gaskins to bear out their bums and make their attire to fit plum round (as they term it) about them. Their farthingales, and diversely coloured nether stocks of silk, jersey, and such like, whereby their bodies are rather deformed than commended? I have met with some of these trulls in London so disguised that it hath passed my skill to discern whether they were men

or women.

Thus it is now come to pass, that women are become men, and men transformed into monsters.

WILLIAM HARRISON, Description of England 1587 (2nd ed.)

The sin of gorgeous attire

England, the players' stage of gorgeous attire, the ape of all nations' superfluities, the continual masquer in outlandish habiliments, great plenty-scanting calamities art thou to await, for wanton disguising thyself against kind, and digressing from the plainness of thy ancestors. Scandalous and shameful is it, that not any in thee (fishermen and husbandmen set aside) but live above their ability and birth; that the outward habit (which in other countries is the only distinction of honour) should yield in thee no difference of persons: that all thy ancient nobility (almost), with this gorgeous prodigality, should be devoured and eaten up, and upstarts inhabit their stately palaces, who from far have fetched in this variety of pride to entrap and to spoil them. Those of thy people that in all other things are miserable, in their apparel will be prodigal. No land can so unfallibly experience this proverb, The hood makes not the monk, as thou; for tailors, serving-men, make-shifts, and gentlemen in thee are confounded. For the compassment of bravery, we have them will rob, steal, cozen, cheat, betray their own fathers, swear and forswear, or do any thing. Take away bravery, you kill the heart of lust and incontinency. Wherefore do men make themselves brave, but to riot and to revel? Look after what state their apparel is, that state they take to them and carry, and after a little accustoming to that carriage, persuade themselves they are such indeed.........

We here in London, what for dressing ourselves, following our worldly affairs, dining, supping, and keeping company, have no leisure, not only not to watch against sin, but not so much as once to think of sin. In bed, wives must question their

husbands about housekeeping, and providing for their children and family. No service must God expect of us, but a little in Lent, and in sickness and adversity. Our gorgeous attire we make not to serve Him, but to serve the flesh. If He were pleased with it, why did they ever in the old law, (when they presented themselves before Him, in fasting and prayer), rend it off their backs, and put on coarse sackcloth and ashes? No lifting up a man's self that God likes, but the lifting up of the spirit in prayer.

One thing it is for a man to lift up himself to God, another thing to lift up himself against God. In pranking up our carcasses too proudly, we lift up our flesh against God. In lifting up our flesh, we depress our spirits. London, lay off thy gorgeous attire, and cast down thyself before God in contrition and prayer, lest He cast thee down in His indignation into hell fire.

THOMAS NASHE, Christs Teares over Ierusalem 1593

The portrait of a dandy

At last, to close up the lamentable tragedy of us ploughmen, enters our young landlord, so metamorphosed into the shape of a French puppet, that at the first we started, and thought one of the baboons had marched in in man's apparel. His head was dressed up in white feathers like a shuttlecock, which agreed so well with his brain, being nothing but cork, that two of the biggest of the guard might very easily have tossed him with battledores, and made good sport with him in his majesty's great hall. His doublet was of a strange cut; and shew the fury of his humour, the collar of it rose up so high and sharp as if it would have cut his throat by daylight. His wings, according to the fashion now, were as little and diminutive as a puritan's ruff, which shewed he ne'er meant to fly out of England, nor do any exploit beyond sea, but live and die about London, though he begged in Finsbury. His breeches, a wonder to see, were full as deep as the middle of winter, or the roadway between London and Winchester, and so large and wide withal, that I think within a twelvemonth he might very well put all his lands in them; and then you may imagine they were big enough, when they would outreach a thousand acres. Moreover, they differed so far from our fashioned hose in

the country, and from his father's old gascoins, that his backpart seemed to us like a monster; the roll of the breeches standing so low, that we conjectured his house of office, sirreverence, stood in his hams. All this while his French monkey bore his cloak of three pounds a yard, lined clean through with purple velvet, which did so dazzle our coarse eyes, that we thought we should have been purblind ever after, what with the prodigal aspect of that and his glorious rapier and hangers all bossed with pillars of gold, fairer in show than the pillars in Paul's or the tombs at Westminster. Beside, it drunk up the price of all my plough-land in very pearl, which stuck as thick upon those hangers as the white measles upon hogs' flesh. When I had well viewed that gay gaudy cloak and those unthrifty wasteful hangers, I muttered thus to myself: "That is no cloak for the rain, sure; nor those no hangers for . Derrick": when of a sudden, casting mine eyes lower, I beheld a curious pair of boots of king Philip's leather, in such artificial wrinkles, sets and plaits, as if they had been starched lately and came new from the laundress's, such was my ignorance and simple acquaintance with the fashion, and I dare swear my fellows and neighbours here are all as ignorant as myself. But that which struck us most into admiration, upon those fantastical boots stood such huge and wide tops, which so swallowed up his thighs, that had he sworn as other gallants did, this common oath, “Would I might sink as I stand!" all his body might very well have sunk down and been damned in his boots. Lastly he walked the chamber with such a pestilent gingle that his spurs oversqueaked the lawyer, and made him reach his voice three notes above his fee; but after we had spied the rowels of his spurs, how we blest ourselves! they did so much and so far exceed the compass of our fashion, that they looked more like the forerunners of wheelbarrows. Thus was our young landlord accoutred in such a strange and prodigal shape that it amounted to above two years' rent in apparel. THOMAS MIDDLETON? Father Hubburds Tales 1604

Fashion descends

All manners of attire came first into the city and country from the court, which, being once received by the common people, and by very stage-players themselves, the courtiers justly cast off, and take new fashions, (though somewhat too curiously); and whosoever wears the old, men look upon him as a picture in arras hangings. For it is proverbially said, that we may eat according to our own appetite, but in our apparel must follow the fashion of the multitude, with whom we live. But in the meantime it is no reproach to any, who of old did wear those garments, when they were in fashion. In like sort, many dances and measures are used in Court, but when they come to be vulgar and to be used upon very stages, courtiers and gentlemen think them uncomely to be used, yet is it no reproach to any man who formerly had skill therein.

FYNES MORYSON, Itinerary 1617

Barbers

Claudio. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a' brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode? Don Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's?

Claudio. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and
the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls.
Leonato. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.
Much Ado About Nothing, III. ii. 40—49

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,

Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk;
And these assume but valour's excrement

To render them redoubted!

The Merchant of Venice, 111. ii. 83-88

Theodorus. What say you of the barbers and trimmers of men? are they so neat, and so fine fellows as they are said to be?

Amphilogus. There are no finer fellows under the sun, nor experter in their noble science of barbing than they be. And therefore in the fulness of their overflowing knowledge (oh ingenious heads, and worthy to be dignified with the diadem of

folly and vain curiosity!) they have invented such strange fashions and monstrous manners of cuttings, trimmings, shavings and washings, that you would wonder to see. They have one manner of cut called the French cut, another the Spanish cut; one the Dutch cut, another the Italian; one the new cut, another the old; one of the bravado fashion, another of the mean fashion; one a gentleman's cut, another the common cut; one cut of the court, another of the country, with infinite the like varieties, which I overpass. They have also other kinds of cuts innumerable; and therefore when you come to be trimmed, they will ask will be cut to look terrible to your enemy, you whether you or amiable to your friend, grim and stern in countenance, or pleasant and demure (for they have divers kinds of cuts for all these purposes, or else they lie). Then, when they have done. all their feats, it is a world to consider, how their mustachios must be preserved and laid out, from one cheek to another, yea, almost from one ear to another, and turned up like two horns towards the forehead. Besides that, when they come to the cutting of the hair, what snipping and snapping of the scissors is there, what tricking and trimming, what rubbing, what scratching, what combing and clawing, what trickling and toying, and all to tawe out money, you may be sure. And when they come to washing, oh how gingerly they behave themselves therein. For then shall your mouth be bossed with the lather or foam that riseth of the balls (for they have their sweet balls wherewithal they use to wash); your eyes closed must be anointed therewith also. Then snap go the fingers, full bravely, God wot. Thus this tragedy ended, comes me warm cloths to wipe and dry him withal next, the ears must be picked, and closed together again artificially forsooth; the hair of the nostrils cut away, and every thing done in order comely to behold. The last action in this tragedy is the payment of money. And lest these cunning barbers might seem unconscionable in asking much for their pains, they are of such a shamefast modesty, as they will ask nothing at all, but standing to the courtesy and liberality of the giver, they will receive all that comes, how much soever it be, not giving any again, I warrant you: for take a barber with that fault, and strike off his head. No, no, such fellows are rarae aves in terris, nigrisque simillimi cygnis:

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