gue rosted; sixthly, a pig rosted;
seventhly chewits baked; eighthly, a goose rosted; ninthly, a swan
rosted; tenthly, a turkey rosted; eleventh, a haunch of venison rosted;
twelfth, a pasty of venison; thirteenth, a kid with a pudding in the
belly; fourteenth, an olive pye; the fifteenth, a couple of capons; the
sixteenth, a custard or dowsets."

This is what Master Gervase calls a frugal dinner, for the entertainment
of a worthy friend; is it any wonder that he wrote about "Country
Contentments"?

* * * * *

My chapter is nearly full; and a burst of sunshine is flaming over all
the land under my eye; and yet I am but just entered upon the period of
English literary history which is most rich in rural illustration. The
mere backs of the books relating thereto, as my glance ranges over them,
where they stand in tidy platoon, start a delightfully confused picture
to my mind.

I think it possible that Sir Hugh Platt may some day entertain at his
Bednall-Greene garden the worshipful Francis Bacon, who is living down
at Twickenham, and who is a thriving lawyer, and has written essays,
which Sir Hugh must know,--in which he discourses shrewdly upon gardens,
as well as many kindred matters; and through his wide correspondence,
Sir Hugh must probably have heard of certain new herbs which have been
brought home from Virginia and the Roanoke, and very possibly he is
making trial of a tobacco-plant in his garden, to be submitted some day
to his friend, the French Ambassador.

I can fancy Gervase Markham "making a night of it" with those rollicking
bachelors, Beaumont and Fletcher, at the "Mermaid," or going with them
to the Globe Theatre to see two Warwickshire brothers, Edmund and Will
Shakspeare, who are on the boards there,--the latter taking the part of
Old Knowell, in Ben Jonson's play of "Every Man in his Humour." His
friends say that this Will has parts.

Then there is the fiery and dashing Sir Philip Sidney, who threatened to
thrust a dagger into the heart of poor Molyneux, his father's steward,
for opening private letters (which poor Molyneux never did); and Sir
Philip knows all about poetry and the ancients; and in virtue of his
knowledges, he writes a terribly magniloquent and tedious "Arcadia,"
which, when he comes to die gallantly in battle, is admired and read
everywhere: nowadays it rests mostly on the shelf. But the memory of his
generous and noble spirit is far livelier than