French suit, or an enormous fleece of periwig. Still, amid all this profligate frivolity of the higher classes, the bulk of the community retained much of the old English spirit. Many still adhered to the primitive hours of their forefathers for going to bed, getting up, and transacting business. In diet, notwithstanding the French cookery that had become prevalent, they stoutly stood by old English fare. The people, also, were intensely musical, and almost every person of education could sing by the scale, and play upon some kind of instrument. These were days, when the banks of the Thames were as melodious as the shores of the Adriatic. In the country, the baronial table was still heart of oak, and was laden with the old festive hospitality. Huge sirloins and mighty plum-puddings seemed to laugh to scorn the continental innovations that had become so fashionable in the capital. Country squires gave landlord-feasts to their tenants; while farmers gave harvest-homes and sheep-shearings to their labourers. Swimming, foot-racing, skating, horse-racing, bear and bull-baiting, tennis, and bowls were the people’s favourite out-door sports; whilst cards, billiards, chess, backgammon, cribbage, and ninepins, furnished amusement within. On Valentine’s day, gentlemen sent presents of gloves, silk stockings and garters, to their fair valentines; and, on the morning of May-day, young ladies, and even grave matrons, repaired to the bright green fields to gather dew to beautify their complexions; while milk-maids danced in the public streets, their milk-pails wreathed with garlands, and a fiddler playing tunes before them.