of the household, the number of officers, or the
sumptuous entertainments. And the honest chronicler is so struck with
admiration of the virtuous beauty of the maids of honor that he cannot
tell whether to award preeminence to their amiable countenances or to
their costliness of attire, between which there is daily conflict and
contention. The courtiers of both sexes have the use of sundry languages
and an excellent vein of writing. Would to God the rest of their lives
and conversation corresponded with these gifts! But the courtiers, the
most learned, are the worst men when they come abroad that any man shall
hear or read of. Many of the gentlewomen have sound knowledge of Greek
and Latin, and are skillful in Spanish, Italian, and French; and the
noblemen even surpass them. The old ladies of the court avoid idleness by
needlework, spinning of silk, or continual reading of the Holy Scriptures
or of histories, and writing diverse volumes of their own, or translating
foreign works into English or Latin; and the young ladies, when they are
not waiting on her majesty, "in the mean time apply their lutes,
citherns, pricksong, and all kinds of music." The elders are skillful in
surgery and the distillation of waters, and sundry other artificial
practices pertaining to the ornature and commendation of their bodies;
and when they are at home they go into the kitchen and supply a number of
delicate dishes of their own devising, mostly after Portuguese receipts;
and they prepare bills of fare (a trick lately taken up) to give a brief
rehearsal of all the dishes of every course. I do not know whether this
was called the "higher education of women" at the time.

In every office of the palaces is a Bible, or book of acts of the church,
or chronicle, for the use of whoever comes in, so that the court looks
more like a university than a palace. Would to God the houses of the
nobles were ruled like the queen's! The nobility are followed by great
troops of serving-men in showy liveries; and it is a goodly sight to see
them muster at court, which, being filled with them, "is made like to the
show of a peacock's tail in the full beauty, or of some meadow garnished
with infinite kinds and diversity of pleasant flowers." Such was the
discipline of Elizabeth's court that any man who struck another within it
had his right hand chopped off by the executioner in a most horrible
manner.

The English have always had a passion for gardens and orch