claim for my book at least the merit of being the result of original research. It is not a compilation from writers who have written on the subject before. There are at least two ways of arranging a work like this. I might have taken each particular division of the subject, one after the other, and traced it separately through the period of history which this volume embraces; or the whole subject might be divided into historical periods, in each of which all the different phases of social history for that period are included. Each of these plans has its advantages and defects. In the first, the reader would perhaps obtain a clearer notion of the history of any particular division of the subject, as of the history of the table and of diet, or of games and amusements, or the like, but at the same time it would have required a certain effort of comparison and study to arrive at a clear view of the general question at a particular period. The second furnishes this general view, but entails a certain amount of what might almost be called repetition. I have chosen the latter plan, because I think this repetition will be found to be only apparent, and it seems to me the best arrangement for a popular book. The division of periods, too, is, on the whole, natural, and not arbitrary. During the Anglo-Saxon period, the social system, however developed or modified from time to time, was strictly that of our own Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and was the undoubted groundwork of our own. The Norman conquest brought in foreign social manners and sentiments totally different from those of the Anglo-Saxons, which for a time predominated, but became gradually incorporated with the Anglo-Saxon manners and spirit, until, towards the end of the twelfth century, they formed the English of the middle ages. The Anglo-Norman period, therefore, may be considered as an age of transition--it may perhaps be described as that of the struggle between the spirit of Anglo-Saxon society and feudalism. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be considered in regard to society as the English middle ages--the age of feudalism in its English form--and therefore hold properly the largest space in this volume. The fifteenth century forms again a distinct period in the history of society--it was that of the decline and breaking up of feudalism, the close of the middle ages. At the Reformation, we come to a new transition period--the transition from mediæval to modern society. This, for several reasons, I regard rather as a conclusion, than as an integral part, of the history contained in the following pages, and I therefore give only a light sketch of it, noticing some of its prominent characteristics. The materials, at this late period, become so extensive, and so full of interest, that its history admits of several divisions, each of which is sufficient for an important book, and I leave them to future researches. One period,