trees, plants, or insects, mathematical observations, measuring land; "nay, the more cleanly exercise of smithery, watchmaking, carpentry, joinery work of all kinds."

A marking feature of the system of manners at this period was the extreme disparity in station and fortune between the eldest son and all the other children of a gentleman's family. The unfortunate condition of a "younger brother" is thus vividly depicted by bishop Earle in his Microcosmography.

"His father.... tasks him to be a gentleman, and leaves him nothing to maintain it. The pride of his house has undone him, which the elder's knighthood must sustain, and his beggary that knighthood. His birth and bringing up will not suffer him to descend to the means to get wealth; but he stands at the mercy of the world and, which is worse, of his brother. He is something better than the servingmen; yet they more saucy with him than he bold with the master, who beholds him with a countenance of stern awe, and checks him oftener than his liveries..... If his annuity stretch so far, he is sent to the university, and with great heart-burning takes upon him the ministry, as a profession he is condemned to by his ill-fortune. Others take a more crooked path, though the king's highway; where at length their vizard is plucked off, and they strike fair for Tyburn; but their brother's pride, not love, gets them a pardon. His last refuge is the Low-countries, where rags and lice are no scandal, where he lives a poor gentleman of a company, and

dies without a shirt. The only thing that may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some rich widow, that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, That churl my brother!"

A tract published in 1636, called "The Art of Thriving,” under the form of a dialogue with a Northamptonshire gentleman, furnishes some curious hints of the modes of educating and placing out the portionless sons and daughters of good families. In the first place, the young heir, whilst he is still in his father's power, and tractable to his will, is to be disposed of in marriage "at the highest rate,” and the fortune of his wife shared amongst the younger children for their advancement in life. The other sons, according to their abilities or inclinations, are to become divines, lawyers, physicians, "sea or land soldiers," courtiers, mechanics or tradesmen, navigators or husbandmen, and particular directions are added for the course to be pursued, and the patronage to be sought in every line, with intimations of the kind of presents, or

bribes," to be offered to fit persons on proper occasions. A vein of low cunning not unmixed with humor, runs through the whole. The young divine in search of a benefice is to inquire "where the mattins are read with spectacles, or where the good man is lifted up into the pulpit." If he stands for a city living, and preaches a probationary ser

mon, he is to give the leading citizens "the style of right worshipful, though the best man of the company be but a wine-cooper, and his judgement better in claret than in concioclerum a great deal." Of the common lawyer he says, that if he be "sufficiently able in his profession, he shall want no practice, if no practice no profit." With allusion no doubt, to the sway of the Villiers family, he adds; "The time was that the younger counsel had some such help as to be a favorite, a kindred; to marry a niece, cousin, or chambermaid. But those days be past, and better supply their rooms."

"Physic," he says, "with us is a profession can maintain but a few; and divers of those more indebted to opinion than learning, and (for the most part) better qualified in discoursing of their travels than in discerning their patients' maladies. For it is grown to be a very huswife's trade, where fortune prevails more than skill."

"If a land soldier think to thrive and rise, by degrees of service, from a common soldier to a captain in this age, alas, he is much deceived." He goes on to recommend the Low-countries as the best school of the art military, and mentions that the sale of commissions is there neither illegal nor "markable."

Respecting the daughters, our author says, "I would have their breeding like the Dutch woman's cloathing, tending to profit only and comeliness. And though she never have a dancing-schoolmaster, a French tutor nor a Scotch taylor ... it makes no

Let

matter. For working in curious Italian purles, or French borders, it is not worth the while. them learn plain works of all kind. . . . . . Instead of song and music, let them learn cookery and laundry, and instead of reading sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, let them read the grounds of good huswifery. I like not a female poëtresse at any hand.

"If the mother of them be a good huswife and religiously disposed, let her have the bringing up of one of them. Place the other two forth betimes.

The one in the house of some good merchant or citizen of civil and religious government; the other in the house of some lawyer, some judge, or well-reported justice, or gentleman of the country.

.... •

In any of these she may learn what belongs to her improvement, for sempstry, confectionary, and all requisites of huswifery. She shall be sure to be restrained from all rank and unfitting liberty. A merchant's factor, or a citizen's servant of the better sort, cannot disparage your daughters with their society. And the judges', lawyers', and justices' followers, are not ordinary serving men, but of good breed, and their educations for the most part clerkly...... Your daughter at home will make a good wife for some yeoman's eldest son, whose father will be glad to crown his sweating frugality with alliance to such a house of gentry.

For your daughter at the merchant's and her sister, if they can carry it wittily, the city affords them variety. The young factor being fancy-caught in his days of innocence, and before he travel so far

into experience as into foreign countries, may lay such a foundation of first love in her bosom as no alteration of climate can alter. So likewise may Thomas, the foreman of the shop, .... be entangled and belimed with the like springes.... With a little patience your [other] daughter may light upon some counsellor at law, who may be willing to take the young wench, in hope of favor with the old judge. An attorney will be glad to give all his profit of a Michaelmas term but to woo her through a crevice. And the parson of the parish, being her lady's chaplain, will forswear eating of the pig for a whole year for such a parcel of gleb land at all times."a

The progress of society was fast leaving behind the manners and institutions of the feudal ages. Ben Jonson in one of his masques, had poetically represented the Genius of Chivalry as starting from a lethargic slumber at the name of prince Henry; but the revival was transient, and he may be said to have closed his eyes for ever on the tomb of that lamented youth. The lance, nearly disused in actual warfare, was couched no longer in the listed field, henceforth tilts and tournaments were seen no more. That it is to a more general cause than the personal character of king James, whose aversion to war and duelling might be thought likely to extend to the games which were their image, that this cessation is to be ascribed, appears from the fact of their abolition nearly at the same time in France,

a Somers's Tracts, vii. 187, et seq.