horns, startling red deer and wild boars from their coverts in the brushwood. Away after the dogs, maddened by a fresh scent, goes the gallant hunt-past swine-herds with their goads, driving vast herds of pigs into the dales, where beech-mast2 and acorns lie thick upon the ground-past wood-cutters, hewing fuel for the castle fire, or munching their scanty meal of oaten bread about noon; nor is bridle drawn until the game, antlered or tusked, has rushed into the strong nets spread by attendants at some pass among the trees.

Hawking long held the place of our modern shooting. Even the grave and business-like Alfred devoted his pen to this enticing subject. And we can well understand the high spirits and merry talk of a hawking party, cantering over rustling leaves, all white and crisp with an October frost, on their way to the reedy mere, where they made sure of abundant game. On each rider's wrist sat a hooded falcon, caught young, perhaps in a dark pine-wood of Norway, and carefully trained by the falconer, who was no unimportant official in an Old English establishment.

Arrived at the water, the party broke into sets; and as the blue heron rose on his heavy wing, or a noisy splashing flight of ducks sprang from their watery rest, the hood was removed, and the game shown to the sharp-eyed bird, which, soaring loose into the air from the up-flung wrist, cleft his way in pursuit with rapid pinion, rose above the doomed 'quarry, and descending with a sudden swoop, struck fatal talons and yet more fatal beak into its back and head, and bore it dead to the ground. A sharp gallop over the broken surface had meantime brought the sportsman up in time to save the game, and restore the redbeaked victor to his hood and perch.

But hunting and hawking were the pastimes of the rich. While fat deer fell under the hunter's dart, and blue feathers strewed the banks of lake and river, the smith3 hammered red iron on his ringing anvil-the carpenter cut planks for the mead-bench or the bower-wall, or shaped cart-wheels and plough-handles for the labours of the farm-the shoemaker, who also tanned leather and fashioned harness, plied his busy knife and needle-the furrier prepared skins for the lining of stately robes and in every cloister monks, deep in the mysteries of the furnace, the graving-tool, the paint-brush, and a score of similar instruments, manufactured the best bells, crucifixes, jewelry, and stained glass then to be found in the land.

The Old English farmers were rather graziers than tillers of the

soil. Sheep for their wool, swine for their flesh, kine for their beef and hides, dotted the pastures and grubbed in the forests near every steading. But there was agriculture too. A picture of an Old English farm-house would present, though of course in ruder form, many features of its modern English successor. Amid fields, often bought for four sheep an acre, and scantily manured with marl after the old British fashion, stood a 'timbered house, flanked by a farm-yard full of ox-stalls and stocked with geese and fowl. A few bee-hives-the islands of the sugar-cane not being yet discovered-suggested a mead-cask always well filled, and a good supply of sweetmeats for the board; while an orchard, thick with laden boughs, supplied pears and apples, nuts and almonds, and in some districts figs and grapes.

From the illustrations of an Old English manuscript we know something of the year's farm-work. January saw the wheel of the iron plough drawn down the brown furrows by its four oxen, harnessed with twisted willow ropes or thongs of thick whale-skin. They dug their vineyards in February, their gardens in March. In April, when seed-time was past, they took their ease over horns of ale. May prepared for the shearing of the wool. June saw the sickles in the wheat; July heard the axe among the trees. In August barley was mown with scythes. In September and October hounds and hawks 'engrossed every day of good weather. Round November fires farming implements were mended or renewed; and the whirling flail, beating the grain from its husk, beat also December chills from the swiftly-running blood. We find in the threshing scene a steward, who stands keeping count, by notches on a stick, of the full baskets of winnowed grain which are pouring into the

granary. Ships came from the Continent to Old England, laden with furs and silks, gems and gold, rich dresses, wine, oil, and ivory; bearing back, most probably, blood-horses, wool for the looms of Flanders, and in earlier times English slaves for the markets of Aix-la-Chapelle and Rome. The backward condition of trade may be judged from a law which enacted that no bargain should be made except in open court, in presence of the sheriff, the mass-priest, or the lord of the manor.

Merchants, travelling in bands for safety, and carrying their own tents, passed round the different country towns at certain times, when holiday was kept and village sports filled the green with noisy mirth. The wives and daughters of Old English cottages loved bright ribbons and showy trinkets, after the fashion of their sex. So while Gurth was wrestling on the

grass, or grinning at the 'antics of the dancing bear, Githa was investing her long-hoarded silver pennies in some strings of coloured beads or an ivory comb.

Close to the merchant or pedler (if we give him the name which best expresses to modern ears the habit of his life) stood an attendant with a pair of scales, ready to weigh the money in case of any considerable sale. Slaves and cattle formed, in early times in England, a common medium of exchange. Whenever gold shone in the merchant's sack, it was chiefly the Byzan'tine gold solidus, shortly called Byzant', worth something more than nine of our shillings. Silver Byzants, worth two shillings, also passed current; and in earlier times Roman money, stamped with the heads of emperors, found its way into English purses.

7

By the English in olden times a journey was never undertaken for mere pleasure, for many perils beset the way. The rich went short journeys in heavy waggons, longer journeys on horseback -the ladies riding on side-saddles as at present. But most travelling was performed afoot. Horsemen carried spears, for defence against robbers or wild beasts; pedestrians held a stout oak staff, which did double work in aiding and in defending the traveller. The stirrup was of an odd triangular shape, the spur a simple spike. A cover wrapped the head, and a mantle the body, of the traveller. That they sometimes carried umbrellas we know; but these were probably very rare, being confined, like gloves, to the very highest class.

9

There

Ale-houses, in which too much time was spent, abounded in the towns; but in country districts inns were scarce. were indeed places, like an Eastern caravansary, where travellers, carrying their own provisions, found a refuge from wind and rain by night within bare stone walls; the patched-up ruins, perhaps, of an old Roman villa or barrack, which afforded a cheerless shelter to the weary, dripping band. But the hospitality of the Old English folk, 'implanted both by custom and by law-not after the narrow modern fashion of entertaining friends, who give parties in return, but the welcoming to bed and board of all comers, known and unknown-caused the lack of inns to be scarcely felt, except in the wilder districts of the land.

No sooner did a stranger show his face at the iron-banded door of an Old English dwelling than water was brought to wash his hands and feet; and when he had 'deposited his arms with the keeper of the door, he took his place at the board among the family and friends of the host. For two nights no question pried into his business or his name; after that time the

host became responsible for his character. There were few solitary wayfarers; for the very fact of being alone 'excited suspicion, and exposed the traveller to the risk of being 'arrested, or perhaps slain, as a thief.

3 The smith.-There were two kinds of smiths;-the armourer, who was well paid, and held a high social place; and the mere blacksmith, who did the coarser work.

'Mead-bench, the bench on which they sat to drink mead, a kind of sweet wine

The islands, the West Indies.

June, July. It is thought that the artist has here transposed June and July by mistake.

Byzant', a gold coin; so called from its having been made at Byzantium, afterwards Constantinople.

'Anglo-Saxon.-By the Anglo-Saxons and other forest trees, is called in Old Engwe are to understand our Old-English fore-lish mast. fathers. They, however, called themselves Englishmen; never Anglo-Saxons. That name is convenient enough to distinguish the earliest from later English; but in so far as it countenances the theory that the English speech and nation are the result of a combination of Anglo-Saxon and Nor-made of honey and water. man elements, and different from both, it is wrong. The history of the language, which is the true test of nationality, can be traced in an unbroken line from the sixth and seventh centuries to the present day. The term Anglo-Saxon is liable to another objection. It is often supposed to mean English Saxon as distinguished Inns.-Inn is an Old English word, from Continental Saxon; but in truth it meaning "lodging." Other names for it were only means Angles and Saxons in com- gest-hus; that is, "guest-house:" and cu bination. Anglian or Old English for the mena-has; that is, the "house of comers. speech and people, and Old England for Caravansary, a large square building the country, are, perhaps, less objection-with a spacious court in the centre, where able terms. caravans, or companies of travellers, are 'Beech-mast. The fruit of beech, oak, accommodated for the night. QUESTIONS. Of what did beds in Old England consist? How were the men dressed? How were the women? What was the busiest part of the day in Old England? In what did the ladies occupy themselves? In what sports did the rich take part? What held the place of modern shooting? What handicrafts did the workingmen follow? What were the farmers chiefly? Whence do we know something of the year's farm work? How did the steward keep count of the quantity of grain? What did ships bring from the Continent? What did they bear back? How did merchants travel? What formed common mediums of exchange? What were the means of travelling? Where did companies of travellers spend the night? What supplied the lack of inns?

LIFE IN SAXON ENGLAND.

PART II.

THE 'central picture in Old English life-the great event of the day was Noon-meat, or dinner in the great hall. A little before three, the chief and all his household, with any stray guests who might have dropped in, met in the hall, which stood in the centre of its encircling bowers-the principal apartment of every Old English house. Clouds of wood-smoke, rolling up from a fire which blazed in the middle of the floor, blackened the carved and gilded rafters of the arched roof before it found its way out of the hole above, which did duty as a chimney.

Tapestries of purple dye, or glowing with variegated pictures of saints and heroes, hung, or, if the day was stormy, flapped upon the chinky walls. In palaces and in carls' mansions coloured tiles, wrought like Roman tessera1 into a mosaic, formed a clean and pretty pavement; but the common flooring of the time was of clay, baked dry with the heat of winter evenings and summer noons. The only articles of furniture always in the hall were wooden benches; some of which, especially the high settle or seat of the chieftain, boasted cushions, or at least a rug.

While the hungry crowd, fresh from woodland and furrow, were lounging near the fire or hanging up their weapons on the pegs and hooks that jutted from the wall, a number of slaves, dragging in a long, flat, heavy board, placed it on movable legs, and spread on its upper half a handsome cloth. Then were 'arranged with other utensils for the meal some flattish dishes, baskets of ash-wood for holding bread, a scanty sprinkling of steel knives shaped like our modern razors, platters of wood, and bowls for the universal broth.

The ceremony of "laying the board," as the Old English phrased it, being completed, the work of demolition began. Great round cakes of bread-huge junks of boiled bacon-vast rolls of broiled eel-cups of milk-horns of ale-wedges of cheese -lumps of salt butter-and smoking piles of cabbages and beans, melted like magic from the board under the united attack of greasy fingers and grinding jaws. Kneeling slaves offered to the lord and his honoured guests long skewers or spits, on which steaks of beef or venison smoked and sputtered, ready for the hacking blade.

Poultry, too, and

game of every variety, filled the spaces of the