Early in the fourteenth century one Thomas Blaket, or Blanket, of Bristol, introduced the woollen fabric which still goes by his name. The word _worsted_ comes from the village so named, near Norwich, where that kind of stuff began to be extensively manufactured for wall-hangings in the fourteenth century. A still richer fabric similarly used, called _baudekin_, a kind of brocade, is said to have derived its name from Baldacus, in Babylon, whence, says Blount, it was originally brought. Few objects of antiquarian curiosity acquired more notoriety than a bedstead or bed, of unusually large dimensions, preserved at Ware, twenty miles from London, on the road to Cambridge. Shakspeare employs it as an object of comparison in his play of _Twelfth Night_, bearing date 1614, where Sir Toby Belch says: "As many lies as will lie in this sheet of paper, though the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England." (Act iii. sc. 2.) Nares, in his _Glossary_, says: "This curious piece of furniture is said to be still in being, and visible at the Crown or at the Bull in Ware. It is reported to be twelve feet square, and to be capable of holding twenty or twenty-four persons." And he refers to Chauncey's _Hertfordshire_ for an account of the bed receiving at once twelve men and their wives, who lay at the top and bottom in this mode of arrangement,--first two men, then two women, and so on alternately,--so that no man was near to any woman but his wife. Clutterbuck, in his History, places the great bed at the Saracen's Head Inn, where a large bedstead is preserved. It is twelve feet square, of carved oak, and has the date 1463 painted on the back; but the style of the carving is Elizabethan--a century later, at least. It was _traditionally_ sold among other movables which belonged to Warwick, the King-maker, at Ware Park, to suit which story the date is thought to have been painted. Again, it is placed at three inns--the Crown, the Bull, and Saracen's Head, at Ware, each of which may have had its "great bed." Formerly, wealthy persons travelled with their bed in their carriage. Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, was, probably, the last person who so travelled, in England, some forty years since, when the writer's informant saw the unpacking of the bed, at the inn-door, at Salt Hill.