The chapel was a small room, often over the gateway, and sometimes adjoining it, and was rather an oratory for private devotion than for the assembling of a congre gation.
To these ancient fortified houses succeeded the em battled mansion of Queen Elizabeth, or James I. This was of two kinds, the greater and the less ; one an im provement upon the rude quadrangle, the other an ex pansion of the ancient castlet; one luminous and magnifi cent, with deep projecting bow windows, and the other lofty, square, and compact. Of the great square windows in such houses, it is a well known complaint of Lord Ba con, " that one knows not where to become to be out of the sun." The characteristic accompaniments of these houses within, were huge arched fire-places in their halls and kitchens ; chimney-pieces in their chambers of state, richly carved, and adorned with armorial bearings, mixed with grotesque figures in wood, stone, or alabaster ; raised hearths, long and massy tables of oak, from their bulk calculated to last for centuries. One apartment seldom omitted in houses of this rank and date, but never found in those of higher antiquity, was a long gallery for music and dancing, sometimes 150 feet long ; a proof that the hall was now beginning to be deserted. At all events, the practice of dining in these great apartments at different tables, according to the rank of the guests, was scarcely continued below the Restoration.
The unembattled gentleman's house in towns partook of the general features of the above, but were of smaller dimensions, and without any fortifications. These were in general retired from the street by a small court, two or three sides of which were enclosed by the house and offices, the rest with walls, and shut up with a gate, usu ally without any lodge or apartment over it. The most ancient of such houses consisted of a thorough lobby, with a parlour beyond it on one side with a stone floor, the kitchen and offices on the other. The partitions were of rude oak, the chimnics wide and open, and the rooms, except the hall and great parlour, low and small.
These comfortless habitations were succeeded by the (rouses of Queen Elizabeth's days. In them the original form was retained, though with considerable improve ments. The entrance was by an enclosed projecting porch, which led to the hall. This was lighted general ly by one great square window with cross mullions, a massy oak table beneath, at the lower end a gallery for music, or to connect the apartments above, and a fire place, embracing in its ample space almost all the width of the room, the Christmas scene of rude and boisterous festivity ; beyond was uniformly a parlour, and, on the other side, the great chamber, or withdrawing room, sometimes up three or four steps. in the windows of such houses, and those of a rank above them, arc found the remains of painted glass, in a style which seems to have been fashionable in the seventeenth century ; they consist of arms, cyphers, figures of animals, and scripture histories, or others in small round and oval pieces. Of these the drat% log is extremely correct, but the colours faint and dingy, very unlike the deep and glowing tints of the foregoing centuries. These were probably of Flemish manufacture.
The tradesman's house was one, or sometimes two long ranges united, terminating with gables in the street. The shop occupied the whole breadth next the stt vet, and was entirely without glass, like our present unsightly butchers shops. Behind was a kitchen, and beyond a small open yard, round which were the warehouses and offices. The pride of the owners were their signs, which denoted the trade or craft by some animal or device.
These either projected far into the street from the house, or were stuck upon high timbers opposite the door. In former days, our towns must have exhibited the appear ance of the streets of Pekin, rather than of the open and lively air of a modern European city. The barber's so litary pole, and here and there a heavy gilt sign, project ing from an inn in an old town, are the only remains of these clumsy and inconvenient ornaments.