SIXTH DAY. 161 



breeding has existed in all ages, even when 

 manners were rude, and coarse and grossly 

 obscene jests won favour at the Courts of 

 Kings ; and yet I am puzzled to know 

 how Modesty veiled her head, or stopped her 

 ears, when within sight or hearing of the 

 filthy buffooneries of the Middle Ages. The 

 bare recital of the terms of some of our 

 ancient tenures would be an outrage upon 

 common decency now-a-days. 



S. " To the pure all things are pure." 

 In later times, when the royal palace of 

 Whitehall was a sty of impurity, men, and 

 women too, passed in and out without con- 

 tamination, shocked at what they saw and 

 heard, abhorring and pitying, but unpolluted. 

 That good breeding and gentle deportment 

 were not unknown in the Middle Ages we 

 learn from that faithful chronicler of man- 

 ners Geoffrey Chaucer : his Knight had led 

 the hard and stormy life of a soldier, had 

 fought in fifteen pitched battles, and had 



M 



