lingered in the prevalent custom of duelling.  Ladies, and even the queen herself, chastised their servants with their own hands.  On one occasion Elizabeth showed her dislike of a courtier’s coat by spitting upon it, and her habit of administering physical correction to those who displeased her called forth the witty remark of Sir John Harrington:  “I will not adventure her Highnesse choller, leste she should collar me also.”  The first coach appeared in the streets of London in Elizabeth’s time and the sight of it “put both horse and man into amazement; some said it was a great crab-shell brought out of China; and some imagined it to be one of the Pagan temples, in which the Cannibals adored the divell.”  The extravagance and luxury of the feasts which were given on great occasions by the nobility were not attended by a corresponding advance in the refinement of manners at table.  In a banquet given by Lord Hertford to Elizabeth in the garden of his castle, there were a thousand dishes carried out by two hundred gentlemen lighted by a hundred torch-bearers and every dish was of china or silver.  But forks had not yet come into general use, and their place was supplied by fingers.  Elizabeth had two or three forks, very small, and studded with jewels, but they were intended only for ornament.  A divine inveighed against the impiety of those who objected to touching their meat with their fingers, and it was only in the seventeenth century that the custom of eating with forks obtained general acceptance, and ceased to be considered a mark of foppery.

The co-existence of coarseness and brilliant luxury, so characteristic of the time, is curiously apparent in the amusements of the city and the court.  The whole people, from Elizabeth to the country boor, delighted in the savage sports of bull and bear-baiting.  In the gratification received by these exhibitions, appear the remains of the old bloodthirstiness which had once been only satisfied with the sight of human suffering.  The contrast is striking when we turn to the masques, the triumphs, and the pageants which were exhibited on great occasions by the court or by the citizens of London.  The awakening of learning and the new interest in life were expressed in the dramatic entertainments which mingled the romantic elements of chivalry with the mythology of ancient Greece, in the rejoicings of men over present prosperity and welfare.  The accounts of the festivities during the progresses of Elizabeth, so ably collected by Nichol, read like a tale of fairyland.  When the queen visited Kenelworth she was met outside the gates by sybils reciting a poem of welcome.  At the gates the giant porter feigned anger at the intrusion, but, overcome by the sight of Elizabeth, laid his club and his keys humbly at her feet.  On posts along the route were placed the offerings of Sylvanus, of Pomona, of Ceres, of Bacchus, of Neptune, of Mars, and of Phoebus.  From Arthur’s court tame the Lady of the Lake, begging the queen to deliver