an outing to the pleasant village of Hackney. They would see the
streets gay with signs which (outside Lombard Street) few houses but
taverns wear to-day--the sign of the _Silkworm_ or the _Sheep_, or
that fantastic schoolmaster's emblem, the _Troubled Pate_ with a crown
upon it. And when they stopped for rest at the sign of a bush upon a
pole, how they would fall to upon the Martinmas beef, the
neats-tongues, the cheesecakes! It is true they might find prices high
and crops poor; but such things must be.... "This is the use, custom,
and fruits of war. If the impositions and taxes run high, the country
farmer can't help that; you know that the war costs money, and it must
be given, or else we should lose all." Had they learnt that as long
ago as 1682?

As a _genre_ work the book is not unique; rather is it typical. The
gradual social settlement after the Civil War, destined to develop
into stagnation under the first Georges, caused didactic works, guides
to manners, housewifery and sport, society handbooks, to proliferate.
_The Ten Pleasures_ mentions some standard works, which every good
housewife would probably possess--Nicholas Culpepper's medical
handbooks, for instance, and _The Complete Cook_, which indeed, as
part of _The Queen's Closet Opened_, had reappeared in its natal year
1682-1683. The same year saw the birth of such works as _The Complete
Courtier_, _The Complete Compting House_, _The Gentleman Jockey_, _The
Accomplished Ladies' Delight._ Life was being scheduled, tabulated, in
readiness for the complacent century about to open. It was also being
explored, not only in such works as _The Ten Pleasures_ and _The
Woman's Advocate_, but in others (entered as published, but in many
cases not known to be now extant) like _The Wonders of the Female
World_, _The Swaggering Damsel_, or _Several New Curtain Lectures_,
and _Venus in ye smoake, or, the nunn in her smock, in curious