Where they found
the body to be taken away, and a black Cat very lean and deformed sitting
in the coffin, setting of great Ruffs, and frizzling of hair, to the
great fear and wonder of all beholders."
Better than this pride which forerunneth destruction, in the opinion of
Stubbes, is the habit of the Brazilian women, who "esteem so little of
apparel" that they rather choose to go naked than be thought to be proud.
As I read the times of Elizabeth, there was then greater prosperity and
enjoyment of life among the common people than fifty or a hundred years
later. Into the question of the prices of labor and of food, which Mr.
Froude considers so fully in the first chapter of his history, I shall
not enter any further than to remark that the hardness of the laborer's
lot, who got, mayhap, only twopence a day, is mitigated by the fact that
for a penny he could buy a pound of meat which now costs a shilling. In
two respects England has greatly changed for the traveler, from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth century--in its inns and its roads.
In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign travelers had no choice but to ride
on horseback or to walk. Goods were transported on strings of
pack-horses. When Elizabeth rode into the city from her residence at
Greenwich, she placed herself behind her lord chancellor, on a pillion.
The first improvement made was in the construction of a rude wagon a cart
without springs, the body resting solidly on the axles.
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