x, or pocket book (tablets), or a list, not an article of
furniture; it was, as we have noticed in the time of Elizabeth, composed
of boards generally hinged in the middle for convenience of storage, and
supported on trestles which were sometimes ornamented by carved work. The
word trestle, by the way, is derived from the "threstule," i.e.,
three-footed supports, and these three-legged stools and benches formed in
those days the seats for everyone except the master of the house. Chairs
were, as we have seen, scarce articles; sometimes there was only one, a
throne-like seat for an honoured guest or for the master or mistress of
the house, and doubtless our present phrase of "taking the chair" is a
survival of the high place a chair then held amongst the household gods of
a gentleman's mansion. Shakespeare possibly had the boards and trestles in
his mind when, about 1596, he wrote in "Romeo and Juliet"--

"Come, musicians, play!
A hall! a hall! give room and foot it, girls,
More light, ye knaves, and turn the tables up."

And as the scene in "King Henry the Fourth" is placed some years earlier
than that of "Romeo and Juliet," it is probable that "table" had then its
earlier meaning, for the Archbishop of York says:--

"... The King is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances;
And, therefore, will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory."

Mr. Maskell, in his handbook on "Ivories," tells us that the word "table"
was also used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to denote the
religious carvings and paintings in churches; and he quotes Chaucer to
show that the word was used to describe the game of "draughts."

"They dancen and they play at chess and tables."

Now, however, at the time of which we are writing, chairs were becoming
more plentiful and the table was a definite article of furniture. In
inventories of the time and for some twenty years previous, as has been
already noticed in the preceding chapter, we find mention of "joyned
table," framed table, "standing" and "dormant" table, and the word "board"
had gradually disappeared, although it remains to us as a souvenir of the
past in the name we still give to any body of men meeting for the
transaction of business, or in its more social meaning, expressing
festivity. The width of these earlier tables had been about 30 inches, and
guests sat on one side only, with their backs to th