Habits and men, with remnants of record touching the makers of both

by Dr. Doran

BETWEEN YOU AND ME.

“Here, Sir, you’ll find, by way of prologue,

A choice imbroglio. Philosophy

Gay in her gravity; and Poesy

Casting her spangles on the theme of dress.

Lik’st thou’t not, no merry Christmas to thee!”

Old Play.

It is remarked by Mr. T. C. Grattan, in his ‘Jacqueline of Holland,’ that the “suitableness of raiment and the becomingness of manners are links in the chain of social life, which harmonize with and beautify the whole. There is infinitely more wisdom,” he adds “in submitting to than in spurning those necessary concomitants of civilization, which, being artificial throughout, require the cement of elegance and refinement to polish, if it cannot lighten, the chain.” I offer this pinch of philosophy to those who like to be tempted by something didactic. I would not, for the world, however, have them believe that I shall repeat the temptation, or follow the example, in my illustrations of ‘Habits and Men.’ And when I say “Men,” I would imply man in its general sense,—a sense in which “woman” has the better and more perfect half; for, as the poet sings of Nature,—

“Her ’prentice han’

She tried on man,

An’ then she made the lasses, oh!”

The latter, consequently, will come in for their share in these trivial, fond records. For, have not the poets loved especially to dress and undress them? And have not the nymphs been consenting? None have defied them, save

“Fair Rhodope, as story tells,

The bright, unearthly nymph who dwells

’Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,

The Lady of the Pyramid.”

Rhodope has been a snare to the versifiers; but I recognize in her a lady who loved home, and dressed as well when there as her more gadding sisters do only when abroad.

If Rhodope be the only maid who has puzzled the poets, Butler is the only poet who has seriously libelled the maids, and their mothers. See what the rude fellow says of ladies in their company suits and faces:—

“Yes, ’tis in vain to think to guess

At women, by appearances;

That paint and patch their imperfections

Of intellectual complexions,

And daub their tempers o’er with washes

As artificial as their faces.”

It is certainly strange that women, in earlier days, when they dealt in neither washes nor washing, should have been gravely commended for that less commendable fashion. Thus, Thomas of Ely lays down a very nasty maxim when he describes the toilet of Queen St. Ethelreda:—“Quæ enim lota erat corde, non necesse erat ut lavabatur corpore” (who was so thoroughly well-washed in heart that she never found it necessary to wash her person).

Very well! I only wish this lady could have been married to the Irish Saint Angus Keledeus (Kele De, “God worshiper,” thence Culdees). They would have had a nice household of it; for the gentleman in question had the barn and the mill-work of his convent, and, as he never cleaned himself, some of the grain which stuck in his hair and about his hairy body, used to grow as in a good soil, and then he pulled it out; gaining a portion of his bread in this nasty field. St. Angus, all over ears, would have been a novelly dressed bridegroom for Ethelreda, newly washed, in imagination!

“Tut!” said St. Romnald, “filthy habits are the anchors by which holy hermits are kept fast in their cells; once let them dress well and smell nicely, and worldly people will invite them to their parties.” Depend upon it, when Ethelreda left off her habits of cleanliness, she wickedly thought of seducing some St. Angus to come and be her resident confessor!

A better example was shown by that saintly sovereign, Jayme II. of Mayorca, who made ministers of his tailors, as George IV. made tailors of his ministers, who set those useful dignitaries to work in superb offices, wherein no profane person dared tread. On the garments made, no profane person dared lay a hand; the number of suits was seven, for the seven great festivals; and when these were completed, all the inhabitants were compelled to celebrate the event by a voluntary illumination.

Certainly, Ethelreda did not sit for the original of Cowley’s ‘Clad all in White,’ wherein he says:—

“Fairest thing that shines below,

Why in this robe dost thou appear?

Wouldst thou a white most perfect show,

Thou must at all no garment wear:

Thou wilt seem much whiter so

Than winter when ’tis clad with snow.”

But, altogether, Cowley cannot be said to dress his ladies well. He would banish all art, just as the nymphs in hoop-petticoats banished all nature. Herrick is the man, to my thinking, who has hit the happy medium, in his ‘Delight in Disorder’:—

“A sweet disorder in the dress,

Kindles in clothes a playfulness.

A lawn about the shoulder thrown

Into a fine distraction;

An erring lace, which here and there

Inthrals the crimson stomacher;

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribbons to flow confusedly;

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat;

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility;

Do more bewitch me, than when art

Is too precise in every part.”

Herrick was exquisitely taken by the “liquefaction,” as he calls it, of his Julia’s robes, and his very heart was rumpled by their “glittering vibration.” He dresses her in the airy fashion which Moore followed when called upon to deck his Nora Creina:—

“The airy robe I did behold,

As airy as the leaves of gold,

Which erring here and wandering there,

Pleased with transgression ev’rywhere:

Sometimes ’twould pant, and sigh, and heave,

As if to stir it scarce had leave;

But having got it, thereupon

’Twould make a brave expansion,

And pounced with stars, it show’d to me

Like a celestial canopy.”

Göthe, that lover of many ladies, never decks one wholly, but now and then he makes a gift interpreting his taste, as when Lamon remarks, in the ‘Laune des Verliebten’:—

“Die Rose seh’ ich gern in einem schwarzen Haar.”

The French poets put all their swains in tight gloves and loose principles; and their nymphs are as anxious about their dress, as though there were soirées in Tempe, and a Longchamps in Arcadia. Thus Chénier’s Naïs bids Daphnis not to crease her veil, and, with a shrewd idea of the cost of a new frock, how snappishly does the pretty thing reply to the invitation to recline on the shady bank:—

“Vois, cet humide gazon

Va souiller ma tunique!”

How pure, compared or not compared with this calculating nymph, is the Madeline of Endymion Keats. The English poet undresses his young maiden with a “niceness” that gives us as much right to look as Porphyro:—

“Her vespers done,

Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;

Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;

Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees

Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:

Half-hidden, like a mermaid in seaweed,

Pensive awhile, she dreams awake.”

It is clear that this lady, although belonging to a more artificial society than Naïs, thinks less of her dress, and more of her principles. Not but that ladies have a fine eye for the snares by which they may either catch or be caught.

There is something in the following, from an old Spanish ballad (‘A aquel caballero, madre’), which proves what I say, and may be useful to gentlemen when contemplating the subject of costume:—

To that cavalier, dear mother,

When a child, I simply told

How three kisses I would owe him:

I must pay them, now I’m old!

I am now sixteen, dear mother:

If the noble youth should come,

And call upon his little debtor,

Sighing for him here at home;—

Should he come with feathers dancing,

Helm of steel and spurs of gold,

And claim the kisses that I owe him,

I—would pay him, now I’m old!

“Hush, child! this is not the language

Worthy a Castilian maid,

One too promised to the altar,

Convent’s gloom, and cloister’s shade.

For thou’rt given to St. Cecil,

To her holy shrine thou’rt sold;—

Will not my sweet one read her missal?”

“Yes!—I’ll pay him now I’m old!”

Grave commentators on this ballad suggest, that if the cavalier had not been a superbly dressed cavalier, the little maiden would have forgotten her vow; and in the south of Spain, when a man is inclined to become heedless of external adornment, he is warned of the peril of losing the three kisses of St. Cecilia’s Nun.

But the overture to my “opera” is extending beyond due limits; and as I have hitherto been repeating snatches from the airs of others, I will here add, to save my honour, one of my own. It is well known that Henrietta Maria mostly favoured the colour known as the Maiden’s Blush,—from the rose of that pretty name. The following lines will show

HOW THE ROSE GOT ITS HUE.

One starry eve, as Psyche lay

Beneath a cistus bower’s shade,

Tearing the flowers in idle play,

Young Love came tripping by, that way,

And to the girl thus, laughing, said,—

The sweetest rose that ever eye

Yet smiled upon I plucked but now;

Pure as the stars in yon blue sky

And whiter than the flowers that lie

In wreaths about thy sunny brow.

The sweetest rose that ever spent

Its balmy store of scented bliss

About thy locks, or gently bent

Above thy bow’r, had ne’er the scent

That lies enshrined, my soul, in this.

Oh for a name, my gentle girl,

That mortals fittingly may call

This matchless rose, of flowers the pearl!—

Look, sweet, how soft the petals curl!

A name!—and thou shalt have them all.

While Love thus urged his pretty suit,

And to the blushing girl drew near,

He softly struck his golden lute,

As Psyche sat, entranced and mute,

Drinking the sounds with willing ear.

And when the golden lute was hush’d,

And Love still nearer drew, to seek

His usual meed from lips that flush’d

With softer hues than ever blush’d

Upon his own sweet mother’s cheek,—

He whisper’d something soft and low,

With arm and flower around her thrown,

That call’d upon her cheeks a glow

Which shed upon the leaves of snow

A hue still deeper than her own.

And Love, rejoicing, mark’d the rush

Of soft and rosy light that came

Upon the flower, which caught the flush

From Psyche’s cheek, whose maiden blush

Gave to the rose both hue and name.

Between the days when Psyche blushed on the rose, and the age when Delamira bought her blushes at fifteen shillings the pot, there is a long period;—nature at one end, and hoop-petticoats at the other. The fashion of the latter had got so preposterous, that Mr. William Jingle, coachmaker and chairmaker of the Liberty of Westminster, invented for the service of the ladies “a round chair in the form of a lantern, six yards and a half in circumference, with a stool in the centre of it; the said vehicle being so contrived, as to receive the passenger, by opening in two in the middle, and closing mathematically, when she is seated.” Honest Jingle also “invented a coach for the reception of one lady only, who is to be let in at the top.” For these inventions he asked the patronage of that Censor of Great Britain, Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff,—and therefore it must be true. However, how wide the time between the blushes of Psyche and the era of hoops! Now it is something connected with costume, during this interval, and subsequent to it, that I am now about to speak. These words, between you and me, reader, have been as the fragments of airs, which in musical introductions give us an inkling of more fulness to come. I will only pause to add a sentiment from Cowper;—but that would really be worse than Joseph Surface. No, reader! I will fling in my sentiment at the end, and here invite you to consider a subject, whose title heads the following page.