In a paper read before the Royal Society, June 9, 1796, there is an account of a saucepan discovered in the bed of the river Withain, near Tattersall Ferry, in Lincolnshire, in 1788. It was of base metal, and was grooved at the bottom, to allow the contents more readily to come within reach of the fire. The writer of this narrative, which is printed in the "Philosophical Transactions," considered that the vessel might be of Roman workman-ship; as he states that on the handle was stamped a name, C. ARAT., which he interprets _Caius Aratus_. "It appears," he adds, "to have been tinned; but almost all the coating had been worn off.... The art of tinning copper was understood and practised by the Romans, although it is commonly supposed to be a modern invention." Neckam mentions the roasting-spit, elsewhere called the roasting-iron; but I fail to detect skewers, though they can hardly have been wanting. Ladles for basting and stirring were familiar. As to the spit itself, it became a showy article of plate, when the fashion arose of serving up the meat upon it in the hall; and the tenure by which Finchingfield in Essex was held _in capite_ in the reign of Edward III.--that of turning the spit at the coronation--demonstrates that the instrument was of sufficient standing to be taken into service as a memorial formality. The fifteenth century vocabulary notices the salt-cellar, the spoon, the trencher, and the table-cloth. The catalogue comprises _morsus, a bit_, which shows that _bit_ and _bite_ are synonymous, or rather, that the latter is the true word as still used in Scotland, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, from the last of which the Pilgrims carried it across the Atlantic, where it is a current Americanism, not for one bite, but as many as you please, which is, in fact, the modern provincial interpretation of the phrase, but not the antique English one. The word _towel_ was indifferently applied, perhaps, for a cloth for use at the table or in the lavatory. Yet there was also the _manuturgium_, or hand-cloth, a speciality rendered imperative by the mediaeval fashion of eating. In the inventory of the linen at Gilling, in Yorkshire, one of the seats of the Fairfax family, made in 1590, occur:--"Item, napkins vj. dozen. Item, new napkins vj. dozen." This entry may or may not warrant a conclusion that the family bought that quantity at a time--not a very excessive store, considering the untidy habits of eating and the difficulty of making new purchases at short notice.