1*2

scribes the doors of the upper story at Lord Bacon’s seat to have hadpainted on the outsides of them, in dark umber, “ figures of the Gods ofthe Gentiles.” Devices and sentences were also frequently painted inpanels on the walls and ceilings* of rooms. In Tusser ’s “ Five HundredPointes of Good Husbandrie,” there is a set of posies, or proverbialrhymes, to be written in various rooms of the house; such as, “ Hus-bandlie posies for the hall, posies for the parlour, posies for the ghests’-chamber, and posies for thine own chamber.”

Leckinfield manor-house, Northumberland, a seat of the Percys, hada profusion of these posies or proverbs. In one of the lodgings therewas a dialogue, of thirty-two stanzas, between “ the Parte Sensatyve”and “ the Parte Intellectyveand in another a poem of thirty-twostanzas, — a “ Descant on Harmony.” There were also, “ Proverbis in therooffe of the hyest chawmbrein the roof of Lord Percy’s closet; andthe roof of “ my lord’s library.” The latter had twenty-three stanzas, ofwhich the following is a specimen:

“ To every tale geve thou no credens.

Prove the cause, orf thou gyve sentens.

Agayn the right make no dyffens.

So hast thou a clene consciens.”

And “ in the syde of the garet of the gardynge” there were ninestanzas, of eight lines each. Take the last stanza but one :

“ Punyshe moderately, and discreetly correct,

As well to mercy as to justice havynge a respect;

So shall ye have meryte for the punyshment,

And cause the offender to be sory and penitent.

* “ The roof o’ the chamber

With golden cherubims is fretted.”— Cymbeline.t Before.