The earliest representation of a muff that has come under our notice occurs in a drawing by Gaspar Rutz (1598) of an English lady, and she wears it pendant from her girdle. A few years later in the wardrobe accounts of Prince Henry of Wales, a charge is made for embroidering two muffs. The entries occur in 1608, and are as follow:—“One of cloth of silver, embroidered with purles, plates, and Venice twists of silver and gold; the other of black satten, embroidered with black silk and bugles, viz., for one £7, the other 60s.” Muffs were usually ornamented with bunches of gay ribbons, or some other decorations, and were generally hung round the neck with ribbons.
Several poems and plays of the olden time contain references to men using muffs. One of the earliest, if not the first, to mention a man wearing a muff, occurs in an epistle by Samuel Rowlands, written about 1600. It is as follows:—
“Behold a most accomplished cavalier
That the world’s ape of fashion doth appear,
Walking the streets his humour to disclose,
In the French doublet and the German hose.
The muffes, cloak, Spanish hat, Toledo blade,
Italian ruff, a shoe right Spanish made.”
A ballad, describing the frost fair on the Thames in the winter of 1683-4, mentions amongst those present:—
“A spark of the Bar with his cane and his muff.”
In course of time the muff was increased in size, until it was very large. Dryden, in the epilogue of “The Husband his own Cuckstool,” 1696, refers to the monstrous muff worn by the beau.
Pepys made a point of being in fashion, but in respect to the muff he was most economical. He says he took his wife’s last year’s muff, and it is pleasing to record that he gallantly bought her a new one.
MAN WITH MUFF, 1693.
(From a Print of the Period.)
Professional men did not neglect to add to their dignity by the use of the muff. In addition to the gold-headed cane, the doctor carried a muff. An old book called “The Mother-in-law,” includes a character who is advised by his friends to become a physician. Says one to him: “’Tis but putting on the doctor’s gown and cap, and you’ll have more knowledge in an instant than you’ll know what to do withal.” Observes another friend: “Besides, sir, if you had no other qualification than that muff of yours, twould go a great way. A muff is more than half in the making of a doctor.” Cibble tells Nightshade in Cumberland’s “Cholerick Man,” 1775, to “Tuck your hands in your muff and never open your lips for the rest of the afternoon; ’twill gain you respect in every house you enter.” Alexander Wedderburn, before being called to the English Bar in 1757, had practised as an advocate in his native city, Edinburgh. In his references to his early days, there is an allusion to the muff, showing that its use must have been by no means uncommon in Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century. “Knowing my countrymen at that time,” he tells us, “I was at great pains to study and assume a very grave, solemn deportment for a young man, which my marked features, notwithstanding my small stature, would render more imposing. Men then wore in winter small muffs, and I flatter myself that, as I paced to the Parliament House, no man of fifty could look more thoughtful or steady. My first client was a citizen whom I did not know. He called upon me in the course of a cause, and becoming familiar with him, I asked him ‘how he came to employ me?’ The answer was: ‘Why, I had noticed you in the High Street, going to the court, the most punctual of any, as the clock struck nine, and you looked so grave and business-like, that I resolved from your appearance to have you for my advocate.’” More instances of the muff amongst professional men might be cited, but the foregoing are sufficient to indicate the value set upon it by this class.