“The laudable use of forks,
    Brought into custom here as they are in Italy,
    To th’ sparing o’ napkins.”

The English edition of the Janua Linguarum of Comenius, represents the fashion of dining in England during the Commonwealth.  The table was simply a board placed on a frame or trestles, which was removed after the meal to leave room for the dancers.  Old Capulet’s hall was prepared thus: 

“A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls! 
More light, ye knaves, and turn the table up.”

The head of the table, where the principal person sat, was called the “board-end;” and as one long table was now used instead of several smaller ones, the guests of higher and lower degree were divided by the massive saltcellar, placed in the centre of the table.  Thus, in Ben Jonson, it is said of a man who treats his inferiors with scorn, “He never drinks below the salt.”  The waiters, after settling the cloth, placed the spoons, knives, forks, bread, and napkins beside the trenchers.  The butler served out the drink from the cupboard, the origin of our modern sideboard.  The “cobbord,” erroneously supposed to have been like our modern cupboard, is specially mentioned amongst Lord Grey’s effects.  Lord Fairfax, in his directions to his servants, written about the middle of the seventeenth century, says:  “No man must fill beer or wine the cupboard keeper,” and he should know which of his “cups for beer and which for wine, for it were a foul thing to mix them together.”  There was another reason, however, for this arrangement—­much “idle tippling” was cut off thereby; for as the draught of beer or wine had to be asked for when it was needed, demand was not likely to be so quick as if it were always at hand.  There were also cups of “assaye,” from which the cupbearer was obliged to drink before his master, to prove that there was no poison in the liquor which he used.  The cupboard was covered with a carpet, of which Lord Grey had two.  These carpets, or tablecovers, were more or less costly, according to the rank and state of the owner.  His Lordship had also “two chares, two fformes, and two stooles.”  Chairs were decidedly a luxury at that day.  Although the name is of Anglo-Norman origin, they did not come into general use until a late period; and it was considered a mark of disrespect to superiors, for young persons to sit in their presence on anything but hard benches or stools.  The Anglo-Saxons called their seats sett and stol, a name which we still preserve in the modern stool.  The hall was ornamented with rich hangings, and there was generally a traves, which could be used as a curtain or screen to form a temporary partition.  The floor was strewn with rushes, which were not removed quite so frequently as would have been desirable, considering that they were made the repository of the refuse of the table.  Perfumes were consequently much used, and we are not surprised to find “a casting bottel, dooble gilte,