"in his apparrell so constant, as by his good will he would never change his cloathes till very

1

" portent yenow, beard, act 1. sc. 2.

See Jaques's description of the Seven Ages in As You Like It, act ii. sc. 7.

L

ing a long lock of hair under the left ear, called a love-lock. The first and least offensive of these decorations, the use of jewels and rings in the ear, was general through the upper and middle ranks, nor was it very uncommon to see gems worn appended to a riband round the neck. Roses were almost always an appendage of the love-lock, but these were, for the most part, formed of riband, yet we are told by Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, "that it was once the fashion to stick real flowers in the ear." The love-lock, with its termination in a silken rose, had become so notorious, that Prynne at length wrote an express treatise against it, which he entitled, "The Unloveliness of Love-locks, and long womanish Hair," 1628.

The ruff never reached the extravagant dimensions of that in the other sex, yet it gradually acquired such magnitude as to offend the eye of Elizabeth, who, in one of her sumptuary laws, ordered it, when reaching beyond "a nayle of a yeard in depth," to be clipped. †

The doublet and hose, to the eighth year of Elizabeth's reign, had been of an enormous size, especially the breeches, which being puckered, stuffed, bolstered and distended with wool and hair, attained a magnitude so preposterous, that, as Strutt relates on the authority of a MS. in the Harleian collection, "there actually was a scaffold erected round the inside of the parliament-house for the accommodation of such members as wore those huge breeches; and that the said scaffold was taken down when, in the eighth of Elizabeth, those absurdities went out of fashion."

The doublet was then greatly reduced in size, yet so hard-quilted, that Stubbes says, the wearer could not bow himself to the ground, so stiff and sturdy it stood about him. It was made of cloth, silk, or satin, fitting the body like a waistcoat, surmounted by a large cape, and accompanied either with long close sleeves, or with very wide ones, called Danish sleeves. The breeches, hose, or gallygaskins, now shrunk in their bulk, were either made close to the form, or rendered moderately round by stuffing; the former, which ended far above the knee, were often made of crimson satin, cut and embroidered, and the latter had frequently a most indelicate appendage, to which our poet has too often indulged the license of allusion. A cloak surmounting the whole, of the richest materials, and generally embroidered with gold or silver, was worn buttoned over the shoulder. Fox-skins, lamb-skins, and sables were in use as facings, but the latter were restricted to the nobility, none under the rank of an earl being allowed to wear sables, which were so expensive, that an old writer of 1577, speaking of the luxury of the times, says, "that a thousand ducats were sometimes given for a face of sables;" consequently, as Mr. Malone has remarked, "a suit trimmed with sables was, in Shakspeare's time, the richest dress worn by men in England."

The stockings, or hose as they were called in common with the breeches, consisted either of woven silk, or were cut out by the taylor from silk, velvet, damask, or other precious stuff. They were gartered, externally, and below the knee, with materials of such expensive quality, that Howes tells us, in his Continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, " men of mean rank weare garters and shoe-roses of more than five pounds price." Decker advises his gallant to" strive to fashion his legs to his silk stockings, and his proud gate to his broad garters," which being so

Frequent references to these fashions may be found in our author. Jonson and Fletcher also abound with them; and see that curious exposition of fashionable follies, Decker's Gull's Hornbook, Reprint, p. 86, 137, &c.

† Vide Stowe's Annals, p. 869.-The divisions, or pieces of the brim of the collar or ruffe, were, according to Cotgrave's Dictionary, 1611, termed piccadillies. And the author of London and its Environs described, tells us, that in Piccadilly" there were formerly no houses, and only one shop for Spanish ruffs, which was called the Piccadilly or ruff shop." Vide vol. v.

Strutt's Customs, vol. iii. p. 85-The next age saw this absurd mode of dress revived: and Bulmer, in his Pedigree of the English Gallant, relates, that, when the law was in force against the use of bags for stuffing breeches, a man was brought before a court of justice, charged with wearing the prohibited article, upon which, in order to refute the accusation, he produced from within "a pair of sheets, two table cloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass, a comb, night-caps, &c." p. 548.

conspicuous a part of the dress, were either manufactured of gold and silver, or were made of satin and velvet with a deep gold fringe. The common people were content with worsted galloon, or what were called caddis-garters. The gaudiness of attire, indeed, with regard to these articles of clothing, appears to have been carried to a most ridiculous excess; red silk-stockings, parti-coloured garters, and cross garterings, so as to represent the varied colours of the Scotch plaid, were frequently exhibited.

Nor were the shoes and boots of this period less extravagantly ostentatious. Corked shoes, or pantofles, are described by Stubbes as bearing up their wearers two inches or more from the ground, as being of various colours, and razed, carved. cut, and stitched. They were not unfrequently fabricated of velvet, embroidered with the precious metals, and when fastened with strings, these were covered with enormous roses of riband, curiously ornamented and of great value. Hamlet speaks of "Provencial_roses on my razed shoes;" and it is remarkable, that, as in the present age, both shoes and slippers were worne shaped after the right and left foot. Shakspeare describes his smith

"Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste

Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet:

Thus

and Scott, in his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," observes, that he who receiveth a mischance," will consider, whether he put not on his shirt wrong side outwards, or his left shoe on his right foot."

The boots were, if possible, still more eccentric and costly than the shoes, resembling, in some degree, though on a larger scale, the theatric buskin of the modern stage. They were usually manufactured of russet cloth or leather, hanging loose and ruffled about the leg, with immense tops turned down and fringed, and the heel decorated with gold or silver spurs. Decker speaks of " a gilt spur and a ruffled boot ;" and in another place adds,-"let it be thy prudence to have the tops of them wide as the mouth of a wallet, and those with fringed boothose over them to hang down to thy ancles." Yet even this extravagance did not content those who aspired to the highest rank of fashion; for Doctor Nott, the editor of Decker's Horn-book, in a note on the last passage which we have quoted, informs us, on the authority of Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, that these boots were often "made of cloth fine enough for any hand, or ruff; and so large, that the quantity used would nearly make a shirt: they were embroidered in gold and silver; having on them the figures of birds, animals, and antiques in various coloured silks: the needle-work alone of them would cost from four to ten pounds". Shakspeare alludes to the large boots with ruffles, or loose tops, which were fre quently called lugged boots, in All's Well That Ends Well, act iii. sc.2; and we find, from the same authority, that boots closely fitting the leg were sometimes worn; for Falstaff, in Henry the Fourth, Part II, accounting for the Prince's attachment to Poins, mentions, among his other qualifications, that he "wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg." Act ii sc. 4.

Nor was the interior clothing of the beau less sumptuous and expensive than his exterior apparel; his shirts, relates that minute observer, Stubbes, were made of "cambricke, Hollande, lawne, or els of the finest cloth that may be got." And were so wrought with "needle-work of silke, and so curiously stitched with other knackes beside, that their price would sometimes amount to ten pounds." No gentleman was considered as dressed without his dagger and rapier; the former, richly gilt and ornamented, was worn at the back: thus Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, exclaims,

"This dagger hath mista'en.-for, lo! his house

Is empty on the back of Montague

And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom : "

and an old play, of the date of 1750, expressly tells us,

Act v. sc. 3.