asking for all things necessary to the making of one, was as soon told
that he could have none of these things there, whereupon he went away,
and the other coming in with a stone in his knap-sack, asked only for
a Pot to boil his stone in, that he might make a dish of broth of it
for his supper, which was quickly granted him; and when the stone had
boiled a little while, then he asked for a small bit of beef, then for
a piece of mutton, and so for veal, bacon, etc., till by little and
little he got all things requisite, and he made an excellent pottage
of his stone, at as cheap a rate (it may be) as the cook extracted
Gold from Herbs."

The kitchen-staff of a noble establishment in the first quarter of the
seventeenth century we glean from Braithwaite's "Rules and Orders for
the Government of the House of an Earl," which, if the "M.L." for whom
the piece was composed was his future wife, Mistress Lawson, cannot
have seen the light later than 1617, in which year they were married.
He specifies--(1) a yeoman and groom for the cellar; (2) a yeoman and
groom for the pantry; (3) a yeoman and groom for the buttery; (3a)
a yeoman for the ewery; (4) a yeoman purveyor; (5) a master-cook,
under-cooks, and three pastry-men; (6) a yeoman and groom in the
scullery, one to be in the larder and slaughter-house; (7) an
achator or buyer; (8) three conducts [query, errand-boys] and three
kitchen-boys.

The writer also admits us to a rather fuller acquaintance with the
mode in which the marketing was done. He says that the officers, among
other matters, "must be able to judge, not only of the prices, but
also of the goodness of all kinds of corn, cattle, and household
provisions; and the better to enable themselves thereto, are
oftentimes to ride to fairs and great markets, and there to have