We have another portion of dress whose origin dates from a serious personage and from eventful times. I allude to that terror of gentlemen who do not possess that which frogs and properly-built men alone possess in common,—namely, calves;—I allude, I say, to “pantaloons.” This tight-fitting garment was once part of the official costume of the great standard-bearer of the Venetian Republic. He carried on his banner the Lion of St. Mark, and he was the Piantaleone, or Planter of the Lion, around whose glorious flag and tightly-encased legs the battle ever raged with greatest fury, and where victory was most hotly contended for. The tight parti-coloured legs of the tall Piantaleone were the rallying points of the Venetians. Where his thighs were upright, the banner was sure to be floating in defiance or triumph over them; and Venice may be said to have stood upon the legs of her Pantaloons. He who once saved states was subsequently represented as the most thoroughly battered imbecile of a pantomime. But therein was a political revenge. Harlequin, Clown, and Columbine represented different states of Italy, whose delight it was to pillory Venice by beating her nightly under the guise of the old buffoon “Signor Pantaloon.” The dress has survived the memory of this fact, though the dress too is almost obsolete.
In the last paragraph there is the phrase “I say” interpolated, the use of which reminds me of a tailor-like comment made upon it. Erskine writing to Boswell, or Boswell to Erskine, I forget now which, remarks that “a sentence so clumsily worded as to require an ‘I say’ to keep it together, very much resembles, in my candid opinion, a pair of ill-mended breeches.”
The article of braccæ is suggestive of buttons; and touching these, I may observe that there is a curious law extant with regard to them. It is, by Acts of Parliament passed in three reigns,—William III., Anne, and George I.,—perfectly illegal for tailor to make, or mortal man to wear, clothes with any other buttons appended thereto but buttons of brass. This law is in force for the benefit of the Birmingham makers; and it further enacts, not only that he who makes or sells garments with any but brass buttons thereto affixed, shall pay a penalty of forty shillings for every dozen, but that he shall not be able to recover the price he claims, if the wearer thinks proper to resist payment. Nor is the Act a dead letter. It is not many weeks since, that honest Mr. Shirley sued plain Mr. King for nine pounds sterling, due for a suit of clothes. King pleaded non-liability on the ground of an illegal transaction, the buttons on the garment supplied having been made of cloth, or bone covered with cloth, instead of gay and glittering brass, as the law directs. The judge allowed the plea; and the defendant having thus gained a double suit without cost, immediately proceeded against the defendant to recover his share of the forty shillings for every dozen buttons which the poor tailor had unwittingly supplied. A remarkable feature in the case was, that the judge who admitted the plea, the barrister who set it up, and the client who profited by it, were themselves all buttoned contrary to law!
If I were writing an Encyclopædia of Trades, I would be as elaborate as Dryasdust on the manufacture of buttons of all sorts of metal, more or less costly; of wood, bone, ivory, horn, leather, paper, glass, silk, wool, cotton, linen, thread, flock, compressed clay, etc. etc.—so that both my readers and myself have a lucky escape. As the age however is statistical in its inclinations, I will save my credit by remarking that at Birmingham, the chief seat of button-manufacture, there are not less than five thousand persons engaged in the manufacture of buttons, and that half this number consists of women, and children.
Having said this, I turn to a new chapter, wherein there will be something more of statistics, and something new about stockings.
STOCKINGS.
“Troth, Master Inkpen, thou hast put thy foot
Into a pretty subject.”—Old Play.
When the old trunkhose was found to fray the sacred epidermis of Christian kings and queens, the first fruits of a remedial discovery were presented for the benefit of the illustrious sufferers. Thus we hear that when stockings were first known in Europe, a Spanish grandee manifested his loyalty and love for his Queen, by presenting a pair to the Prime Minister, with a request that that official would place them at, if not on, the feet of his sovereign lady. The Minister was shocked at the grandee’s assurance and lack of modesty. “Take back thy stockings,” said he, “and name the thing not again; for know, O foolish Sir Duke, that the Queen of Spain has no legs!”