uring these gorgeous days, one cannot but
sympathise with the lady, when her loyal knight and spouse confessed to
her, after the departure of the mob of two thousand visitors,
neighbours, soldiers, and courtiers,--the knights challengers, and the
knights assailants, and the fine scenes at the pine-tree; the barrier in
the meadow of the Thorn; and the horse-combat at the _carrefour_; and
the jousts in the _foret devoyable_; the carousals in the castle halls;
the jollity of the banquet tables; the morescoes danced till they were
reminded "how the waning night grew old!"--in a word, when the costly
dream had vanished,--that he was a ruined man for ever, by immortalising
his name in one grand chivalric festival! The Sieur de Sandricourt, like
a great torch, had consumed himself in his own brightness; and the very
land on which the famous _Pas de Sandricourt_ was held--had passed away
with it! Thus one man sinks generations by that wastefulness, which a
political economist would assure us was committing no injury to society!
The moral evil goes for nothing in financial statements.

Similar instances of ruinous luxury we may find in the prodigal
costliness of dress through the reigns of Elizabeth, James the First,
and Charles the First. Not only in their massy grandeur they outweighed
us, but the accumulation and variety of their wardrobe displayed such a
gaiety of fancy in their colours and their ornaments, that the
drawing-room in those days must have blazed at their presence, and
changed colours as the crowd moved. But if we may trust to royal
proclamations, the ruin was general among some classes. Elizabeth issued
more than one proclamation against "the excess of apparel!" and among
other evils which the government imagined this passion for dress
occasioned, it notices "the wasting and undoing of a great number of
young gentlemen, otherwise serviceable; and that others, seeking by show
of apparel to be esteemed as gentlemen, and allured by the vain show of
these things, not only consume their goods and lands, but also run into
such debts and shifts, as they cannot live out of danger of laws without
attempting of unlawful acts." The queen bids her own household "to look
unto it for good example to the realm; and all noblemen, archbishops and
bishops, all mayors, justices of peace, &c., should see them executed in
their private households." The greatest difficulty which occurred to
regulate the wear of apparel was ascertaini