ly cooked or even tainted meat, which injured their
health. These "coquinarii" stood, perhaps, in the same relation to
those times as our keepers of restaurants.

He mentions in another place that the cooks washed their utensils in
hot water, as well as the plates and dishes on which the victuals were
served.

Mr. Wright has cited an instance from the romance of "Doon de
Mayence," where the guards of a castle, on a warm summer evening,
partook of their meal in a field. Refreshment in the open air was
also usual in the hunting season, when a party were at a distance from
home; and the garden arbour was occasionally converted to this kind of
purpose, when it had assumed its more modern phase. But our picnic was
unknown.

ETIQUETTE OF THE TABLE.

Paul Hentzner, who was in England at the end of the reign of
Elizabeth, remarks of the people whom he saw that "they are more
polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat,
which they roast in perfection. They put a good deal of sugar in their
drink."

In his "Court and Country," 1618, Nicholas Breton gives an instructive
account of the strict rules which were drawn up for observance
in great households at that time, and says that the gentlemen who
attended on great lords and ladies had enough to do to carry these
orders out. Not a trencher must be laid or a napkin folded awry; not a
dish misplaced; not a capon carved or a rabbit unlaced contrary to
the usual practice; not a glass filled or a cup uncovered save at the
appointed moment: everybody must stand, speak, and look according to
regulation.

The books of demeanour which have been collected by Mr. Furnivall
for the Early English Text Society have their incidental value as
illustrating the immediate theme, and are curious, from the growth in
consecutive compilations of the code of instructions for behaviour at
table, as evidences of an increasing cultivation both in manners and
the variety of appliances for domestic use, including relays of knives
for the successive courses. Distinctions were gradually drawn between
genteel and vulgar or coarse ways of eating, and facilities were
provided for keeping the food from direct contact with the fingers,
and other primitive offences against decorum. Many of the precepts in
the late fifteenth century "Babies' Book," while they demonstrate the
necessity for admonition, speak also to an advance in politeness
and delicacy at table. There must be a