[Illustration:  Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum]

We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk.  It is of English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350.  It is embossed with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times, and has an inscription in Gothic letters:—­

        God is grace Be in this place. 
          Amen. 
        Stand uttir[40] from the fier
        And let onjust[41] come nere.

  [40] Stand away.

  [41] One just.

[Illustration:  Fourteenth-century Flagon.  From an old Manor House in Norfolk]

This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson Collection in 1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture.  Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed (she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hipplethwaite.  Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art.  We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest.  It is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the sixteenth century.  Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in.  It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire.  The staircases are often elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses.  The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court, the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A.  Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various knights in armour.  We give an illustration of the staircase newel in Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man standing on a lofty pedestal.

[Illustration:  Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B.  Height, 2 ft. 11 in.; length, 5 ft. 2 in.]

Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds and ends which Time has accumulated.  On p. 201 is a representation of a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious person named Parson in 1610.  It is constructed on the same principle as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans.  The brass tube was filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the bottom.  A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above.  This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich Castle.  The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume for their complete enumeration.