d danger, attendant
thereupon--to persist in wearing shoes of so preposterous a length,
that the toes were obliged to be fastened with chains to the girdle
ere the happy votary of fashion could walk across his own parlour!
Happy was the favourite of Croesus, who could display chain upon
chain of massy gold wreathed and intertwined from the waistband to
the shoe, until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen of his
own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently well for those who could
not produce gold; and for those who possessed not either precious
metal, and who yet felt they "might as well be out of the world as out
of the fashion," latteen chains, silken cords, aye, and cords of even
less costly description, were pressed into service to tie up the
_crackowes_, or piked shoes. For in that day, as in this, "the squire
endeavours to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the
earl, the earl the king, in dress." To complete the outrageous
absurdity of these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in
imitation of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer refers when
describing the dress of Absalom, the Parish Clerk. He--

"Had Paul 'is windowes corven on his shose."

Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the Pope, and the
declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous fashion was in vogue near
three centuries.

And the party-coloured hose, which were worn about the same time, were
a fitting accompaniment for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in
realising the idea that gentlemen, only some half century ago, really
dressed in the gay and showy habiliments which are now indicative only
of a footman; but it is more difficult to believe, what was
nevertheless the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the
"fool" by profession can now be decked on the stage, can hardly
compete in absurdity with the _outre_ costume of a beau or a belle of
the fourteenth century. The shoes we have referred to: the garments,
male or female, were divided in the middle down the whole length of
the person, and one half of the body was clothed in one colour, the
other half in the most opposite one that could be selected. The men's
garments fitted close to the shape; and while one leg and thigh
rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue, the other blushed in deep
crimson. John of Gaunt is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the
other a dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a group
assembled on a memorable occ