In the succeeding reign feasting was carried to a riotous extent, and it has been computed that the household expenditure of James I. was twice as much as that of Queen Elizabeth, amounting to £100,000 a year. A pig was an animal of which James had an abhorrence, and in his “Counterblast to Tobacco” he says, that were he to invite the devil to dinner he would place three dishes before him--first, a pig; secondly, a poll of ling and mustard; and thirdly, a pipe of tobacco to assist digestion. The state of cookery under Charles II. is indicated by the names of Chiffinch and Chaubert, to whose skill Sir Walter Scott has borne testimony in his “Peveril of the Peak.” But it is questionable whether epicures of the present day would appreciate the Duke of York’s taste, who, when instructed by the Spanish ambassador to prepare a sauce, recommended one consisting of parsley, dried toast pounded in a mortar, with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Charles II., however, if not a decided epicure, was fond of gastronomy, and in a ballad of the “New Sir John Barleycorn,” the knighting of the loin of beef has been ascribed to him:-- “Our Second Charles of fame facéte, On loin of beef did dine; He held his sword, pleased, o’er the meat, Arise, thou fam’d Sir Loin.” But Fuller, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” relates of Henry VIII. at the Abbey of Reading, how “a sirloin of beef was set before him, so knighted, saith tradition, by this King Henry;” and, according to another account, James I., on his return from a hunting excursion, so much enjoyed his dinner, consisting of a loin of roast beef, that he laid his sword across it and dubbed it Sir Loin. And at Chingford, in Essex, is a house called “Friday Hill House,” in one of the rooms of which is an oak table with a brass plate thus inscribed: “All lovers of roast beef will like to know that on this table a loin was knighted by King James I. on his return from hunting in Epping Forest.” When Cosmo III., the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was in England, Charles II., on the evening before his departure, supped with him at the house of his Highness, when a singular adventure occurred, which the Grand Duke thus relates:--