“How much it is to be lamented that Two large Chests full of this GREAT MAN’S loose papers and Manuscripts in the hands of an ignorant Baker of WARWICK (who married one of the descendants from Shakspear), were carelessly scattered and thrown about as Garret Lumber and Litter, to {54} the particular knowledge of the late Sir William Bishop; till they were all consum’d in the general Fire and Destruction of that Town.”

S.W.S.

Mickleham, Nov. 14. 1849.

[We cannot insert the interesting Query which our correspondent has forwarded on the subject of the disappearance of Shakespeare’s MSS. without referring to the ingenious suggestion upon that subject so skilfully brought forward by the Rev. Joseph Hunter in his New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 105.:—­“That the entire disappearance of all manuscripts of Shakspeare, so entire that no writing of his remains except his name, and only one letter ever addressed to him, is in some way connected with the religious turn which his posterity took, in whose eyes there would be much to be lamented in what they must, I fear, have considered a prostitution of the noble talents which had been given him.”]

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FOOD OF THE PEOPLE.—­BILLS OF FARE IN 1683—­HUMBLE PIE.

The food of the people must always be regarded as an important element in estimating the degree of civilization of a nation, and its position in the social scale.  Mr. Macaulay, in his masterly picture of the state of England at the period of the accession of James II., has not failed to notice this subject as illustrative of the condition of the working classes of that day.  He tells us that meat, viewed relatively with wages, was “so dear that hundreds of thousands of families scarcely knew the taste of it....  The great majority of the nation lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats.” (Hist.  Eng. vol. i. p. 418., 4th ed.)

It is not uninteresting to inquire (and having found, it is worth making a note of) what sort of fare appeared on the tables of the upper and middle classes,—­who, unlike their poorer neighbours, were in a condition to gratify their gastronomic preferences in the choice and variety of their viands,—­with the view of determining whether the extraordinary improvement which has taken place in the food of the labouring population has been equally marked in that of the wealthier orders.

Pepys, who was unquestionably a lover of good living, and never tired of recording his feastings off “brave venison pasty,” or “turkey pye,” has given in his Diary many curious notices of the most approved dishes of his day.  The following “Bills of fare” of the period referred to speak, however, directly to the point; they are taken from a work entitled, The accomplisht Lady’s Delight, in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery.  London, printed for B. Harris, 1683.