had never been so good; only there were too many of them, too
many handicrafts of which the country had no need. It appears to be a
fault all along in history that there are too many of almost every sort
of people.

In Harrison's time the greater part of the building in cities and towns
was of timber, only a few of the houses of the commonalty being of stone.
In an old plate giving a view of the north side of Cheapside, London, in
1638, we see little but quaint gable ends and rows of small windows set
close together. The houses are of wood and plaster, each story
overhanging the other, terminating in sharp pediments; the roofs
projecting on cantilevers, and the windows occupying the whole front of
each of the lower stories. They presented a lively and gay appearance on
holidays, when the pentices of the shop fronts were hung with colored
draperies, and the balconies were crowded with spectators, and every pane
of glass showed a face. In the open country, where timber was scarce, the
houses were, between studs, impaneled with clay-red, white, or blue. One
of the Spaniards who came over in the suite of Philip remarked the large
diet in these homely cottages: "These English," quoth he, "have their
houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the
king." "Whereby it appeareth," comments Harrison, "that he liked better
of our good fare in such coarse cabins, than of their own thin diet in
their prince-like habitations and palaces." The timber houses were
covered with tiles; the other sort with straw or reeds. The fairest
houses were ceiled within with mortar and covered with plaster, the
whiteness and evenness of which excited Harrison's admiration. The walls
were hung with tapestry, arras-work, or painted cloth, whereon were
divers histories, or herbs, or birds, or else ceiled with oak. Stoves had
just begun to be used, and only in some houses of the gentry, "who build
them not to work and feed in, as in Germany and elsewhere, but now and
then to sweat in, as occasion and need shall require." Glass in windows,
which was then good and cheap, and made even in England, had generally
taken the place of the lattices and of the horn, and of the beryl which
noblemen formerly used in windows. Gentlemen were beginning to build
their houses of brick and stone, in stately and magnificent fashion. The
furniture of the houses had also grown in a manner "passing delicacy,"
and not of the nobility and gentry only, but o