The parlour seems to have been ornamented with more care, and to have been better furnished than the hall. This apartment appears to have been placed sometimes on the ground floor, and sometimes on the floor above, and large houses had usually two or three parlours. It had often windows in recesses, with fixed seats on each side; and the fireplace was smaller and more comfortable than that of the hall. As carpets came into more general use, the parlour was one of the first rooms to receive this luxury. In the inventory I have already quoted from the “New Retrospective Review,” the following articles of furniture are described as being in the parlour-- _A hanging of worsted, red and green._ _A cupboard of ash-boards._ _A table, and a pair of trestles._ _A branch of latten, with four lights._ _A pair of andirons._ _A pair of tongs._ _A form to sit upon._ _And a chair._ This will give us a very good idea of what was the usual furniture of the parlour in the fifteenth century. The only movable seats are a single bench, and one chair--perhaps a seat with a back like that shown above. The table was even here formed by laying a board upon trestles. The cupboard was peculiar to this part of the house; many of my readers will probably remember the parlour cupboards in our old country houses, the branched candlestick of metal, suspended from the ceiling, and the tongs and andirons for the fire. The principal articles of furniture in the parlour are all exhibited in illuminations in manuscripts of the same period. The “hanging of worsted” was, of course, a piece of tapestry for the wall, or for some part of the wall, for the room was in many, perhaps in most, cases, only partially covered. Sometimes, indeed, it appears only to have been hung up on occasions, perhaps for company, when it seems to have been placed behind the chief seat.[50] The wall itself was frequently adorned with paintings, in common houses rude and merely ornamental, while in others of a better class they represented histories, scenes from romances, and religious subjects, much like those exhibited on the tapestries themselves. In the cut annexed (No. 242), taken from a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the romance of “Lancelot,” in the National Library at Paris, No. 6784, we have a representation of a parlour with wall paintings of this kind. Morgan le Fay is showing king Arthur the adventures of Lancelot, which she had caused to be painted in a room in her palace. Paintings of this kind are very often alluded to in the old writers, especially in the poets, as every one knows who has read the “Romance of the Rose,” the works of Chaucer, or that singular and curious poem, the “Pastyme of Pleasure,” by Stephen Hawes. Chaucer, in his “Dream,” speaks of-- _A chamber paint_ _Full of stories old and divers,_ _More than I can as now reherse._