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XIX. And mount thou must that black detested bench; Aye up, to all the congregation's gazing, Wrapt in thy mantle soiled, most desolate wench, Not once from thy cold hand thy visage raising; While black Mess John his stubborn fist shall clench, And pour his wrath like a volcano blazing,A fiery flood of taunting, grinning glee, O'er the Precentor's head-and all at thee. XX.

Or if perchance, in wildness of despair,

One asking glance across the kirk you throw, No countenance of softening pity there

Shall meet, O lass forlorn, that eye of woe,The wrinkled beldames' sour and savage stare Shall meet thee like a witch's curse below ;— Around thee, leering lad, and sneering hizzie, Shall find a sport in the rebuke of Grizzy.

XXI.

O had I Allan's pencil, or Scott's pen,

-I mean the Great Unknown, whoe'er he be; O Walter, though folks doubt it now and then, The dark suspicion still returns to thee;— Say what you will, there are not many men Would be so shy of owning Waverly;

But silence pleases your strange whim, no doubtWell-do write on, that's all I care about.

XXII.

One certainly gains something by coquetting
And dallying with the public curiosity;
Myself extremely fond of it am getting

(You see what comes of studying the Nosce te Ipsum rule)-excuse two words of Latin

'Tis sweet to hear your work, when no one knows it to

Be your's for certain, praised by all ye meet,
Nay, even to praise one's work one's self is sweet.

XXIII.

I've found a most intense and lurking pleasure
In visiting thy foes, O Ebony,-
In lounging in back-shops my hours of leisure,
And hearing all the High Street rail at thee.
I'm sure 'twill tickle me beyond all measure,
On Thursday next the hurricane to see,
The hurly-burly and the hurry-scurry,
When they shall hear this league with Mr Murray.

XXIV.

'Tis true, that all the town knows Wastle's name,
And scarce can I the same admittance hope,
Nor gentle paw of Bibliopole may claim,
Waving me forwards to the inner-shop!
Yet, haply now, less tartly will they blame

My fault, for every sore is found a slop,
While gently smiles each late-relenting carl,
Before that magic impress-Albemarle !

XXV.

But these digressions would a saint perplex ; I'm creeping back into last canto's style.— Not every lass such tears such terrors vex;

To chap-out some of them is not worth while, Especially those clumsiest of their sex,

Edina's Grizzies-coarse, and stout, and vile, A man can scarcely span about their wrist, They don't deserve the honour to be kiss'd.

XXVI.

It can't be said their raiment hangs out lures,
They wear black worsted stockings-that's a dress
Which (its sole merit) dirt from sight secures,

Impregnated with months of filthiness.

I wonder where such creatures can find wooers;
Some through blue hogars their great ankles press;
Whence, like a rascal's visage in the pillory,
Stares, fringed and flounced with flannel, the
redheelery.

XXVII.

"Tis well that some have gustos less refined,
And can endure both hogars and red heels;
A chairman or a cadie is quite blind
To such objections, no disgust he feels;
So be his wench a wholesome and a kind,

He asks no more; a speedy bargain seals Their union; the fond couple club their stock, "For every Jenny there is found a Jock."

XXVIII.

Which brings us back again unto Mynheer
Braun and his Lady. I have ta'en a trot
Since last we parted; I've been far and near;
My fable has not moved a single jot
These forty stanzas-it is very clear

That I into a vaguish style have got;
My poetry much like a wild young horse is,
Or one of Mr Noel's wild Discourses;

XXIX.

But better late than never. As I said

Somewhere, I think, in canto before last, Braun and his company were so ill bred, As, during my discourse, to fall as fast Asleep as if they had been all a-bed;

Whereon to the withdrawing-room I past, To take a dish of tea with Mrs Braun, And talk o'er all the Scandal of the Town.

XXX.

O how a matron gay and fashionable,

A giver of at-homes, a knowing Dame, That fills her suite of rooms with well-clad rabble, Would stare if into such a scene she came ; Some half a score of Fraus sat round a table,

Playing at Commerce, that most dull round game; Enormous Fraus, with ribbons at their ears, And but one beau, the Parson Vanderschpiers.

* Mr Wastle has written a very long and perplexing note upon this passage. From certain allusions in it, we have thought it expedient to send it to a certain noble Lord, a member of a certain learned Society, and when we have received his elucidations, Mr Wastle's note may appear with a running commentary.

EDITOR.

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* Although we have no intention to relax our general rule against anonymous communications, yet we shall not scruple to transgress it for once, in favour of the following very learned and exquisite piece of criticism. The want of a signature is, indeed, sometimes no disguise To parody the saying of Erasmus, "AUT DIABOLUS AUT DR PARR."

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The invention of this new style of IauCoramos, belongs of right, due attention being paid to dates and occasions, to Ensign and Adjutant Odoherty, late of his Majesty's foot service; yet he has been surpassed therein by at least one among his many imitators. Of these there are three, prominent, conspicuous, sex, most delectable spirits, Mr Frere, the Lord Byron, and a certain Scottish gentleman or laird, one Wastle. To this last I incline to refer the superiority, but indeed they are all very pleasant.

Their subjects are commonly of the same sort, that is, trifling; little reverence being had by any of them for the συσασις των πραγματων. Their humour is to regard the manners and characters of their personages more than the transactions wherein these are engaged, in so much that, whereas the Stagyrite says of tragic poetry, το τέλος πράξις τις επι, 8 ποιοτης, we may say of this Odohortean kind of μιμησις that the end is raarns Tis μadder ʼn reais. Such things cannot be commended altogether; yet, notwithstanding, in so far as the contemplation of n is of all things most neglected among the greater number των νεοτέρων, "for the rarity of their occurrence they deserve some praise, even from the learned," as Julius Pollux expresses it. (Edit. Hemsterhusii. Amstel 1706, p. 32.) Odoherty [ venoas] is one of a rich wit, and of a fluent discourse, but he hath great lack of the isis non-being in one of his productions lacrymose, and in another merry, buffoonish, ludicrous, sharp, a mere scurra, xangorros-so that no one can know wherein his real vein is manifested, wherefore he is distrusted by both parties, the good dreading hypocrisy when he speaketh to them, and esteeming him too much an observer of the rule ry: the pavaoriga in like manner, when he scurrilizes, fearing that he jesteth with their depravity. Frere erreth in being too phantastic in his véo, for deception is in common brief, and, once found out, he is no more trusted, and his wit less tasted. Moreover, there is a certain coldness about him, xe; he toucheth little upon ra aodia, which are ever the most proper to those who poctize after this fashion. Byron, again, sinneth diversely, in being too aphrodisiack, that phantasy being perpetually stirred up and excited by him in his Beppo, to say nothing of his satire, wherein he is ever too severe, nimis acer, duonigos aung. Wastle is more perfect in all these matters, for, steering in the midst, he is neither so mutative and dissimilis sibi as Odoherty, nor so agios as Frere, nor so axoλasos as Byron. In like fashion, over this last he hath the advantage, in that his wit is not so bitter. He hath indeed ευτραπελότερον τι και αρεσκο-which seemeth odd for one of his Sardonic nation, but "" 201 ὁ Πίνδαρος Βοιωτος, as the proverb has it. (Vide Procli Chrestomathea ad calcem Apollonii Alex. de Synta Franc, 1590, p. 222.) I love all these poets-I read over their opuscula divers times, and find much sport therein, for even the old despise not entirely to read of such things, although the recollection be sometimes not altogether ανευ λυπης. του Δοχορτιάδην μεν θαυμάζω, τὸν Φρηρον μεν σε Έως τον Βυρονον μεν μεγαλοποιω : μόνον δε τουτον τον Ουαστλεον ΦΙΛΩ.

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[The above came to us last week, with a Birmingham post-mark, Aug. 9, 1818.]

ON THE DRESS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.

MR EDITOR,

I HAVE Occasionally observed in your Miscellany, certain sly sneers at the dress of the present day, which, I am exceedingly sorry to think, does not meet with your approbation. As all we know of your personal appearance is, "that you are a man clothed in dark garments," the public are unable to judge whether or not your theory of apparel accords with your practice. For my own part, I do not care a straw whether I ever see you or not. I once believed, on the authority of a friend, who never made a joke in his life, that the picture of the old gentleman on the cover of your Magazine was intended for you, and I really could not help respecting your very venerable appearance. I thought indeed, from the length of your beard, that had rayou ther injudiciously sat for your portrait on a Saturday evening, and as you have no neckcloth on there, I fancied it was out getting washed for the Sabbath. I beg your pardon, however, for this mistake, as I have since been informed, on the best authority, that the picture alluded to, is one of Mr Blackwood, and if he thinks he looks a prettier man in that costume, I have no objection to his wearing it. By the way, this mistake about the picture gave rise, I should fancy, to the idea since exploded, that the Editor and the Publisher were one and the same person. You, sir, however, who are such a critic in dress, must be deep read in its history; and it is, I presume, from a comparison of that of the present day with the fashion of other times, that you are disposed to be so very sarcastic. Now I am willing to stake my character as a well-dressed man,-(and I assure you, that, although I have mounted a wig of late in the Parliament House, I am still, after mid-day, as complete a Dandy-Quadriller as ever)— that the dress of the present day is the most rational that ever prevailed in this country since the reign of the immortal Alfred. Let us take the reign of Queen Bess, erroneously called the Virgin Queen; or of King James I. rightly denominated the British Solomon. I will paint a belle and a beau of that day so clearly, as to save you the expense of an engraving, though perhaps your ingenious friend, Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, will exe

cute one in time for your next Number.

I suppose it is a matter of indifference, whether I begin at the feet of the ladies of the Elizabethan age, and so mount up, in my description, to their heads, or commence operations with their heads, and descend gently unto their feet. I adopt the latter mode. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says to Mrs Ford, " thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, and any tire of Venetian admittance.' "The ship-tire (says the excellent Dr Drake, in his most amusing book on Shakspeare), appears to have been an open flaunting head-dress, with scarfs or ribbons floating in the air like streamers:"

"With ribbons pendant flaring round her head."

The tire-valiant was probably something more showy-and, I suppose, only hoisted in calm weather and light breezes, like sky-scrapers on the masts of ships. Such head-dresses awoke different images to different minds, and while to some they suggested that of a ship with every inch of canvass set, to others they seemed rather ludicrous than magnificent. A satirical poet of 1595, speaks of

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Flaming heads with staring haire, To peacocks I compare them right, With wyres turn'd like horns of ram; Who glorieth in their feathers bright."

Beneath head-dresses such as these, the ladies were not contented, like those of our times, to wear nothing but their own hair. We are told by Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, that it was who had beautiful hair into private a common practice to allure children places, and crop them. The dead, too, were rifled for the same purpose. "The golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away To live a second life, or second head, And beauty's dead fleece made another gay."

It happened that Queen Bess had red hair, and when that failed her, Paul Hentzer tells us, that she wore a red wig. It therefore became fashionable to wear red wigs, though, from the love of vanity, wigs were to be seen of all hues.

"Wigs of all hues, and without pins the hair."

"It is a wonder more than ordinary (says an old satirist) to "behould theyr perewigs of sundry collours." As few faces could look well under a red wig, the ladies were under the necessity of

painting their cheeks, to render the contrast less violent. To what length this fashion rose, may be guessed at from Shakspeare. "Let her paint an inch thick," &c. Not contented with a good coating of paint to their faces, they added masks and mufflers. The former were made of velvet, "wherewith, says Stubbs, when they ride abroad, they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chance to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a devil, for face he can show none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them." These masks were of all colours.

"On each wight now are they seene,

The tallow-pale, the browning bay, The swarthy blacke, the grassie-green, The pudding red, the dapple-gray." Ear-rings of immense size were universally worn-and glittering with precious stones. The ruff round their necks, says Dr Drake, under the fostering care of the ladies, attained in stiff ness, fineness, and dimensions, the most extravagant pitch of absurdity. It reached behind to the very top of the head, and the tenuity of the lawn or cambric of which it was made was such, that Stowe prophecies they would "shortly wear ruffs of a spider's web." The ruff being of such fine texture, was strongly starched to make it stand upright; and in addition to this, was supported by an underpropper, called a supertasse. Stubbs says, one arch or pillar, wherewith the devil's kingdom of great ruffs is underpropped, is a certain kind of liquid matter which they call starch, wherein the devil has learned them to wash and die their ruffs, which being dry, will stand stiff and inflexible about their necks."*

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*On the 27th May 1582, a gentlewoman of Amsterdam could not get her ruff plaited according to her taste, though she employed two celebrated laundresses; upon which, says Stubbs," she fell to swear and tear, to curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and wishing that the devil might take her when she did wear any neck-arches again."

The devil assumed the form of a beautiful young man, and "tooke in hand the setting of her ruffs, which he performed to her great contentation and liking; insomuch, as she looking herself in a glasse (as the Devil bade her), became greatly enamoured of him. This done, the young man kiss VOL. III.

The bosoms of the ladies were all bare, her Majesty setting them the example; for when Paul Hentzer first saw her going to chapel, she was in her 65th year, "her face oblong, fair, and wrinkled," -" her teeth black,”—and "her bosom uncovered." The waist was long beyond all proportion, and terminated in a point. The fashionable petticoat was the Scottish fardingale, of enormous bulk, so that when a lady was dressed in one of them, with the gown, as was usually the case, stuffed about the shoulders, and the ruff in the first style of the day, her appearance was truly formidable." Shoes with monstrous high heels (in imitation of the Venetian chopine, a kind of stilt, better than a foot high) were the prevalent mode, and silk stockings, which the Queen first wore in 1560, soon became universal.

To make the picture complete, we have to add a profusion of bracelets, necklaces, &c. and to put into the la dy's hand an immense fan, constructed of ostrich feathers, with handles of gold, silver, or ivory, and wrought with great skill into various elegant forms. Of these fans the author of

Quippes for upstart new-fangled gentlewomen," 1595, says, Seeing they are still in hand In house, in field, in church, in street, In summer, winter, water, land, In colde, in heate, in drie, in weet; I judge they are for wives such tools As baubles are, in playes, for fooles.

When a gentlewoman was arrayed as aforesaid, it was natural for her to desire to see how she looked, and ac

ed her, in the doing whereof, he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died miserably; her body being straight waies changed into blue and black colours, most ugglesome to behold, and her face (which before was so amorous) became most deformed, and fearfull to look upon. This being known in the city, great preparation was made for her buriall, and a rich coffin was provided, and her fearful body was laid therein, and covered very smuptuously. Foure men immediately assayed to lift up the corpse, but could not move it; then six attempted the like, but could not once stirre it from the place where it stood. Whereat the standers-bye marvelling, caused the coffin to be opened to see the cause thereof :-where they found the body to be taken away, and a black catte, very lean and deformed, sitting in the coffin, setting of great ruffes, and frizling of hair, to the great fear and wonder of all the beholders."

3.Y

cordingly a small looking-glass was worn pendent from the girdle, into which the fashionable coquette might ever and anon peep, to adjust the loveknot that hung wantonly over her shoulders. Hear how Burton, in his anatomie of melancholy, enumerates the allurements of these gorgeous damsels.

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Why do they decorate themselves with artificial flowers, the various colours of herbs, needle works of exquisite skill, quaint devices, and perfume their persons, wear inestimable riches in precious stones, crown themselves with gold and silver, use coronets and tiras of various fashions; deck themselves with pendants, bracelets, ear-rings, chains, girdles, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries, shadows, ribatoes, versicolar ribbands? Why do they make such glaring shows with their scarfs, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tissets, cloth of gold, silver tissue? Such setting up with sarks, straitening with whalebone, why, it is but as a day-net catcheth larks, to make young ones stoop unto them. And when they are disappointed, they dissolve into tears, which they wipe away like sweat; weep with one eye, laugh with the other, or as children weep and cry, they can both together,—and as much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping, as of a goose going barefoot."

To this eloquent lament I have nothing to add. But will you, Mr Editor, after this, pretend to find fault with the dress of the ladies of the present day? Who among them wear false hair, either partial and occasional curls, or universal and everlasting wigs? Who among them show on their cheeks other paint than the purple light of nature, love and beauty? Where now the naked bosom-the smooth-swelling breast of youthful loveliness,—the fuller rotundity of matronly modesty, or the attenuated and shrivelled yellowness of single blessedness well stricken in years? A shroud is over all we love, over all we fear. Love is not now a-days engendered in the eyes. Imagination is all in all. Neck, shoulders, back, bosom, arms, ancles and legs, are like objects seen in a dream, too beautiful to endure the light of a waking existence, and at the crowing of the cock or the ringing of the breakfast-bell, all disenchanted into muffledup realities. If, Mr Editor, there be any one thing more characteristic of the female dress of the present day than another, it seems to me to consist in what my Lord Castlereagh would call the want of a "fundamental feature,"

After having dwelt so long on the dresses of the Elizabethan ladies, I am afraid that those of the Elizabethan gentlemen might be an "odious theme." Yet, mayhap, your fair readers may wish to know "how looked a dandy in those golden days." It would seem that they were much more capricious in their fashions than the ladies. And first, with respect to their heads, Harrison exclaims, "I will say nothing of your heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered to grow at length like horror's locks; many times cut off above or below the ears, round as by a wooden dish." Decker, too, speaks of hair

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growing thick and bushy like a forest or wilderness," to which he seems to have been partial, dreading what he calls the " polling and shav ing world." The gentlemen of those days, too, possessed an incalculable advantage over those of the present in the beard, a very useful and improveable instrument, to which the attention of the age was very passionately turned. Some," says Harrison, are shaven from the chin like those of the Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of Marquese Otto, some made round like a rubbing brush, others with a pique-devant (O fine fashion!), or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being as cunning in his behalf as the tailors." It required infinite skill-a certain native delicacy of taste-to suit the cut of the beard to that of the face.

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“If a man have a lean and straight face, a Marquese Ottons cut will make it broad and large as (Baxter's himself); if it be platter like, a long slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he be well-beck'd, then much heare left on the cheekes will make the owner look big like a boudled hen, and so grim as a goose," &c. It appears also from many passages in Shakspeare, and the other dramatists, that beards were died of all possible colours; and art being thus called in to the assistance of nature, a large company of gentlemen, by means of their beards alone, made a most shining and refulgent appearance. To add to the brilliancy of the head, some lustie courtiers also, and gentlemen of courage, doe weare rings of gold, stones, or pearle in their eares, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God not to be a little amended." Nay they

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