Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/473

 and Sentiments. 453 domeflic retirement, and the wifh to withdraw from the pubhcity which had always attended the hall, and it gradually became the mere entrance lobby of the houfe, the place where ftrangers or others were allowed to remain until their pretence had been announced, which is the fenfe in which we commonly ufe the word hall, as part of the houfe, at the prefent day. In the enumeration of the parts of a houfe given in the Englifli edition of Comenius's "Janua Linguarum," in the middle of the feventeenth century, there is no mention of a hall. "A houfe," we are told in this quaint book, " is divided into inner rooms, fuch as are the entry, the ftove, the kitchen, the buttery, the dining-room, the gallery, the bed-chamber, with a privy made by it 3 balkets are of ufe for carrying things to and fro ; and chefts (which are made fall with a key) for keeping them. The floor is under the roof. In the yard is a well, a flable, and a bath. Under the houfe is the cellar." No. 286. A Folding Table. It has already been remarked that tables with leaves began to be mentioned frequently after the commencement of the lixteenth century. Andrew