ELIZABETHAN HOUSEHOLD ARRANGEMENTS 5 



food was cooked within a reasonable distance of where it was 

 consumed. In these respects, therefore, a house of that period 

 fulfilled some of the chief requirements of the present day. The 

 direction in which it failed when measured by modern standards 

 was in its sanitary arrangements, which, indeed, judged by our 

 own ideas, did not exist at all. But we must be careful not to 

 argue backwards, and conclude that because things were lacking 

 which we consider essential, therefore houses were found un- 

 comfortable at the time. The better way is to accept what 

 existed as satisfying the wants of the period, and to argue from 

 that, if we please, how vastly we have improved in our own 

 habits upon those of our ancestors. 



In tracing the changes which took place in the arrangement 

 and disposition of rooms during the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, therefore, it will be found that not much was done 

 which made houses essentially more comfortable, according to 

 modern notions, than they had been in the late sixteenth century. 

 Indeed, during much of the time comfort was very little studied, 

 and it is one of the reproaches levelled at the architects of the 

 early eighteenth century, more especially those who were con- 

 cerned with houses of vast size, that their first thought was for 

 display and their last for comfort. Pope's exclamation about 

 Blenheim palace, " 'Tis very fine, but when d'ye sleep and where 

 d'ye dine?" crystallises much of the criticism that might be 

 bestowed upon the large houses of that period, which, however, 

 only reflected the spirit of the age. In these houses the most 

 striking change that occurred was the abolition of homeliness. 

 When the great Elizabethan house was planned, the household 

 was in the nature of a large family. It is true that the members 

 of the actual family grouped themselves in one wing and the 

 servants in another, but the great hall was their common meeting 

 ground, and the relations between the heads of the household 

 and their servants were more affectionate than they became in 

 later years. All the rooms, moreover, were intended for daily 

 use, however finely they were decorated. The whole effect was 

 one of stately homeliness. When the Queen Anne mansion was 

 planned, much of it was devoted to state functions as a first 

 consideration, and was intended for occasional use only ; apart- 

 ments suitable for this purpose having been provided, the rest 

 of the space was allotted to the ordinary use of the family, and 

 the servants were relegated to the basement (which they some- 



