executed their curious movements, clad in "gilt leather and silver
paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian,"[46] or in
"greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour," bedecked with
"scarfs, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious
stones and other jewells," and "aboute either legge twentie or fourtie
belles."[47] Robin Hood's Day, Christmas, Twelfth Night, Harvest Home,
Sheepshearing, were all celebrated in turn with a liveliness of spirit,
a vigor of imagination, and a noisy enjoyment of the good things of
life which showed that Merry England had at last succeeded to the gloom
of the Middle Ages.

The prevailing prosperity and activity were naturally even more
apparent in London than in the rural districts. The city was growing
rapidly, filling up with warehouses and shops, with palaces and
dwellings. The people in general were attracted to it by the growing
trade and industry, and by the theatres, taverns, bear-gardens, and
other places of amusement, the number of which was constantly
increasing. The nobility and gentry sought the splendor of Elizabeth's
court to spend their leisure and their wealth. The middle or commercial
classes of the city, like the corresponding agricultural classes in the
country, were enjoying the fruits of their industry and attaining a
respectable position of their own. The houses and furniture belonging
to them struck a foreigner with astonishment and pleasure[48]; "The
neate cleanlinesse, the exquisite finenesse, the plesaunte and
delightfull furniture in every point for household wonderfully rejoyced
mee; their chambers and parlours, strawed over with sweet herbes,
refreshed mee; their nosegayes finelye intermingled wyth sondry sortes
of fragraunte floures in their bed-chambers and privie roomes, with
comfortable smell cheered me up and entierlye delighted all my senses."
The profusion of expenditure, and the love of show resulting from the