Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/213

Rh King's son Charles, dressed in a suit of uncut white velvet, a cloak set all over with diamonds valued at eighty thousand pounds, a diamond feather in his hat, sword and girdle all set with precious stones. Feasting and riotous living were as conspicuous as extravagance in dress, until the household expenses of the King amounted to double those of his predecessor. While such were the habits of the Court, one recalls with satisfaction the fact, that there were many of the country gentlemen left who followed the routine of the last generation. There was still in England the family rising at daybreak and assembling at family prayers read by the domestic chaplain. Breakfast consisted of a pint of beer and a pint of wine for each person, a piece of salt fish, some baked herrings, a chine of mutton or "three mutton bones boiled," together with the inevitable manchet, for which this is a seventeenth-century receipt: "Take a bushel of fine wheat flour, 20 eggs, 3 lb. of fresh butter; then take as much salt and barm as usual; temper it together with new milk pretty hot, then let it lie the space of half an hour to rise, so you may work it up into bread and bake it; let not your oven be too hot." After