in 
and Arr. 
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manufcripts and the fculptures on the walls invariably reprefent 
the female portion of the family as entirely under the influence of the 
priefts, and that iniiuence as exercifed for the worll of purpofes. They 
encouraged faithletlnelil as Well as difobedience in wives, and undermined 
the virtue of daughters, and were confequently regarded with anything 
but kindly feeling by the male portion of the population. The prietl, 
the wife, and the hufband, form the ufnal leading charaeters in a 
mediaeval farce. Subjetits of this kind are not very unfrequent in the 
illuminations of nianufcripts, and more efpecially in the fculptures of 
buildings, and thofe chiefly ecclefiatlical, in which monks or priefls are 
introduced in very equivocal fituations. This part of the fubject, however, 
is one into which we {hall not here venture, as We find the mediaeval 
caricaturifts drawing plenty of materials from the lefs vicious (hades of 
contemporary life; and, in fact, Tome of their moil amufing pictures are 
taken from the droll, rather than from the vicious, fcenes of the interior 
of the houfehold. Such fcenes are very frequent on the mifereres of the 
old cathedrals and collegiate churches. Thus, in the Halls at Worceiler 
Cathedral, there is a droll figure of a man feated before a fire in a 
kitchen