Here and there, indeed, at the castle of some great lord who had a seat in the Parliament and Privy Council, and who was accustomed to pass a large part of his life in the cities of the South, might have been found wigs and embroidered coats, plate and fine linen, lace and jewels, French dishes and French wines.

But, in general, the traveller would have been forced to content himself with very different quarters.

In many dwellings the furniture, the food, the clothing, nay the very hair and skin of his hosts, would have put his philosophy to the proof.

His lodging would sometimes have been in a but of which every nook would have swarmed with vermin.

He would have inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat smoke, and foul with a hundred noisome exhalations.