Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/512

 492 Hi ft or y of T>omeJlic Manners probably led eventually to their dilufe. A very rare and curious broadfide woodcut of the reign of James I., entitled "Tittle-tattle, or the feveral branches of gollipping," which in different compartments reprefents piftorially the way in which the women of that age idled away their time, gives in one part a Iketcli of the interior of a hothoufe, which is copied in our cut No. 314. In one divifion of the hothoufe the ladies are bathing in tubs, while they are indulging themfelves with an abun- dance of very fubftantial dainties ; in the other, they appear to be ftill more bulily engaged in goliip. The whole broadlide is a Angularly No. 314. A Hothoufe. interefting illuftration of contemporary manners. A copy of it will be found in the print-room of the Britifh Mufeumj and it may be remarked (which I think has not been obferved before), that it is copied from a large French etching of about the fame period, a copy of which is in the print department of the Imperial Library in Paris. This is fufficient to fliow the clofe refemblance at this time between manners in France and in England. In the former country, the refort of women in company to the hot-baths is not unfrequently alluded to, and their behaviour and converfation there are defcribed in terms of fatire which cannot always be transferred to our modern pages. In thefe popular