Note 318 — The Drawing Room.
Reading edition
About the year 1519, Hall mentions the Earl of Surrey "on a great coursir richely trapped, and a greate whistle of gold set with stones and perle, hanging at a great and massy chayne baudrick-wise." Chronicles: p. 65, a. See Warton's Life of Sir Thomas Pope: p. 166, note o., ed. 1780. This is a very amusing page about the custom of wearing whistles, among noblemen, at the commencement of the 16th century. If Franklin had been then alive, he would have had abundant reason for exclaiming that these men "paid too much for their whistles!"