The prices of things in the time of Charles the Second, may be found interesting. In considering them, remember, as stated above, that the general purchasing power of money was then four times that of the present time. A leg of mutton generally costs two-and-sixpence; a shoulder, two shillings; a hand of pork, eighteenpence; "a cheese"--they had one every week, but it is not stated how much it weighed--varies from one-and-twopence to one-and-eightpence. Butter is eight or nine pence a pound; they used about a pound a week. Sugar is sixpence a pound. They bought their flour by sixpennyworths, and their coals in small quantities for eighteenpence each week during the winter, so that their fires must have been principally kept going with wood. Once a month the washer-woman is called in, and sheets are washed; therefore, the washing was all done at home. Raisins and currants at twopence a pound, eggs, nutmegs, ginger, mace, rice, suet, etc., proclaim the pudding. It was made in fifty different ways, but the ingredients were always the same, and in this family they evidently had pudding every day. Cakes, also, they had, and pies, both fruit pies and meat pies, and open tarts. These were all sent to the bake-house to be baked at one penny each, so that the kitchen contained no oven. Candles were fivepence a pound, but the entries of candles are so irregular that one suspects the accounts to be imperfect. Herrings were bought nearly every week, and sometimes ling--"a pole of ling." Bacon was sevenpence a pound. Rice was also sevenpence a pound. Oranges came in about December; cherries in their season were twopence a pound; gooseberries, fourpence, sold, I suppose, by the measure; pease, sixpence a peck; beans, fourpence a quart; asparagus ("sparragrasse") was in April excessively dear--we find them giving six shillings and twopence, a most extravagant expenditure for a single dish; two weeks later it has gone down to eighteenpence for two hundred. But how could so careful a housewife spend six and twopence on a single dish? A "sallet"--that is, a lettuce--is one penny. Once in six weeks or so we find mention of "earbs"--that is, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc.--for twopence. "Cowcumbers" are a penny apiece, and a favorite vegetable. Radishes, carrots, turnips, French beans are also bought. In the spring cream-cheese appears. Sweet brier is bought every year, one knows not for what, and roses by the bushel, evidently for rose-water. This is the only allusion to the still-room, which undoubtedly formed part of the ménage. Nothing is said of preserved fruits, home-made wines, distilled waters, or pickles, which then formed a great part of house-keeping. They pickled everything: walnuts, gherkins, asparagus, peaches, cauliflowers, plums, nectarines, onions, lemons, barberries, mushrooms, nasturtium buds, lime-tree buds, oysters, samphire, elder roots. They distilled rose-buds and rose-leaves, lavender, walnut-water, and cherry-water.