you announced a few minutes ago as the next division of your subject, I have been expecting to hear more particulars as to the way in which our forefathers lived seven centuries since.'

James.-"And so you shall, mother; I stand corrected. If Emily won't I will, waive the theological discussion, (which I perceive by the brightening of my cousin's eyes was just on the point of breaking out) and proceed at once to describe a little more minutely a House of the feudal times. And we will take as a superior specimen one of the king's houses, either at Kennington, Woodstock, or Southampton,-it does not matter which, for they were all built after one fashion. First, there was the great hall, with a high-pitched roof, and a very muddy floor. To this the entrance was by a door large enough for a waggon to pass through. The window-holes, without glass, and with but badly-fitting wooden shutters were made high up in the walls, so that the wind rushing through them might be kept as near the ceiling as possible. The walls were white-washed, and the great hall, altogether very much resembled a large barn."

Mrs. W.-"Oh James, I think you must be caricaturing!"

James." Indeed, mother, I am not. I must say, to be honest, that most of the touches of humour in the sketch I am now giving you are borrowed from a writer in a not very serious periodical; but I have verified all the facts by reference to an exceedingly accurate and learned work, Mr. Hudson Turner's "Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages,' -a book in which there are many drawings from actual remains, as well as copious extracts from minutes of royal councils, illustrating and substantiating the statements made."

Mrs. W.-"Well, proceed with your description."

James W.-"I have hitherto spoken only of the great hall. At one end of this was a door leading into a small stone chamber on the same floor. This was the cellar. Over the cellar was built a wooden chamber, also

small, which was called the 'Solar.' This was the royal sanctum, the loft in which his majesty reposed. A British housemaid of this age, says the writer from whom I quote, would refuse to sleep in such a place. There was a clay floor, a window with a wooden shutter that let in the wind through all its chinks, (it appears that an extra-charge was made to his majesty at Kennington, for making the windows shut better than usual') and there was a clumsy lath-and-plaster cone projecting from one wall to serve the purpose of a chimney."

Miss M-Was this place called the Solar' because appropriated to the king's sole use, or because it was the sacred spot where he retired when he wished to be solus, or alone?"

James W.—“ Oh dear, no; although your notion, like Fanny's just now, is by no means an unnatural one. The word solar, (or rather solarium, from which it is derived) originated with the Romans, amongst whom it meant an open gallery or balcony on the top of the house, exposed to the rays of sol, or the sun. Thence our forefathers transferred the name to any upper room or garret, for instance to the royal loft we are describing. Whilst I am on with the solar I may as well give you an inventory of the furniture. There were sometimes hangings on the walls. There was a bed; that is to say, there was a bench fixed in the ground, on which were placed a mattress and bolster of rich stuff, so that (says my authority) his majesty's sleeping accommodation may be likened very fairly to that sort of bed which is now and then, in our day, improvised by housewives for a supernumerary male-guest upon the sofa. In addition to this bed, the king's chamber contained also a chair, with its legs rammed into the ground, a moveable chair being a special luxury occasionally ordered. Nothing else was contained in the king's apartment except his box, in which like a good tidy boy, he kept his clothes. This bed-room had to be shared by the queen; and it was not only a bed-room by night, but a parlour by day, when their majesties had a desire for privacy, or when any state business of a private nature had to be transacted. In the year 1287 Edward the First and Queen Eleanor were sitting on their bedside, attended by the ladies of the court, when they narrowly escaped death by lightning." George." As there was but one chair in the room, I wonder where the ladies were sitting. The king surely would not keep them standing?"

James." I don't know that, George; royalty is apt to be somewhat indifferent to the comfort of other people when it has its own supposed dignity to maintain; but at all events, two or three of the ladies may have been honoured with a seat on the king's box. Right courtly accommodation, would it not be? I have not, however, told you as yet how the solar chamber was reached. Sometimes this was by stairs leading from the hall, oftener perhaps by an external staircase. In the latter instance his majesty had to go out of doors to climb into his bed-room. It is but fair I should add, that these external staircases were frequently covered. Sometimes the stairs communicated with a trap-door. Thus it was through a trap-door that Henry the Third descended from his chamber to his chapel at Clarendon. In Rochester Castle the chapel of the same king was above the chamber, and his majesty ordered the construction of an outer stair, because he had been worried by the number of people passing up to chapel through his bedroom. Besides the rooms I have mentioned, two other little chambers opened by doors into the great hall. These were the larder, and the sewery. What a larder is, of course we know. In the sewery were kept household

stores and so forth. But you will say, in the great days of feasting, of which such traditions have come down to us, was there not a kitchen? Well, sometimes there was a temporary shed or lean-to on the outer wall; or at other times there were two or three wooden enclosures without roofs in the court-yard; or quite as frequently, the cooking took place in the court-yard, in the open air."

Miss Mayfield."You have been kind enough to give us an inventory of the furniture of the solar chamber, but you have not yet told us how the great hall was fitted up."

James Wilson.—“Õh, that was furnished very simply; shall we not say with right royal simplicity? In the first place there was a long table, sometimes constructed of boards laid upon tressels, whose legs, like those of the royal chair, were rammed well into the ground. Then, there were forms fixed into the ground in the same manner,-now and then having backs. Instead of that comfort of modern times, a carpet, the floor was covered with dry rushes in the winter, and green fodder in the summer. One part of the hall, slightly elevated, was termed the Dais. The lower part was called "the Marsh," a name ominously significant of the reeking moisture often to be found below the grass and rushes. In this hall guests and domestics of both sexes slept upon the forms or upon the fodder." Mrs. W.-"But you don't mean to say, James, that that was the visitors' and servants' bed room?"

James W.-"My good mother, how can you doubt it? These were the old times, the times seven hundred years ago. Besides, where, if not in the great hall, were they to sleep? I have not, however, yet quite done with the king's house. It was in the reign of Henry III. (that is, towards the close of the period we are to-night speaking of,) that the first attempts were made at underground drainage. The refuse and dirty water from the royal kitchens had long been carried through the great hall at Westminster, but the foul odours were said seriously to affect the people's health. An underground drain, therefore, was devised, to carry the offensive matter to the Thames. This, I suppose, we must regard as the inauguration of the sanitary movement of which we hear so much in our day.

"To leave the mansions of royalty, and speak a little of the physical condition of the people generally, I may remark that there was not, in those times, that great difference between the comforts enjoyed by the rich and poor respectively, which there is now, and for this plain reason, that no amount of wealth could possibly command comforts which had yet to be created. Their food consisted chiefly of different kinds of meat, of bread, butter, cheese, eggs, various sorts of vegetables, but no potatoes, together with honey as a sweetener; and for beverages, milk, beer, and mead. No tea, or even sugar, such as we have, in those days. In good seasons all classes seem to have enjoyed a coarse plenty. In consequence, however, of the defective state of agriculture, the want of shelter for the cattle during severe winters, and of the fact that people had not yet learnt to save corn and other stock from one season to another, there were great and often very trying alternations of plenty and scarcity. Thus, in the Saxon chronicle, every three or four years we meet with an entry of this kind:'A.D. 1086. This was a very heavy season, and a swinkful and sorrowful year in England in murrain of cattle; and corn and fruits were at a stand, and so much untowardness in the weather as a man may not easily think.' In 1116 occurred a 'very heavy-timed winter, long and strong for cattle and