cork, whalebone, sweet odours, and whatever
else Africa, Asia, and America can produce; flaying their faces to
produce the fresher complexion of a new skin, and using more time in
dressing than Caesar took in marshalling his army,--but that, like
cunning falconers, they wish to spread false lures to catch unwary
larks, and lead by their gaudy baits and dazzling charms the minds of
inexperienced youth into the traps of love?"

Though the costume of Elizabeth's day, especially at the period of her
coronation was, splendid, it had not attained to the ridiculous
extravagance which at a later period elicited the above-quoted
strictures; and we are told that her own taste at an early period of
life was simple and unostentatious. Her dress and appearance are thus
described by Aylmer, Lady Jane Grey's tutor, and afterwards Bishop of
London.

"The king (Henry VIII.) left her rich clothes and jewels; and I know
it to be true, that, in seven years after her father's death, she
never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious
jewels but once, and that against her will. And that there never came
gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her
former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And
then she so wore it as every man might see that her body carried that
which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel, which
she used in King Edward's time, made noblemen's daughters and wives to
be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved
with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter
wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's
daughter (Lady Jane Grey) receiving from Lady Mary, before she was
queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with
parchment-lace of gold, when she saw it, said, 'What shall I do with
it?' 'Marry!' said a gentlewoman, 'wear it.' 'Nay,' quoth she, 'that
were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary against God's Word, and leave my
Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God's Word.' And when all the ladies,
at the coming of the Scots' Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who
visited England in Edward's time), went with their hair frownsed,
curled, and double-curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old
maidenly shame-facedness."

And there is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the
hair is without a single ornament, and the whole dress remarkably
simple.

Ye