The history of the plates and dishes displayed in this kitchen would afford an opportunity for a dissertation on the rise and progress of the fine arts in this country, as they present most curious and important specimens of early drawing, painting, and poetry. The old English plate was a square piece of wood, which indeed is not quite obsolete at the present hour. The improvement upon this primitive plate was a circular platter, with a raised edge; but there were also thin, circular, flat plates of beech-wood in use for the dessert or confection, and they were gilt and painted upon one side, and inscribed with pious, or instructive, or amorous mottoes, suited to the taste of the society in which they were produced. Such circular plates are now well known to antiquaries under the name of “roundels,” and were at one time generally supposed by them to have been used as cards for fortune-telling, or playing with at questions and answers. More sober research into their origin and use shows that they were painted and decorated with conventional patterns by nuns, who left blank spaces for the mottoes, to be supplied by the more learned monks; and a set of these roundels generally consisted of twelve. As specimens of the style of these mottoes about the time of Henry VII. or VIII. the following may be taken:— “Wheresoever thou traveleste, Este, Weste, Northe, or Southe, Learne never to looke A geven horsse in the mouthe.” “In friends ther ys flattery, In men lyttell trust, Thoughe fayre they proffer They be offten unjuste.” There are many sets of verses for roundels extant in manuscript, and a few have been printed; indeed, it appears likely that to the love for this species of composition we owe Tusser’s “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” and most of his other admonitory verses.