Part 2 — CHAPTER VI.

ON THE DRESS, AND MODES OF LIVING, THE MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS, OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE METROPOLIS, DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE.

Before we enter on the dramatic career of Shakspeare, a subject which we wish to preserve unbroken, and free from irrelative matter, it will be necessary, in order to prosecute our view of the costume of the Times, to give a picture in this place of the prevalent habits of the metropolis, which, with the sketch already drawn of those peculiar to the country, will form a corresponding, and, we trust, an adequate whole.

In no period of our annals, perhaps, has DRESS formed a more curious subject of enquiry, than during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First. The Queen, who possessed an almost unbounded share of vanity and coquetry, set an example of profusion which was followed through every rank of society, and furnished by its universality, an inexhaustible theme for the puritanic satirists of the age.

Of the mutability and eccentricity of the dresses both of men and women, during this period, Harrison has provided us with a singular and interesting account, and which, as constituting a very appropriate preface to more minute particulars, we shall here transcribe.

"Such is our mutabilitie, that to daie there is none to the Spanish guise, to morrow the French toies are most fine and delectable, yer long no such apparell as that which is after the high Alman fashion, by and by the Turkish maner is generallie best liked of, otherwise the Morisco gowns, the Barbarian sleeves, the mandilion worne to Collie westen ward, and the short French breeches make such a comelie vesture, that except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not sée anie so disguised, as are my countrie men of England. And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie: the excesse and the vanitie: the pompe and the braverie: the change and the varietie: and finallie the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees: insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire. Oh how much cost is bestowed now adaies upon our bodies and how little upon our soules! how many sutes of apparell hath the one and how little furniture hath the other? how long time is asked in decking up of the first, and how little space left wherin to feed the later? how curious, how nice also are a number of men and women, and how hardlie can the tailer please them in making it fit for their bodies? how manie times must it be sent backe againe to him that made it? what chafing, what fretting, what reprochfull language doth the poore workman beare awaie? and manie times when he dooth nothing to it at all, yet when it is brought home againe it is verie fit and handsome; then must we put it on, then must the long seames of our hose be set by a plumb-line, then we puffe, then we blow, and finallie sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand upon us. I will saie nothing of our heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered to grow at length like woman's lockes, manie times cut off above or under the ears round as by a woodden dish. Neither will I meddle with our varietie of beards, of which some are shaven from the chin like those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto, some made round like a rubbing brush other with a pique devant (O fine fashion) or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being growen to be so cunning in this behalfe as the tailers. And therefore if a man have a leane and streight face, a marquesse Ottons cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter like, a long slender beard will make it seeme the narrower; if he be wesell becked, then much heare left on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so grim as a goose, if Cornelius of Chalmeresford saie true: manie old men doo weare no beards at all. Some lustie courtiers also and gentlemen of courage, doo weare either rings of gold, stones, or pearle in their eares, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God not to be a little amended. But herein they rather disgrace than adorne their persons, as by their nicenesse in apparell, for which I saie most nations doo not unjustlie deride us, as also for that we doo séeme to imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the Polypus or Chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women doo likewise upon their heads and shoulders. In women also it is most to be lamented that they doo now farre exceed the lightnesse of our men (who neverthelesse are transformed from the cap even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives onelie, is now become an habit for chast and sober matrones. What should I saie of their doublets with pendant cod peeses on the brest full of jags and cuts, and sleeves of sundrie colours? their galligascons to beare out their bums and make their attire to sit plum round (as they terme it) about them? their fardingals, and diverslie coloured nether stocks of silke, ierdseie, and such like, whereby their bodies are rather deformed than commended? I have met with some of these trulles in London so disguised, that it hath passed my skill to discerne whether they were men or women."[89:A]

After this philippic, we shall proceed to notice the Dress of the Ladies, commencing with that of the Queen, who is thus described by Paul Hentzner, as he saw her passing on her way to chapel, at the royal palace of Greenwich. Having mentioned the procession of barons, earls, knights, &c., he adds,—"Next came the queen, in the sixty-fifth year of her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black; (a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar) she had in her ears two pearls, with very rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red; upon her head she had a small crown;—her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it, till they marry; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads; her train was very long, the end of it borne by a marchioness; instead of a chain, she had an oblong collar of gold and jewels.——While we were there, W. Slawata, a Bohemian baron, had letters to present to her; and she, after pulling off her glove, gave him her right hand to kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels.—The ladies of the court followed next to her, very handsome and well shaped, and for the most part dressed in white."[90:A]

A few articles of the customary dress of Elizabeth, not adverted to by Hentzner, and particularly the characteristic ruff and stomacher, it may be requisite to subjoin. The former of these was profusely laced, plaited, and apparently divergent from a centre on the back of her neck; it was very broad, extending on each side of her face, with the extremities reposing on her bosom, from which rose two wings of lawn, edged with jewels, stiffened with wire, and reaching to the top of her hair, which was moulded into the shape of a cushion, and richly covered with gems. The stomacher was strait and broad, and though leaving the bosom bare, still formed a long waist by extending downwards; it was loaded with jewels and embossed gold, and preposterously stiff and formal.

The attachment of the Queen to dress was such, that she could not bear the idea of being rivalled, much less surpassed, in any exhibition of this kind. "It happenede," relates Sir John Harrington, "that Ladie M. Howarde was possessede of a rich border, powderd wyth golde and pearle, and a velvet suite belonginge thereto, which moved manie to envye; nor did it please the Queene, who thoughte it exceeded her owne. One daye the Queene did sende privately, and got the ladies rich vesture, which she put on herself, and came forthe the chamber amonge the ladies; the kirtle and border was far too shorte for her Majestie's heigth; and she askede every one 'How they likede her new-fancied suit?' At lengthe, she askede the owner herself, 'If it was not made too short and ill-becoming?'—which the poor ladie did presentlie consente to. 'Why then, if it become not me, as being too shorte, I am minded it shall never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.' This sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any more."[91:A]

Neither could she endure, from whatever quarter it came, any censure, direct or indirect, on her love of personal decoration. "One Sunday (April last)," says the same facetious knight, "my lorde of London preachede to the Queenes Majestie, and seemede to touche on the vanitie of deckinge the bodie too finely.—Her Majestie tolde the ladies, that 'If the bishope helde more discourse on suche matters, shee wolde fitte him for heaven, but he shoulde walke thither withoute a staffe, and leave his mantle behind him:' perchance the bishope hathe never soughte her Highnesse wardrobe, or he woulde have chosen another texte."[91:B]

Of this costly wardrobe it is recorded in Chamberlaine's epistolary notices, that it consisted of more than two thousand gowns, with all things answerable[91:C]; and Mr. Steevens, commenting on a passage in Cymbeline, where Imogen exclaims—

gives us the following interesting illustration.

"Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung up on wooden pegs in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances, were occasionally ripped for domestick uses, (viz. mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds) articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the walls, till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations.

"When a boy, at an ancient mansion-house in Suffolk, I saw one of these repositories, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!) had been preserved, with superstitious reverence, for almost a century and a half.

"When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her."[92:A]

With such a model before them, it may easily be credited, that our fair country-women vied with each other in the luxury, variety, and splendour of their dress. Shakspeare has noticed most of their eccentricities in this way, and a few remarks on his allusions, with some invectives from less good-tempered observers, will sufficiently illustrate the subject.

Benedict, describing the woman of his choice, says, "her hair shall be of what colour it please God[92:B];" an oblique stroke at a very prevalent fashion in Shakspeare's time of colouring or dying the hair, and which, from its general adoption, not only excited the shaft of the satirist, but the reprobation of the pulpit. Nor were the ladies content with disfiguring their own hair, but so universally dismissed it for that of others, that it was a common practice with them, as Stubbes asserts in his Anatomie of Abuses, to allure children who had beautiful hair to private places, in order to deprive them of their envied locks.

That the dead were frequently rifled for this purpose, our poet has told us in more places than one; thus, in his sixty-eighth sonnet, he says—

and he repeats the charge in his Merchant of Venice,—

The hair, when thus obtained, was often dyed of a sandy colour, in compliment to the Queen, whose locks were of that tint; and these false ornaments or "thatches," as Timon terms them, were called periwigs; thus Julia, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, contemplating the picture of her rival, observes,

Periwigs, which were first introduced into England about 1572, were to be had of all colours; for an old satirist, speaking of his countrywomen, says, "It is a woonder more than ordinary to beholde theyr perewigs of sundry collours."[93:C] A distinction, however, in wearing the hair, as well as in other articles of dress, existed between the matrons and unmarried women. "Gentlewomen virgins," observes Fines Moryson, "weare gownes close to the body, and aprons of fine linen, and go bareheaded, with their hair curiously knotted, and raised at the forehead, but many (against the cold, as they say,) weare caps of hair that is not their own."[93:D]

To some of the various coverings for the hair our poet refers in the Merry Wives of Windsor, when Falstaff, complimenting Mrs. Ford, exclaims, "thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance."[94:A]

The ship-tire appears to have been an open flaunting head-dress, with scarfs or ribands floating in the air like streamers, or as Fenton himself, in the fifth act of this play, describes it,

The tire-valiant, if the text be correct, must mean a dress still more shewy and ostentatious; and we know that feathers, jewels, and gold and silver ornaments, were common decorations in these days of gorgeous finery. Nash, in 1594, speaks of "lawn caps" with "snow-resembled silver curlings[94:B];" and a sarcastic poet in 1595 describes

Venice and Paris were the sources of fashion, and both occasionally furnished a more chaste and elegant costume for the female head than the objects of Falstaff's encomium. The "French hood," a favourite of the times, consisted simply of gauze or muslin, reaching from the back of the head down over the forehead, and leaving the hair exposed on each side.[94:D] Cauls, or nets of gold thread, were thrown with much taste over their glossy tresses, and attracted the notice of the satirist just quoted:—

Another happy mode of embellishment consisted of placing gracefully on the hair artificial peascods, which were represented open, with rows of pearls for peas.

The lady's morning-cap was usually a mob[95:A]; and the citizens' wives wore either a splendid velvet cap[95:B], or what was called the 'Minever cap,' with peaks three inches high, white, and three-cornered.

Paint was openly used for the face:

and masks and mufflers were in general use; the former, according to Stubbes, were made of velvet, "wherewith when they ride abroad they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a Devil, for face he can shew none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them[95:D];" the latter covered the lower part of the face only, as far as the nose, and had the appearance of a linen bandage. So common were these female masks in Shakspeare's days, that the author of Quippes for newfangled Gentlewemen, after remarking that they were the offspring not of modesty but of pride, informs us that

The ruff, already partly described under the dress of Elizabeth, was common to both sexes; but under the fostering care of the ladies, attained, in stiffness, fineness, and dimensions, the most extravagant pitch of absurdity. It reached behind to the very top of the head, and the tenuity of the lawn or cambrick of which it was made was such, that Stowe prophecies, they would shortly "wear ruffes of a spider's web." In order to support so slender a fabrick, a great quantity of starch become necessary, the skilful use of which was introduced by a Mrs. Dingen Van Plesse in 1564, who taught her art for a premium of five guineas. Starching was subsequently improved by the introduction of various colours, one of which, the yellow die, being the invention of a Mrs. Turner, who was afterwards concerned in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, was dismissed with abhorrence from the fashionable world, in consequence of this abandoned woman being executed at Tyburn in a ruff of her favourite tint. The extreme indignation with which Stubbes speaks of the use of starch is highly amusing:—"One arch or piller," says he, "wherewith the devil's kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certain kind of liquid matter which they call startch, wherein the devill hath learned them to wash and die their ruffes, which, being drie, will stand stiff and inflexible about their neckes. And this starch they make of divers substances—of all collours and hues, as white, redde, blewe, purple, and the like."

We are further informed by the same vehement satirist, that the ruff had the additional support of an underpropper called a suppertasse, and that its plaits were adjusted by poking-sticks made of iron, steel, or silver, that, when used, were heated in the fire, a custom against which he expresses his wrath by relating a most curious story of a gentlewoman of Antwerp who had her ruff poked by the devil on the 27th of May, 1582, "the sound whereof," says he, "is blowne through all the world, and is yet fresh in every mans memory." It appears that this unfortunate lady, being invited to a wedding, could not, although she employed two celebrated laundresses, get her ruff plaited according to her taste, upon which, proceeds Stubbes, "she fell to sweare and teare, to curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and wishing that the devill might take her when shee did wear any neckerchers againe;" a wish which was speedily accomplished; for the devil, assuming the form of a beautiful young man, made his appearance under the character of a suitor, and enquiring the cause of her agitation, "tooke in hande the setting of her ruffes, which he performed to her great contentation and liking; insomuch, as she, looking herselfe in a glasse (as the devill bad her) became greatly inamoured with him. This done, the young man kissed her, in the doing whereof, he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died miserably; her body being straight waies changed into blew and black colours, most ugglesome to beholde, and her face (which before was so amorous) became most deformed and fearfull to looke upon. This being knowne in the citie, great preparation was made for her buriall, and a rich coffin was provided, and her fearfull body was laide therein, and covered very sumptuously. Foure men immediately assayed to lift up the corpes, but could not move it; then sixe attempted the like, but could not once stirre it from the place where it stood. Whereat the standers-by marvelling, causing the coffin to be opened to see the cause thereof: where they found the body to be taken away, and a blacke catte, very leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin, setting of great ruffes, and frizling of haire, to the greate feare and woonder of all the beholders."[97:A]

The waist was beyond all proportion long, the bodice or stays terminating at the bottom in a point, and having in the fore part a pocket, for money, needle-work, and billets, a fashion to which Proteus alludes in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, when he tells Valentine

Gowns were made of the richest materials, with velvet capes embroidered with bugelles, and with the sleeves curiously cut[97:C]; the fashionable petticoat was the Scottish fardingale, made of cloth, taffety, satin, or silk, and of enormous bulk, so that when an Elizabethan lady was dressed in one of these, with the gown, as was usually the case, stuffed about the shoulders, and the ruffe in the first style of the day, her appearance was truly formidable. Over all was frequently thrown a kirtle, mantle, or surcoat, with or without a head, formed of silk or velvet, and richly bordered with lace.

Silk-stockings, which were first worn by the Queen in 1560. Mrs. Montagu, her silk-woman, having presented her with a pair of this material in that year, soon became almost universal among the ladies, and formed one of the most expensive articles of their dress.

Shoes with very high heels, in imitation of the Venetian chopine, a species of stilt sometimes better than a foot in height, was the prevalent mode, and carried, for the sake of increasing the stature, to a most ridiculous excess. It never reached, indeed, this enormous dimension in England, but seems, from a passage in Hamlet, to have been of such a definite size, as to admit of a reference to it as a mark of admeasurement, for the Prince remarks, "Your Ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine."[98:A]

Fans, constructed of ostrich feathers, inserted into handles of gold, silver, or ivory, and wrought with great skill in various elegant forms, were so commonly worn that the author of "Quippes for upstart newfangled Gentlewemen," 1595, exclaims,—

Silver and ivory handles were usual among ladies of the middle class of society; but in the higher ranks they were frequently decorated with gems, and the Queen had several new-year's gifts of fans, the handles of which were studded with diamonds and other jewels.[99:A] Shakspeare has many allusions to fans of feathers[99:B]; and even hints, in his Henry the Eighth, that the coxcombs of his day were not ashamed to adopt their use.[99:C]

Perfumed bracelets, necklaces, and gloves, were favourite articles. "Gloves as sweet as damask roses," form part of the stock of Autolycus, and Mopsa tells the clown, that he promised her "a pair of sweet gloves."[99:D] The Queen in this, as in most other luxuries of dress, set the fashion; for Howes informs us, that in the fifteenth year of her reign, Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, presented her with a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed with four tufts of rose-coloured silk, in which she took such pleasure that she was always painted with those gloves on her hands, and that their scent was so exquisite that it was ever after called the Earl of Oxford's perfume.[99:E]

To these notices it may be added, that a small looking-glass pendent from the girdle[99:F], a pocket-handkerchief richly wrought with gold and silver, and a love-lock hanging wantonly over the shoulder, were customarily exhibited by the fashionable female.

Burton, writing at the close of the Shakspearean era, has given us a brief but exact enumeration of the feminine allurements of his day; a passage which, whilst it adds a few new particulars, will furnish an excellent recapitulation of what has been already advanced.

"Why," exclaims he, "do they decorate themselves with artificial flowers, the various colours of herbs, needle works of exquisite skill, quaint devices, and perfume their persons, wear inestimable riches in precious stones, crown themselves with gold and silver, use coronets and tires of several fashions; deck themselves with pendants, bracelets, ear-rings, chains, girdles, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries, shadows, rebatoes, versicoler ribands? Why do they make such glorious shews with their scarfs, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tinsels, cloth of gold, silver tissue? Such setting up with corks, straitening with whale bones; why, it is but as a day-net catcheth larks, to make young ones stoop unto them.—And when they are disappointed, they dissolve into tears, which they wipe away like sweat: weep with one eye, laugh with the other; or as children, weep and cry they can both together: and as much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping as of a goose going barefoot."[100:A]

We have seen in the extract from Harrison, at the commencement of this chapter, that a great portion of it is employed in satirising the extravagance and folly of the male-dress of his times, and the adduction of further particulars will serve but to strengthen the propriety of his invective, and to prove, what will scarcely be credited, that, in the absurdity and frivolity of personal ornament, the men far surpassed the other sex.

Though there is reason to conclude that this taste for expensive and frivolous declaration, was originally derived from the reign of Elizabeth, yet was it even still more encouraged by James; for though he set no example of profusion of this kind in his own person, Sir Arthur Wheldon declaring that he was "in his apparrell so constant, as by his good will he would never change his cloathes till very ragges; his fashion never: insomuch, as one bringing to him a hat of a Spanish block, he cast it from him, swearing he neither loved them nor their fashions. Another time, bringing him roses on his shoes, asked, if they would make him a ruffe-footed-dove? one yard of sixpenny ribband served that turne[101:A];" yet was he passionately attached to dress in the persons of his courtiers; "he doth admire good fashion in cloaths;" says Lord Howard, writing to Sir John Harington in 1611; "I would wish you to be well trimmed; get a new jerkin well bordered, and not too short; the King saith, he liketh a flowing garment; be sure it be not all of one sort, but diversly coloured, the collar falling somewhat down, and your ruff well stiffend and bushy. We have lately had many gallants who failed in their suits, for want of due observance of these matters. The King is nicely heedfull of such points, and dwelleth on good looks and handsome accoutrements. Eighteen servants were lately discharged, and many more will be discarded, who are not to his liking in these matters.—Robert Carr is now most likely to win the Prince's affection, and dothe it wonderously in a little time. The Prince leaneth on his arm, pinches his cheek, smoothes his ruffled garment, and, when he looketh at Carr, directeth discourse to divers others. This young man dothe much study all art and device; he hath changed his tailors and tiremen many times, and all to please the Prince, who laugheth at the long grown fashion of our young courtiers, and wisheth for change for every day."[101:B]

King James's love of finery seems to have been imbibed, not only by his courtiers, but by all his youthful subjects; for from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, nothing can exceed the fantastic attire by which the beau of this period was distinguished. His hair was worn long and flowing, "whose length," says Decker, "before the rigorous edge of any puritanical pair of scissors should shorten the breadth of a finger, let the three housewifely spinsters of destiny rather curtail the thread of thy life;—let it play openly with the lascivious wind, even on the top of your shoulders."[102:A] His hat was made of silk, velvet, taffeta, or beaver, the last being the most expensive; the crown was high, and narrow toward the top, "like the speare or shaft of a steeple," observes Stubbes, "standing a quarter of a yard above their heads;" the edges, and sometimes the whole hat, were embroidered with gold and silver, to which a costly hat-band sparkling with gems, and a lofty plume of feathers, were generally added. It appears, from a passage in the Taming of the Shrew, that to these high hats the name of copatain was given; for Vincentio, surprised at Tranio being dressed as a gentleman, exclaims, "O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet hose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat![102:B]" a word which Mr. Steevens considers as synonymous with a high copt hat. It was usual with gallants to wear gloves in their hats, as a memorial of their ladies favour.[102:C]

Of the beard and its numerous forms, we have already seen a curious detail by Harrison, to which we may subjoin, that it was customary to dye it of various colours[102:D], and to mould it into various forms, according to the profession, age, or fancy of the wearer. Red was one of the most fashionable tints[102:E]; a beard of "formal cut" distinguished the justice[102:F] and the judge; a rough bushy beard marked the clown, and a spade-beard, or a stiletto, or dagger-shaped beard, graced the soldier. "It is observable," remarks Mr. Malone, "that our author's patron, Henry Earl of Southampton, who spent much of his time in camps, is drawn with the latter of these beards; and his unfortunate friend, Lord Essex, is constantly represented with the former."[103:A]

Of the effeminate fashions of this age, perhaps the most effeminate was the custom of wearing jewels and roses in the ears, or about the neck, and of cherishing 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.[103:B] 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.[103:C]

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.[103:D]

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."[104:A]

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[104:B], and the latter had frequently a most indelicate appendage, to which our poet has too often indulged the licence of allusion.[104:C] 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 ducates were sometimes given for a face of sables[105:A];" consequently, as Mr. Malone has remarked, "a suit trimmed with sables was, in Shakspeare's time, the richest dress worn by men in England."[105:B]

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 silke, velvet, damaske, or other precious stuffe."[105:C] 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[105:D]," which being so 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.[105:E] 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 gartering, 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. Thus Hamlet speaks of "Provencial roses on my razed shoes;" and it is remarkable, that, as in the present age, both shoes and slippers were worn shaped after the right and left foot. Shakspeare describes his smith

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."[106:B]

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 boot-hose over them to hang down to thy ancles."[106:C] 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[107:A] ten pounds." Shakspeare alludes to the large boots with ruffles, or loose tops, which were frequently 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."[107:B]

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 "camericke, Hollande, lawne, or els of the finest cloth that may be got." And were so wrought with "needle-worke of silke, and so curiously stitched with other knackes beside, that their price would sometimes amount to ten pounds."[107:C]

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,

and an old play, of the date 1570, expressly tells us,

The rapier, or small sword, which had been known in this country from the reign of Henry the Eighth, or even earlier, entirely superseded, about the 20th of Elizabeth, the use of the heavy or two-handed sword and buckler; an event which Justice Shallow, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, is represented as regretting.[108:A] Though occasionally used as an offensive weapon, and certainly a more dangerous instrument than its predecessor, it was chiefly worn as a splendid ornament, the hilt and scabbard being profusely, and often elegantly decorated. It was also the custom to wear these swords when dancing, as appears from a passage in All's Well That Ends Well, where Bertram says,

an allusion which has received most satisfactory illustration from Mr. Douce, in an extract taken from Stafforde's Briefe conceipt of English pollicy, 1581, 4to., in which not only this practice is mentioned, but the preceding fashion of the heavy sword and buckler is particularly noticed:—"I thinke wee were as much dread or more of our enemies, when our gentlemen went simply, and our serving men plainely, without cuts or gards, bearing their heavy swords and buckelers on their thighes, insted of cuts and gardes and light daunsing swordes; and when they rode, carrying good speares in theyr hands in stede of white rods, which they cary now more like ladies or gentlewemen than men; all which delicacyes maketh our men cleane effeminate and without strength."[109:A]

It soon became the fashion to wear these rapiers of such an enormous length, that government was obliged to interfere, and a sumptuary law was passed to limit these weapons to three feet, which was published by proclamation, together with one for the curtailment of ruffs. "He," says Stowe, "was held the greatest gallant, that had the deepest ruffe and longest rapier: the offence to the eye of the one, and the hurt unto the life of the subject that came by the other, caused her Majesty to make proclamation against them both, and to place selected grave citizens at every gate to cut the ruffes, and breake the rapiers' points of all passengers that exceeded a yeard in length of their rapiers."[109:B] This regulation occasioned a whimsical circumstance, related by Lord Talbot, in a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated June 23d, 1580:—"The French Imbasidore, Mounswer Mouiser, (Malvoisier) ridinge to take the ayer, in his returne cam thowrowe Smithfild; and ther, at the bars, was steayed by thos offisers that sitteth to cut sourds, by reason his raper was longer than the statute: He was in a great feaurie, and dreawe his raper; in the meane season my Lord Henry Seamore cam, and so steayed the matt^r: Hir Ma^tie is greatlie ofended w^th the ofisers, in that they wanted jugement."[109:C]

This account of the male fashionable dress, during the days of Shakspeare, has sufficiently borne out the assertion which we made at its commencement,—that in extravagance and frivolity it surpassed the caprice and expenditure of the other sex; a charge which is repeated by Burton at the close of this era; for, exclaiming against the luxury of fine clothes, he remarks, "women are bad, and men worse.—So ridiculous we are in our attires, and for cost so excessive, that as Hierom said of old,—'tis an ordinary thing to put a thousand oaks, and an hundred oxen into a suit of apparel, to wear a whole mannor on his back. What with shoo-ties, hangers, points, caps and feathers, scarfs, bands, cuffs, &c., in a short space their whole patrimonies are consumed. Heliogabalus is taxed by Lampridius, and admired in his age for wearing jewels in his shoos, a common thing in our times, not for Emperors and Princes, but almost for serving-men and taylors: all the flowres, stars, constellations, gold and pretious stones do condescend to set out their shoos."[110:A]

The dress of the citizen, indeed, was, if less elegant, equally showy, and sometimes fully as expensive as that of the man of fashion. The medium habit may, with great probability, be considered as sketched in the following humorous tale, derived from a popular pamphlet printed in 1609:—

Under the next section of this chapter, including the Modes of Living, it is our intention to give a short detail of the household furniture, eating, drinking, and domestic economy of our town-ancestors, during the close of the sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth century.

In that part of the first volume which is appropriated to the Modes of Living in the Country, we have seen Holinshed alluding to the increasing luxury of his age in furniture, the convenience, richness, and magnificence of which, as displayed in the upper and middle classes of society in the metropolis, we shall now endeavour briefly to illustrate.

That the palaces of Elizabeth were decorated with all the splendour that tapestry, embroidery, and cloths of gold and silver, and services of plate could effect, we have numberless proofs; but that they united with these the still higher luxuries of comfort and accommodation, too often wanting amid the most gorgeous scenes, we have the testimony of Sir John Harrington, who, in his "Treatise on Playe," circa 1597, thus describes the conveniences which the Queen had provided for her courtiers:—"It is a great honor of the Queen's court, that no princes servants fare so well and so orderly:—to be short, the stately pallaces, goodly and many chambers, fayr gallerys, large gardens, sweet walkes, that princes with magnificent cost do make, (the xxth parte of which they use not themselves) all shew that they desire, the ease, content and pleasure of theyr followers, as well as themselves. Which matter, though it be more proper to another discourse, yet I colde not but towch it in this, agaynst theyr error rather than awsterytie, that say play becomes not the presence, and that it would not as well become the state of the chamber to have easye quilted and lyned forms and stools for the lords and ladyes to sit on, as great plank forms that two yeomen can scant remove out of their places, and waynscot stooles so hard, that since great breeches were layd asyde, men can skant indewr to sitt on."[112:A]

Hentzner, in his Travels, gives a still further display of the costly costume of the Queen's apartments. At Windsor Castle he tells us that Her Majesty had "two bathing-rooms cieled and wainscoted with glass;" and at Hampton Court he adds, "her closet in the chapel was most splendid, quite transparent, having its window of chrystal. We were led into two chambers, called the presence, or chambers of audience, which shone with tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of different colours.—Here is besides a small chapel richly hung with tapestry, where the Queen performs her devotions. In her bed-chamber the bed was covered with very costly cover lids of silk:—in one chamber were several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors; there were numbers of chusions ornamented with gold and silver; many counterpanes and coverlids of beds lined with ermine: in short, all the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is besides a certain cabinet called Paradise, where besides that every thing glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle ones eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass, except the strings."[113:A]

The emulation of the nobility left them little behind their Queen in ornamental profusion of this kind; and the picture which Shakspeare has drawn of Imogen's chamber in Cymbeline, may be quoted as an apposite instance, for he ever imparts the costume of his native island to that of every other country:—

To this sketch we can add a few features from a little work entitled "The Mirrour of Madnes," anno 1576, where the house of the opulent man is thus described:—"My chaumbers, parloures, and other such romes, hanged wyth clothe of tyssue, arrace, and golde; my cupbordes heades set oute and adorned after the richest, costlieste, and most gloryous maner, wyth one cuppe cocke height upon an other, beside the greate basen and ewer both of silver and golde; filled at convenient tymes with sweete and pleasaunt waters, wherewith my delicate hands may be washed, my heade recreated, and my nose refreshed, &c."[113:C]

When Lævinius Lemnius, a celebrated physician and divine of Zealand, visited London, during the reign of Elizabeth, he was delighted with the houses and furniture of the middle classes:—"The neate cleanliness," says he, "the exquisite finenesse, the pleasaunte 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 entermingled wyth sondry sortes of fragaunte floures, in their bed chambers and privie roomes, with comfortable smell cheered mee up, and entierlye delighted all my sences."[114:A]

To these general descriptions, we shall subjoin some further remarks on a few of the articles which they contain; minutiæ which will render us more familiarly acquainted with the domestic arrangements of our forefathers.

Arras or tapestry, representing landscapes and figures, formed the almost universal hangings for rooms below, and chambers above. When first introduced, it was attached to the bare walls; but it was soon found necessary, in consequence of the damp arising from the brick work, to suspend it on wooden frames, placed at such a distance from the sides of the room, as would easily admit of any person being introduced behind it, a facility which soon converted these vacancies into common hiding-places. Thus Shakspeare, during his scenic developements, has very frequent recourse to this expedient. "I will ensconce me behind the arras[114:B];" "I whipt me behind the arras[114:C];" "Look thou stand within the arras[114:D]:" "Go hide thee behind the arras[114:E]:" "Behind the arras I'll convey myself[114:F]," &c. &c.

We have seen that in the Country, mottoes were often placed in halls and servants' chambers, for the instruction of the domestics; a custom which was also adopted on tapestry for the improvement of their superiors, and to which Shakspeare refers in his Rape of Lucrece,

and is further confirmed by Dr. Bulleyne, who, in one of his productions, says,—"This is a comelie parlour,—and faire clothes, with pleasaunte borders aboute the same, with many wise sayings painted upon them."[115:B]

What these wise sayings were, we are taught by the following extract from a publication of 1601:—

proverbial wisdom, which Orlando, in As You Like It, designates by the phrase "right painted cloth."[115:D]

That "the arras figures[115:E]," though in general coarsely executed, had strongly impressed the mind of Shakspeare, and furnished him with no small portion of imagery and allusion, has been very satisfactorily established by Mr. Whiter, who remarks, that their "effects may be perpetually traced by the observing critic," even "when the poet himself is totally unconscious of this predominating influence."[115:F]

The manner of illuminating the halls and banquetting rooms of the Great at this period, was truly classical. We find that Homer, describing the palace of Alcinous, says—

and Lucretius, speaking of the Dome of the opulent, describes its walls with

Similar to these were the

of our ancestors, which generally represented a man in armour with his hands extended, in which were placed the sockets for the lights; and we may easily conceive how splendid these might be rendered by the arts of the goldsmith and jeweller.

Where these antique candelabras were not adopted, living candle-holders supplied their place, and were, indeed, always present, when a central or perambulatory light was required: "Give me a torch," says Romeo,

The gentlemen-pensioners of Queen Elizabeth usually held her torches; and Shakspeare represents Henry the Eighth going to Wolsey's palace, preceded by sixteen torch-bearers.[116:E] At great entertainments, beside candelabras fixed against the sides of the room, torch-bearers stood by the tables, supplying the light which we now receive from chandeliers.[117:A]

Watch-lights, which were divided into equal portions by marks, each of which burnt a limited time, were common in the bed-chambers of the wealthy; they are alluded to in Tomkis's Albumazar, 1614, where Sulpitia says, "Why should I sit up all night like a watching-candle?"[117:B]

Every bed-chamber was furnished with two beds, a standing-bed, and a truckle-bed; in the former slept the master, and in the latter his page. The Host, in Merry Wives of Windsor, directing Simple where to find Sir John Falstaff, says,—"There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed[117:C];" and Decker, and Middleton, further illustrate the custom, when the first, alluding to a page, says, he is "so dear to his lordship, as for the excellency of his fooling to be admitted both to ride in coach with him, and to lie at his very feet on a truckle-bed[117:D];" and the second, addressing a similar personage, exclaims,—"Well, go thy ways, for as sweet a breasted page as ever lay at his master's feet in a truckle-bed."[117:E] It may be added that the standing-bed had frequently on it a counterpoint, or counterpane, so rich and costly as, according to Stowe, to be worth sometimes a thousand marks. This piece of luxury forms one of Gremio's articles, when enumerating the furniture of his city-house, a catalogue which throws much curious light upon our present subject:—

Pewter, during the reign of Elizabeth, was considered as a very costly material, and, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, had been so rare, as to be hired by the year, even for the use of noblemen's houses.[118:B]

The ivory coffers, and cypress chests, mentioned in Gremio's list, were esteemed, at this period, highly ornamental pieces of furniture for apartments designed for the reception of visitors. "I have seen," relates Mr. Steevens, "more than one of these, as old as the time of our poet. They were richly ornamented on the tops and sides with scroll-work, emblematical devices, &c. and were elevated on feet."[118:C] Shakspeare has an allusion to this custom in Twelfth Night, where he speaks of

The tables in these apartments, and in the halls of the nobility, were so constructed as to turn up; being flat leaves, united by hinges, and resting on tressels, so as to fold into a small compass. Thus Capulet, wanting room for the dancers in his hall, calls out

When dinner, or supper, was served up, these tables were covered with carpets; hence Gremio exclaims, "Where's the cook? Is supper ready?—Be the carpets laid?"[118:F]

Pictures constituted a frequent decoration in the rooms of the wealthy; and there are numerous instances to prove that those which were estimated as valuable, were protected by curtains. Olivia, addressing Viola in Twelfth Night, says,—"We will draw the curtain, and shew you the picture[119:A];" the same imagery occurs in Troilus and Cressida, where Pandarus, unveiling Cressida, uses almost the same words: "Come draw this curtain, and let us see your picture[119:B]." The passage, however, which Mr. Douce has quoted in illustration of this subject, as it decides the point, will supersede all further reference:—"In Deloney's Pleasant history of Jack of Newbery, printed before 1597, it is recorded," he remarks, "that 'in a faire large parlour which was wainscotted round about, Jacke of Newbery had fifteene faire pictures hanging, which were covered with curtaines of greene silke, fringed with gold, which he would often shew to his friends.'"[119:C]

The practice of strewing floors with rushes was general before the introduction of carpets for this purpose, and the first mansions in the kingdom could boast of nothing superior in this respect. Shakspeare has many lines in reference to the custom; Glendower, for instance, interpreting Lady Mortimer's address to her husband, says,

Again Iachimo, rising from the Trunk in Imogen's chamber, exclaims:—

and lastly, Romeo calls out

Similar allusions abound in our old dramatic poets, one of which we shall give for the singularity of its comparison: "All the ladies and gallants," says Jonson, in his Cynthia's Revels, "lye languishing upon the rushes, like so many pounded cattle i' the midst of harvest.[120:B]"

The utility of the rush, and the species used for this purpose, will be illustrated by the following passages:—"Rushes that grow upon dry groundes," observes Dr. Bulleyne, "be good to strew in halles, chambers, and galleries, to walke upon, defending apparell, as traynes of gownes and kertles from dust[120:C];" and Decker tells us of "windowes spread with hearbs, the chimney drest up with greene boughs, and the floore strewed with bulrushes."[120:D]

Of the hospitality of the English, and of the style of eating and drinking in the upper ranks of society, Harrison has given us the following curious, though general, detail.

"In number of dishes and change of meat," he remarks, "the nobilitie of England (whose cookes are for the most part musicall headed Frenchmen and strangers) doo most exceed, sith there is no daie in maner that passeth over their heads, wherein they have not onelie béefe, mutton, veale, lambe, kid, porke, conie, capon, pig, or so manie of these as the season yeeldeth: but also some portion of the red or fallow déere, beside great varietie of fish and wild foule, and thereto sundrie other delicates wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting: so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to tast of everie dish that standeth before him (which few use to doo, but ech one feedeth upon that meat him best liketh for the time, the beginning of everie dish notwithstanding being reserved unto the greatest personage that sitteth at the table, to whome it is drawen up still by the waiters as order requireth, and from whence it descendeth againe even to the lower end, whereby each one may tast thereof) is rather to yield unto a conspiracie with a greate deale of meat for the spéedie suppression of naturall health, then the use of a necessarie meane to satisfie himselfe with a competent repast, to susteine his bodie withall.—

"The chiefe part likewise of their dailie provision is brought in before them (commonlie in silver vessell, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops and upwards) and placed on their tables, whereof when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterward sent downe to their serving men and waiters, who féed thereon in like sort with convenient moderation, their reversion also being bestowed upon the poore, which lie readie at their gates in great numbers to receive the same. This is spoken of the principall tables whereat the nobleman, his ladie and guestes are accustomed to sit, beside which they have a certeine ordinarie allowance daillie appointed for their hals, where the chiefe officers and household servants (for all are not permitted by custome to waite upon their master) and with them such inferiour guestes doo feed as are not of calling to associat the noble man himselfe (so that besides those afore mentioned, which are called to the principall table, there are commonlie fortie or three score persons fed in those hals,) to the great reliefe of such poore sutors and strangers also as oft be partakers thereof and otherwise like to dine hardlie. As for drinke it is usuallie filled in pots, gobblets, jugs, bols of silver in noble mens houses, also in fine Venice glasses of all formes, and for want of these elsewhere in pots of earth of sundrie colours and moulds (whereof manie are garnished with silver) or at the leastwise in pewter, all which notwithstanding are seldome set on the table, but each one as necessitie urgeth, calleth for a cup of such drinke as him listeth to have: so that when he hath tasted of it he delivered the cup againe to some one of the standers by, who making it cleane by pouring out the drinke that remaineth, restoreth it to the cupbord from whence he fetched the same. By this devise,—much idle tippling is further more cut off, for if the full pots should continuallie stand at the elbow or neere the trencher, diverse would alwaies be dealing with them, whereas now they drinke seldome and onelie when necessitie urgeth, and so avoid the note of great drinking, or often troubling of the servitors with filling of their bols. Neverthelesse in the noble men's hals, this order is not used, neither in anie mans house commonlie under the degree of a knight or esquire of great revenues. It is a world to sée in these our daies, wherein gold and silver most aboundeth, how that our gentilitie as lothing those mettals (bicause of the plentie) do now generallie choose rather the Venice glasses both for our wine and béere, than anie of those mettals or stone wherein before time we have béene accustomed to drinke, but such is the nature of man generallie that it most coveteth things difficult to be atteined; and such is the estimation of this stuffe, that manie become rich onelie with their new trade unto Murana (a towne neere to Venice situat on the Adriatike sea) from whence the verie best are dailie to be had, and such as for beautie doo well neare match the christall or the ancient Murrhina vasa, whereof now no man hath knowledge. And as this is seene in the gentilitie, so in the wealthie communaltie the like desire of glasse is not neglected."[122:A]

To this interesting sketch a few particulars shall be added in order to render the picture more complete; and, in the first place, we shall give an account, from an eye-witness, of the ceremonies accompanying the dinner-table of Elizabeth. "While the Queen was still at prayers," relates Hentzner, "we saw her table set out with the following solemnity:

"A gentleman entered the room bearing a rod, and along with him another who had a table-cloth, which, after they had both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon the table, and after kneeling again, they both retired. Then came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a salt-seller, a plate and bread; when they had kneeled, as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they too retired with the same ceremonies performed by the first. At last came an unmarried lady (we were told she was a countess) and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table, and rubbed the plates with bread and salt, with as much awe, as if the queen had been present: when they had waited there a little while, the yeoman of the guards entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose upon their backs, bringing in at each turn a course of twenty-four dishes, served in plate, most of it gilt; these dishes were received by a gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon the table, while the lady-taster gave to each of the guard a mouthful to eat, of the particular dish he had brought for fear of any poison. During the time that this guard, which consists of the tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England, being carefully selected for this service, were bringing dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring for half an hour together. At the end of all this ceremonial a number of unmarried ladies appeared, who, with particular solemnity, lifted the meat off the table, and conveyed it into the queen's inner and more private chamber, where, after she had chosen for herself, the rest goes to the ladies of the court. The queen dines and sups alone with very few attendants."[123:A]

The strict regularity and temperance which prevailed in the court of Elizabeth, were by no means characteristic of that of her successor, who, in his convivial moments, too often grossly transgressed the bounds of sobriety. When Christian IV., King of Denmark, visited England in July, 1606, the carousals at the palace were carried to a most extravagant height, and their influence on the higher ranks was such, that "our good English nobles," remarks Harrington, "whom I never could get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion, and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication;" accusations which he fully substantiates whilst relating the following most ludicrous scene:—

"One day," says he, "a great feast was held, and, after dinner, the representation of Solomon his Temple, and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to have been made, before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of Salisbury and others.—But, alas! as all earthly thinges do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment hereof. The Lady who did play the Queen's part, did carry most precious gifts to both their Majesties; but, forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majesties lap, and fell at his feet, tho I rather think it was in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion; cloths and napkins were at hand, to make all clean. His Majesty then got up and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an inner chamber and laid on a bed of state; which was not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen which had been bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly, beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward, or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and Charity: Hope did assay to speak, but wine rendered her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the King would excuse her brevity: Faith was then all alone, for I am certain she was not joyned with good works, and left the court in a staggering condition: Charity came to the King's feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had committed; in some sorte she made obeysance and brought giftes, but said she would return home again, as there was no gift which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick and spewing in the lower hall. Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with his hand; and by a strange medley of versification, did endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not triumph long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her attendants; and much contrary to her semblance, most rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates of those who did oppose her coming." The facetious Knight concludes his story by declaring that "in our Queen's days—I neer did see such lack of good order, discretion, and sobriety, as I have now done."[125:A]

We have already mentioned in Part the First, Chapter the Fifth of this work, that the usual hour of dinner, among the upper classes, was eleven o'clock in the forenoon; and though Harrison, in the passage which we last quoted from him, describes the provisions as often brought to the tables of the nobility served on silver, yet wooden trenchers for plates were still frequently to be found at the most sumptuous tables; thus Harrington in 1592, giving directions to his servants, orders, "that no man waite at the table without a trencher in his hand, except it be upon good cause, on pain of 1d."[125:B]

To the silver, gilt plate, and cut glass of Harrison, may be added the use of china, an article of luxury to which the Clown in Measure for Measure thus alludes:—"Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not china dishes, but very good dishes."[125:C] A considerable quantity of china or porcelain, had been brought into this country, during the reign of Elizabeth, as part of the cargo of some captured Spanish carracks.[126:A] It appears, also, that carpet-cloth for tables was, towards the close of our period, dismissed for table-linen, and that of a quality so fine, that Mrs. Otter, in Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, which was first acted in 1609, laments having "stained a damask table-cloth, cost me eighteen pound."[126:B]

With all these luxuries, the reader will be surprised to learn, that forks were not introduced into this country before 1611. Knives had been in general use since the year 1563, but for the former the fingers had been the sole substitute. The honour of this cleanly fashion, must be given to that singular traveller Thomas Coryat, who in his Crudities informs us, that he found forks common in Italy. "Hereupon," says he, "I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion, by this forked cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England since I came home; being once quipped for that frequent using of my forke, by a certaine learned gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one M. Laurence Whitaker, who in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table Furcifer, only for using a forke at feeding, but for no other cause."[126:C]

The utility of the practice was soon acknowledged, for we find Jonson, in 1614, speaking of their adoption in his "Devil Is An Ass," where Meercraft, having mentioned his "project of the forks," Sledge exclaims—

To the articles of provision enumerated by Harrison, we may add, that the bread of this period was of many various kinds, and sometimes peculiarly fine, especially that made at York. "Bred," says a physician who wrote in 1572, "of dyvers graines, of divers formes, in divers places be used:—some in forme of manchet, used of the gentility: some of greate loves, as is usual among yeomanry, some betweene both, as with the franklings: some in forme of cakes, as at weddings: some rondes of hogs, as at upsittings: some simnels, cracknels, and buns, as in the Lent, some in brode cakes, as the oten cakes in Kendall on yrons: some on slate stones as in the hye peke: some in frying pans as in Darbyshyre: some betwene yrons as wapons: some in round cakes as bysket for the ships. But these and all other the mayne bread of York excelleth, for that it is of the finest floure of the wheat well tempered, best baked, a patterne of all others the fineste."[127:A]

Dinners had attained a degree of epicurism which rival those of the present day; three courses, of which the second consisted of game, and the third of pastry, creams, and confections, together with a dessert, including marchpane, (a cake composed of filberts, almonds, pistacho-nuts, pine-kernels, sugar of roses, and flour) marmalades, pomegranates, oranges, citrons, apples, pears, raisins, dates, nuts, grapes, &c. &c.[127:B], were common in the houses of the opulent, nor was any expense spared in procuring the most luxurious dainties. "Who will not admire," remarks an Essayist of this age, "our nice dames of London, who must have cherries at twenty shillings a pound, and pescods at five shillings a pecke, huske without pease? Yong rabbettes of a spanne, and chickens of an inch?"[127:C]

To such a height, indeed, had sensuality in eating arisen among the courtiers of James the First, that Osborne, in his "Traditional Memorials" on the reign of that monarch, informs us, "the Earl of Carlisle was one of the Quorum, that brought in the vanity of Ante-suppers not heard of in our Fore-fathers time, and for ought I have read, or at least remember, unpractised by the most luxurious tyrants. The manner of which was, to have a board covered at the first entrance of the guests with dishes as high as a tall man could well reach, filled with the choicest and dearest viands sea and land could afford: and all this once seen and having feasted the eyes of the invited, was in a manner thrown away, and fresh set on the same height, having only this advantage of the other, that it was hot. I cannot forget one of the attendants of the K. that at a feast, made by this monster in excess, eat to his single share a whole pie reckoned to my Lord at ten pounds."[128:A]

The extravagance and excess of refection with regard to eatables, must, however, we are sorry to say, yield to those which accompanied the use, or rather the abuse, of vinous liquors. The propensity of the English of his times to drunkenness, has been frequently commented on by Shakspeare; Iago, in reference to a drinking-catch which he had just sung, says, "I learned it in England, where (indeed) they are most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander,—Drink, ho!—are nothing to your English.

Cass. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?

Iago. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be filled[128:B];" a charge which seems to be confirmed by the sober testimony of Gascoigne,—"The Almaynes," he observes, "with their smale Rhenish wine, are contented; but we must have March beere, double beere, dagger ale, bracket, &c. Yea, wine itself is not sufficient, but sugar, lemons, and spices, must be drowned thereinne!"[129:A] Yet, it is but fair to subjoin, as an acknowledged fact, that we derived this vinosity, as Heywood terms it, from the Danes; "they," says he, "have made a profession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record that brought their wassel-bowles and elbowe-deep healthes into this land."[129:B]

Of the consumption of wine, a striking estimate may be formed, from part of a letter addressed by the Earl of Shrewsbury to the Marquis of Winchester and Sir Walter Mildmay, dated January, 1569:—"It may please you to understaund," says His Lordship, "that whereas I have had a certen ordinary allowaunce of wine, amongs other noble men, for expenses in my howsehold, w^tout imposte; The charg˜s daily that I do nowe susteyn, and have done all this yere past, well knowen by reason of the Quene of Scotts, are so grete therein as I am compelled to be now a suter unto yow that ye woll please to have a friendlie considerac˜on unto the necessitie of my large expenses. Truly two tonnes in a monthe have not hitherto sufficed ordinarily." "This passage," observes Mr. Lodge, "will serve to correct a vulgar error, relating to the consumption of wine in those days, which, instead of being less, appears to have been, at least in the houses of the great, even more considerable than that of the present time. The good people who tell us that Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour breakfasted on roast beef, generally add, that wine was then used in England as a medicine, for that it was sold only by the apothecaries. The latter assertion, though founded on a fact, seems to have led to a mistake in the former; for the word Apothecary, from the Greek Αποθήκη, repositorium, is applicable to any shopkeeper, or warehouseman, and was probably once used in that general sense."[129:C] It appears, however, from Decker's Tracts, that apothecaries, in the modern acceptation of the word, sold both wine and tobacco, and that their shops formed the fashionable lounge of the day:—"here you must observe to know in what state tobacco is in town, better than the merchants; and to discourse of the apothecaries where it is to be sold; and to be able to speak of their wines, as readily as the apothecary himself reading the barbarous hand of a doctor."[130:A] "Some lie in ambush, to note what apothecary's shop he (the gallant) resorts to every morning."[130:B]

The variety of wines in the days of Shakspeare has not since been exceeded, or, perhaps, even equalled. Harrison mentions fifty-six French wines, and thirty-six Spanish, Italian, &c., to which must be added several home-made wines, such as Ypocras, Clarey, Braket, &c. &c., for which receipts may be found in Arnold's Chronicle.

Among the foreign wines used at this period, none have attracted so much notice, or so much controversy, as the celebrated beverage of Falstaff, Sack. Whether this was a dry or a sweet wine has been left undecided by the commentators, after much elaborate and contradictory disquisition. If we may repose, however, on the authority of Gervase Markham's "English Housewife," a book published very shortly after the death of Shakspeare, and probably written several years before that event, a book professing to contain "the opinions of the greatest Physicians," many years antecedent to the Dedication which includes this assertion[130:C], the question must be considered as finally settled. This author, in his fourth chapter, entitled, "The ordering, preserving, and helping of all sorts of Wines, and first of the choice of sweet Wines," opens the subject by declaring, that he had derived his knowledge on wines from a vintner "profest skilful in the trade," and he then immediately proceeds, addressing the housewife, to speak first of the election of sweet wines; "she must," says he, "be carefull that the Malmseys be full wines, pleasant, well hewed and fine: that Bastard be fat, and strong, if it be tawney it skils not: for the tawny Bastards be always the sweetest. Muscadine must be great, pleasant and strong with a sweet scent, and with Amber colour. Sack if it be Seres (as it should be) you shall know it by the mark of a cork burned on one side of the bung, and they be ever full gage, and so are other Sacks, and the longer they lye, the better they be."[131:A]

From this passage we learn three circumstances relative to Sack: 1stly, that Sack was a sweet wine; 2dly, that Seres, or Xeres, Sack, or what Shakspeare, in 1597, calls "a good sherris-sack," a wine manufactured at Xeres in Spain, was the most esteemed of its kind; and, 3dly, that other Sacks were in use in this country. Still further light is thrown upon this topic in a subsequent page, where we are told, when enumerating the sweet wines in contradistinction to those of a sharp taste, that Sacks are of three species—"Your best Sacks are of Seres in Spain, your smaller of Galicia and Portugall, your strong Sacks are of the Islands of the Canaries, and of Malligo."[131:B] It is, therefore, to be inferred, that, though all these Sacks were sweet, the sweetest, as well as the strongest, were the Canary and Malaga; next to these in saccharine impregnation, and best in flavour, the Xeres; and lastly, the weakest and least sweet, were the Galicia and Portugal.

The conclusion we consequently draw from these premises is, that the Sherris-Sack of Falstaff was Spanish Xeres, a wine not dry, like our modern Sherry, but sweet, and though not so strong or so sweet as the Sacks brought from Canary and Malaga, superior in flavour to both.

It may be objected to this deduction, that if Sherris-Sack were a sweet wine, it would not have been necessary to add sugar to it, an article which Sir John ever mingled with his favourite potation.[131:C] This will not prove valid, however, when we recollect that, in the first place, Xeres was not the sweetest of the Sacks, and, in the second, that in Shakspeare's time it was the custom to mix sugar with every species of wine; "gentlemen garrawse," observes Fynes Moryson, "only in wine, with which they mix sugar, which I never observed in any other place or kingdom to be used for that purpose. And because the taste of the English is thus delighted with sweetness, the wines in taverns (for I speak not of merchantes or gentlemen's cellars) are commonly mixed at the filling thereof, to make them pleasant."[132:A] A similar partiality for sugar in wine is noticed by Paul Hentzner[132:B], as one of the peculiarities of the English; and from these passages Mr. Reed deduces the legitimate inference that the fondness of the English nation for sugar, at this epoch, was so great as to induce them to mix it even with sweet wines; "if," says he, "the English drank only rough wine with sugar, there appears nothing extraordinary, or worthy of particular notice.—The addition of sugar, even to sack, might, perhaps, to a taste habituated to sweets, operate only in a manner to improve the flavour of the wine."[132:C]

We find also from Sir John's comments on his favourite liquor, that he added not only sugar, but a toast to it[132:D]; that he had an insuperable aversion to its being mulled with eggs, vehemently exclaiming, "I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage[132:E];" and that he abominated its sophistication with lime, declaring that "a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it[132:F];" an ingredient which the vinters used to increase its strength and durability.

To this deterioration, our witty Knight, as his convivial hours were usually spent in taverns, was, of course, peculiarly subject. Houses of this description were very numerous in our author's days, and, there is reason to think, fully as much frequented as are similar places in the present age. The Boars Head Tavern in Eastcheap, and the Mermaid in Cornhill, immortalised in the writings of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and Fletcher, are enumerated in a long list of taverns given us in an old black-letter quarto, entitled Newes from Bartholomew Fayre[133:A]; and to these we must add, as of equal poetical celebrity, the Tabard Inn or Tavern, noticed by Stowe, in 1598, as the most ancient in Southwark[133:B], and endeared to us as the "Hosterie" of the never-to-be-forgotten pilgrims, in that delightful work, the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer.

A tavern, says a writer, who lived in these times, and who published in 1628, "is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or maker-away of a rainy day.—To give you the total reckoning of it; it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's curtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of canary their book."[134:A]

At these places were regular ordinaries, which Decker tells us were of three kinds; namely, "an ordinary of the largest reckoning, whither most of your courtly gallants do resort;" a twelve-penny ordinary frequented by "the justice of peace or young knight;" and a three-penny ordinary, "to which your London usurer, your stale batchelor, and your thrifty attorney do resort."[134:B]

From the same author we also learn, that it was usual in taverns, especially in the city, to send presents of wine from one room to another, as a complimentary mark of friendship:—"Enquire," directs he, "what gallants sup in the next room; and, if they be any of your acquaintance, do not you, after the city fashion, send them in a pottle of wine and your name."[134:C] This custom, too, is recorded by Shakspeare, as a mode of introduction to a stranger, where Bardolph, at the Garter Inn, Windsor, addressing Falstaff, says,—"Sir John, there's one master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack[134:D];" a passage which Mr. Malone has illustrated by the following nearly contemporary anecdote:—"Ben Jonson," he relates, "was at a tavern, and in comes Bishop Corbet, (but not so then,) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for a quart of raw wine, and gives it to the tapster. 'Sirrah,' says he, 'carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him, I sacrifice my service to him.' The fellow did, and in those words. 'Friend,' says Dr. Corbet, 'I thank him for his love; but 'pr'ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken; for sacrifices are always burnt."[134:E]

The most singular and offensive practice, however, at least to modern manners, which occurred at this period in taverns, a practice common, too, even among the higher ranks, is likewise related by Decker, when giving advice "How a Gallant should behave himself in an Ordinary" of the first class:—"You may rise in dinner time," he tells his "courtly gallant," "to ask for a closestool, protesting to all the gentlemen that it costs you an hundred pounds a year in physick, besides the annual pension which your wife allows her doctor; and, if you please, you may, as your great French lord doth, invite some special friend of yours from the table to hold discourse with you as you sit in that withdrawing chamber; from whence being returned again to the board, you shall sharpen the wits of all the eating gallants about you, and do them great pleasure to ask what pamphlets or poems a man might think fittest to wipe his tail with."[135:A] Gross as this habit now appears to us, it was prevalent upon the continent until nearly the close of the last century.

To the reign of Elizabeth is to be attributed the introduction of a luxury, which has since become almost universal, the custom of using, or, as it was then called, of taking tobacco. This herb, which was first brought into England by Sir Francis Drake, about the year 1586, met with an early and violent opposition, and gave birth to a multitude of invectives and satires, among which the most celebrated is King James's "Counterblast to Tobacco." This monarch entertained the most rooted antipathy to the use of tobacco in any form, and closes his treatise by asserting that it is "a custom loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."[135:B] He also tells us in another work, that were he to invite the devil to a dinner, "he should have these three dishes—1. a pig; 2. a poole of ling and mustard; and 3. a pipe of tobacco for digesture."[136:A]

Tobacco may be said, indeed, to have made many inroads in domestic cleanliness, and, on this account, to have deservedly incurred the dislike of that large portion of the female sex on whom the charge of household economy devolved. "Surely," says James, "smoke becomes a kitchin farre better than a dining chamber," a remark which is as applicable now as it was then; but we cannot help smiling when he adds, with his usual credulity, "and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kind of soote, as hath bene found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened."[136:B]

Such were, indeed, the tales in common circulation among the lower orders, and which Ben Jonson has very humorously put into the mouth of Cob in Every Man in his Humour:—"By Gods me," says the water-bearer, "I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choak a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them, they say, will ne'er scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an' there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane or rosaker."[136:C]

It would appear that the prejudices against the use of this narcotic required much time for their extirpation; for Burton, who wrote about thirty years after its introduction, and at the very close of the Shakspearean era, seems as violent against the common use of tobacco as even James himself:—"A good vomit," says he, "I confesse, a vertuous herbe, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used, but as it is commonly used by most men, which take it as Tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish damn'd tobacco, the ruine and overthrow of body and soule."[137:A]

Notwithstanding this abuse, however, and the edicts of King James forbidding its consumption in all ale-houses, tobacco soon acquired such general favour, that Stowe tells us in his Annals, "it was commonly used by most men and many women;" and James, appealing to his subjects, exclaims,—"Now how you are by this custome disabled in your goods, let the gentry of this land beare witnesse, some of them bestowing three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere upon this precious stinke[137:B];" a sum so enormous, that we must conclude them to have been as determined smokers as the Buckinghamshire parson recorded by Lilly, who "was so given over to tobacco and drink, that when he had no tobacco, he would cut the bell-ropes and smoke them!"[137:C]

Snuff-taking was as much in fashion as smoking; and the following passage from Decker proves, that the gallants of his day were as extravagant and ridiculous in their use of it as our modern beaux, whether we regard the splendour of their boxes, or their affectation in applying the contents; it appears also to have been customary to take snuff immediately before dinner. "Before the meat come smoking to the board, our gallant must draw out his tobacco-box, 'and' the ladle for the cold snuff into the nostril,—all which artillery may be of gold or silver, if he can reach to the price of it;—then let him shew his several tricks in taking it, as the whiff, the ring, &c. for these are complements that gain gentlemen no mean respect."[137:D] "It is singular," remarks Dr. Nott, alluding to the general use of tobacco at this period, "when the introduction of this new indulgence had so engaged the pen of almost every cotemporary playwright and pamphleteer, nay, even of royalty itself, that Shakspeare should have been totally silent upon it."[138:A]

The residue of the Domestic Economy of this era may be included under the articles of servants and miscellaneous household arrangements.

In the days of Elizabeth servants were more numerous, and considered as a more essential mark of gentility, than at any subsequent period. "The English," observes Hentzner, "are lovers of shew, liking to be followed wherever they go by whole troops of servants, who wear their master's arms in silver, fastened to their left arms."[138:B] They were, also, usually distinguished by blue coats; thus Grumio, enquiring for his master's servants, says,—"Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly combed, their blue coats brushed."[138:C] We learn, however, from Fynes Moryson, that both silver badges and blue coats went out of fashion in the reign of James the First; "the servants of gentlemen," he informs us, "were wont to weare blew coates, with their master's badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the same livery for colour and ornament."[138:D]

The very strict regulations to which servants were subjected in the sixteenth century, and the admirable order preserved in the household of the upper classes at that time, will be illustrated in a very satisfactory and entertaining manner, by the "Orders for Household Servantes; first devised by John Haryngton, in the yeare 1566, and renewed by John Haryngton, Sonne of the saide John, in the yeare 1592: the saide John, the Sonne, being then High Shrieve of the County of Somerset."

"Imprimis, That no servant bee absent from praier, at morning or evening, without a lawfull excuse, to be alledged within one day after, upon payne to forfeit for every tyme 2d.

2. "Item, That none sweare any othe, uppon paine for every othe 1d.

3. "Item, That no man leave any doore open, that he findeth shut, without there bee cause, upon payne for every tyme 1d.

4. "Item, That none of the men be in bed, from our Lady-day to Michaelmas, after 6 of the clock in the morning: nor out of his bed after 10 of the clock at night; nor, from Michaelmas till our Lady-day, in bed after 7 in the morning; nor out after 9 at night, without reasonable cause, on paine of 2d.

5. "Item, That no man's bed be unmade, nor fire or candle-box uncleane, after 8 of the clock in the morning, on paine of 1d.