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DOMESnC MANXEKS OV THE HtUSSIAXS,

can hardly imagine the time when they were unknown intlie land: and it is only the lcarned who are aware howcomparatively recent bas bcen tlie introduction of tlie majorityof those tliings which now appear to be absolutely indispensableto human existence in a civilised statc.

Even beds are almost modern inventions: our forefatliersliaving slept upon litters of loose rushes and heatlier, ratlierthan couclies of featliers; indeed, it is only three-and-a-halfcenturies since straw was discarded from tlie royal bed-chambers of England. Shirts, again, were not worn tili thereign of the third Henry, when they were first made by tlieFlemish artis'ans who took refuge in this country at the timeof the religious persecutions; whilst, as regards stockings,even Henry VIII. had only cloth hose to cover his legs; andStowe teils us that one William Rider, a London apprentice,seeino; some knit worsted stockings from Mantua at the houseof an Italian merchant, in 1564, ingeniously worked a pair likethem, which he presented to the Earl of Pembroke ; and theywere the first of the kind, he adds, " ever made in England."Silk mantles were first worn in England in 1286, by somenoblemen's ladies, at a ball at Kenilworth Castle; but thefabric remained an expensive article of foreign produce tilithe beginning of the seventeenth Century, when it was firstmanufactured in this country. Moreover, Catherine Howard,queen of Henry VIII., is said to have first used brass-wirepins, previous to which time ladies' dresses were fastened withskewers; and, f'urther, needles were not manufactured in thiscountry tili the reign of " Bloody Mary," when they weremade for the first time in Cheapside, by a negro fromSpain.

Again, chimneys to our houses date only as far back asthe year 1200; before which period chafing-dishes were inuse; and even in the year 1300 the family used to sit round