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The charges for rewards to minstrels are very numerous in the disburse-ments of Henry VIII. ’s household, as well as in those of the nobilityof his and later times. Queen Elizabeth was, however, said to haveattained great proficiency on the virginals. She boasted to her courtiers,three days after the admonitory sermon which Bishop Rudd preachedbefore her majesty, in Lent 1596, and in which he made strong allusionsto her age and growing infirmities,'—that her “ voyce for singing, andher power for fingering instruments, were not any whit decaied.”* SirJohn Melville says, Elizabeth played on the virginals every day beforehim, for the purpose of ascertaining which excelled the other in music, sheor Mary Queen of Scots . Hentzner speaks of a musical instrumentbelonging to the queen in a cabinet called Paradise, at Hampton Court ,“ made all of glass except the strings.”

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Bogsf or anti irons , Cmpnv, Brains , &c.—Long after the generalintroduction of chimneys, wood was the ordinary fuel for all sorts of apart-ments. Coals formed no part of the “ Liveries, ” but wood was commonlyincluded in them. A “ cradle for sea-coal” is, however, frequentlymentioned as belonging to the chief rooms in superior houses; though theusual way of warming, or rather airing, bed-chambers, was with braziers

* The bishop gave an arithmetical description of the grand climacterical year, and a prayerwith reference to the queen, in which he introduced the following passages from Ecclesiastes ,chap . xii .:—“ When the grinders cease because they are few, and they wax dark that lookout of the windows; and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.” “ The sermonbeing concluded,” says Sir John Haryngton, “ she opened the window of her closet, butwas so far from giving him thanks, that she said he should have kept his arithmetick forhimselfe; ‘ but I see the greatest clerks are not the wisest menand so went away for thetime discontented.”— Nugee Antique.

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