lizabeth of England,
but after some consideration was refused. In France, the Massacre of
Saint Bartholomew, nearly three years before, had been followed by the
siege of La Rochelle, the death of the miserable Charles the Ninth, and
the alliance in favour of Popery, which styled itself the Holy League.
At home, gardeners were busy introducing the wallflower, the hollyhock,
basil, and sweet marjoram; the first licence for public plays was
granted to Burbage and his company, among whom was a young man from
Warwickshire, a butcher's son, with a turn for making verses, whose name
was William Shakspere; the Queen had issued a decree forbidding costly
apparel (not including her own); and the last trace of feudal serfdom
had just disappeared, by the abolition of "villenage" upon the Crown
manors. As concerned other countries, except when active hostilities
were going on, Englishmen were not generally much interested, unless it
were in that far-off New World which Columbus had discovered not a
hundred years before,--or in that unknown land, far away also, beyond
the white North Cape, whither adventurers every now and then set out
with the hope of discovering a north-west passage to China,--the
north-west passage which, though sought now with a different object, no
one has discovered yet.

It may be as well to recall the state of knowledge in English society at
this period. The time had gone by when the burning of coal was
prohibited, as prejudicial to health; but the limits of London, beyond
which building might not extend, were soon after this fixed at three
miles from the city gates; the introduction of private carriages was
long opposed, lest it should lead to luxury; [Note 1] and sumptuary
laws, regulating, according to rank, the materials for dress and the
details of trimmings, were issued every few years. Needles were
treasures beyond reach of the poor; yeast, starch, glass bottles, woven
stockings, fans, muffs, tulips, marigolds,--had all been invented or
introduced within thirty years: the peach and the potato were alike
luxuries known to few: forks, sedan or Bath chairs, coffee, tea, gas,
telescopes, newspapers, shawls, muslin,--not to include railways and
telegraphs,--were ideas that had not yet occurred to any one. Nobody
had ever heard of the circulation of the blood. A doctor was a _rara
avis_: medical advice was mainly given in the towns by apothecaries, and
in the country by herbalists and "wise women." Th