but although he says his wife brewed it “once in a month,” whether it lasted a whole month the parson does not say.  He was particular about the water used:  the Thames is best, the marsh worst, and clear spring water next worst; “the fattest standing water is always the best.”  Cider and perry were made in some parts of England, and a delicate sort of drink in Wales, called metheglin; but there was a kind of “swish-swash” made in Essex from honey-combs and water, called mead, which differed from the metheglin as chalk from cheese.

In Shakespeare’s day much less time was spent in eating and drinking than formerly, when, besides breakfast in the forenoon and dinners, there were “beverages” or “nuntion” after dinner, and supper before going to bed —­“a toie brought in by hardie Canutus,” who was a gross feeder.  Generally there were, except for the young who could not fast till dinnertime, only two meals daily, dinner and supper.  Yet the Normans had brought in the habit of sitting long at the table—­a custom not yet altogether abated, since the great people, especially at banquets, sit till two or three o’clock in the afternoon; so that it is a hard matter to rise and go to evening prayers and return in time for supper.

Harrison does not make much account of the early meal called “breakfast”; but Froude says that in Elizabeth’s time the common hour of rising, in the country, was four o’clock, summer and winter, and that breakfast was at five, after which the laborers went to work and the gentlemen to business.  The Earl and Countess of Northumberland breakfasted together and alone at seven.  The meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart of wine, and a chine of beef; a loaf of bread is not mentioned, but we hope (says Froude) it may be presumed.  The gentry dined at eleven and supped at five.  The merchants took dinner at noon, and, in London, supped at six.  The university scholars out of term ate dinner at ten.  The husbandmen dined at high noon, and took supper at seven or eight.  As for the poorer sort, it is needless to talk of their order of repast, for they dined and supped when they could.  The English usually began meals with the grossest food and ended with the most delicate, taking first the mild wines and ending with the hottest; but the prudent Scot did otherwise, making his entrance with the best, so that he might leave the worse to the menials.

I will close this portion of our sketch of English manners with an extract from the travels of Hentzner, who visited England in 1598, and saw the great queen go in state to chapel at Greenwich, and afterwards witnessed the laying of the table for her dinner.  It was on Sunday.  The queen was then in her sixty-fifth year, and “very majestic,” as she walked in the splendid procession of barons, earls, and knights of the garter:  “her face, oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to