e of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And
to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions
and strange. Yea a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than
he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat,
spends as much on apparel for him and his wife, as his father would have
kept a good house with."

The costly furs here mentioned had probably become fashionable since a
direct intercourse had been opened in the last reign with Russia, from
which country ambassadors had arrived, whose barbaric splendor
astonished the eyes of the good people of London. The affectation of
wearing by turns the costume of all the nations of Europe, with which
the queen herself was not a little infected, may be traced partly to the
practice of importing articles of dress from those nations, and that of
employing foreign tailors in preference to native ones, and partly to
the taste for travelling, which since the revival of letters had become
laudably prevalent among the young nobility and gentry of England. That
more in proportion was expended on the elegant luxuries of dress, and
less on the coarser indulgences of the table, ought rather to have been
considered as a desirable approach to refinement of manners than a
legitimate subject of censure.

An act of parliament was passed in this year subjecting the use of
enchantment and witchcraft to the pains of felony. The malcontent
catholics, it seems, were accused of employing practices of this nature;
their predictions of her majesty's death had given uneasiness to
government by encouraging plots against her government; and it was
feared, "by many good and sober men," that these dealers in the black
art might even bewitch the queen herself. That it was the learned bishop
Jewel who had led the way in inspiring these superstitious terrors, to
which religious animosities lent additional violence, may fairly be
inferred from the following passage of a discourse which was delivered
by him in the queen's presence the year before.... "Witches and
sorcerers within these last few years are marvellously increased within
your grace's realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks
of their wickedness. Your grace's subjects pine away even unto the
death; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is
benumbed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore your poor subjects' most
humble petition to your highness is, that the laws touching su