were made the repository of
the refuse of the table. Perfumes were consequently much used, and we
are not surprised to find "a casting bottel, dooble gilte, for
rose-water," in the effects of a Viceroy of the sixteenth century. Such
things were more matters of necessity than of luxury at even a later
period. Meat and pudding were the staple diet of the upper classes in
1698. Wright[536] gives a long and amusing extract from a work published
by a foreigner who had been much in England at this period, and who
appears to have marvelled equally at the amount of solid meat consumed,
the love of pudding, and the neglect of fruit at dessert.

We are able, fortunately, to give a description of the fare used during
the same period in Ireland, at least by the upper classes, who could
afford to procure it. Captain Bodley, a younger brother of the founder
of the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford, has left an account of a
journey into Lecale, in Ulster, in 1603, and of the proceedings of his
companions-in-arms, and the entertainment they met with. His "tour" is
full of that gossiping, chatty, general information, which gives an
admirable idea of the state of society. This is his description of a
dinner: "There was a large and beautiful collar of brawn, with its
accompaniments, to wit, mustard and Muscatel wine; there were
well-stuffed geese (such as the Lord Bishop is wont to eat at
Ardbraccan), the legs of which Captain Caulfield always laid hold of for
himself; there were pies of venison and various kinds of game; pasties
also, some of marrow, with innumerable plums; others of it with
coagulated milk, such as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London almost
always have at their feasts; others, which they call tarts, of divers
shapes, materials, and colours, made of beef, mutton, and veal." Then he
relates the amusements. After dinner they rode, and in the evening they
played cards, and had, "amongst other things, that Indian tobacco of
which I shall never be able to make sufficient mention." Later in the
evening "maskers" came to entertain them; and on one occasion, their
host gave them up his own "good and soft bed, and threw himself upon a
pallet in the same chamber."[537]

The large stand-bed, or four-post, was then coming into use, and was,
probably, the "good and soft bed" which the host resigned to the use of
the officers, and which, if we may judge by the illustration of this
piece of furniture, would conveniently hold a cons