There was a very remarkable amount of building done in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Plenty of money was available, much of it acquired from the lands of the dissolved monasteries; the country was at peace, and the strong rule of Elizabeth gradually produced a state of prosperity hitherto unknown. Defensive precautions, save such as seemed necessary against vagrants, were abandoned in all kinds of houses. The outer courts, the inner courts, and the gatehouses, which formerly were built for the sake of security, were now retained chiefly for the sake of appearance, and because they added to the privacy of the house. The porter at the gate exercised a certain amount of control over those who wished to enter, and on occasion he closed his gates against the populace, although sometimes without complete success, as we learn from a scene in Shakespeare's play of "Henry VIII.," where the people, in their anxiety to see something of the christening of the infant Princess Elizabeth, managed to crowd in, in spite of "as much as one sound cudgel of four foot could distribute" at the hands of the porter's man. Everyone who could afford it seems to have built in the time of Elizabeth and James. The great nobles erected vast palaces like Theobalds and Holdenby, like Audley End, and Knole and Buckhurst. Men of smaller wealth built mansions like Kirby and Montacute, Wollaton and Blickling. Squires built their manor houses in the villages, merchants their homes in the towns, not infrequently, indeed, leaving the city for some neighbouring parish, and there ending their days as lords of the manor. When the condition of an existing house did not warrant its actual removal, additions in the new style were made; something had to be done to keep in the fashion. Throughout the length and breadth of the land the same activity was displayed. From Yorkshire and Westmorland in the north, to Cornwall and Kent in the south; from Shropshire in the west to Suffolk in the east, we find work of this period scattered up and down the country in mansion, manor house, cottage and church. A good deal of building was done in Henry VIII.'s time, but vastly more in Elizabeth's. The examples left to us of the former period are few compared with those of the latter; but in both cases it must be remembered that the old gave way to the new. The builders of Elizabeth's days removed the work of their grandfathers to make room for their own, only to have this in its turn replaced in the times of Anne and the Georges. Many as are the houses of the sixteenth century which remain, we know that many others, of equal interest and beauty, have been pulled down. LAY-OUT.