In our last cut (No. 236) it will be seen that the “nappe” is duly laid, and upon it are seen the salt-cellar, the bread (round cakes), and the cups for wine. Knives are wanting, and the plates seldom appear on the table in these dinner scenes of the fifteenth century, any more than in the previous period. This, no doubt, arose from the common practice at that time, of people carrying their own knives with them in a sheath attached to the girdle. We find, moreover, few knives enumerated in our inventories of household goods and chattels. In the English metrical “Stans Puer ad Mensam,” or rules for behaviour at table, written by Lydgate, the guest is told to “bring no knyves unskoured to the table,” which can only mean that he is to keep his own knife that he carries with him clean. The two servants are here duly equipped for duty, with the towel thrown over the shoulder. The table appears to be placed on two board-shaped trestles, but the artist has forgotten to indicate the seats. But in our next cut (No. 237), a very private party, taken from a manuscript of the early French translation of the Decameron (in the National Library at Paris, No. 6887), are placed in a seat with a back to it, although the table is still evidently a board placed upon trestles. It may be remarked that in dinner scenes of this century, the gentlemen at table are almost always represented with their hats on their heads. [Illustration: _No. 236. A Dinner Scene at Court._] [Illustration: _No. 237. A Private Dinner._] As we have already hinted, the inventories of this period give us curious information on the furniture of houses of different descriptions. We learn from one of these, made in 1446, that there were at that time belonging to the hall of the priory of Durham, one dorsal or dorser, embroidered with the birds of St. Cuthbert and the arms of the church, five pieces of red cloth (three embroidered and two plain), no doubt for the same purpose of throwing over the seats; six cushions; three basins of brass; and three washing-basins. A gentleman at Northallerton, in Yorkshire, who made his will in 1444, had in his hall, thirteen jugs or pots of brass, four basins, and two ewers (of course, for washing the hands), three candlesticks, five (metal) dishes, three kettles, nine vessels of lead and pewter, “utensils of iron belonging to the hall,” valued at two shillings--probably the fire-irons, one dorser and one banker. An inventory of a gentleman’s goods in the year 1463, apparently in the southern part of England (printed in the “New Retrospective Review”), gives, as the contents of the hall,--a standing spear, a hanging of stained work, a mappa-mundi (a map of the world) of parchment--a curious article for the hall, a side-table, one “dormond” table (a permanent table), a beam with six candlesticks.