e modern
newspaper, these places became the distributing centres for the
news of the day and the talk of the town. The tavern served the same
purpose for the men.

Dancing was indulged in by all classes of society, and the variety
and curious names of the new styles which were introduced during the
Elizabethan era are well set forth in the following quotation from a
festal scene in Haywood's _Woman Kilde with Kindnesse_:

"J. SLIME.--I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall
it be? _Rogero_?

JEM.--_Rogero_! no! we will dance the _Beginning of the
World_.

SISLY.--I love no dance so well as _John, Come Kiss Me Now_.

NICH.--I that have ere now defer'd a cushion, call for the
_Cushion-dance_.

R. BRICK.--For my part, I like nothing so well as _Tom Tyler_.

JEM.--No; we'll have the _Hunting of the Fox_.

J. SLIME.--_The Hay_; _The Hay_! there's nothing like _The
Hay_!

NICH.--I have said, do say, and will say again--

JEM.--Every man agree to have it as Nick says.

ALL.--Content.

NICH.--It hath been, it is now, and it shall be--

SISLY.--What, Master Nicholas? What?

NICH.--_Put on your Smock o' Monday._

JEM.--So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for God's
sake agree on something; if you like not that, put it to the
musicians; or let me speak for all, and we'll have _Sellengers
Round_."

The nuptial usages of the age included some curious customs. Thus,
we are told by Howe in his _Additions to Stowe's Chronicle_ that,
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "It was the custome for maydes and
gentlewomen to give their favourites, as tokens of their love, little
Handkerchiefs, of about three or four inches square, wrought round
about, and with a button or a tassel at each corner, and a little one
in the middle, with silke and thread; the best edged with a small gold
lace, or twist, which being foulded up in foure crosse foldes, so as
the middle might be seene, gentlemen and other did usually weare them
in their hattes, as favours of their loves and mistresses. Some cost
six pence a piece, some twelve pence, and the richest sixteen pence."
Handkerchiefs were the customary messengers of Cupid; the present of
a handkerchief with love devices worked in the corners was a delicate
expression of the tender sentiment. Thus, in Haywood's _Fayre Mayde
of the Exchange_, Phyllis brings a handkerchief to the Cripple of
Fanc