on we
possess nowadays of cleanliness and such habits would oppress us in
the company of both, despite the fact that they changed their linen on
Sundays, or were supposed to do so. And we, in our absurd clothes,
with hard hats on our heads, and stiff collars tight about our necks,
creases in our trousers, and some patent invention of the devil on our
feet, might feel that the Jacobean gentleman looked and was untidy, to
say the least of it, and had better be viewed from a distance.

To the Elizabethan lady the case would be reversed. The man would show
her that the fashions for men had been modified since her day; she
would see that his hair was not kept in, what she would consider,
order; she would see that his ruff was smaller, and his hat brim was
larger. She would, I venture to think, disapprove of him, thinking
that he did not look so 'smart.'

For ourselves, I think we should distinguish him at once as a man who
wore very large knickerbockers tied at the knee, and, in looking at a
company of men of this time, we should be struck by the padding of
these garments to a preposterous size.

[Illustration: {Three men of the time of James I.; three types of
shoe; one type of boot}]

There has come into fashion a form of ruff cut square in front and
tied under the chin, which can be seen in the drawings better than it
can be described; indeed, the alterations in clothes are not easy to
describe, except that they follow the general movement towards
looseness. The trunks have become less like pumpkins and more like
loose, wide bags. The hats, some of them stiff and hard, show in
other forms an inclination to slouch. Doublets are often made loose,
and little sets of slashes appear inside the elbow of the sleeves,
which will presently become one long slash in Cavalier costumes.

We have still:

'Morisco gowns, Barbarian sleeves,
Polonian shoes, with divers far fetcht trifles;
Such as the wandering English galant rifles
Strange countries for.'

But we have not, for all that, the wild extravaganza of fashions that
marked the foregoing reign. Indeed, says another writer, giving us a
neat picture of a man:

'His doublet is
So close and pent as if he feared one prison
Would not be strong enough to keep his soul in,
But his taylor makes another;
And trust me (for I knew it when I loved Cupid)
He does endure much pain for poor praise
Of a neat fitt