“holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, passing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors.” (_Cavendish_, p. 43.) On the dirt in English houses and streets we may take the testimony of a witness who liked England, and lived in it, and who was not likely to misrepresent its condition,--Erasmus. In a letter to Francis, the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, says Jortin, “Erasmus ascribes the plague (from which England was hardly ever free) and the sweating-sickness, partly to the incommodious form and bad exposition of the houses, to the filthiness of the streets, and to the sluttishness within doors. The floors, says he, are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease (?), fragments, bones, spittle, excrements [t.i. urine] of dogs and cats [t.i. men,] and every thing that is nasty, &c.” (_Life of Erasmus_, i. 69, ed. 1808, referred to in Ellis, i. 328, note.) The great scholar’s own words are, Tum sola fere sunt argilla, tum scirpis palustribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas. Hinc mutato cœlo vapor quidam exhalatur, mea sententia minime salubris humano corpori. After speaking also _De salsamentis_ (rendered ‘_salt meat_, beef, pork, &c.,’ by Jortin, but which _Liber Cure Cocorum_ authorises us in translating ‘Sauces’[85]), _quibus vulgus mirum in modum delectatur_, he says the English would be more healthy if their windows were made so as to shut out noxious winds, and then continues, “Conferret huc, si vulgo parcior victus persuaderi posset, ac salsamentorum moderatior usus. Tum si publica cura demandaretur Ædilibus, ut viæ mundiores essent a cœno, mictuque: Curarentur et ea quæ civitati vicina sint. _Jortin’s Life of Erasmus_, ed. 1808, iii. 44 (Ep. 432, C. 1815), No. VIII. Erasmus Rot. Francisco. Cardinalis Eboracencis Medico, S. If it be objected that I have in the foregoing extracts shown the dark side of the picture, and not the bright one, my answer is that the bright one--of the riches and luxury in England--must be familiar to all our members, students (as I assume) of our early books, that the Treatises in this Volume sufficiently show this bright side, and that to me, as foolometer of the Society, this dark side seemed to need showing. But as _The Chronicle_ of May 11, 1867, in its review of Mr Fox Bourne’s _English Merchants_, seems to think otherwise, I quote its words, p. 155, col. 2.