e room for the dancers. Old Capulet's hall was prepared
thus:

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

The head of the table, where the principal person sat, was called the
"board-end;" and as one long table was now used instead of several
smaller ones, the guests of higher and lower degree were divided by the
massive saltcellar, placed in the centre of the table. Thus, in Ben
Jonson, it is said of a man who treats his inferiors with scorn, "He
never drinks below the salt." The waiters, after settling the cloth,
placed the spoons, knives, forks, bread, and napkins beside the
trenchers. The butler served out the drink from the cupboard, the origin
of our modern sideboard. The "cobbord," erroneously supposed to have
been like our modern cupboard, is specially mentioned amongst Lord
Grey's effects. Lord Fairfax, in his directions to his servants, written
about the middle of the seventeenth century, says: "No man must fill
beer or wine the cupboard keeper," and he should know which of his "cups
for beer and which for wine, for it were a foul thing to mix them
together." There was another reason, however, for this arrangement--much
"idle tippling" was cut off thereby; for as the draught of beer or wine
had to be asked for when it was needed, demand was not likely to be so
quick as if it were always at hand. There were also cups of "assaye,"
from which the cupbearer was obliged to drink before his master, to
prove that there was no poison in the liquor which he used. The cupboard
was covered with a carpet, of which Lord Grey had two. These carpets, or
tablecovers, were more or less costly, according to the rank and state
of the owner. His Lordship had also "two chares, two fformes, and two
stooles." Chairs were decidedly a luxury at that day. Although the name
is of Anglo-Norman origin, they did not come into general use until a
late period; and it was considered a mark of disrespect to superiors,
for young persons to sit in their presence on anything but hard benches
or stools. The Anglo-Saxons called their seats _sett_ and _stol_, a name
which we still preserve in the modern stool. The hall was ornamented
with rich hangings, and there was generally a _traves_, which could be
used as a curtain or screen to form a temporary partition. The floor was
strewn with rushes, which were not removed quite so frequently as would
have been desirable, considering that they