The ordering of the household was strict. Servants and apprentices were up at six in the summer and at seven in the winter. No one, on any pretence, except that of illness, was to absent himself from morning and evening prayers; there was to be no striking, no profane language. Sunday was clean-shirt day. Dinner was at eleven, supper at six. There was no public or private office which was not provided with a Bible. In the better classes there was a general enthusiasm for learning of all kinds. The ladies, imitating the example of the Queen, practised embroidery, wrote beautifully, played curious instruments, knew how to sing in parts, dressed with as much magnificence as they could afford, danced corantoes and lavoltas as well as the simple hey, and studied languages--Latin, Greek, and Italian. The last was the favorite language. Many collected books. Dr. John Dee had as many as four thousand, of which one thousand were manuscripts. They were arranged on the shelves with the leaves turned outward, not the backs. This was to show the gilding, the gold clasps, and the silken strings. The books were bound with great care and cost; everybody knows the beauty of the type used in the printing. Tournaments were maintained until the end of Elizabeth's reign. But we hear little of them, and it is not likely that they retained much of their old popularity. One Sir Henry Lee entered the tilt-yard every year until age prevented him. They always kept up the sport of tilting at the Quintain in the water. But their favorite amusements were the pageant and the play. The pageant came before the play; and while the latter was performed on a rough scaffold, in an inn-yard, the former was provided with splendid dresses, music, songs, and properties of every kind. There were pageants for the reception of the King when he made a procession into the City; there were court pageants; there were private pageants in great men's houses; there were pageants got up by companies. The reception pageants, for instance, are very well illustrated by that invented for Queen Elizabeth on her visit to the city in the year 1558. It was in January, but I think people felt cold weather less in those days. The Queen came by water, attended by the city barges, which were trimmed with targets and banners of their mysteries, from Westminster to the Tower, where she lay for two days. She then rode through the City, starting at two in the afternoon, when everybody had had dinner. In Fenchurch Street there was a scaffold, where was a band of music, and a child who presented the Queen with a poetical address. At the upper end of Gracechurch Street a noble arch had been erected, with a triple stage. On the lowest stood two children, representing Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York; on the second, two more, for Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn; and on the third, Queen Elizabeth herself. Music and a poetical address. [Illustration: CURIOUS PUMP]