fondness for scenes of horror and blood, which has made descriptions of battles, whether in poetry or history, so generally attractive. He who can read these without interest, differs, I am inclined to think, from the mass of mankind rather for the worse than for the better; he rather wants some noble qualities which other men have, than possesses some which other men want. 3. But still we have another life besides that of outward action; and it is this inward life, after all, which determines the character of the actions and of the man. And how eagerly do we desire in those great men, whose actions fill so large a space in history, to know not only what they did, but what they were; how much do we prize their letters or their recorded words, and not least such words as are uttered in their most private moments, which enable us to look, as it were, into the very nature of that mind, whose distant effects we know to be so marvellous. 4. But a nation has its inward life no less than an individual, and from this its outward life also is characterised. For what does a nation effect by war, but either the securing of its existence, or the increasing of its power? We honour the heroism shown in accomplishing these objects; but power, nay even existence, are not ultimate ends; the question may be asked of every created being why he should live at all, and no satisfactory answer be given, if his life does not, by doing God's will consciously or unconsciously, tend to God's glory and to the good of his brethren. And if a nation's annals contain the record Ultimate ends, the ends mainly to be sought, of deeds ever so heroic, done in defence of the national freedom or existence, still we may require that the freedom or the life so bravely maintained should be also employed for worthy purposes; or else even such names as Thermopyla become in after years a reproach rather than a glory. 1 ARNOLD'S Lectures on Modern History. By permission of DOMESTIC LIFE. Time of Edward III. 1327-1377. 1. IN the time of Edward III. the dress of the labouring class consisted of a rough pair of shoesfrequently of untanned leather-a pair of galligaskins,2 breeches of leather, and a frock of russetor, or undyed wool, for they were forbidden by law to wear a more costly material. The dress of the middle class was of much the same make, but of finer texture, for it was in this particular that the gradations of rank were statutably 3 marked. The nobles, however, vied with each other in the splendour, costliness, and extravagance of their clothing. 2. Both sexes wore, in Edward III.'s reign, a tight-fitting vest, called a cotte-hardie, from the sleeves of which hung long slips of cloth; and over this, a long flowing mantle, buttoned at the shoulder, of scarlet or some equally brilliant colour, the edges 1 Thermopyle, the name of a pass in the North of Greece where the ancient Greeks defeated the Persians. * Galligaskins, leathern protectors for the legs. 3 Statutably, by statute, i.e. by law. ' dagged (or jagged), and cut in the form of leaves. The cotte-hardie was gorgeously embroidered, and the whole costume was of the most costly and showy materials that could be procured. It is said that feathers were then first worn in hats. They had small hoods tied under the chin, and set with gold, silver, and precious stones; liripipes, or tippets, hung round the neck, and down to the feet, all dagged.' The hose were 'pied,' or parti-coloured; their shoes and pattens were sandalled and pinked more than a finger long, bending upwards; these they called crakowes. They resembled the claws of birds, and were looped up to the knees with chains of gold and silver. Ladies' hair was gathered up and confined in a band of gold thread, and there was as much freedom in the shade and arrangement of the mass as prevails at the present time. The head was, however, in those days enveloped in a kerchief (couvre chef); the neck swathed in a napkin, 3. The great art of the age was architecture. Monasteries and abbeys were no longer built, for the taste of the times had changed: but manors, hospitals, castles, schools, and colleges were then erected which modern architects can only feebly imitate. The manor house, in which the bailiff frequently lived in his lord's absence, may be taken as the typical dwelling of the period, for the feudal castle differed from it only in a multiplication of the same simple arrangement of elements. It consisted of a central building, with an enclosure surrounded by a ditch and palings. The building itself contained a large hall running up to the open tiling of the roof, in which the family and servants ate their meals and lived during the day, and the latter slept by nighteither on the rush-strewn floor, or on benches round the walls, the garments of the day serving for the coverlet at night. A door at one end of the hall opened into the chamber, or sleeping-room, of the females of the family, and another door, at the other end, into the stable. In smaller houses of this class, cooking, like all other domestic processes, went on in the hall; but in those of more pretension a kitchen. took the place of the stable, and a soler, or upper chamber, was built over the sleeping apartment, approached most commonly by an external staircase; and towards the end of the eleventh century, a parloir (or parlour), so called from being the room for 'interviews,' was added. 4. The hall was the room of the house, and in addition to the uses already described, it was the place in which small offences were tried and justice administered. The manor court, presided over by the seneschal or steward in the absence of the lord, was not unlike the local magistracy of our day. These courts exercised police powers in cases of trespass, evasion of duty, false weights, and breaches of the peace; but many of them possessed what was known as the high jurisdiction, the right of fossa and furca—that is, of hanging male and drowning female criminals. The door of the hall generally stood open, in token of hospitality; but it was a breach of good manners for a passer-by to look in. The hall had no chimneys, and the smoke found its way out as it could; nor was this so difficult as it might seem, for the roof 'Parloir, cf. French parler, to talk. was very imperfectly fitted, and the openings through which light was admitted were either unprotected, or filled up with a cross-barred grating by day, and a curtain or shutter by night. Glass for windows was unknown, except in the palaces of kings-and rarely found even in these. 5. The furniture was of the simplest kind; the seats were either slabs in recesses of the wall, or boards laid upon trestles. The table, at which in the humbler manors the whole household took their meals together, was constructed in the same manner, and removed when not wanted. In the houses of a higher class there was generally a daïs, or slightly raised platform, at the upper end, on which stood a permanent-or 'dormant' table-for the use of the family and honoured guests. Two or more perches, or wooden frames, were fixed to the wall, and on one of them sat the domestic birds, hawks, falcons, &c. ;' and on the other were suspended articles of clothing of various kinds, and frequently armour. Another common article of furniture was the dresser, a series of shelves for exhibiting the plate at banquets, frequently so high as to require steps to be provided to enable the servants to reach the upper shelves. 6. Our ancestors of the fourteenth century kept early hours. It was the custom to rise with the sun; and we read of a party who are ridiculed as having overslept themselves when found in bed at six. The usual dinner-hour was nine in the morning. The family were summoned to it by the blowing of horns; and the first step, after assembling in the hall for meals, was washing the hands, for which purpose each guest was served with a basin, ewer, |