market town, or fair, if his employer
resided in the country, all the necessaries for the departments under
his control. We are apt to regard the modern bearer of the same title
as more catholic in his employments than the appellation suggests;
but he in fact wields, on the contrary, a very circumscribed authority
compared to that of his feudal prototype.

One of the menial offices in the kitchen, when the spit came into
use, was the broach-turner, lately referred to. He was by no means
invariably maintained on the staff, but was hired for the occasion,
which may augur the general preference for boiled and fried meats.
Sometimes it appears that any lad passing by, or in want of temporary
employment, was admitted for this purpose, and had a trifling
gratuity, or perhaps only his dinner and the privilege of dipping his
fingers in the dripping, for his pains.

Warner cites an entry in some accounts of the Hospital of St.
Bartholomew at Sandwich, under 1569:--"For tournynge the spytte,
iiijd." and this was when the mayor of the borough dined with the
prior. A royal personage gave, of course, more. The play of "Gammer
Gurton's Needle," written about 1560, opens with a speech of Diccon
the Bedlam, or poor Tom, where he says:--

"Many a gossip's cup in my time have I tasted,
And many a broach and spit have I both turned and basted."

The spit, again, was supplanted by the jack.

The "History of Friar Rush," 1620, opens with a scene in which
the hero introduces himself to a monastery, and is sent by the
unsuspecting prior to the master-cook, who finds him subordinate
employment.

MEALS.

It has been noted that for a great length of time two meals were made
to suffice the requirements of all classes. Our own experience shows
how immaterial the names are which people from age to age choose to
bestow on their feeding intervals. Some call supper _dinner_, and
others call dinner _luncheon._ First comes the prevailing mode
instituted by fashionable society, and then a foolish subscription to
it by a section of the community who are too poor to follow it, and
too proud not to seem to do so. Formerly it was usual for the Great
to dine and sup earlier than the Little; but now the rule is reversed,
and the later a man dines the more distinguished he argues himself.
We have multiplied our daily seasons of refreshment, and eat and drink
far oftener than our ancestors; but the truly genteel Briton never
sups; the word