and Neat his shoes (to strip him no
farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold
condition. And yet 'tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly
rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of
a molehill, the other of a dunghill."

But the worthy Fuller's ideal picture of suitable dress was the very
antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth's day, when that rage for
foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated
the island, and our ancestors masked themselves

"------in garish gaudery
To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.
A French hood join'd to neck Italian,
The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.
An Englishman in none, a fool in all,
Many in one, and one in several."

And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time
to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her
English admirer:--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his
doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and
his behaviour everywhere."

A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious modes of his time:
"These tender Parnels must have one gown for the day, another for the
night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer.
One furred through, another but faced; one for the workday, another
for the holiday. One of this colour, another of that. One of cloth,
another of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore dinner,
another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And to be
brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and
strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than
he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat
spends as much on apparel for him and his wife as his father would
have kept a good house with."

The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat unjustly we think,
to satirize the fair sex alone.

"Why do women array themselves in such fantastical dresses and quaint
devices; with gold, with silver, with coronets, with pendants,
bracelets, earrings, chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries,
shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers, fans, masks, furs,
laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets,
tassels, golden cloth, silver tissue, precious stones, stars,
flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, crisped locks, wigs, painted faces,
bodkins, setting sticks,