To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre;”
and the parallel lines in the sixty-eighth sonnet, in which the same point is touched on, with striking similarity of phrasing. The “golden” color of the locks, here specially emphasized, it may be noted in passing, was particularly popular, on account of the reddish, or, as her flatterers would insist, the golden, hue of Queen Elizabeth’s head-gear. Finally, a great deal was said about the altogether needless and reprehensible extravagance shown in certain small details of dress. We may take the one item of foot-covering as an example. Herein all the worst taste of the day was illustrated; for shoes were made of the most expensive materials, and were frequently covered with artificial flowers and other kinds of decoration. Thus, Massinger, in “The City Madam,” speaks of rich “pantofles in ostentation shown, and roses worth a family”; while Stubbs, in his “Anatomy of Abuses,” refers to shoes “embroidered with gold and silver all over the foot.”
Yet, upon the whole, truth compels us to admit that, if we are to trust contemporary evidence, masculine fashions exceeded in wildness, absurdity, and monstrous barbarity those of the other sex. “Women are bad, but men are worse,”—such is the distinct judgment of Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy”; and while we know from the speculative Jaques that “the city madam,” would sometimes bear “the cost of princes on unworthy shoulders,” Burton again is our authority for the statement that it was no uncommon thing for a man to put a thousand oxen into a suit of apparel, and to wear a whole manor on his back.
I mentioned incidentally just now that class distinctions were severely marked out by differences in costume. Certain sumptuary enactments promulgated about this time undertook to regulate down to the minutest details what should and what should not be worn by the various classes of the community, wealth and social standing being taken together as the basis on which to settle the problems of the toilet and personal adornment. But within the limits allowed by such regulations, and sometimes even irrespective of them (for grandmotherly legislation here as always stood foredoomed to failure) extravagance in fashion remained throughout one of the salient characteristics of the day. The dress of the citizen and his wife, if less elegant, was equally showy, and sometimes quite as expensive, as that of the man of mode and the woman of the court; and so it was through all grades of society, from the highest to the lowest, or, as Harrison put it in his vivid phrase, from the courtier to the carter.
While we are still concerned with this item of dress it is amusing to notice that three hundred years ago people were to be found worrying their tailors and abusing their dressmakers as it is the custom to do at the present day. We might quote illustrations from more than one comedy; but let us once more fall back upon Harrison. “How many times,” says this quaint old writer, “must a garment be sent back to him that made it? What chafing, what fretting, what reproachful language doth the poor workman bear away.... For we must puff and blow and sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon us.” As we read such a passage as this in its original strange old spelling (which, for the sake of uniformity, we have not here reproduced), we have surely to acknowledge—though it goes much against the grain to do so—that our manners have at bottom changed less than our orthography.
And now we must leave the ranks of the citizens and trading folks to deal for a moment or two with the more fashionable world.
The society of the time, to employ the word which in modern parlance has assumed a highly specialized meaning, was artificial to an absurd and almost inconceivable extent. Affectations, indeed, made up the larger part of life; and yet beneath them all were a core of sound reality and a healthy element of spontaneity. Euphuism and Italianism had for the time being taken full possession of the whole aristocratic world. Yet Euphuism and Italianism were but external crazes; and it was one mission of the age to show that men could be heroes in the foolishest dress, and do great deeds with the most ridiculous of phrases upon their lips. We could not here enter upon the task of analyzing the life and aims of the men and women who surrounded the Queen at her court; but as an offset to the steady-going middle classes of whom we have had much to say, we must try to present, if only in rapidly sketched outline, the typical Elizabethan gallant, or fashionable young man about town, as we find him portrayed for us in the plays and pamphlets of the time.
The accomplishments of the young man of this description were numerous and varied enough; but they were all in keeping with the character of the perfect gentleman as set forth by Castiglione in his “Cortegiano,” a work which had been translated by Thomas Hoby in 1561, and had forthwith become a kind of text-book or Bible for the youthful fashionable world. He could dance, sing, and play the viol de gamba; fence, ride, and hunt; write verses, turn pretty compliments, and take his part in the exchange of witty repartees, stocking his memory with scraps of plays and stories, lest his own mother-sense should fail him. He could read the three languages of Portia’s summary of requirements in which Falconbridge was lacking—Latin, French, and Italian,—and was perfectly at home in what Jonson calls the “perfumed terms of the day”; he had some acquaintance with the poets in vogue; played cards, tennis, and other fashionable games, as a matter of course; and, last but not least, was learned in all matters connected with the drama, etiquette, and dress.