That a law of the kind should have been inoperative cannot be a matter of surprise to us moderns, who not only have the light of experience to teach us the futility of such laws, but who approach the subjects of them in a spirit altogether different from that which possessed our ancestors. They, however, were perfectly honest in their wish to stop the waste of unproductive spending, and they believed the measure they agreed to would attain for them their wish. Very short experience served to convince them, that whatever law might put an end to waste and prodigality in dress, the law they had made would not do so. The statute was evaded, was set at naught openly, those who should have been most jealous to guard it in its integrity setting the example of driving right through it. The undefined sanction of the law, and the want of proper machinery with which to work it, might have done something towards making the statute a dead letter, but the primary cause of the disregard with which it was treated was to be found in that peacock vanity of human nature which loves to see itself in gay clothing, and in motley wear to "play fantastic tricks before high heaven."

Within twenty years after the passing of the statute, at a time, certainly, when the sun of Edward III. was about to set, and that of a gay, glitter-loving prince was about to rise, we find that excessive richness in clothing and appointments, and the vagaries of the fashions, again attracted the attention of writers and public men, who, both cleric and lay, including Chaucer, inveigh most strongly against them. A curious poem, written in alternate lines of English and Latin, upon the corruptions of the times, by an unknown author, mentions many of the extravagancies of the period. Dandies wore stuffing on their shoulders to make them look broader than they were made by God. They wore high and wide collars, which made their necks look as if ready for the axe; and the long spurs on their heels, and the long pointed shoes stuffed beyond the toes, and fastened by little silver chains to the knees, prevented them from kneeling at prayer time. They could not bend their knees but with difficulty; when other men knelt, offering prayers to Christ, these stood at their heels, not able to bend their legs. They avoided bending, lest they should damage their hose. Here is a specimen of the ballad, and the passage of it from which the above information is gathered :

"Bredder than ever God made,
humeri sunt arte tumentes;
Narowe they be, they seme brode,
vana sunt hoc facite, gentes.

They bere a newe fascion

humeris in pectore tergo;

Goddes plasmacion

non illis complacet ergo. Wyde coleres and haye

ei gladio sunt colla parata ; Ware ye the prophecye

contra tales recitata.

Long sporys on her helys,
et rostra fovent ocrearum.

Qwen oder men knelys,

pia Christo vota ferentes, Thei stond at here helys,

sua non curvare valentes. For hortyng of here hosyn, non inclinare laborant;

I trowe, for here long toos

dum stant ferialiter orant."

Other writers mention, in language equally strong, the shortcomings and excesses of gallants' clothing at this time. The author of the poem on the deposition of Richard II., in the first volume of the "Political Songs and Poems" (published by the Master of the Rolls), thus speaks of the unscrupulous thriftlessness and folly of the courtiers of that prince. He says they beg and borrow

The writer also speaks of " a wondir coriouse crafte" lately introduced, whereby the cloth was slashed "alle to pecis," so that seven good sewers could not in six weeks sew up all the scams if they tried.

Chaucer, writing De Superbiâ, in the "Persone's Tale," written about the year 1392-3, says, "Seint Gregoire saith that precious clothing is coupable for derthe of it, and for his

schortnes, and for his straungeness and disgisines, and for the superfluite, or for the inordinat skantnes of it; allas! many man may sen as in oure dayes, the synful costlewe array of clothing, and namely in to moche superfluite, or elles in to disordinat skantnes.

"As to the firste synne in superfluité of clothing, which that makid is so dere, to harm of the poeple, not oonly the cost of embrowding, the guyse endentyng or barring, swandyng, palyng, or bendying, and semblable wast of cloth in vanité; and ther is also costlewe furring in here gounes, so mochil pounsying of chiseles to make holes, so moche diggyng of scheirs, for with the superfluité in lengthe of the foresaide gounes, traylinge in the donge and in the myre, on hors and eek on foote, as wel of man as of womman, that al thilbe trayling is verraily (as in effect) wasted, consumed, thredbare, and rotyn with donge, rather than it is geven to the pore, to gret damage of the forsaide pore folk, and that in sondry wise. . . . . To speke of the horrible disordinat scantnes of clothing as ben these cuttid sloppis or anslets, that thurgh her schortnes ne covereth not the schamful membre of man, to wicked intent."

It seems that the tightly-fitting dress was considered to be very wicked; the same was thought of a practice in vogue, by which the clothing of the body was party-coloured, being half of it red and the other blue, or of any other colours. The "Persone" is not less severe with women than with men: "Now, as of the outrageous array of wommen, God wot, that though the visage of some of hem seme ful chaste and debonaire, yit notifye they in here array of attyre, licorousnesse and pride."

An anonymous writer on the corruption of public manners in the reign of Henry VI., begins his poem by an address to

"Ye prowd galonttes hertlesse,
With your hyghe cappis witlesse,

And your schort gounys thriftlesse,

Have brought this londe in gret hevynesse.

"With youe longe peked schone,

Therefir your thrifte is almost don,

And with your long here into your eyen (eyes),
Han brought this land to gret pyne."

Though these attacks were made from time to time on the extravagance and folly of the day, no legislative action was taken for a hundred years after the passing of the first sumptuary law. From the pulpit the clergy denounced those habits which they believed would call down the wrath of God upon the land, and less extensively, by means of written books, they warned the people; but the law already in the statute

book being inoperative, no fresh law was enacted, embracing the whole subject of dress, till the third year of Edward IV. After the troubles in Richard the Second's reign, an act was passed, forbidding husbandmen and labourers to wear sword, buckler, or dagger, but this was not so much in restraint of extravagance as a police regulation, being tantamount to an order for the disarming of those who had lately been so troublesome and formidable. A statute of the 20 Richard II. also particularized those who only might wear another's livery, but this too was rather meant to put a stop to those Capulet and Montagu faction disturbances, which were so rife among the followers of the English noblemen.

The 3 Edward IV., c. 5, recites, "Item prayen the Commons in the said Parliament assembled to our said sovereign lord the king to reduce to his gracious remembrance that in the time of his noble progenitors divers ordinances and statutes were made in this realm of England for the apparel and array of the Commons of the said realm, as well of men as of women, so that none of them ought to use nor wear any inordinate and excessive apparel, but only according to their degrees, which statutes and ordinances notwithstanding, for default of punishment and putting them in due execution, the Commons of the said realm, as well men as women, have worn and daily do wear excessive and inordinate array and apparel, to the great displeasure of God and impoverishing of this realm of England, and to the enriching of other strange realms and countries to the final destruction of the husbandry of the said realm." It is then ordered that no knight under the degree of a lord, nor his wife or child, shall wear any manner cloth of gold, or any courses wrought with gold, or any furr of sables," under a penalty of £20. No knight bachelor, nor his wife, to wear "cloth of velvet upon velvet," except such knights as be of the Order of the Garter; and none but a lord to wear purple silk, under a penalty of £10.

2. No esquire or gentleman under the degree of a knight to wear any velvet, satin branched, nor any counterfeit cloth of silk resembling to the same, or any courses wrought like to velvet or to satin branched, or any furr of ermine."

3. No man having less than £40 a year to wear any "furr of martrons (Funes), letuse [pure gray or pure myniver]."

4. No widow having less than £40 a year to wear any "coverchief whereof the price of a plite shall exceed the sum of iij shillings, four pence."

5. Persons with less than forty shillings a year were not to wear any "fustian, bustian, nor fustian of Naples, scarlet cloth in grain, nor no furr, but black or white lamb." Yeomen were

forbidden to use "any bolsters or stuffing of wool, cotton, or cadas, or any stuffing in his doublet, but only lining according to the same." Servants also were not to wear cloth which cost more than "two shillings the broad yard."

6. "And because that coverchiefs daily brought into the realm do induce great charge and cost in the same, and in effect in waste," it is forbidden to sell within the kingdom "any laun, niefles, umple, or any other manner of coverchiefs whereof the plite shall exceed ten shillings."

In order to promote the use of a dress which should be in the popular opinion more decent, and which should not involve the objections pointed out by the critics in "The Persone's Tale," and in the various political poems that have been quoted, at the same time that perfect liberty to do as they liked was reserved to the persons most likely to offend, it was ordered by this statute that no person under the degree of a lord should wear any goun, jacket, or cloak, "unless it be of such length that the same may cover his privy members and buttocks," nor wear any shoes or boots having pikes passing the length of two inches."

In the year 1482 the previous sumptuary laws were repealed, and the 3 Edward IV., c. 5 was re-enacted with greater stringency, the reason given in the preamble being that, through excess and wastefulness of apparel, the "said realm was fallen into great misery and poverty, and like to fall into more greater, unless the remedy therefor be sooner."

It is needless to adduce the evidence of writers and chroniclers of the time to show that male and female vanity managed to evade the law, though it were never so stringent. There was a difficulty about bringing the delinquents coram judice, none but the ill-natured, or the pedantic, or the crotchety, would inform against them, and magistrates, unless they were of the same kidney with the prosecutors, would be slow to punish what was, after all, but the harmless expression of a vanity that was shared by judge and prisoner alike. As a matter of fact, the law was continuously disregarded, as in the nature of things it must have been; and though Empson and Dudley doubtless drew some of the fines, with which they enriched their master's treasury, out of the pockets of the dandified, and those who got themselves up regardless of costfollowing the example set them by their master in the case of the Earl of Oxford and his liveries-the administrators of the law generally winked at the struttings of the jays who decked themselves in peacock's feathers.

Henry the Eighth, however, in the first year of his reign, tried his hand at a statute which was meant to carry out the objects attempted in vain by the acts of his predecessors, and

VOL. XII.-NO. III.

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