mony, clothes
supposed to be in harmony with the country, down, at last, to the
clothes of an old gentleman, keeping a vague reminder of twenty,
thirty years ago in their style, and then--grave clothes.

How well we know the Elizabethan! He is a stock figure in our
imagination; he figured in our first schoolboy romances, he strutted
in the first plays we saw. Because it was an heroic time we hark back
to it to visualize it as best we may so that we can come nearer to our
heroes--Drake, Raleigh, and the rest. The very names of the garments
arouse associations--ruff, trunks, jumper, doublet, jerkin, cloak,
bone-bobbin lace, and lace of Flanders--they almost take one's breath
away.

Here comes a gentleman in a great ruff, yellow-starched, an egg-shaped
pearl dangles from one ear. One hand rests on his padded hip, the
other holds a case of toothpicks and a napkin; he is going to his
tavern to dine. His doublet is bellied like a pea's cod, and his
breeches are bombasted, his little hat is stuck on one side and the
feather in it curls over the brim. His doublet is covered with a
herring-bone pattern in silk stitches, and is slashed all over. He is
exaggerated, monstrous; he is tight-laced; his trunks stick out a foot
all round him, and his walk is, in consequence, a little affected;
but, for all that, he is a gallant figure.

[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]

Behind him comes a gentleman in loose knee-breeches barred with
velvet; at the knee he has a frill of lace. His jerkin is not stuffed
out, and his ruff is not starched to stick up round his head. His hair
is cut in three points, one over each ear and the third over the
centre of his forehead, where we see a twisted lock tied with ribbon.
We seem to know these people well--very well. The first, whose clothes
are of white silk sewn with red and blue, whose trunk hose have clocks
of silk sewn on them, reminds us of whom? And the second gentleman in
green and red, with heels of red on his shoes? Suddenly there flashes
across our memory the picture of a lighted stage, a row of shops, a
policeman, and then a well-known voice calling, 'Hello, Joey, here we
are again!'

Here we are again after all these centuries--clown and pantaloon, the
rustic with red health on his face, the old man in Venetian slops--St.
Pantaloone--just as Elizabethan, humour included, as anything can well
be.

Then, enter Harlequin in his clothes of gorgeous patches; the quick,
a