Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/437

 and Sentiments. 417 feven "eclogues," as he calls them, on the focial queflions which agitated men's minds in his day. One day, according to this ftory, while Adam was abfent occupied with his agricultural labours. Eve Hit at home on their threfliold, with all her children about her, when fuddenly flie became aware of the approach of the Creator, and, alliamed of the great number of them, and fearful that her produftivenefs might be mifinter- preted, llie hurriedly concealed thofe which were the leaft well-favoured. "Some of them llie placed under hay, fome under ftraw and chatf, fome in the chimney, and fome in a tub of draft'; but fuch as were fair and well made llie wifely and cunningly kept with her." God told her that he had come to fee her children, that he might promote them in their different degrees ; upon which llie prefented them in their order of birth. God then ordained the eldeft to be an emperor, the fecond to be a king, and the third a duke to guide an army ; of the reft he made earls, lords, barons, fquires, knights, and " hardy champions." Some he appointed to be "judges, mayors, and governors, merchants, ftieriffs, and protedors, aldermen, and burgeffes." While all this was going on. Eve began to think of her other children, and, unwilling that they fhould lofe their fhare of honours, ilie now produced them from their hiding-places. They appeared with their hair rough, and pov.dered with chaft', fome full of ftraws, and fome covered with cobwebs and duft, " that anybody might be frightened at the fight of them." They were black with dirt, ill- favoured in countenance, and miftiapen in ftature, and God did not conceal his difguft. "None," he laid, "can make a veffel of filver out of an earthen pitcher, or goodly filk out of a goat's fleece, or a bright fword of a cow's tail ; neither will I, though I can, make a noble gentle- man out of a vile villain. You fliall all be ploughmen and tillers of the ground, to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and hedge and dike, and in this wise fliall ye live in endlefs fer'itude. Even the townfmen fliall laugh you to fcorn ; yet fome of you fliall be allowed to dwell in cities, and fliall be admitted to fuch occupations as thofe of makers of puddings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers, coftard-mongers, hoftlers, or daubers." Such, the teller of the ftory informs us, was the beginning of fervile labour. o tr A