However interesting the subject may be, there is not space to go into further details. The inventory of Lord Grey's personal effects can scarcely be given as a picture of costume in this century, for even a few years produced as considerable changes in fashion then as now. Dekker, in his Seven Deadly Sinnes of London, describes an Englishman's suit as being like a traitor's body that had been hanged, drawn, and quartered, and set up in several places; and says: "We that mock every nation for keeping one fashion, yet steal patches from every one of them to piece out our pride, and are now laughing-stocks to them. The block for his head alters faster than the feltmaker can fit him, and hereupon we are called in scorn block-heads." The courtiers of Charles II. compensated themselves for the stern restraints of Puritanism, by giving way to the wildest excesses in dress and manners. Enormous periwigs were introduced, and it became the fashion for a man of ton to be seen combing them on the Mall or at the theatre. The hat was worn with a broad brim, ornamented with feathers; a falling band of the richest lace adorned the neck; the short cloak was edged deeply with gold lace; the doublet was ornamented in a similar manner—it was long, and swelled out from the waist; but the "petticoat breeches" were the glory of the outer man, and sums of money were spent on ribbon and lace to add to their attractions.
The ladies' costume was more simple, at least at this period; they compensated themselves, however, for any plainness in dress, by additional extravagances in their head-dresses, and wore "heart-breakers," or artificial curls, which were set out on wires at the sides of the face. Patching and painting soon became common, and many a nonconformist divine lifted up his voice in vain against these vanities. Pepys has left ample details of the dress in this century; and, if we may judge from the entry under the 30th of October, 1663, either he was very liberal in his own expenditure, and very parsimonious towards his wife, or ladies' attire was much less costly than gentlemen's, for he murmurs over his outlay of about £12 for Mrs. Pepys and £55 for himself. The country people, however, were attired more plainly and less expensively, while many, probably—
"Shook their heads at folks in London,"
and wondered at the follies of their superiors.
The arms and military accoutrements of the period have already been mentioned incidentally, and are illustrated by the different costumes in our engravings, which Mr. Doyle has rendered with the minutest accuracy of detail. This subject, if treated at all, would require space which we cannot afford to give it. The Life Guards were embodied by Charles II, in 1681, in imitation of the French "Gardes des Corps." The Coldstream were embodied by General Monk, in 1660, at the town from whence they obtained their name.
From an account in the Hamilton MSS., published in the Ulster Archæological Journal, it would appear that it was usual, or, at least not uncommon, for young men of rank to go abroad for some time, attended by a tutor, to perfect themselves in continental languages. It need scarcely be said that travelling was equally tedious and expensive. A journey from Dublin to Cork occupied several days; postchaises are a comparatively modern invention; and Sir William Petty astonished the good people of Dublin, in the seventeenth century, by inventing some kind of carriage which could be drawn by horses. With his description of the condition of the lower classes in Ireland at this period, I shall conclude this chapter. The accompanying figure represents the costume of the Irish peasant about the fifteenth century. The dress was found on the body of a male skeleton, in the year 1824, which was preserved so perfectly, that a coroner was called to hold an inquest on it. The remains were taken from a bog in the parish of Killery, co. Sligo. The cloak was composed of soft brown cloth; the coat of the same material, but of finer texture. The buttons are ingeniously formed of the cloth. The trowsers consists of two distinct parts, of different colours and textures; the upper part is thick, coarse, yellowish-brown cloth; the lower, a brown and yellow plaid.
"The diet of these people is milk, sweet and sour, thick and thin; but tobacco, taken in short pipes seldom burned, seems the pleasure of their lives. Their food is bread in cakes, whereof a penny serves a week for each; potatoes from August till May; muscles, cockles, and oysters, near the sea; eggs and butter, made very rancid by keeping in bogs. As for flesh they seldom eat it. Their fuel is turf in most places." The potatoe, which has brought so many national calamities on the country, had been then some years in the country, but its use was not yet as general as it has become since, as we find from the mention of "bread in cakes" being an edible during a considerable part of the year.
