“I observe a custom in all those Italian Cities, and tounes thro’ the which I passed, that is not used in any other countrie that I saw—nor do I think that any other nation of Christendom doth use it, but only Italy. The Italian and most other strangers that are cormorant in Italy doe always at their meales use a little forke, when they cut their meate. For while, with their knife which they hold in one hand they cut the meate out of the dish, they fasten the forke which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that sitting in the companie of any others at meale, should unadvisidly touch the dish of meate with his fingers from which alle at the table doe cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners.
“This forme of feeding is, I understand, common in all places of Italy—their forkes being for the most part made of iron or steele, and some of silver—but these are used only by gentlemen.
“I myself have thought good to imitate the Italy fashion by this forked cutting of meate not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England, since I came home.”
Thus we may connect the history of silver forks with Tom Coryat’s Crudities, and with the first reported foot-journeys of an Englishman over the length and breadth of Europe. The wits may have bantered him in Elizabeth’s day; but his journeyings were opened and closed under James.
Again, there were books which had a little of humor, and a little of sentiment, with a great deal of fable, and much advice in them; as a sample of which I may name Mr. Leonard Wright’s Displaie of Duties, deck’t with sage Sayings, pythie Sentences, and proper Similes: Pleasant to read, delightful to hear, and profitable to practice:[119] By which singularly inviting title we perceive that he had caught the euphuistic ways of Mr. John Lyly. In enumerating the infelicities of a man who marries a shrew, he says:—
“Hee shall find compact in a little flesh a great number of bones too hard to digest. And therefore some doe thinke wedlocke to be that same purgatorie which some learned divines have so long contended about, or a sharpe penance to bring sinful men to Heaven. A merry fellow hearing a preacher saye in his sermon that whosoever would be saved must take up and beare his cross, ran straight to his wife, and cast her upon his back.… Finally, he that will live quietly in wedlock must be courteous in speech, cheerful in countenance, provident for his house, careful to traine up his children in virtue, and patient in bearing the infirmities of his wife. Let all the keys hang at her girdle, only the purse at his own. He must also be voide of jealousy, which is a vanity to think, and more folly to suspect. For eyther it needeth not, or booteth not, and to be jealous without a cause is the next way to have a cause.
“This is the only way to make a woman dum:
To sit and smyle and laugh her out, and not a word but mum!”
Quite another style of man was Philip Stubbes,[120] a Puritan reformer—not to be confounded with John Stubbes who had his right hand cut off, by order of the Queen, for writing against the impropriety and villainy of her prospective marriage with a foreign prince—but a kinsman of his, who wrote wrathily against masques and theatre-going; whipping with his pen all those roystering poets who made dramas or madrigals, all the fine-dressed gallants, and all the fans and ruffs of the women as so many weapons of Satan.