re necessary for
this turn.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF OUR APPAREL AND ATTIRE.

[1577, Book III., Chapter 2; 1587, Book II., Chapter 7.]

An Englishman, endeavouring sometime to write of our attire, made sundry
platforms for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one
steadfast ground whereon to build the sum of his discourse. But in the end
(like an orator long without exercise), when he saw what a difficult piece
of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travel, and only drew the
picture of a naked man,[149] unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one
hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his
apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no kind of
garment that could please him any while together; and this he called an
Englishman. Certes this writer (otherwise being a lewd popish hypocrite
and ungracious priest[150]) shewed himself herein not to be altogether
void of judgment, sith the phantastical folly of our nation (even from the
courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us longer
than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long, and be
not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the
fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting,
thereby to draw fond customers to more expense of money. For my part, I
can tell better how to inveigh against this enormity than describe any
certainty of our attire; sithence such is our mutability that to-day there
is none to the Spanish guise, to-morrow the French toys are most fine and
delectable, ere long no such apparel as that which is after the high
Almaine[151] fashion, by-and-by the Turkish manner is generally best liked
of, otherwise the Morisco gowns, the Barbarian fleeces, the mandilion worn
to Colley-Weston ward,[152] and the short French breeches make such a
comely vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see
any so disguised as are my countrymen of England.[153] And as these
fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costliness and
the curiosity, the excess and the vanity, the pomp and the bravery, the
change and the variety, and finally the fickleness and the folly, that is
in all degrees, insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than
inconstancy of attire. Oh, how much cost is bestowed nowadays upon our
bodies, and how little upon our souls! How many suits of apparel hath the
one, a