disordinat
scantnesse of clothing," and very copiously he describes, though perhaps
in terms and with a humour too coarse for me to transcribe, the
consequences of these very tight dresses. Of these persons, among other
offensive matters, he sees "the buttokkes behind, as if they were the
hinder part of a sheap, in the ful of the mone." He notices one of the
most grotesque modes, the wearing a parti-coloured dress; one stocking
part white and part red, so that they looked as if they had been flayed.
Or white and blue, or white and black, or black and red; this variety of
colours gave an appearance to their members of St. Anthony's fire, or
cancer, or other mischance!

The modes of dress during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were
so various and ridiculous, that they afforded perpetual food for the
eager satirist.

The conquests of Edward III. introduced the French fashions into
England; and the Scotch adopted them by their alliance with the French
court, and close intercourse with that nation.

Walsingham dates the introduction of French fashions among us from the
taking of Calais in 1347; but we appear to have possessed such a rage
for imitation in dress, that an English beau was actually a fantastical
compound of all the fashions in Europe, and even Asia, in the reign of
Elizabeth. In Chaucer's time, the prevalence of French fashions was a
common topic with our satirist; and he notices the affectation of our
female citizens in speaking the French language, a stroke of satire
which, after four centuries, is not obsolete, if applied to their faulty
pronunciation. In the prologue to the Prioresse, Chaucer has these
humorous lines:--

Entewned in her voice full seemly,
And French she spake full feteously,
_After the Scole of Stratford at Bowe_:
The _French of Paris_ was to her unknowe.

A beau of the reign of Henry IV. has been made out, by the laborious
Henry. They wore then long-pointed shoes to such an immoderate length,
that they could not walk till they were fastened to their knees with
chains. Luxury improving on this ridiculous mode, these chains the
English beau of the fourteenth century had made of gold and silver; but
the grotesque fashion did not finish here, for the tops of their shoes
were carved in the manner of a church window. The ladies of that period
were not less fantastical.

The wild variety of dresses worn in the reign of Henry VIII. is alluded
to in a print of a nak