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diff --git a/10115-0.txt b/10115-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..307f2c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/10115-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10176 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10115 *** + +[Illustration] + +TWO CENTURIES OF COSTUME IN AMERICA +MDCXX-MDCCCXX + + +ALICE MORSE EARLE + +AUTHOR OF “SUN-DIALS AND ROSES OF YESTERDAY” “OLD TIME GARDENS,” ETC. + + +VOLUME I + +Nineteen Hundred and Three + + + + +Madam Padishal and Child Madam Padishal and Child. + + + + +_To George P. Brett_ + + +_“An honest Stationer (or Publisher) is he, that exercizeth his Mystery +(whether it be in printing, bynding or selling of Bookes) with more +respect to the glory of God & the publike aduantage than to his owne +Commodity & is both an ornament & a profitable member in a ciuill +Commonwealth.... If he be a Printer he makes conscience to exemplefy +his Coppy fayrely & truly. If he be a Booke-bynder, he is no meere +Bookeseller (that is) one who selleth meerely ynck & paper bundled up +together for his owne aduantage only: but he is a Chapman of Arts, of +wisdome, & of much experience for a little money.... The reputation of +Schollers is as deare unto him as his owne: For, he acknowledgeth that +from them his Mystery had both begining and means of continuance. He +heartely loues & seekes the Prosperity of his owne Corporation: Yet he +would not iniure the Uniuersityes to advantage it. In a word, he is +such a man that the State ought to cherish him; Schollers to loue him; +good Customers to frequent his shopp; and the whole Company of +Stationers to pray for him.”_ + +—GEORGE WITHER, 1625. + + + + +CONTENTS + +VOL. I + +I. APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS + +II. DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS + +III. ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS + +IV. A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER + +V. THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS + +VI. RUFFS AND BANDS + +VII. CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS + +VIII. THE VENERABLE HOOD + +IX. CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS + +X. THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN + +XI. PERUKES AND PERIWIGS + +XII. THE BEARD + +XIII. PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES + +XIV. BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I + + +MADAM PADISHAL AND CHILD + +_Frontispiece_ + +This fine presentation of the dress of a gentlewoman and infant child, +in the middle of the seventeenth century, hung in old Plymouth homes in +the Thomas and Stevenson families till it came by inheritance to the +present owner, Mrs. Greely Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass. The artist +is unknown. + +JOHN ENDICOTT + +Born in Dorchester, Eng., 1589. Died in Boston, Mass., 1665. He +emigrated to America in 1628; became governor of the colony in 1644, +and was major-general of the colonial troops. He hated Indians, the +Church of Rome, and Quakers. He wears a velvet skull-cap, and a +finger-ring, which is somewhat unusual; a square band; a richly fringed +and embroidered glove; and a “stiletto” beard. This portrait is in the +Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +EDWARD WINSLOW + +Born in England, 1595; died at sea, 1655. One of the founders of the +Plymouth colony in 1620; and governor of that colony in 1633, 1636, +1644. This portrait is dated 1651. It is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, +Mass. + +JOHN WINTHROP + +Born in England, 1588; died in Boston, 1649. Educated at Trinity +College, Cambridge; admitted to the Inner Temple, 1628. Made governor +of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. Arrived in Salem, 1630. His +portrait by Van Dyck and a fine miniature exist. The latter is owned by +American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. This picture is copied +from a very rare engraving from the miniature, which is finer and even +more thoughtful in expression than the portrait. Both have the +lace-edged ruff, but the shape of the dress is indistinct. + +SIMON BRADSTREET + +Born in England, 1603; died in Salem, Mass., 1697. He was governor of +the colony when he was ninety years old. The Labadists, who visited +him, wrote: “He is an old man, quiet and grave; dressed in black silk, +but not sumptuously.” + +SIR RICHARD SALTONSTALL + +A mayor of London who came to Salem among the first settlers. The New +England families of his name are all descended from him. He wears +buff-coat and trooping scarf. This portrait was painted by Rembrandt. + +SIR WALTER RALEIGH + +Born in Devonshire, Eng., 1552; executed in London, 1618. A courtier, +poet, historian, nobleman, soldier, explorer, and colonizer. He was the +favorite of Elizabeth; the colonizer of Virginia; the hero of the +Armada; the victim of King James. In this portrait he wears a slashed +jerkin; a lace ruff; a broad trooping scarf with great lace +shoulder-knot; a jewelled sword-belt; full, embroidered breeches; +lace-edged garters, and vast shoe-roses, which combine to form a +confused dress. + +SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND SON + +This print was owned by the author for many years, with the written +endorsement by some unknown hand, _Martin Frobisher and Son_. I am glad +to learn that it is from a painting by Zucchero of Raleigh and his son, +and is owned at Wickham Court, in Kent, Eng., by the descendant of one +of Raleigh’s companions in his explorations. The child’s dress is less +fantastic than other portraits of English children of the same date. + +ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX + +From an old print. A general of Cromwell’s army. + +OLIVER CROMWELL DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT + +From an old Dutch print. + +SIR WILLIAM WALLER + +A general in Cromwell’s army. Born, 1597; died, 1668. He served in the +Thirty Years’ War. This portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery. + +LORD FAIRFAX + +A general in Cromwell’s army. From an old print. + +ALDERMAN ABELL AND RICHARD KILVERT + +From an old print. + +REV. JOHN COTTON, D.D. + +Born in Derby, Eng., 1585; died at Boston, Mass., in 1652. A Puritan +clergyman who settled in Boston in 1633. He drew up for the colonists, +at the request of the General Court, an abstract of the laws of Moses +entitled _Moses His Judicials_, which was of greatest influence in the +formation of the laws of the colony. This portrait is owned by Robert +C. Winthrop, Esq. + +REV. COTTON MATHER, D.D. + +Born in Boston, Mass., 1683; died in Boston, Mass., 1728. A clergyman, +author, and scholar. His book, _Magnalia Christi Americana_, an +ecclesiastical history of New England, is of much value, though most +trying. He took an active and now much-abhorred part in the Salem +witchcraft. This portrait is owned by the American Antiquarian Society, +Worcester, Mass. + +SLASHED SLEEVES + +From portraits _temp_. Charles I. The first is from a Van Dyck portrait +of the Earl of Stanhope, and has a rich, lace-edged cuff. The second, +with a graceful lawn undersleeve, is from a Van Dyck of Lucius Gary, +Viscount Falkland. The third is from a painting by Mytens of the Duke +of Hamilton. The fourth, by Van Dyck, is from one of Lord Villiers, +Viscount Grandison. + +MRS. KATHERINE CLARK + +Born, 1602; died, 1671. An English gentlewoman renowned in her day for +her piety and charity. + +LADY MARY ARMINE + +An English lady of great piety, whose gifts to Christianize the Indians +make her name appear in the early history of Massachusetts. Her black +domino and frontlet are of interest. This portrait was painted about +1650. + +THE TUB-PREACHER + +An old print of a Quaker meeting. Probably by Marcel Lawson. + +VENICE POINT LACE + +Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. + +REBECCA RAWSON + +The daughter of Edward Rawson, Secretary of State. Born in Boston in +1656; married in 1679 to an adventurer, Thomas Rumsey, who called +himself Sir Thomas Hale. She died at sea, in 1692. This portrait is +owned by New England Historic Genealogical Society. + +ELIZABETH PADDY + +Born in Plymouth, Mass., in 1641. Daughter of William Paddy; she +married John Wensley of Plymouth. Their daughter Sarah married Dr. +Isaac Winslow. This portrait is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass. + +MRS. SIMEON STODDARD + +A wealthy Boston gentlewoman. This portrait was painted in the latter +half of the seventeenth century. It is owned by the Massachusetts +Historical Society. + +ANCIENT BLACK LACE + +Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. + +VIRAGO-SLEEVE + +From a French portrait. + +NINON DE L’ENCLOS + +Born in Paris, 1615; died in 1705. Her dress has a slashed +virago-sleeve and lace whisk. + +LADY CATHERINE HOWARD + +Grandchild of the Earl of Arundel. Aged thirteen years. Drawn in 1646 +by W. Hollar. + +COSTUMES OF ENGLISHWOMEN OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY + +Plates from _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus, or Several Habits of +Englishwomen_, 1640. By Wenceslaus Hollar, an engraver of much note and +much performance; born at Prague, 1607; died in England, 1677. This +book contains twenty-six plates illustrating women’s dress in all ranks +of life with absolute fidelity. + +GERTRUDE SCHUYLER LIVINGSTONE + +Second wife and widow of Robert Livingstone. The curiously plaited +widow’s cap can be seen under her hood. + +MRS. MAGDALEN BEEKMAN + +Died in New York in 1730. Widow of Gerardus Beekman, who died in 1723. + +LADY ANNE CLIFFORD + +Born, 1590. Daughter of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. Painted in +1603. + +LADY HERRMAN + +Of Bohemia Manor, Maryland. Wife of a pioneer settler. From _Some +Colonial Mansions_. Published by Henry T. Coates & Co. + +ELIZABETH CROMWELL + +Mother of Oliver Cromwell. She died at Whitehall in 1654, aged 90 +years. This portrait is at Hinchinbrook, and is owned by the Earl of +Sandwich. It was painted by Robert Walker. Her dress is described as “a +green velvet cardinal, trimmed with gold lace.” Her hood is white +satin. + +POCAHONTAS + +Daughter of Powhatan, and wife of Mr. Thomas Rolfe. Born 1593; died +1619; aged twenty-one when this was painted. The portrait is owned by a +member of the Rolfe family. + +DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHILDREN + +Painted in 1626 by Gerard Honthorst. In the original the Duke of +Buckingham is also upon the canvas. He was George Villiers, the +“Steenie” of James I, who was assassinated by John Felton. The duchess +was the daughter of the Earl of Rutland. The little daughter was +afterwards Duchess of Richmond and Lenox. The baby was George, the +second Duke of Buckingham, poet, politician, courtier, the friend of +Charles II. The picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery. + +A WOMAN’S DOUBLET + +Worn by the infamous Mrs. Anne Turner. + +A PURITAN DAME + +Plate from _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus_. + +PENELOPE WINSLOW + +Painted in 1651. Dress dull olive; mantle bright red; pearl necklace, +ear-rings and pearl bandeau in hair. The hair is curled as the hair in +portraits of Queen Henrietta Maria. In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass. + +GOLD-FRINGED GLOVES OF GOVERNOR LEVERETT + +In Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +EMBROIDERED PETTICOAT-BAND, 1750 + +Bright-colored crewels on linen. Owned by the Misses Manning of Salem, +Mass. + +BLUE DAMASK GOWN AND QUILTED SATIN PETTICOAT + +These were owned by Mrs. James Lovell, who was born 1735; died, 1817. +Through her only daughter, Mrs. Pickard, who died in 1812, they came to +her only child, Mary Pickard (Mrs. Henry Ware, Jr.), whose heirs now +own them. They are in the keeping of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. + +A PLAIN JERKIN + +This portrait is of Martin Frobisher, hero of the Armada; explorer in +1576, 1577, and 1578 for the Northwestern Passage, and discoverer of +Frobisher’s Bay. He died in 1594. + +CLOTH DOUBLET + +This portrait is of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. Owned by the +Duke of Bedford. It shows a plain cloth doublet with double row of +turreted welts at the shoulder. Horace Walpole says of this portrait, +“He is quite in the style of Queen Elizabeth’s lovers; red-bearded, and +not comely.” + +JAMES, DUKE OF YORK + +Born, 1633. Afterwards James II of England. This scene in a +tennis-court was painted about 1643. + +EMBROIDERED JERKIN + +This portrait is of George Carew, Earl of Totnes. It was painted by +Zucchero, and is owned by the Earl of Verulam. He wears a rich jerkin +with four laps on each side below the belt; it is embroidered in +sprigs, and guarded on the seams. The sleeves are detached. He wears +also a rich sword-belt and ruff. + +JOHN LILBURNE + +Born in Greenwich, Eng., in 1614; died in 1659. A Puritan soldier, +politician, and pamphleteer. He was fined, whipped, pilloried, tried +for treason, sedition, controversy, libel. He was imprisoned in the +Tower, Newgate, Tyburn, and the Castle. He was a Puritan till he turned +Quaker. His sprawling boots, dangling knee-points, and silly little +short doublet form a foolish dress. + +COLONEL WILLIAM LEGGE + +Born in 1609. Died in 1672. He was a stanch Royalist. His portrait is +by Jacob Huysmans, and is in the National Portrait Gallery. + +SIR THOMAS ORCHARD KNIGHT, 1646 + +From an old print indorsed “S Glover ad vivum delineavit 1646.” He is +in characteristic court-dress, with slashed sleeves, laced cloak, laced +garters, and shoe-roses. His hair and beard are like those of Charles +II. + +THE ENGLISH ANTICK + +From a broadside of 1646. + +GEORGE I OF ENGLAND + +Born in Hanover, 1660. Died in Hanover, 1727. Crowned King of England +in 1714. This portrait is by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is in the +National Portrait Gallery. It is remarkable for its ribbons and curious +shoes. + +THREE CASSOCK SLEEVES AND A BUFF-COAT SLEEVE + +_Temp_. Charles I. The first sleeve is from a portrait of Lord Bedford. +The second, with shoulder-knot of ribbon, was worn by Algernon Sidney; +the third is from a Van Dyck portrait of Viscount Grandison; the +fourth, the sleeve of a curiously slashed buff-coat worn by Sir Philip +Sidney. + +HENRY BENNET, EARL OF ARLINGTON + +Born, 1618; died, 1685. From the original by Sir Peter Lely. This is +asserted to be the costume chosen by Charles II in 1661 “to wear +forever.” + +FIGURES FROM FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE DUKE OF ALBEMARLE IN 1670 + +These drawings of “Gentlemen,” “Earls,” “Clergymen,” “Physicians,” and +“Poor Men” are by F. Sanford, Lancaster Herald, and are from his +engraving of the Funeral Procession of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle. + +EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, HENRY WRIOTHESLEY. + +Born, 1573. Died in The Netherlands in 1624. He was the friend of +Shakespere, and governor of the Virginia Company. This portrait is by +Mierevelt. + +A BOWDOIN PORTRAIT + +This fine portrait is by a master’s hand. The name of the subject is +unknown. The initials would indicate that he was a Bowdoin, or a +Baudouine, which was the name of the original emigrant. It has been +owned by the Bowdoin family until it was presented to Bowdoin College, +Brunswick, Me., where it now hangs in the Walker Art Building. + +WILLIAM PYNCHEON + +Born, 1590; died, 1670. This portrait was painted in 1657. It is in an +unusual dress, with the only double row of buttons I have seen on a +portrait of that date. It also shows no hair under the close cap. + +JONATHAN EDWARDS, D.D. + +Born, Windsor, Conn., 1703. Died, Princeton, N.J., 1758. A theologian, +metaphysician, missionary, author, and president of Princeton +University. + +GEORGE CURWEN + +Born in England, 1610; died in Salem, 1685. He came to Salem in 1638, +where he was the most prominent merchant, and commanded a troop of +horse, whereby he acquired his title of Captain. He is in military +dress. Portrait owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +WALKING-STICK AND LACE FRILL, 1660 + +These articles are in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +WILLIAM CODDINGTON + +Born in Leicestershire, Eng., 1601; died in Rhode Island, 1678. One of +the founders of the Rhode Island Colony, and governor for many years. + +THOMAS FAYERWEATHER + +Born, 1692; died, 1733, in Boston. Married, in 1718, Hannah Waldo, +sister of Brigadier-general Samuel Waldo. This portrait is by Smybcrt. +It is owned by his descendants, Miss Elizabeth L. Bond and Miss +Catherine Harris Bond, of Cambridge, Mass. + +“KING” CARTER IN YOUTH + +CITY FLAT-CAP + +Worn by “Bilious” Bale, who died in 1563. His square beard, coif, and +citizen’s flat-cap were worn by Englishmen till 1620. + +KING JAMES I OF ENGLAND + +This portrait was painted before he was king of England. It is now in +the National Portrait Gallery. + +FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE + +In doublet, with curious slashed tabs or bands at the waist, forming a +roll like a woman’s farthingale. The hat, with jewelled hat-band, is of +a singular and ugly shape. + +JAMES DOUGLAS, EARL OF MORTON + +His hat, band, and jerkin are unusual. + +ELIHU YALE + +Born in Boston, Mass., in 1648. Died in England in 1721. He founded +Yale College, now Yale University. This portrait is owned by Yale +University, New Haven, Conn. + +THOMAS CECIL, FIRST EARL OF EXETER + +Died in 1621. + +CORNELIUS STEINWYCK + +The wealthiest merchant of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. +This portrait is owned by the New York Historical Society. + +HAT WITH GLOVE AS A FAVOR + +From portrait of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. He died in 1605. + +GULIELMA SPRINGETT PENN + +First wife of William Penn. Born, 1644; died, 1694. The original +painting is on glass. Owned by the heirs of Henry Swan, Dorking, Eng. + +HANNAH CALLOWHILL PENN + +Second wife of William Penn; from a portrait now in Blackwell Hall, +County Durham, Eng. + +MADAME DE MIRAMION + +Born, 1629; died in Paris, 1696. + +THE STRAWBERRY GIRL + +From Tempest’s _Cries of London_. + +OPERA HOOD, OR CARDINAL, OF BLACK SILK + +It is now in Boston Museum of Fine Arts. + +QUILTED HOOD + +Owned by Miss Mary Atkinson of Doylestown, Pa. + +PINK SILK HOOD + +Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass. + +PUG HOOD + +Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass. + +SCARLET CLOAK + +This fine broadcloth cloak and hood were worn by Judge Curwen. They are +in perfect preservation, owing, in later years, to the excellent care +given them by their present owner, Miss Bessie Curwen, of Salem, Mass., +a descendant of the original owner. + +JUDGE STOUGHTON + +WOMAN’S CLOAK + +From Hogarth. + +A CAPUCHIN + +From Hogarth. + +LADY CAROLINE MONTAGU + +Daughter of Duke of Buccleuch. Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1776. + +JOHN QUINCY + +Born, 1686. This portrait is owned by Brooks Adams, Esq., Boston, Mass. + +Miss CAMPION + +From Andrew W. Tuer’s _History of the Hornbook_. This portrait has hung +for two centuries in an Essex manor-house. Its date, 1661, is but nine +years earlier than the portraits of the Gibbes children, and the dress +is the same. The cavalier hat and cuffs are the only varying detail. + +INFANT’S CAP + +Tambour work, 1790. + +ELEANOR FOSTER + +Born, 1746. She married Dr. Nathaniel Coffin, of Portland, Me., and +became the mother of the beautiful Martha, who married Richard C. +Derby. This portrait was painted in 1755. It is owned by Mrs. Greely +Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass. + +WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE + +From an old print. + +MRS. THEODORE S. SEDGWICK AND DAUGHTER. + +Mrs. Sedgwick was Pamela Dwight. This portrait was painted by Ralph +Earle, and exhibits one of his peculiarities. The home of the subject +of the portrait is shown through an open window, though the immediate +surroundings are a room within the house. The child is Catherine M. +Sedgwick, the poet. This painting is owned in Stockbridge by members of +the family. + +INFANT CHILD OF FRANCIS HOPKINSON, THE SIGNER + +A drawing in crayon by the child’s father. The child carries a coral +and bells. + +MARY SETON + +1763. Died in 1800, aged forty. Married John Wilkes of New York. White +frock and blue scarf. + +THE BOWDOIN CHILDREN + +Lady Temple and Governor James Bowdoin in childhood. The artist of this +pleasing portrait is unknown. I think it was painted by Blackburn. It +is now in the Walker Art Gallery, at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. + +Miss LYDIA ROBINSON + +Aged twelve years, daughter of Colonel James Robinson, Salem, Mass. +Painted by M. Corné in 1808. Owned by the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +KNITTED FLAXEN MITTENS + +These are knitted upon finest wire needles, of linen thread, which had +been spun, and the flax raised and prepared by the knitter. + +MRS. ELIZABETH (LUX) RUSSELL AND DAUGHTER. + +CHRISTENING SHIRT AND MITTS OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD. + +White linen with pinched sleeves and chaney ruffles and fingertips. +Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +FLANDERS LACE MITTS + +These infant’s mitts were worn in the sixteenth century, and came to +Salem with the first emigrants. Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +INFANT’S ADJUSTABLE CAP + +This has curious shirring-strings to make it fit heads of various +sizes. It is home spun and woven, and the lace edging is home knit. + +REV. JOHN P. DABNEY, WHEN A CHILD IN 1806 + +This portrait of a Salem minister in childhood is in jacket and +trousers, with openwork collar and ruffles. It is now owned by the +Essex Institute, Salem, Mass. + +ROBERT GIBBES + +Born, 1665. This portrait is dated 1670. It is owned by Miss Sarah B. +Hager of Kendal Green, Mass. + +NANKEEN BREECHES, WITH SILVER BUTTONS. 1790 + +RALPH IZARD, WHEN A LITTLE BOY + +Born in Charleston, S. C., 1742; died in 1804. Painted in 1750. He was +United States Senator 1789-1795. This debonair little figure in blue +velvet, silk-embroidered waistcoat, silken hose, buckled shoes, and +black hat, gold-laced, is a miniature courtier. The portrait is now +owned by William E. Huger, Esq., of Charleston, S.C. + +GOVERNOR AND REVEREND GURDON SALTONSTALL + +Born in 1666; died in 1724. Governor of Connecticut, 1708-24. He was +also ordained a minister of the church at New London. + +MAYOR RIP VAN DAM + +Mayor of New York in 1710. + +JUDGE ABRAHAM DE PEYSTER OF NEW YORK + +GOVERNOR DE BIENVILLE, JEAN BAPTISTE LEMOINE + +Born in Montreal, Can., 1680. Died in 1768. French Governor of +Louisiana for many years. He founded New Orleans. The original is in +Longeuil, Can. + +DANIEL WALDO + +Born in Boston, 1724; died in 1808. Married Rebecca Salisbury. + +REV. JOHN MARSH, HARTFORD, CONN + +JOHN ADAMS IN YOUTH + +Born in Braintree, Mass., 1735; died at Quincy, Mass., 1826. Second +President of the United States, 1797-1801. He was a member of Congress, +signer of Declaration of Independence, Commissioner to France, +Ambassador to The Netherlands, Peace Commissioner to Great Britain, +Minister to Court of St. James. This portrait in youth is in a wig. +Throughout life he wore his hair bushed out at the ears. + +JONATHAN EDWARDS, D.D. + +Born in 1745; died in 1801. He was a son of the great Jonathan Edwards, +and was President of Union College, Schenectady, 1799-1801. This +portrait shows the fashion of dressing the hair when wigs and powder +had been banished and the hair hung lank and long in the neck. + +PATRICK HENRY + +Born in Virginia, 1736; died in Charlotte County, Va., in 1799. An +orator, patriot, and a leader in the American Revolution. He organized +the Committees of Correspondence, was a member of Continental Congress, +1774, of the Virginia Convention, 1775, and was governor of Virginia +for several terms. This portrait shows him in lawyer’s close wig and +robe. + +“KING” CARTER + +Died, 1732. + +JUDGE BENJAMIN LYNDE, OF SALEM AND BOSTON, MASS + +Died, 1745. Painted by Smybert. + +JOHN RUTLEDGE + +Born, Charleston, S.C., 1739; died, 1800. He was member of Congress, +governor of South Carolina, chief justice of Supreme Court. His hair is +tied in cue. + +CAMPAIGN, RAMILLIES, BOB, AND PIGTAIL WIGS + +REV. WILLIAM WELSTEED + +From an engraving by Copley, his only engraving. + +THOMAS HOPKINSON + +Born in London, 1709. Came to America in 1731. Married Mary Johnson in +1736. Made Judge of the Admiralty in 1741. Died in 1751. He was the +father of Francis the Signer. This portrait is believed to be by Sir +Godfrey Kneller. + +REV. DR. BARNARD + +A Connecticut clergyman. + +ANDREW ELLICOTT + +Born, 1754; died, 1820. A Maryland gentleman of wealth and position. + +HERBERT WESTPHALING + +Bishop of Hereford, Eng. + +HERALD CORNELIUS VANDUM. + +Born, 1483; died, 1577, aged ninety-four years. Yeoman of the Guard and +usher to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. His beard is +unique. + +SCOTCH BEARD + +Worn by Alexander Ross, 1655. + +DR. WILLIAM SLATER + +Cathedral beard. + +DR. JOHN DEE + +Born in London, 1527; died, 1608. An English mathematician, astrologer, +physician, author, and magician. He wrote seventy-nine books, mostly on +magic. His “pique-a-devant” beard might well “a man’s eye out-pike.” + +IRON AND LEATHER PATTENS, 1760 + +Owned by author. + +OAK, IRON, AND LEATHER CLOGS + +In Museum of Bucks County Historical Society, Penn. + +ENGLISH CLOGS + +CHOPINES + +Drawing from Chopines in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The tallest +chopine had a sole about nine inches thick. + +WEDDING CLOGS + +These clogs are of silk brocade, and were made to match brocade +slippers. The one with pointed toe would fit the brocaded shoes of the +year 1760. The other has with it a high-heeled, black satin slipper of +the year 1780, to show how they were worn. They forced a curious +shuffling step. + +CLOGS OF PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH + +CHILD’S CLOGS + +About 1780. Owned by Bucks County Historical Society. + +COPLEY FAMILY PICTURE + +This group, consisting of the artist, John Singleton Copley, his wife, +who was formerly a young widow, Susannah Farnham; his wife’s father, +Richard Clarke, a most respected Boston merchant who was wealthy until +ruined by the War of the Revolution; and the four little Copley +children. Elizabeth is between four and five; John Singleton, Jr., is +the boy of three, who afterwards became Lord Lyndhurst; Mary is aged +two, and an infant is in the grandfather’s arms. Copley was born in +1737, and must have been about thirty-seven when this was painted in +1775. It is deemed by many his masterpiece. The portrait is owned by +Mr. Amory, but is now in the custody of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. +It is most pronounced, almost startling, in color, every tint being +absolutely frank. + +WEDDING SLIPPERS AND BROCADE STRIP, 1712 + +Owned by Mrs. Thomas Robinson Harris, of Scarboro on the Hudson, N.Y. + +JACK-BOOTS + +Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia. + +JOSHUA WARNER + +A Portsmouth gentleman. This portrait is now in the Boston Museum of +Fine Arts. + +SHOE AND KNEE BUCKLES + +They are shoe-buckles, breeches-buckles, garter-buckles, stock-buckles. +Some are cut silver and gold; others are cut steel; some are paste. +Some of these were owned by Dr. Edward Holyoke, of Salem, and are now +owned by Miss Susan W. Osgood, of Salem, Mass. + +WEDDING SLIPPERS + +Worn in 1760 by granddaughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet. Owned by +Miss Mary S. Cleveland, of Salem, Mass. Their make and finish are +curious; they have paste buckles. + +ABIGAIL BROMFIELD ROGERS + +Painted by Copley in Europe. Owned by Miss Annette Rogers, of Boston, +Mass. + +SLIPPERS + +Worn by Mrs. Carroll with the brocade silk sacque. They are embroidered +in the colors of the brocade. + +WHITE KID SLIPPERS, 1810 + +Owned by author. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS + + +_“Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes +Which now would render men like upright apes +Was comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought +Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought”_ + +—“New England’s Crisis,” BENJAMIN TOMPSON, 1675. + + +_“I am neither Niggard nor Cynic to the due Bravery of the true +Gentry.”_ + +—“The simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713. + + +_“Never was it happier in England than when an Englishman was known +abroad by his own cloth; and contented himself at home with his fine +russet carsey hosen, and a warm slop; his coat, gown, and cloak of +brown, blue or putre, with some pretty furnishings of velvet or fur, +and a doublet of sad-tawnie or black velvet or comely silk, without +such cuts and gawrish colours as are worn in these dayes by those who +think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of +jagges and changes of colours.”_ + +—“Chronicles,” HOLINSHED, 1578. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS + + +I + + +t is difficult to discover the reasons, to trace the influences which +have resulted in the production in the modern mind of that composite +figure which serves to the everyday reader, the heedless observer, as +the counterfeit presentment of the New England colonist,—the Boston +Puritan or Plymouth Pilgrim. We have a very respectable notion, a +fairly true picture, of Dutch patroon, Pennsylvania Quaker, and +Virginia planter; but we see a very unreal New Englishman. This “gray +old Gospeller, sour as midwinter,” appears with goodwife or dame in the +hastily drawn illustrations of our daily press; we find him outlined +with greater care but equal inaccuracy in our choicer periodical +literature; we have him depicted by artists in our handsome books and +on the walls of our art museums; he is cut in stone and cast in bronze +for our halls and parks; he is dressed by actors for a part in some +historical play; he is furbished up with conglomerate and makeshift +garments by enthusiastic and confident young folk in tableau and +fancy-dress party; he is richly and amply attired by portly, +self-satisfied members of our patriotic-hereditary societies; we +constantly see these figures garbed in semblance in some details, yet +never in verisimilitude as a whole figure. + +We are wont to think of our Puritan forbears, indeed we are determined +to think of them, garbed in sombre sad-colored garments, in a life +devoid of color, warmth, or fragrance. But sad color was not dismal and +dull save in name; it was brown in tone, and brown is warm, and being a +primitive color is, like many primitive things, cheerful. Old England +was garbed in hearty honest russet, even in the days of our +colonization. Read the list of the garments of any master of the manor, +of the honest English yeoman, of our own sturdy English emigrants from +manor and farm in Suffolk and Essex. What did they wear across seas? +What did they wear in the New World? What they wore in England, namely: +Doublets of leathers, all brown in tint; breeches of various tanned +skins and hides; untanned leather shoes; jerkins of “filomot” or +“phillymort” (feuille morte), dead-leaf color; buff-coats of fine buff +leather; tawny camlet cloaks and jackets of “du Boys” (which was wood +color); russet hose; horseman’s coats of tan-colored linsey-woolsey or +homespun ginger-lyne or brown perpetuana; fawn-colored mandillions and +deer-colored cassocks—all brown; and sometimes a hat of natural beaver. +Here is a “falding” doublet of “treen color”—and what is treen but +wooden and wood color is brown again. + +It was a fitting dress for their conditions of life. The colonists +lived close to nature—they touched the beginnings of things; and we are +close to nature when all dress in russet. The homely “butternuts” of +the Kentucky mountains express this; so too does khaki, a good, simple +native dye and stuff; so eagerly welcomed, so closely cherished, as all +good and primitive things should be. + + +[Illustration: Governor John Endicott] + +So when I think of my sturdy Puritan forbears in the summer planting of +Salem and of Boston, I see them in “honest russet kersey”; gay too with +the bright stamell-red of their waistcoats and the grain-red linings of +mandillions; scarlet-capped are they, and enlivened with many a great +scarlet-hooded cloak. I see them in this attire on shipboard, where +they were greeted off Salem with “a smell from the shore like the smell +of a garden”; I see them landing in happy June amid “sweet wild +strawberries and fair single roses.” I see them walking along the +little lanes and half-streets in which for many years bayberry and +sweet-fern lingered in dusty fragrant clumps by the roadside. + +“Scented with Cædar and Sweet Fern +From Heats reflection dry,” + + +wrote of that welcoming shore one colonist who came on the first ship, +and noted in rhyme what he found and saw and felt and smelt. And I see +the forefathers standing under the hot little cedar trees of the +Massachusetts coast, not sober in sad color, but cheery in russet and +scarlet; and sweetbrier and strawberries, bayberry and cedar, smell +sweetly and glow genially in that summer sunlight which shines down on +us through all these two centuries. + +We have ample sources from which to learn precisely what was worn by +these first colonists—men and women—gentle and simple. We have minute +“Lists of Apparell” furnished by the Colonization Companies to the male +colonists; we have also ample lists of apparel supplied to individual +emigrants of varied degree; we have inventories in detail of the +personal estates of all those who died in the colonies even in the +earliest years—inventories wherein even a half-worn pair of gloves is +gravely set down, appraised in value, sworn to, and entered in the town +records; we have wills giving equal minuteness; we have even the +articles of dress themselves preserved from moth and rust and mildew; +we have private letters asking that supplies of clothing be sent across +seas—clothing substantial and clothing fashionable; we have ships’ +bills of lading showing that these orders were carried out; we have +curiously minute private letters giving quaint descriptions and hints +of new and modish wearing apparel; we have sumptuary laws telling what +articles of clothing must not be worn by those of mean estate; we have +court records showing trials under these laws; we have ministers’ +sermons denouncing excessive details of fashion, enumerating and almost +describing the offences; and we have also a goodly number of portraits +of men and a few of women. I give in this chapter excellent portraits +of the first governors, Endicott, Winthrop, Bradstreet, Winslow; and +others could be added. Having all these, do we need fashion-plates or +magazines of the modes? We have also for the early years great +instruction through comparison and inference in knowing the English +fashions of those dates as revealed through inventories, compotuses, +accounts, diaries, letters, portraits, prints, carvings, and effigies; +and American fashions varied little from English ones. + + +[Illustration: Governor Edward Winslow] + +It is impossible to disassociate the history of costume from the +general history of the country where such dress is worn. Nor could any +one write upon dress with discrimination and balance unless he knew +thoroughly the dress of all countries and likewise the history of all +countries. Of the special country, he must know more than general +history, for the relations of small things to great things are too +close. Influences apparently remote prove vital. At no time was history +told in dress, and at no period was dress influenced by historical +events more than during the seventeenth century and in the dress of +English-speaking folk. The writer on dress should know the temperament +and character of the dress wearer; this was of special bearing in the +seventeenth century. It would be thought by any one ignorant of the +character of the first Puritan settlers, and indifferent to or ignorant +of historical facts, that in a new world with all the hardships, +restraints, lacks, and inconveniences, no one, even the vainest woman, +would think much upon dress, save that it should be warm, comfortable, +ample, and durable. But, in truth, such was not the case. Even in the +first years the settlers paid close attention to their attire, to its +richness, its elegance, its modishness, and watched narrowly also the +attire of their neighbors, not only from a distinct liking for dress, +but from a careful regard of social distinctions and from a regard for +the proprieties and relations of life. Dress was a badge of rank, of +social standing and dignity; and class distinctions were just as +zealously guarded in America, the land of liberty, as in England. The +Puritan church preached simplicity of dress; but the church attendants +never followed that preaching. All believed, too, that dress had a +moral effect, as it certainly does; that to dress orderly and well and +convenable to the existing fashions helped to preserve the morals of +the individual and general welfare of the community. Eagerly did the +settlers seek every year, every season, by every incoming ship, by +every traveller, to learn the changes of fashions in Europe. The first +native-born poet, Benjamin Tompson, is quoted in the heading of this +chapter in a wail over thus following new fashions, a wail for the +“good old times,” as has been the cry of “old fogy” poets and +philosophers since the days of the ancient classics. + +We have ample proof of the love of dignity, of form, of state, which +dominated even in the first struggling days; we can see the governor of +Virginia when he landed, turning out his entire force in most formal +attire and with full company of forty halberdiers in scarlet cloaks to +attend in imposing procession the church services in the poor little +church edifice—this when the settlement at Jamestown was scarce more +than an encampment. + +We can read the words of Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, in +which he recounts his mortification at the undignified condition of +affairs when the governor of the French province, the courtly La Tour, +landed unexpectedly in Boston and caught the governor picnicking +peacefully with his family on an island in the harbor, with no +attendants, no soldiers, no dignitaries. Nor was there any force in the +fort, and therefore no salute could be given to the distinguished +visitors; and still more mortifying was the sole announcement of this +important arrival through the hurried sail across the bay, and the +running to the governor of a badly scared woman neighbor. We see +Winthrop trying to recover his dignity in La Tour’s eyes (and in his +own) by bourgeoning throughout the remainder of the French governor’s +stay with an imposing guard of soldiers in formal attendance at every +step he took abroad; ordering them to wear, I am sure, their very +fullest stuffed doublets and shiniest armor, while he displayed his +best black velvet suit of garments. Fortunately for New England’s +appearance, Winthrop was a man of such aristocratic bearing and feature +that no dress or lack of dress could lower his dignity. + + +Governor John Winthrop. Governor John Winthrop. + +Our forbears did not change their dress by emigrating; they may have +worn heavier clothing in New England, more furs, stronger shoes, but I +cannot find that they adopted simpler or less costly clothing; any +change that may have been made through Puritan belief and teaching had +been made in England. All the colonists + +“ ... studied after nyce array, +And made greet cost in clothing.” + + +Many persons preferred to keep their property in the form of what they +quaintly called “duds.” The fashion did not wear out more apparel than +the man; for clothing, no matter what its cut, was worn as long as it +lasted, doing service frequently through three generations. For +instance, we find Mrs. Epes, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, when she was +over fifty years old, receiving this bequest by will: “If she desire to +have the suit of damask which was the Lady Cheynies her grandmother, +let her have it upon appraisement.” I have traced a certain flowered +satin gown and “manto” in four wills; a dame to her daughter; she to +her sister; then to the child of the last-named who was a granddaughter +of the first owner. And it was a proud possession to the last. The +fashions and shapes then did not change yearly. The Boston gentlewoman +of 1660 would not have been ill dressed or out of the mode in the dress +worn by her grandmother when she landed in 1625. + +Petty details were altered in woman’s dress—though but slightly; the +change of a cap, a band, a scarf, a ruffle, meant much to the wearer, +though it seems unimportant to us to-day. Men’s dress, we know from +portraits, was unaltered for a time save in neckwear and hair-dressing, +both being of such importance in costume that they must be written upon +at length. + +Let us fix in our minds the limit of reign of each ruler during the +early years of colonization, and the dates of settlement of each +colony. When Elizabeth died in 1603, the Brownist Puritans or +Separatists were well established in Holland; they had been there +twenty years. They were dissatisfied with their Dutch home, however, +and had had internal quarrels—one, of petty cause, namely, a “topish +Hatt,” a “Schowish Hood,” a “garish spitz-fashioned Stomacher,” the +vain garments of one woman; but the strife over these “abhominations” +lasted eleven years. + +James I was king when the Pilgrims came to America in 1620; but Charles +I was on the throne in 1630 when John Winthrop arrived with his band of +friends and followers and settled in Salem and Boston. + +The settlement of Portsmouth and Dover in New Hampshire was in 1623, +and in Maine the same year. The settlements of the Dutch in New +Netherland were in 1614; while Virginia, named for Elizabeth, the +Virgin Queen, and discovered in her day, was settled first of all at +Jamestown in 1607. The Plymouth colony was poor. It came poor from +Holland, and grew poorer through various misfortunes and set-backs—one +being the condition of the land near Plymouth. The Massachusetts Bay +Company was different. It came with properties estimated to be worth a +million dollars, and it had prospered wonderfully after an opening year +of want and distress. The relative social condition and means of the +settlers of Jamestown, of Plymouth, of Boston, were carefully +investigated from English sources by a thoughtful and fair authority, +the historian Green. He says of the Boston settlers in his _Short +History of the English People_:— + + +“Those Massachusetts settlers were not like the earlier colonists of +the South; broken men, adventurers, bankrupts, criminals; or simply +poor men and artisans like the Pilgrim Fathers of the _Mayflower_. They +were in great part men of the professional and middle classes, some of +them men of large landed estate, some zealous clergymen, some shrewd +London lawyers or young scholars from Oxford. The bulk were God-fearing +farmers from Lincolnshire and the Eastern counties.” + + +A full comprehension of these differences in the colonies will make us +understand certain conditions, certain surprises, as to dress; for +instance, why so little of the extreme Puritan is found in the dress of +the first Boston colonists. + +There lived in England, near the close of Elizabeth’s reign, a Puritan +named Philip Stubbes, to whom we are infinitely indebted for our +knowledge of English dress of his times. It was also the dress of the +colonists; for details of attire, especially of men’s wear, had not +changed to any extent since the years in which and of which Philip +Stubbes wrote. + +He published in 1586 a book called _An Anatomie of Abuses_, in which he +described in full the excesses of England in his day. He wrote with +spirited, vivid pen, and in plain speech, leaving nothing unspoken lest +it offend, and he used strong, racy English words and sentences. In his +later editions he even took pains to change certain “strange, inkhorn +terms” or complicate words of his first writing into simpler ones. Thus +he changed _preter time_ to _former ages; auditory_ to _hearers; +prostrated_ to _humbled; consummate_ to _ended_; and of course this was +to the book’s advantage. Unusual words still linger, however, but we +must believe they are not intentionally “outlandish” as was the term of +the day for such words. + +The attitude of Stubbes toward dress and dress wearers is of great +interest, for he was certainly one of the most severe, most determined, +most conscientious of Puritans; yet his hatred of “corruptions desiring +reformation” did not lead him to a hatred of dress in itself. He is +careful to state in detail in the body of his book and in his preface +that his attack is not upon the dress of people of wealth and station; +that he approves of rich dress for the rich. His hatred is for the +pretentious dress of the many men of low birth or of mean estate who +lavish their all in dress ill suited to their station; and also his +reproof is for swindling in dress materials and dress-making; against +false weights and measures, adulterations and profits; in short, +against abuses, not uses. + + +Governor Simon Bradstreet. Governor Simon Bradstreet. + +His words run thus explicitly:— + + +“Whereas I have spoken of the excesse in apparell, and of the Abuse of +the same as wel in Men as in Women, generally I would not be so +understood as though my speaches extended to any either noble honorable +or worshipful; for I am farre from once thinking that any kind of +sumptuous or gorgeous Attire is not to be worn of them; as I suppose +them rather Ornaments in them than otherwise. And therefore when I +speak of excesse of Apparel my meaning is of the inferiour sorte only +who for the most parte do farre surpasse either noble honorable or +worshipful, ruffling in Silks Velvets, Satens, Damaske, Taffeties, Gold +Silver and what not; these bee the Abuses I speak of, these bee the +Evills that I lament, and these bee the Persons my wordes doe concern.” + + +There was ample room for reformation from Stubbes’s point of view. + + +“There is such a confuse mingle mangle of apparell and such +preponderous excess thereof, as every one is permitted to flaunt it out +in what apparell he has himself or can get by anie kind of means. So +that it is verie hard to know who is noble, who is worshipful, who is a +gentleman, who is not; for you shall have those who are neither of the +nobilytie, gentilitie, nor yeomanrie goe daylie in silks velvets satens +damasks taffeties notwithstanding they be base by byrth, meane by +estate and servyle by calling. This a great confusion, a general +disorder. God bee mercyfull unto us.” + + +This regard of dress was, I take it, the regard of the Puritan reformer +in general; it was only excess in dress that was hated. This was +certainly the estimate of the best of the Puritans, and it was +certainly the belief of the New England Puritan. It would be thought, +and was thought by some men, that in the New World liberty of religious +belief and liberty of dress would be given to all. Not at all!—the +Puritan magistrates at once set to work to show, by means of sumptuary +laws, rules of town settlement, and laws as to Sunday observance and +religious services, that nothing of the kind was expected or intended, +or would be permitted willingly. No religious sects and denominations +were welcome save the Puritans and allied forms—Brownists, +Presbyterians, Congregationalists. For a time none other were permitted +to hold services; no one could wear rich dress save gentlefolk, and +folk of wealth or some distinction—as Stubbes said, “by being in some +sort of office” + +We shall find in the early pages of this book frequent references to +Stubbes’s descriptions of articles of dress, but his own life has some +bearing on his utterances; so let me bear testimony as to his character +and to the absolute truth of his descriptions. He was held up in his +own day to contempt by that miserable Thomas Nashe who plagiarized his +title and helped his own dull book into popularity by calling it _The +Anatomie of Absurdities_; and who further ran on against him in a still +duller book, _An Almand for a Parrat_. He called Stubbes “A MarPrelate +Zealot and Hypocrite” and Stubbes has been held up by others as a +morose man having no family ties and no social instincts. He was in +reality the tenderest of husbands to a modest, gentle, pious girl whom +he married when she was but fourteen, and with whom he lived in ideal +happiness until her death in child-birth when eighteen years old. He +bore testimony to his happiness and her goodness in a loving but sad +and trying book “intituled” _A Christiall Glasse for Christian Women_. +It is a record of a life which was indeed pure as crystal; a life so +retiring, so quiet, so composed, so unvarying, a life so remote from +any gentlewoman’s life to day that it seems of another ether, another +planet, as well as of another century. But it is useful for us to know +it, notwithstanding its background of gloomy religionism and its air of +unreality; for it helps us to understand the character of Puritan women +and of Philip Stubbes. This fair young wife died in an ecstasy, her +voice triumphant, her face radiant with visions of another and a +glorious life. And yet she was not wholly happy in death; for she had a +Puritan conscience, and she thought she _must_ have offended God in +some way. She had to search far indeed for the offence; and this was +it—it would be absurd if it were not so true and so deep in its +sentiment of regret. She and her husband had set their hearts too much +in affection upon a little dog that they had loved well, and she found +now that “it was a vanitye”; and she repented of it, and bade them bear +the dog from her bedside. Knowing Stubbes’s love for this little dog +(and knowing it must have been a spaniel, for they were then being well +known and beloved and were called “Spaniel-gentles or comforters”—a +wonderfully appropriate name), I do not much mind the fierce words with +which he stigmatizes the vanity and extravagance of women. I have a +strong belief too that if we knew the dress of his child-wife, we would +find that he liked her bravely even richly attired, and that he +acquired his wonderful mastery of every term and detail of women’s +dress, every term of description, through a very uxorious regard of his +wife’s apparel. + + +Sir Richard Saltonstall. Sir Richard Saltonstall. + +Of the absolute truth of every word in Stubbes’s accounts we have ample +corroborative proof. He wrote in real earnest, in true zeal, for the +reform of the foolery and extravagance he saw around him, not against +imaginary evils. There is ample proof in the writings of his +contemporaries—in Shakespere’s comparisons, in Harrison’s sensible +_Description of England_, in Tom Coryat’s _Crudities_—and oddities—of +the existence of this foolishness and extravagance. There is likewise +ample proof in the sumptuary laws of Elizabeth’s day. + +It would have been the last thing the solemn Stubbes could have liked +or have imagined, that he should have afforded important help to future +writers upon costume, yet such is the case. For he described the dress +of English men and women with as much precision as a modern reporter of +the modes. No casual survey of dress could have furnished to him the +detail of his description. It required much examination and inquiry, +especially as to the minutiae of women’s dress. Therefore when I read +his bitter pages (if I can forget the little pet spaniel) I have always +a comic picture in my mind of a sour, morose, shocked old Puritan, “a +meer, bitter, narrow-sould Puritan” clad in cloak and doublet, with +great horn spectacles on nose, and ample note-book, penner, and +ink-horn in hand, agonizingly though eagerly surveying the figure of +one of his fashion-clad women neighbors, walking around her slowly, +asking as he walked the name of this jupe, the price of that pinner, +the stuff of this sleeve, the cut of this cap, groaning as he wrote it +all down, yet never turning to squire or knight till every detail of +her extravagance and “greet cost” is recorded. In spite of all his +moralizing his quill pen had too sharp a point, his scowling forehead +and fierce eyes too keen a power of vision ever to render to us a dull +page; even the author of _Wimples and Crisping Pins_ might envy his +powers of perception and description. + +The bravery of the Jacobean gallant did not differ in the main from his +dress under Elizabeth; but in details he found some extravagances. The +love-locks became more prominent, and shoe-roses and garters both grew +in size. Pomanders were carried by men and women, and +“casting-bottles.” Gloves and pockets were perfumed. As musk was the +favorite scent this perfume-wearing is not over-alluring. As a +preventive of the plague all perfumes were valued. + +Since a hatred and revolt against this excess was one of the conditions +which positively led to the formation of the Puritan political party if +not of the Separatist religious faith, and as a consequence to the +settlement of the English colonies in America, let us recount the +conditions of dress in England when America was settled. Let us regard +first the dress of a courtier whose name is connected closely and +warmly in history and romance with the colonization of America; a man +who was hated by the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers but whose dress in +some degree and likeness, though modified and simplified, must have +been worn by the first emigrants to Virginia across seas—let us look at +the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was a hero and a scholar, but he +was also a courtier; and of a court, too, where every court-attendant +had to bethink himself much and ever of dress, for dress occupied +vastly the thought and almost wholly the public conversation of his +queen and her successor. + + +Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter Raleigh. + +To understand Raleigh’s dress, you must know the man and his life; to +comprehend its absurdities and forgive its follies and see whence it +originated, you must know Elizabeth and her dress; you must see her +with “oblong face, eyes small, yet black; her nose a little hooked, her +lips narrow, her teeth black; false hair and that red,”—these are the +striking and plain words of the German ambassador to her court. You +must look at this queen with her colorless meagre person lost in a +dress monstrous in size, yet hung, even in its enormous expanse of many +square yards, with crowded ornaments, tags, jewels, laces, +embroideries, gimp, feathers, knobs, knots, and aglets, with these +bedizened rankly, embellished richly. You must see her talking in +public of buskins and gowns, love-locks and virginals, anything but +matters of seriousness or of state; you must note her at a formal +ceremonial tickling handsome Dudley in the neck; watch her dancing, +“most high and disposedly” when in great age; you must see her giving +Essex a hearty boxing of the ear; hear her swearing at her ministers. +You must remember, too, her parents, her heritage. From King Henry VIII +came her love of popularity, her great activity, her extraordinary +self-confidence, her indomitable will, her outbursts of anger, her +cruelty, just as came her harsh, mannish voice. From her mother, Anne +Boleyn, came her sensuous love of pleasure, of dress, of flattery, of +gayety and laughter. Her nature came from her mother, her temper from +her father. The familiarity with Robert Dudley was but a piece with her +boisterous romps in her girlhood, and her flap in the face of young +Talbot when he saw her “unready in my night-stuff.” But she had more in +her than came from Henry and Anne; she had her own individuality, which +made her as hard as steel, made her resolute, made her live frugally +and work hard, and, above all, made her know her limitations. The +woman, be she queen or the plainest mortal, who can estimate accurately +her own limitations, who is proof against enthusiasm, proof against +ambition, and, at a climax, proof against flattery, who knows what she +can _not_ do, in that very thing finds success. Elizabeth was and ever +will be a wonderful character-study; I never weary of reading or +thinking of her. + +The settlement of Massachusetts was under James I; but costume varied +little, save that it became more cumbersome. This may be attributed +directly to the cowardice of the king, who wore quilted and +padded—dagger-proof—clothing; and thus gave to his courtiers an example +of stuffing and padding which exceeded even that of the men of +Elizabeth’s day. “A great, round, abominable breech,” did the satirists +call it. Stays had to be worn beneath the long-waisted, +peascod-bellied, stuffed doublet to keep it in shape; thus a man’s +attire had scarcely a single natural outline. + +We have this description of Raleigh, courtier and “servant” of +Elizabeth and victim of James, given by a contemporary, Aubrey:— + + +“He looked like a Knave with his gogling eyes. He could transform +himself into any shape. He was a tall, handsome, bold man; but his +naeve was that he was damnably proud. A good piece of him is in a white +satin doublet all embroidered with rich pearls, and a mighty told me +that the true pearls were nigh as big as the painted ones. He had a +most remarkable aspect, an exceeding high forehead, long faced, and +sour eie-lidded, a kind of pigge-eie.” + + +We leave the choice of belief between one sentence of this personal +description, that he was handsome, and the later plain-spoken details +to the judgment of the reader. Certainly both statements cannot be +true. As I look at his portrait, the “good piece of him” here, I wholly +disbelieve the former. + + +Sir Walter Raleigh and Son. Sir Walter Raleigh and Son. + +His laced-in, stiffened waist, his absurd breeches, his ruffs and +sashes and knots, his great shoe-roses, his jewelled hatband, make this +a fantastic picture, one of little dignity, though of vast cost. The +jewels on his shoes were said to have cost thirty thousand pounds; and +the perfect pearls in his ear, as seen in another portrait, must have +been an inch and a half long. He had doublets entirely covered with a +pattern of jewels. In another portrait (here) his little son, poor +child, stands by his side in similar stiff attire. The famous portrait +of Sir Philip Sidney and his brother is equally comic in its absurdity +of costume for young lads. + +Read these words descriptive of another courtier, of the reign of +James; his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham:— + + +“With great buttons of diamonds, and with diamond hat bands, cockades +and ear-rings, yoked with great and manifold knots of pearls. At his +going over to Paris in 1625 he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made +the richest that embroidery, gems, lace, silk, velvet, gold and stones +could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over +suit and cloak with diamonds valued at £14,000 besides a great feather +stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hat-band +and spurs.” + + +These were all courtiers, but we should in general think of an English +merchant as dressed richly but plainly; yet here is the dress of +Marmaduke Rawdon, a merchant of that day:— + + +“The apparell he rid in, with his chaine of gold and hat band was +vallued in a thousand Spanish ducats; being two hundred and seventy and +five pounds sterling. His hatband was of esmeralds set in gold; his +suite was of a fine cloth trim’d with a small silke and gold fringe; +the buttons of his suite fine gold—goldsmith’s work; his rapier and +dagger richly hatcht with gold.” + + +The white velvet dress of Buckingham showed one of the extreme fashions +of the day, the wearing of pure white. Horace Walpole had a full-length +painting of Lord Falkland all in white save his black gloves. Another +of Sir Godfrey Hart, 1600, is all in white save scarlet heels to the +shoes. These scarlet heels were worn long in every court. Who will ever +forget their clatter in the pages of Saint Simon, as they ran in +frantic haste through hall and corridor—in terror, in cupidity, in +satisfaction, in zeal to curry favor, in desire to herald the news, in +hope to obtain office, in every mean and detestable spirit—ran from the +bedside of the dying king? We can still hear, after two centuries, the +noisy, heartless tapping of those hurrying red heels. + + +Robert Devereux Earle of Essex His Excellency & Generall of y° Army. +Pub April 1. 1799 by W Richardson York House N° 31 Strand Robert +Devereux + +Look at the portrait of another courtier, Sir Robert Dudley, who died +in 1639; not the Robert Dudley who was tickled in the neck by Queen +Elizabeth while he was being dubbed earl; not the Dudley who murdered +Amy Robsart, but his disowned son by a noble lady whom he secretly +married and dishonored. This son was a brave sailor and a learned man. +He wrote the _Arcana del Mare_, and he was a sportsman; “the first of +all that taught a dog to sit in order to catch partridges.” His +portrait shows clumsy armor and showy rings, a great jewel and a vast +tie of gauze ribbon on one arm; on the other a cord with many aglets; +he wears marvellously embroidered, slashed, and bombasted breeches, +tight hose, a heavily jewelled, broad belt; and a richly fringed scarf +over one shoulder, and ridiculous garters at his calf. It is so absurd, +so vain a dress one cannot wonder that sensible gentlemen turned away +in disgust to so-called Puritan plainness, even if it went to the +extreme of Puritan ugliness. + +But in truth the eccentrics and extremes of Puritan dress were adopted +by zealots; the best of that dress only was worn by the best men of the +party. All Puritans were not like Philip Stubbes, the moralist; nor did +all Royalists dress like Buckingham, the courtier. + +I have spoken of the influence of the word “sad-color.” I believe that +our notion of the gloom of Puritan dress, of the dress certainly of the +New England colonist, comes to us through it, for the term was +certainly much used. A Puritan lover in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in +1645, wrote to his lass that he had chosen for her a sad-colored gown. +Winthrop wrote, “Bring the coarsest woolen cloth, so it be not flocks, +and of sad colours and some red;” and he ordered a “grave gown” for his +wife, “not black, but sad-colour.” But while sad-colored meant a quiet +tint, it did not mean either a dull stone color or a dingy grayish +brown—nor even a dark brown. We read distinctly in an English list of +dyes of the year 1638 of these tints in these words, “Sadd-colours the +following; liver colour, De Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green, +ginger-lyne, deere colour, orange colour.” Of these nine tints, five, +namely, “De Boys,” tawny, russet, ginger-lyne, and deer color, were all +browns. Other colors in this list of dyes were called “light colours” +and “graine colours.” Light colors were named plainly as those which +are now termed by shopmen “evening shades”; that is, pale blue, pink, +lemon, sulphur, lavender, pale green, ecru, and cream color. Grain +colors were shades of scarlet, and were worn as much as russet. When +dress in sad colors ranged from purple and French green through the +various tints of brown to orange, it was certainly not a _dull_-colored +dress. + +Let us see precisely what were the colors of the apparel of the first +colonists. Let us read the details of russet and scarlet. We find them +in _The Record of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in +New England_, one of the incontrovertible sources which are a delight +to every true historian. These records are in the handwriting of the +first secretary, Washburn, and contain lists of the articles sent on +the ships _Talbot, George, Lion’s Whelp, Four Sisters_, and _Mayflower_ +for the use of the plantation at Naumkeag (Salem) and later at Boston. +They give the amount of iron, coal, and bricks sent as ballast; the red +lead, sail-cloth, and copper; and in 1629, at some month and day +previous to 16th of March, give the order for the “Apparell for 100 +men.” We learn that each colonist had this attire:— + + +“4 Pair Shoes. +2 Pair Irish Stockings about 13d. a pair. +1 Pair knit Stockings about 2s. 4d. a pair. +1 Pair Norwich Garters about 5s. a dozen. +4 Shirts. +2 Suits of Doublet and Hose; of leather lined with oiled skin leather, +the hose and doublet with hooks and eyes. +1 Suit of Northern Dussens or Hampshire Kerseys lined, the hose with +skins, the doublet with linen of Guildford or Gedleyman serges, 2s. +10d. a yard, 4-1/2 to 5 yards a suit. +4 Bands. +2 Plain falling bands. +1 Standing band. +1 Waistcoat of green cotton bound about with red tape. +1 Leather Girdle. +2 Monmouth Cap, about 2s. apiece. +1 Black Hat lined at the brim with leather. +5 Red knit caps milled; about 5d. apiece. +2 Dozen Hooks and eyes and small hooks and eyes for mandillions. +1 Pair Calfs Leather gloves (and some odd pairs of knit and sheeps +leather gloves). +A number of Ells Sheer Linen for Handkerchiefs.” + + +On March 16th was added to this list a mandillion lined with cotton at +12d. a yard. Also breeches and waistcoats; a leather suit of doublet +and breeches of oiled leather; a pair of breeches of leather, “the +drawers to serve to wear with both their other suits.” There was also +full, yes, generous for the day, provision of rugs, bedticks, bolsters, +mats, blankets, and sheets for the berths, and table linen. There were +fifty beds; evidently two men occupied each bed. Folk, even of wealth +and refinement, were not at all sensitive as to their mode of sleeping +or their bedfellows. The pages of Pepys’s _Diary_ give ample examples +of this carelessness. + +Arms and armor were also furnished, as will be explained in a later +chapter. + +A private letter written by an engineer, one Master Graves, the +following year (1630), giving a list of “such needful things as every +planter ought to provide,” affords a more curt and much less expensive +list, though this has three full suits, two being of wool stuffs:— + + +“1 Monmouth Cap. +3 Falling Bands. +3 Shirts. +1 Waistcoat. +1 Suit Canvass. +1 Suit Frieze. +1 Suit of Cloth. +3 Pair of Stockings. +4 Pair of Shoes. +Armour complete. +Sword &; Belt.” + + +The underclothing in this outfit seems very scanty. + +I am sure that to some of the emigrants on these ships either outfit +afforded an ampler wardrobe than they had known theretofore in England, +though English folk of that day were well dressed. With a little +consideration we can see that the Massachusetts Bay apparel was +adequate for all occasions, but it was far different from a man’s dress +to-day. The colonist “hadn’t a coat to his back”; nor had he a pair of +trousers. Some had not even a pair of breeches. It was a time when +great changes in dress were taking place. The ancient gown had just +been abandoned for doublet and long hose, which were still in high +esteem, especially among “the elder sort,” with garters or points for +the knees. These doublets were both of leather and wool. And there were +also doublets to be worn by younger men with breeches and stockings. + +When doublet and hose were worn, the latter were, of course, the long, +Florentine hose, somewhat like our modern tights. + +The jerkin of other lists varied little from the doublet; both were +often sleeveless, and the cassock in turn was different only in being +longer; buff-coat and horseman’s coat were slightly changed. The +evolution of doublet, jerkin, and cassock into a man’s coat is a long +enough story for a special chapter, and one which took place just while +America was being settled. Let me explain here that, while the general +arrangement of this book is naturally chronological, we halt upon our +progress at times, to review a certain aspect of dress, as, for +instance, the riding-dress of women, or the dress of the Quakers, or to +review the description of certain details of dress in a consecutive +account. We thus run on ahead of our story sometimes; and other times, +topics have to be resumed and reviewed near the close of the book. + +The breeches worn by the early planters were fulled at the waist and +knee, after the Dutch fashion, somewhat like our modern knickerbockers +or the English bag-breeches. + +The four pairs of shoes furnished to the colonists were the best. In +another entry the specifications of their make are given thus:— + + +“Welt Neats Leather shoes crossed on the out-side with a seam. To be +substantial good over-leather of the best, and two soles; the under +sole of Neats-leather, the outer sole of tallowed backs.” + + +They were to be of ample size, some thirteen inches long; each +reference to them insisted upon good quality. + +There is plentiful head-gear named in these inventories,—six caps and a +hat for each man, at a time when Englishmen thought much and deeply +upon what they wore to cover their heads, and at a time when hats were +very costly. I give due honor to those hats in an entire chapter, as I +do to the ruffs and bands supplied in such adequate and dignified +numbers. There was an unusually liberal supply of shirts, and there +were drawers which are believed to have been draw-strings for the +breeches. + +In _New England’s First Fruits_ we read instructions to bring over +“good Irish stockings, which if they are good are much more serviceable +than knit ones.” There appears to have been much variety in shape as +well as in material. John Usher, writing in 1675 to England, says, +“your sherrups stockings and your turn down stocking are not salable +here.” Nevertheless, stirrup stockings and socks were advertised in the +Boston News Letter as late as January 30, 1731. Stirrup-hose are +described in 1658 as being very wide at the top—two yards wide—and +edged with points or eyelet holes by which they were made fast to the +girdle or bag-breeches. Sometimes they were allowed to bag down over +the garter. They are said to have been worn on horseback to protect the +other garments. + +Stockings at that time were made of cotton and woollen cloth more than +they were knitted. Calico stockings are found in inventories, and often +stockings as well as hose with calico linings. In the clothing of +William Wright of Plymouth, at his death in 1633, were + + +“2 Pair Old Knit Stockins. +2 Pair Old Yrish Stockins. +2 Pair Cloth Stockins. +2 Pair Wadmoll Stockins. +4 Pair Linnen Stockins,” + + +which would indicate that Goodman Wright had stockings for all +weathers, or, as said a list of that day, “of all denominations.” He +had also two pair of boot-hose and two pair of boot-briches; evidently +he was a seafaring man. I must note that he had more ample +underclothing than many “plain citizens,” having cotton drawers and +linen drawers and dimity waistcoats. + +That petty details of propriety and dignity of dress were not +forgotten; that the articles serving to such dignity were furnished to +the colonists, and the use of these articles was expected of them, is +shown by the supply of such additions to dress as Norwich garters. +Garters had been a decorative and elegant ornament to dress, as may be +seen by glancing at the portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert +Orchard, and the _English Antick_, in this book. And they might well +have been decried as offensive luxuries unmeet for any Puritan and +unnecessary for any colonist; yet here they are. The settlers in one of +the closely following ships had points for the knee as well as garters. + +From all this cheerful and ample dress, this might well be a Cavalier +emigration; in truth, the apparel supplied as an outfit to the Virginia +planters (who are generally supposed to be far more given over to rich +dress) is not as full nor as costly as this apparel of Massachusetts +Bay. In this as in every comparison I make, I find little to indicate +any difference between Puritan and Cavalier in quantity of garments, in +quality, or cost—or, indeed, in form. The differences in England were +much exaggerated in print; in America they often existed wholly in +men’s notions of what a Puritan must be. + +At first the English Puritan reformers made marked alterations in +dress; and there were also distinct changes in the soldiers of +Cromwell’s army, but in neither case did rigid reforms prove permanent, +nor were they ever as great or as sweeping as the changes which came to +the Cavalier dress. Many of the extremes preached in Elizabeth’s day +had disappeared before New England was settled; they had been abandoned +as unwise or unnecessary; others had been adopted by Cavaliers, so that +equalized all differences. I find it difficult to pick out with +accuracy Puritan or Cavalier in any picture of a large gathering. Let +us glance at the Puritan Roundhead, at Cromwell himself. His picture is +given here, cut from a famous print of his day, which represents +Cromwell dissolving the Long Parliament. He and his three friends, all +Puritan leaders, are dressed in clothes as distinctly Cavalier as the +attire of the king himself. The graceful hats with sweeping ostrich +feathers are precisely like the Cavalier hats still preserved in +England; like one in the South Kensington Museum. Cromwell’s wide boots +and his short cape all have a Cavalier aspect. + + +Cromwell dissolving Parliament. Be gone you rogues/You have Sate long +enough. Cromwell dissolving Parliament. + +While Cromwell was steadily working for power, the fashion of plain +attire was being more talked about than at any other time; so he +appeared in studiously simple dress—the plainest apparel, indeed, of +any man prominent in affairs in English history. This is a description +of his appearance at a time before his name was in all Englishmen’s +mouths. It was written by Sir Philip Warwick:— + + +“The first time I ever took notice of him (Cromwell) was in the +beginning of Parliament, November, 1640. I came into the house one +morning, well-clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, +very ordinary apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to +have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not +very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his band which +was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band; +his stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side.” + + +Lowell has written of what he terms verbal magic; the power of certain +words and sentences, apparently simple, and without any recognizable +quality, which will, nevertheless, fix themselves in our memory, or +will picture a scene to us which we can never forget. This description +of Cromwell has this magic. There is no apparent reason why these +plain, commonplace words should fix in my mind this simple, rough-hewn +form; yet I never can think of Cromwell otherwise than in this attire, +and whatever portrait I see of him, I instinctively look for the spot +of blood on his band. I know of his rich dress after he was in power; +of that splendid purple velvet suit in which he lay majestic in death; +but they never seem to me to be Cromwell—he wears forever an ill-cut, +clumsy cloth suit, a close sword, and rumpled linen. + +The noble portraits of Cromwell by the miniaturist, Samuel Cooper, +especially the one which is at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, are +held to be the truest likenesses. They show a narrow band, but the hair +curls softly on the shoulders. The wonderful portrait of the Puritan +General Ireton, in the National Portrait Gallery, has beautiful, long +hair, and a velvet suit much slashed, and with many loops and buttons +at the slashes. He wears mustache and imperial. We expect we may find +that friend of Puritanism, Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, in rich dress; +and we find him in the richest of dress; namely, a doublet made, as to +its body and large full sleeves, wholly of bands an inch or two wide of +embroidery and gold lace, opening like long slashes from throat to +waist, and from arm-scye to wrist over fine white lawn, and with extra +slashes at various spots, with the full white lawn of his “habit-shirt” +pulled out in pretty puffs. His hair is long and curling. General +Waller of Cromwell’s army, here shown, is the very figure of a +Cavalier, as handsome a face, with as flowing hair and careful +mustache, as the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Endymion Porter,—that +courtier of courtiers,—gentleman of the bed-chamber to Charles I. +Cornet Joyce, the sturdy personal custodian of the king in captivity, +came the closest to being a Roundhead; but even his hair covers his ear +and hangs over his collar—it would be deemed over-long to-day. + + +Sir William Waller. Sir William Waller. + +Here is Lord Fairfax in plain buff coat slightly laced and slashed with +white satin. Fanshawe dressed—so his wife tells us—in “phillamot +brocade with 9 Laces every one as broad as my hand, a little gold and +silver lace between and both of curious workmanship.” And his suit was +gay with scarlet knots of ribbon; and his legs were cased in white silk +hose over scarlet ones; and he wore black shoes with scarlet shoe +strings and scarlet roses and garters; and his gloves were trimmed with +scarlet ribbon—a fine “gaybeseen”—to use Chaucer’s words. + +Surprising to all must be the portrait of that Puritan figurehead, the +Earl of Leicester; for he wears an affected double-peaked beard, a +great ruff, feathered hat, richly jewelled hatband and collar, and an +ear-ring. Shown here is the dress he wore when masquerading in Holland +as general during the Netherland insurrection against Philip II. + +It is strange to find even writers of intelligence calling Winthrop and +Endicott Roundheads. A recent magazine article calls Myles Standish a +Roundhead captain. That term was not invented till a score of years +after Myles Standish landed at Plymouth. A political song printed in +1641 is entitled _The Character of a Roundhead_. It begins:— + +“What creature’s this with his short hairs +His little band and huge long ears + That this new faith hath founded? + +“The Puritans were never such, +The saints themselves had ne’er as much. + Oh, such a knave’s a Roundhead.” + + + + +The right Honourable Ferdinand Lord Fairfax. The right Honourable +Ferdinand—Lord Fairfax. + +Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson was the wife of a Puritan gentleman, who was +colonel in Cromwell’s army, and one of the regicide judges. She wrote a +history of her husband’s life, which is one of the most valuable +sources of information of the period wherein he lived, the day when +Cromwell and Hampden acted, when Laud and Strafford suffered. In this +history she tells explicitly of the early use of the word Roundhead:— + + +“The name of Roundhead coming so opportunely, I shall make a little +digression to show how it came up: When Puritanism grew a faction, the +Zealots distinguished themselves by several affectations of habit, +looks and words, which had it been a real forsaking of vanity would +have been most commendable. Among other affected habits, few of the +Puritans, what degree soever they were, wore their hair long enough to +cover their ears; and the ministers and many others cut it close around +their heads with so many little peaks—as was something ridiculous to +behold. From this custom that name of Roundhead became the scornful +term given to the whole Parliament Party, whose army indeed marched out +as if they had only been sent out till their hair was grown. Two or +three years later any stranger that had seen them would have inquired +the meaning of that name.” + + +It is a pleasure to point out Colonel Hutchinson as a Puritan, though +there was little in his dress to indicate the significance of such a +name for him, and certainly he was not a Roundhead, with his light +brown hair “softer than the finest silk and curling in great loose +rings at the ends—a very fine, thick-set head of hair.” He loved +dancing, fencing, shooting, and hawking; he was a charming musician; he +had judgment in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the “liberal +arts.” He delighted in books and in gardening and in all rarities; in +fact, he seemed to care for everything that was “lovely and of good +report.” “He was wonderfully neat, cleanly and genteel in his habit, +and had a very good fancy in it, but he left off very early the wearing +of anything very costly, yet in his plainest habit appeared very much a +gentleman.” Such dress was the _best_ of Puritan dress; just as he was +the best type of a Puritan. He was cheerful, witty, happy, eager, +earnest, vivacious—a bit quick in temper, but kind, generous, and good. +He was, in truth, what is best of all,—a noble, consistent, Christian +gentleman. + +Those who have not acquired from accurate modern portrayal and +representation their whole notion of the dress of the early colonists +have, I find, a figure in their mind’s eye something like that of +Matthew Hopkins the witch-finder. Hogarth’s illustrations of Hudibras +give similar Puritans. Others have figures, dull and plainly dressed, +from the pictures in some book of saints and martyrs of the Puritan +church, such as were found in many an old New England home. _My_ +Puritan is reproduced here. I have found in later years that this +Alderman Abel of my old print was quite a character in English history; +having been given with Cousin Kilvert the monopoly of the sale of wines +at retail, one of those vastly lucrative privileges which brought forth +the bitterest denunciations from Sir John Eliot, who regarded them as +an infamous imposition upon the English people. The site of Abel’s +house had once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; and it was popularly +believed that Abel found and used treasure of the cardinal which had +been hidden in his cellar. He was called the “Main Projector and +Patentee for the Raising of Wines.” Unfortunately for my theory that +Abel was a typical Puritan, he was under the protection of King Charles +I; and Cromwell’s Parliament put an end to his monopoly in 1641, and +his dress was simply that of any dull, uninteresting, commonplace, and +common Englishman of his day. + + +Alderman Abell and Richard Kilvert, the two maine Projectors for Wine, +1641. Mr. Alderman Abell and Richard Kilvert, the two maine Projectors +for Wine, 1641. + +Another New England man who is constantly called a Roundhead is Cotton +Mather; with equal inconsequence and inaccuracy he is often referred +to, and often stigmatized, as “the typical Puritan colonist,” a narrow, +bigoted Gospeller. I have open before me an editorial from a reputable +newspaper which speaks of Cotton Mather dressed in dingy, skimped, +sad-colored garments “shivering in the icy air of Plymouth as he +uncovered his close-clipped Round-head when he landed on the Rock from +the _Mayflower_.” He was in fact born in America; he was not a Plymouth +man, and did not die till more than a century after the landing of the +_Mayflower_, and, of course, he was not a Roundhead. Another drawing of +Cotton Mather, in a respectable magazine, depicts him with clipped +hair, emaciated, clad in clumsy garments, mean and haggard in +countenance, raising a bundle of rods over a cowering Indian child. +Now, Cotton Mather was distinctly handsome, as may be seen from his +picture here, which displays plainly the full, sensual features of the +Cotton family, shown in John Cotton’s portrait. And the Roundhead is in +an elegant, richly curled periwig, such as was fashionable a hundred +years after the _Mayflower_. And though he had the tormenting Puritan +conscience he was not wholly a Puritan, for the world, the flesh, and +the devil were strong in him. He was much more gentle and tender than +men of that day were in general; especially with all children, white +and Indian, and was most conscientious in his relations both to Indians +and negroes. And in those days of universal whippings by English and +American schoolmasters and parents, he spoke in no uncertain voice his +horror and disapproval of the rod for children, and never countenanced +or permitted any whippings. + + +Reverend John Cotton. Reverend John Cotton. + + +Reverend Cotton Mather. Reverend Cotton Mather. + +There was certainly great diversity in dress among those who called +themselves Puritans. Some amusing stories are told of that strange, +restless, brilliant creature, the major-general of Cromwell’s +army,—Harrison. When the first-accredited ambassador sent by any great +nation to the new republic came to London, there was naturally some +stir as to the wisdom of certain details of demeanor and dress. It was +a ticklish time. The new Commonwealth must command due honor, and the +day before the audience a group of Parliament gentlemen, among them +Colonel Hutchinson and one who was afterwards the Earl of Warwick, were +seated together when Harrison came in and spoke of the coming audience, +and admonished them all—and Hutchinson in particular, “who was in a +habit pretty rich but grave and none other than he usually wore”—that, +now nations sent to them, they must “shine in wisdom and piety, not in +gold and silver and worldly bravery which did not become saints.” And +he asked them not to appear before the ambassador in “gorgeous habits.” +So the colonel—though he was not “convinced of any misbecoming bravery +in a suit of sad-coloured cloth trimmed with gold and with silver +points and buttons”—still conformed to his comrade’s opinion, and +appeared as did all the other gentlemen in solemn, handsome black. When +who should come in, “all in red and gold-a,”—in scarlet coat and cloak +laden with gold and silver, “the coat so covered with clinquant one +could scarcely discern the ground,” and in this gorgeous and glittering +habit seat himself alone just under the speaker’s chair and receive the +specially low respects and salutes of all in the ambassador’s +train,—who should thus blazon and brazon and bourgeon forth but +Harrison! I presume, though Hutchinson was a Puritan and a saint, he +was a bit chagrined at his black suit of garments, and a bit angered at +being thus decoyed; and it touched Madam Hutchinson deeply. + +But Hutchinson had his turn to wear gay clothes. A great funeral was to +be given to Ireton, who was his distant kinsman; yet Cromwell, from +jealousy, sent no bidding or mourning suit to him. A general invitation +and notice was given to the whole assembly, and on the hour of the +funeral, within the great, gloomy state-chamber, hung in funereal +black, and filled with men in trappings of woe, covered with great +black cloaks with long, weeping hatbands drooping to the ground, in +strode Hutchinson; this time he was in scarlet and cliquante, “such as +he usually wore,”—so wrote his wife,—astonishing the eyes of all, +especially the diplomats and ambassadors who were present, who probably +deemed him of so great station as to be exempt from wearing black. The +master of ceremonies timidly regretted to him, in hesitating words, +that no mourning had been sent—it had been in some way overlooked; the +General could not, thus unsuitably dressed, follow the coffin in the +funeral procession—it would not look well; the master of ceremonies +would be rebuked—all which proved he did not know Hutchinson, for +follow he could, and would, and did, in this rich dress. And he walked +through the streets and stood in the Abbey, with his scarlet cloak +flaunting and fluttering like a gay tropical bird in the midst of a +slowly flying, sagging flock of depressed black crows,—you have seen +their dragging, heavy flight,—and was looked upon with admiration and +love by the people as a splendid and soldierly figure. + +We must not forget that the years which saw the settlement of Salem and +Boston were not under the riot of dress countenanced by James. Charles +I was then on the throne; and the rich and beautiful dress worn by that +king had already taken shape. + +There has been an endeavor made to attribute this dress to the +stimulus, to the influence, of Puritan feeling. Possibly some of the +reaction against the absurdities of Elizabeth and James may have helped +in the establishment of this costume; but I think the excellent taste +of Charles and especially of his queen, Henrietta Maria, who succeeded +in making women’s dress wholly beautiful, may be thanked largely for +it. And we may be grateful to the painter Van Dyck; for he had not only +great taste as to dress, and genius in presenting his taste to the +public, but he had a singular appreciation of the pictorial quality of +dress and a power of making dress appropriate to the wearer. And he +fully understood its value in indicating character. + +Since Van Dyck formed and painted these fine and elegant modes, they +are known by his name,—it is the Van Dyck costume. We have ample +exposition of it, for his portraits are many. It is told that he +painted forty portraits of the king and thirty of the queen, and many +of the royal children. There are nine portraits by his hand of the Earl +of Strafford, the king’s friend. He painted the Earl of Arundel seven +times. Venetia, Lady Digby, had four portraits in one year. He painted +all persons of fashion, many of distinction and dignity, and some with +no special reason for consideration or portrayal. + +The Van Dyck dress is a gallant dress, one fitted for a court, not for +everyday life, nor for a strenuous life, though men of such aims wore +it. The absurdity of Elizabeth’s day is lacking; the richness remains. +It is a dress distinctly expressive of dignity. The doublet is of some +rich, silken stuff, usually satin or velvet. The sleeves are loose and +graceful; at one time they were slashed liberally to show the fine, +full, linen shirt-sleeve. Here are a number of slashed sleeves, from +portraits of the day, painted by Van Dyck. The cuffs of the doublet are +often turned back deeply to show embroidered shirt cuffs or lace +ruffles, or even linen undersleeves. The collar of the doublet was +wholly covered with a band or collar of rich lace and lawn, or all +lace; this usually with the pointed edges now termed Vandykes. Band +strings of ribbon or “snake-bone” were worn. These often had jewelled +tassels. Rich tassels of pearl were the favorite. A short cloak was +thrown gracefully on one shoulder or hung at the back. Knee-breeches +edged with points or fringes or ribbons met the tops of wide, high +boots of Spanish leather, which often also turned over with ruffles of +leather or lace. Within-doors silken hose and shoes with rich +shoe-roses of lace or ribbon were worn. A great hat, broad-leafed, +often of Flemish beaver, had a splendid feather and jewelled hatband. A +rich sword-belt and gauntleted and fringed gloves were added. A peaked +beard with small upturned mustache formed a triangle, with the mouth in +the centre, as in the portrait of General Waller. The hair curled +loosely in the neck, and was rarely, I think, powdered. + + +Slashed Sleeves Slashed Sleeves, _temp_. Charles I. + +Other great painters besides Van Dyck were fortunately in England at +the time this dress was worn, and the king was a patron and appreciator +of art. Hence they were encouraged in their work; and every form and +detail of this beautiful costume is fully depicted for us. + + +CHAPTER II + +DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS + + +_“Nowe my deare hearte let me parlye a little with thee about trifles, +for when I am present with thee, my speeche is preiudiced by thy +presence which drawes my mind from itselfe; I suppose now, upon thy +unkles cominge there wilbe advisinge &; counsellinge of all hands; and +amongst many I know there wilbe some, that wilbe provokinge thee, in +these indifferent things, as matter of apparell, fashions and other +circumstances; I hould it a rule of Christian wisdome in all things to +follow the soberest examples; I confesse that there be some ornaments +which for Virgins and Knights Daughters &;c may be comly and +tollerrable which yet in soe great a change as thine is, may well +admitt a change allso; I will medle with noe particulars neither doe I +thinke it shall be needfull; thine own wisdome and godliness shall +teach thee sufficiently what to doe in such things. I knowe thou wilt +not grieve me for trifles. Let me intreate thee (my sweet Love) to take +all in good part.”_ + +—JOHN WINTHROP TO MARGARET TYNDALE, 1616. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS + + +I + + +have expressed a doubt that the dress of Cavalier and Puritan varied as +much as has been popularly believed; I feel sure that the dress of +Puritan women did not differ from the attire of women of quiet life who +remained in the Church of England; nor did it vary materially either in +form or quality from the attire of the sensible followers of court +life. It simply did not extend to the extreme of the mode in gay color, +extravagance, or grotesqueness. In the first severity of revolt over +the dissoluteness of English life which had shown so plainly in the +extravagance and absurdity of English court dress, many persons of deep +thought (especially men), both of the Church of England and of the +Puritan faith, expressed their feeling by a change in their dress. +Doubtless also in some the extremity of feeling extended to fanaticism. +It is always thus in reforms; the slow start becomes suddenly a violent +rush which needs to be retarded and moderated, and it always is +moderated. I have referred to one exhibition of bigotry in regard to +dress which is found in the annals of Puritanism; it is detailed in the +censure and attempt at restraint of the dress of Madam Johnson, the +wife of the Rev. Francis Johnson, the pastor of the exiles to Holland. + +There is a tradition that Parson Johnson was one of the Marprelate +brotherhood, who certainly deserved the imprisonment they received, +were it only for their ill-spelling and ill-use of their native tongue. +The Marprelate pamphlet before me as I write had an author who could +not even spell the titles of the prelates it assailed; but called them +“parsones, fyckers and currats,” the latter two names being intended +for vicars and curates. The story of Madam Johnson’s revolt, and her +triumph, is preserved to us in such real and earnest language, and was +such a vital thing to the actors in the little play, that it seems +almost irreverent to regard it as a farce, yet none to-day could read +of it without a sense of absurdity, and we may as well laugh frankly +and freely at the episode. + +When the protagonist of this Puritan comedy entered the stage, she was +a widow—Tomison or Thomasine Boyes, a “warm” widow, as the saying of +the day ran, that is, warm with a comfortable legacy of ready money. +She was a young widow, and she was handsome. At any rate, it was +brought up against her when events came to a climax; it was testified +in the church examination or trial that “men called her a bouncing +girl,” as if she could help that! Husband Boyes had been a haberdasher, +and I fancy she got both her finery and her love of finery in his shop. +And it was told with all the petty terms of scandal-mongering that +might be heard in a small shop in a small English town to-day; it was +told very gravely that the “clarkes in the shop” compared her for her +pride in apparel to the wife of the Bishop of London, and it was +affirmed that she stood “gazing, braving, and vaunting in shop doores.” + +Now this special complaint against the Widow Boyes, that she stood +braving and vaunting in shop doors, was not a far-fetched attack +brought as a novelty of tantalizing annoyance; it touches in her what +was one of the light carriages of the day, which were so detestable to +sober and thoughtful folk, an odious custom specified by Stubbes in his +_Anatomy of Abuses_. He writes thus of London women, the wives of +merchants:— + + +“Othersome spend the greater part of the daie in sittyng at the doore, +to shewe their braveries, to make knowen their beauties, to behold the +passers by; to view the coast, to see fashions, and to acquaint +themselves of the bravest fellows—for, if not for these causes, I know +no other causes why they should sitt at their doores—as many doe from +Morning till Noon, from Noon till Night.” + + +Other writers give other reasons for this “vaunting.” We learn that +“merchants’ wives had seats built a purpose” to sit in, in order to +lure customers. Marston in _The Dutch Courtesan_ says:— + + +“His wife’s a proper woman—that she is! She has been as proper a woman +as any in the Chepe. She paints now, and yet she keeps her husband’s +old customers to him still. In troth, a fine-fac’d wife in a +wainscot-carved seat, is a worthy ornament to any tradesman’s shop. And +an attractive one I’le warrant.” + + +This handsome, buxom, bouncing widow fell in love with Pastor Johnson, +and he with her, while he was “a prisoner in the Clink,” he having been +thrown therein by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his persistent +preaching of Puritanism. Many of his friends “thought this not a good +match” for him at any time; and all deemed it ill advised for a man in +prison to pledge himself in matrimony to any one. And soon zealous and +meddlesome Brother George Johnson took a hand in advice and counsel, +with as high a hand as if Francis had been a child instead of a man of +thirty-two, and a man of experience as well, and likewise older than +George. + +George at first opened warily, saying in his letters that “he was very +loth to contrary his brother;” still Brother Francis must be sensible +that this widow was noted for her pride and vanity, her light and +garish dress, and that it would give great offence to all Puritans if +he married her, and “it (the vanity and extravagance, etc.) should not +be refrained.” There was then some apparent concession and yielding on +the widow’s part, for George for a time “sett down satysfyed”; when +suddenly, to his “great grief” and discomfiture, he found that his +brother had been “inveigled and overcarried,” and the sly twain had +been married secretly in prison. + +It must be remembered that this was in the last years of Elizabeth’s +reign, in 1596, when the laws were rigid in attempts at limitation of +dress, as I shall note later in this chapter. But there were certain +privileges of large estate, even if the owner were of mean birth; and +Madam Johnson certainly had money enough to warrant her costly apparel, +and in ready cash also, from Husband Boyes. But in the first good +temper and general good will of the honeymoon she “obeyed”; she +promised to dress as became her husband’s condition, which would +naturally mean much simpler attire. He was soon in very bad case for +having married without permission of the archbishop, and was still more +closely confined within-walls; but even while he lingered in prison, +Brother George saw with anguish that the bride’s short obedience had +ended. She appeared in “more garish and proud apparell” than he had +ever before seen upon the widow,—naturally enough for a bride,—even the +bride of a bridegroom in prison; but he “dealt with her that she would +refrain”—poor, simple man! She dallied on, tantalizing him and daring +him, and she was very “bold in inviting proof,” but never quitting her +bridal finery for one moment; so George read to her with emphasis, as a +final and unconquerable weapon, that favorite wail of all men who would +check or reprove an extravagant woman, namely, Isaiah iii, 16 _et +seq_., the chapter called by Mercy Warren + +“... An antiquated page +That taught us the threatenings of an Hebrew sage +Gainst wimples, mantles, curls and crisping pins.” + + +I wonder how many Puritan parsons have preached fatuously upon those +verses! how many defiant women have had them read to them—and how many +meek ones! I knew a deacon’s wife in Worcester, some years ago, who +asked for a new pair of India-rubber overshoes, and in pious response +her frugal partner slapped open the great Bible at this favorite third +chapter of the lamenting and threatening prophet, and roared out to his +poor little wife, sitting meekly before him in calico gown and checked +apron, the lesson of the haughty daughters of Zion walking with +stretched-forth necks and tinkling feet; of their chains and bracelets +and mufflers; their bonnets and rings and rich jewels; their mantles +and wimples and crisping-pins; their fair hoods and veils—oh, how she +must have longed for an Oriental husband! + +Petulant with his new sister-in-law’s successful evasions of his +readings, his letters, and his advice, his instructions, his pleadings, +his commands, and “full of sauce and zeal” like Elnathan, George +Johnson, in emulation of the prophet Isaiah, made a list of the +offences of this London “daughter of Zion,” wrote them out, and +presented them to the congregation. She wore “3, 4, or even 5 gold +rings at one time” Then likewise “her Busks and ye Whalebones at her +Brest were soe manifest that many of ye Saints were greeved thereby.” +She was asked to “pull off her Excessive Deal of Lace.” And she was +fairly implored to “exchange ye Schowish Hatt for a sober Taffety or +Felt.” She was ordered severely “to discontinue Whalebones,” and to +“quit ye great starcht Ruffs, ye Muske, and ye Rings.” And not to wear +her bodice tied to her petticoat “as men do their doublets to their +hose contrary to I Thessalonians, V, 22.” And a certain stomacher or +neckerchief he plainly called “abominable and loathsome.” A “schowish +Velvet Hood,” such as only “the richest, finest and proudest sort +should use,” was likewise beyond endurance, almost beyond forgiveness, +and other “gawrish gear gave him grave greevance.” + + +Mrs. William Clark. Mrs. William Clark. + +But here the young husband interfered, as it was high time he should; +and he called his brother “fantasticall, fond, ignorant, +anabaptisticall and such like,” though what the poor Anabaptists had to +do with such dress quarrels I know not. George’s cautious reference in +his letter to the third verse of the third chapter of Jeremiah made the +parson call it “the Abhominablest Letter ever was written.” George, a +bit frightened, answered pacificatorily that he noted of late that “the +excessive lace upon the sleeve of her dress had a Cover drawn upon it;” +that the stomacher was not “so gawrish, so low, and so spitz-fashioned +as it was wont to be”; nor was her hat “so topishly set,”—and he +expressed pious gladness at the happy change, “hoping more would +follow,”—and for a time all did seem subdued. But soon another +meddlesome young man became “greeved” (did ever any one hear of such a +set of silly, grieving fellows?); and seeing “how heavily the young +gentleman took it,” stupid George must interfere again, to be met this +time very boldly by the bouncing girl herself, who, he writes sadly, +answered him in a tone “very peert and coppet.” “Coppet” is a +delightful old word which all our dictionaries have missed; it +signifies impudent, saucy, or, to be precise, “sassy,” which we all +know has a shade more of meaning. “Peert and coppet” is a delightful +characterization. George refused to give the sad young complainer’s +name, who must have been well ashamed of himself by this time, and was +then reproached with being a “forestaller,” a “picker,” and a +“quarrelous meddler”—and with truth. + +During the action of this farce, all had gone from London into exile in +Holland. Then came the sudden trip to Newfoundland and the disastrous +and speedy return to Holland again. And through the misfortunes and the +exiles, the company drew more closely together, and gentle words +prevailed; George was “sorie if he had overcarried himself”; Madam “was +sure if it were to do now, she would not so wear it.” Still, she did +not offer her martinet of a brother-in-law a room to lodge in in her +house, though she had many rooms unused, and he needed shelter, whereat +he whimpered much; and soon he was charging her again “with Muske as a +sin” (musk was at that time in the very height of fashion in France) +and cavilling at her unbearable “topish hat.” Then came long argument +and sparring for months over “topishness,” which seems to have been +deemed a most offensive term. They told its nature and being; they +brought in Greek derivatives, and the pastor produced a syllogism upon +the word. And they declared that the hat in itself was not topish, but +only became so when she wore it, she being the wife of a preacher; and +they disputed over velvet and vanity; they bickered over topishness and +lightness; they wrangled about lawn coives and busks in a way that was +sad to read. The pastor argued soundly, logically, that both coives and +busks might be lawfully used; whereat one of his flock, Christopher +Dickens, rose up promptly in dire fright and dread of future +extravagance among the women-saints in the line of topish hats and +coives and busks, and he “begged them not to speak so, and _so loud_, +lest it should bring _many inconveniences among their wives_.” Finally +the topish head-gear was demanded in court, which the parson declared +was “offensive”; and so they bickered on till a most unseemly hour, +till _ten o’clock at night_, as “was proved by the watchman and +rattleman coming about.” Naturally they wished to go to bed at an early +hour, for religious services began at nine; one of the complaints +against the topish bride was that she was a “slug-a-bed,” flippantly +refused to rise and have her house ordered and ready for the nine +o’clock public service. The meetings were then held in the parson’s +house, and held every day; which may have been one reason why the +settlement grew poorer. It matters little what was said, or how it +ended, since it did not disrupt and disband the Holland Pilgrims. For +eleven years this stupid wrangling lasted; and it seemed imminent that +the settlement would finish with a separation, and a return of many to +England. Slight events have great power—this topish hat of a vain and +pretty, a peert and coppet young Puritan bride came near to hindering +and changing the colonization of America. + + +Lady Mary Armine. Lady Mary Armine. + +I have related this episode at some length because its recounting makes +us enter into the spirit of the first Separatist settlers. It shows us +too that dress conquered zeal; it could not be “forborne” by entreaty, +by reproof, by discipline, by threats, by example. An influence, or +perhaps I should term it an echo, of this long quarrel is seen plainly +by the thoughtful mind in the sumptuary laws of the New World. Some of +the articles of dress so dreaded, so discussed in Holland, still +threatened the peace of Puritanical husbands in New England; they still +dreaded many inconveniences. In 1634, the general court of +Massachusetts issued this edict:— + + +“That no person, man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any +Apparell, either Woolen, or Silk, or Linen, with any Lace on it, +Silver, Gold, or Thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said +clothes. Also that no person either man or woman, shall make or buy any +Slashed Clothes, other than one Slash in each Sleeve and another in the +Back. Also all Cut-works, embroideries, or Needlework Caps, Bands or +Rails, are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid +Penalty; also all gold or silver Girdles Hat bands, Belts, Ruffs, +Beaver hats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter.” + + +Fines were stated, also the amount of estate which released the +dress-wearer from restriction. Liberty was given to all to wear out the +apparel which they had on hand except “immoderate great sleeves, +slashed apparell, immoderate great rails, and long wings”—these being +beyond endurance. + +In 1639 “immoderate great breeches, knots of riban, broad shoulder +bands and rayles, silk roses, double ruffles and capes” were forbidden +to folk of low estate. Soon the court expressed its “utter detestation +and dislike,” that men and women of “mean condition, education and +calling” should take upon themselves “the garb of gentlemen” by wearing +gold and silver lace, buttons and points at the knee, or “walk in great +boots,” or women of the same low rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or +scarfs. There were likewise orders that no short sleeves should be worn +“whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered”; women’s sleeves +were not to be more than half an ell wide; long hair and immodest +laying out of the hair and wearing borders of hair were abhorrent. Poor +folk must not appear with “naked breasts and arms; or as it were +pinioned with superstitious ribbons on hair and apparell.” Tailors who +made garments for servants or children, richer than the garments of the +parents or masters of these juniors, were to be fined. Similar laws +were passed in Connecticut and Virginia. I know of no one being +“psented” under these laws in Virginia, but in Connecticut and +Massachusetts both men and women were fined. In 1676, in Northampton, +thirty-six young women at one time were brought up for overdress +chiefly in hoods; and an amusing entry in the court record is that one +of them, Hannah Lyman, appeared in the very hood for which she was +fined; and was thereupon censured for “wearing silk in a fflonting +manner, in an offensive way, not only before but when she stood +Psented. Not only in Ordinary but Extraordinary times.” These girls +were all fined; but six years later, when a stern magistrate attempted +a similar persecution, the indictments were quashed. + + +The Tub-preacher. The Tub-preacher. + +It is not unusual to find the careless observer or the superficial +reader—and writer—commenting upon the sumptuary laws of the New World +as if they were extraordinary and peculiar. There appeared in a recent +American magazine a long rehearsal of the unheard-of presumption of +Puritan magistrates in their prohibition of certain articles of dress. +This writer was evidently wholly ignorant of the existence of similar +laws in England, and even of like laws in Virginia, but railed against +Winthrop and Endicott as monsters of Puritanical arrogance and +impudence. + +In truth, however, such laws had existed not only in France and +England, but since the days of the old Locrian legislation, when it was +ordered that no woman should go attended with more than one maid in the +street “unless she were drunk.” Ancient Rome and Sparta were surrounded +by dress restrictions which were broken just as were similar ones in +more modern times. The Roman could wear a robe but of a single color; +he could wear in embroideries not more than half an ounce of gold; and, +with what seems churlishness he was forbidden to ride in a carriage. At +that time, just as in later days, dress was made to emphasize class +distinction, and the clergy joined with the magistrates in denouncing +extravagant dress in both men and women. The chronicles of the monks +are ever chiding men for their peaked shoes, deep sleeves and curled +locks like women, and Savonarola outdid them all in severity. The +English kings and queens, jealous of the rich dress of their opulent +subjects, multiplied restrictions, and some very curious anecdotes +exist of the calm assumption by both Elizabeth and Mary to their own +wardrobe of the rich finery of some lady at the court who displayed +some new and too becoming fancy. + + +Old Venice Point Lace. Old Venice Point Lace. + +Adam Smith declared it “an act of highest impertinence and presumption +for kings and rulers to pretend to watch over the earnings and +expenditure of private persons,” nevertheless this public interference +lingered long, especially under monarchies. + +These sumptuary laws of New England followed in spirit and letter +similar laws in England. Winthrop had seen the many apprentices who ran +through London streets, dressed under laws as full of details of dress +as is a modern journal of the modes. For instance, the apprentice’s +head-covering must be a small, flat, round cap, called often a bonnet—a +hat like a pie-dish. The facing of the hat could not exceed three +inches in breadth in the head; nor could the hat with band and facing +cost over five shillings. His band or collar could have no lace edge; +it must be of linen not over five shillings an ell in price; and could +have no other work or ornament save “a plain hem and one stitch”—which +was a hemstitch. If he wore a ruff, it must not be over three inches +wide before it was gathered and set into the “stock.” The collar of his +doublet could have neither “point, well-bone or plait,” but must be +made “close and comely.” The stuff of his doublet and breeches could +not cost over two shillings and sixpence a yard. It could be either +cloth, kersey, fustian, sackcloth, canvas, or “English stuff”; or +leather could be used. The breeches were generally of the shape known +as “round slops.” His stockings could be knit or of cloth; but his +shoes could have no polonia heels. His hair was to be cut close, with +no “tuft or lock.” + +Queen Elizabeth stood no nonsense in these things; finding that London +’prentices had adopted a certain white stitching for their collars, she +put a stop to this mild finery by ordering the first transgressor to be +whipped publicly in the hall of his company. These same laws, tinkered +and altered to suit occasions, appear for many years in English +records, for years after New England’s sumptuary laws were silenced. + +Notwithstanding Hannah Lyman and the thirty-six vain Northampton girls, +we do not on the whole hear great complaint of extravagance in dress or +deportment. At any rate none were called bouncing girls. The portraits +of men or women certainly show no restraint as to richness in dress. +Their sumptuary laws were of less use to their day than to ours, for +they do reveal to us what articles of dress our forbears wore. + +While the Massachusetts magistrates were fussing a little over woman’s +dress, the parsons, as a whole, were remarkably silent. Of course two +or three of them could not refrain from announcing a text from Isaiah +iii, 16 _et seq_., and enlarging upon the well-worn wimples and nose +jewels, and bells on their feet, which were as much out of fashion in +Massachusetts then as now. It is such a well-rounded, ringing, colorful +arraignment of woman’s follies you couldn’t expect a parson to give it +up. Every evil predicted of the prophet was laid at the door of these +demure Puritan dames,—fire and war, and caterpillars, and even +baldness, which last was really unjust. Solomon Stoddard preached on +the “Intolerable Pride in the Plantations in Clothes and Hair,” that +his parishioners “drew iniquity with a cord of vanity and sin with a +cart-rope.” The apostle Paul also furnished ample texts for the Puritan +preacher. + + +Rebecca Rawson. Rebecca Rawson. + +In the eleventh chapter of Corinthians wise Paul delivered some +sentences of exhortation, of reproof, of warning to Corinthian women +which I presume he understood and perhaps Corinthian dames did, but +which have been a dire puzzle since to parsons and male members of +their congregations. (I cannot think that women ever bothered much +about his words.) For instance, Archbishop Latimer, in one of the +cheerful, slangy rallies to his hearers which he called sermons, quotes +Paul’s sentence that a woman ought to have a power on her head, and +construes positively that a power is a French hood. This is certainly a +somewhat surprising notion, but I presume he knew. However, Roger +Williams deemed a power a veil; and being somewhat dictatorial in his +words, albeit the tenderest of creatures in his heart, he bade Salem +women come to meeting in a veil, telling them they should come like +Sarah of old, wearing this veil as a token of submission to their +husbands. The text saith this exactly, “A woman ought to have power on +her head because of the angels,” which seems to me one of those +convenient sayings of Paul and others which can be twisted to many, to +any meanings, even to Latimer’s French hood. Old John Cotton, of +course, found ample Scripture to prove Salem women should not wear +veils, and so here in this New World, as in the Holland sojourn, the +head-covering of the mothers rent in twain the meetings of the fathers, +while the women wore veils or no veils, French hoods or beaver hats, in +despite of Paul’s opinions and their husbands’ constructions of his +opinions. + +An excellent description of the Puritan women of a dissenting +congregation is in _Hudibras Redivivus;_ it reads:— + +“The good old dames among the rest +Were all most primitively drest +In stiffen-bodyed russet gowns +And on their heads old steeple crowns +With pristine pinners next their faces +Edged round with ancient scallop-laces, +Such as, my antiquary says, +Were worn in old Queen Bess’s days, +In ruffs; and fifty other ways +Their wrinkled necks were covered o’er +With whisks of lawn by granmarms wore.” + + +The “old steeple crowns” over “pristine pinners” were not peculiar to +the Puritans. There was a time, in the first years of the seventeenth +century, when many Englishwomen wore steeple-crowned hats with costly +hatbands. We find them in pictures of women of the court, as well as +upon the heads of Puritans. I have a dozen prints and portraits of +Englishwomen in rich dress with these hats. The Quaker Tub-preacher, +shown here, wears one. Perhaps the best known example to Americans may +be seen in the portrait of Pocahontas here. + +Authentic portraits of American women who came in the _Mayflower_ or in +the first ships to the Massachusetts Bay settlement, there are none to +my knowledge. Some exist which are doubtless of that day, but cannot be +certified. One preserved in Connecticut in the family of Governor Eaton +shows a brown old canvas like a Rembrandt. The subject is believed to +be of the Yale family, and the chief and most distinct feature of dress +is the ruff. + +It was a time of change both of men’s and women’s neckwear. A few older +women clung to the ruffs of their youth; younger women wore bands, +falling-bands, falls, rebatoes, falling-whisks and whisks, the “fifty +other ways” which could be counted everywhere. Carlyle says:— + + +“There are various traceable small threads of relation, interesting +reciprocities and mutabilities connecting the poor young Infant, New +England, with its old Puritan mother and her affairs, which ought to be +disentangled, to be made conspicuous by the Infant herself now she has +grown big.” + + +These traceable threads of relation are ever of romantic interest to +me, and even when I refer to the dress of English folk I linger with +pleasure with those whose lives were connected even by the smallest +thread with the Infant, New England. One such thread of connection was +in the life of Lady Mary Armine; so I choose to give her picture here, +to illustrate the dress, if not of a New Englander, yet of one of New +England’s closest friends. She was a noble, high-minded English +gentlewoman, who gave “even to her dying day” to the conversion of poor +tawny heathen of New England. A churchwoman by open profession, she was +a Puritan in her sympathies, as were many of England’s best hearts and +souls who never left the Church of England. She gave in one gift £500 +to families of ministers who had been driven from their pulpits in +England. The Nipmuck schools at Natick and Hassamanesit (near Grafton) +were founded under her patronage. The life of this “Truly Honourable, +Very Aged and Singularly Pious Lady who dyed 1675,” was written as a +“pattern to Ladies.” Her long prosy epitaph, after enumerating the +virtues of many of the name of Mary, concludes thus:— + +“The Army of such Ladies so Divine +This Lady said ‘I’ll follow, they Ar-mine.’ +Lady Elect! in whom there did combine +So many Maries, might well say All Ar-mine.” + + +A pun was a Puritan’s one jocularity; and he would pun even in an +epitaph. + +It will be seen that Lady Mary Armine wears the straight collar or +band, and the black French hood which was the forerunner, then the +rival, and at last the survivor of the “sugar-loaf” beaver or felt +hat,—a hood with a history, which will have a chapter for the telling +thereof. Lady Mary wears a peaked widow’s cap under her hood; this also +is a detail of much interest. + +Another portrait of this date is of Mrs. Clark (see here). This has two +singular details; namely, a thumb-ring, which was frequently owned but +infrequently painted, and a singular bracelet, which is accurately +described in the verse of Herrick, written at that date:— + +“I saw about her spotless wrist +Of blackest silk a curious twist +Which circumvolving gently there +Enthralled her arm as prisoner.” + + +I may say in passing that I have seen in portraits knots of narrow +ribbon on the wrists, both of men and women, and I am sure they had +some mourning significance, as did the knot of black on the left arm of +the queen of King James of England. + +We have in the portrait shown as a frontispiece an excellent +presentment of the dress of the Puritan woman of refinement; the dress +worn by the wives of Winthrop, Endicott, Leverett, Dudley, Saltonstall, +and other gentlemen of Salem and Boston and Plymouth. We have also the +dress worn by her little child about a year old. This portrait is of +Madam Padishal. She was a Plymouth woman; and we know from the +inventories of estates that there were not so many richly dressed women +in Plymouth as in Boston and Salem. This dress of Madam Padishal’s is +certainly much richer than the ordinary attire of Plymouth dames of +that generation. + +This portrait has been preserved in Plymouth in the family of Judge +Thomas, from whom it descended to the present owner. Madam Padishal was +young and handsome when this portrait was painted. Her black velvet +gown is shaped just like the gown of Madam Rawson (shown here), of +Madam Stoddard (shown here), both Boston women; and of the English +ladies of her times. It is much richer than that of Lady Mary Armine or +Mrs. Clark. + +The gown of Madam Padishal is varied pleasingly from that of Lady Mary +Armine, in that the body is low-necked, and the lace whisk is worn over +the bare neck. The pearl necklace and ear-rings likewise show a more +frivolous spirit than that of the English dame. + +Another Plymouth portrait of very rich dress, that of Elizabeth Paddy, +Mrs. John Wensley, faces this page. The dress in this is a golden-brown +brocade under-petticoat and satin overdress. The stiff, busked stays +are equal to Queen Elizabeth’s. Revers at the edge of overdress and on +the virago sleeves are now of flame color, a Spanish pink, but were +originally scarlet, I am sure. The narrow stomacher is a beaded galloon +with bright spangles and bugles. On the hair there shows above the ears +a curious ornament which resembles a band of this galloon. There are +traces of a similar ornament in Madam Rawson’s portrait (here); and +Madam Stoddard’s (here) has some ornament over the ears. This may have +been a modification of a contemporary Dutch head-jewel. The pattern of +the lace of Elizabeth Paddy’s whisk is most distinct; it was a good +costly Flemish parchment lace like Mrs. Padishal’s. She carries a fan, +and wears rings, a pearl necklace, and ear-rings. I may say here that I +have never seen other jewels than these,—a few rings, and necklace and +ear-rings of pearl. Other necklaces seem never to have been worn. + + +Elizabeth Paddy Wensley. Elizabeth Paddy Wensley. + +We cannot always trust that all the jewels seen in these portraits were +real, or that the sitter owned as many as represented. A bill is in +existence where a painter charged ten shillings extra for bestowing a +gold and pearl necklace upon his complaisant subject. In this case, +however, the extra charge was to pay for the gold paint or gold-leaf +used for gilding the painted necklace. In the amusing letters of Lady +Sussex to Lord Verney are many relating to her portrait by Van Dyck. +She consented to the painting very unwillingly, saying, “it is money +ill bestowed.” She writes:— + + +“Put Sr Vandyke in remembrance to do my pictuer well. I have seen +sables with the clasp of them set with diamonds—if those I am pictured +in were done so, I think it would look very well in the pictuer. If Sr +Vandyke thinks it would do well I pray desier him to do all the clawes +so. I do not mene the end of the tales but only the end of the other +peces, they call them clawes I think.” + + +This gives a glimpse of a richness of detail in dress even beyond our +own day, and one which I commend to some New York dame of vast wealth, +to have the claws of her sables set with diamonds. She writes later in +two letters of some weeks’ difference in date:— + + +“I am glad you have prefalede with Sr Vandyke to make my pictuer +leaner, for truly it was too fat. If he made it farer it will bee to my +credit. I am glad you have made Sr Vandyke mind my dress.” ... + + +“I am glad you have got home my pictuer, but I doubt he has made it +lener or farer, but too rich in jewels, I am sure; but ’tis no great +matter for another age to thinke mee richer than I was. I wish it could +be mended in the face for sure ’tis very ugly. The pictuer is very +ill-favourede, makes me quite out of love with myselfe, the face is so +bigg and so fat it pleases mee not at all. It looks like one of the +Windes puffinge—(but truly I think it is lyke the original).” + + +I am struck by a likeness in workmanship in the portraits of these two +Plymouth dames, and the portrait of Madam Stoddard (here), and +succeeding illustrations of the Gibbes children. I do wish I knew +whether these were painted by Tom Child—a painter-stainer and limner +referred to by Judge Samuel Sewall in his Diary, who was living in +Boston at that time. Perhaps we may find something, some day, to tell +us this. I feel sure these were all painted in America, especially the +portraits of the Gibbes children. A great many coats-of-arms were made +in Boston at this time, and I expect the painter-stainer made them. All +painting then was called coloring. A man would say in 1700, “Archer has +set us a fine example of expense; he has colored his house, and has +even laid one room in oils; he had the painter-stainer from Boston to +do it—the man who limns faces, and does pieces, and tricks coats.” This +was absolutely correct English, but we would hardly know that the man +meant: “Archer has been extravagant enough; he has painted his house, +and even painted the woodwork of one room. He had the artist from +Boston to do the work—the painter of faces and full-lengths, who makes +coats-of-arms.” + +It is hard to associate the very melancholy countenance shown here with +a tradition of youth and beauty. Had the portrait been painted after a +romance of sorrow came to this young maid, Rebecca Rawson, we could +understand her expression; but it was painted when she was young and +beautiful, so beautiful that she caught the eye and the wandering +affections of a wandering gentleman, who announced himself as the son +of one nobleman and kinsman of many others, and persuaded this daughter +of Secretary Edward Rawson to marry him, which she did in the presence +of forty witnesses. This young married pair then went to London, where +the husband deserted Rebecca, who found to her horror that she was not +his wife, as he had at least one English wife living. Alone and proud, +Rebecca Rawson supported herself and her child by painting on glass; +and when at last she set out to return to her childhood’s home, her +life was lost at sea by shipwreck. + +The portrait of another Boston woman of distinction, Mrs. Simeon +Stoddard, is given here. I will attempt to explain who Mrs. Simeon +Stoddard was. She was Mr. Stoddard’s third widow and the third widow +also of Peter Sergeant, builder of the Province House. Mr. Sergeant’s +second wife had been married twice before she married him, and Simeon +Stoddard’s father had four wives, all having been widows when he +married them. Lastly, our Mrs. Simeon Stoddard, triumphing over death +and this gallimaufry of Boston widows, took a fourth husband, the +richest merchant in town, Samuel Shrimpton. Having had in all four +husbands of wealth, and with them and their accumulation of widows +there must have been as a widow’s mite an immense increment and +inheritance of clothing (for clothing we know was a valued bequest), it +is natural that we find her very richly dressed and with a distinctly +haughty look upon her handsome face as becomes a conqueror both of men +and widows. + +The straight, lace collar, such as is worn by Madam Padishal and shown +in all portraits of this date, is, I believe, a whisk. + +The whisk was a very interesting and to us a puzzling article of +attire, through the lack of precise description. It was at first called +the falling-whisk, and is believed to have been simply the handsome, +lace-edged, stiff, standing collar turned down over the shoulders. This +collar had been both worn with the ruff and worn after it, and had been +called a fall. Quicherat tells that the “whisk” came into universal use +in 1644, when very low-necked gowns were worn, and that it was simply a +kerchief or fichu to cover the neck. + +We have a few side-lights to help us, as to the shape of the whisk, in +the form of advertisements of lost whisks. In one case (1662) it is “a +cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and +a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck and a +strap hanging down before.” And in 1664 “A Tiffany Whisk with a great +Lace down and a little one up, of large Flowers, and open work; with a +Roul for the Head and Peak.” The roll and peak were part of a cap. + + +Mrs. Simeon Stoddard. Mrs. Simeon Stoddard. + +These portraits show whisks in slightly varying forms. We have the +“broad Lace lying down” in the handsome band at the shoulder; the +“little lace standing up” was a narrow lace edging the whisk at the +throat or just above the broad lace. Sometimes the whisk was wholly of +mull or lawn. The whisk was at first wholly a part of woman’s attire, +then for a time it was worn, in modified form, by men. + +Madam Pepys had a white whisk in 1660 and then a “noble lace whisk.” +The same year she bought hers in London, Governor Berkeley paid half a +pound for a tiffany whisk in Virginia. Many American women, probably +all well-dressed women, had them. They are also seen on French +portraits of the day. One of Madam de Maintenon shows precisely the +same whisk as this of Madam Padishal’s, tied in front with tiny knots +of ribbon. + +It will be noted that Madam Padishal has black lace frills about the +upper portion of the sleeve, at the arm-scye. English portraits +previous to the year 1660 seldom show black lace, and portraits are not +many of the succeeding forty years which have black lace, so in this +American portrait this detail is unusual. The wearing of black lace +came into a short popularity in the year 1660, through compliment to +the Spanish court upon the marriage of the young French king, Louis +XIV, with the Infanta. The English court followed promptly. Pepys +gloried in “our Mistress Stewart in black and white lace.” It interests +me to see how quickly American women had the very latest court fashions +and wore them even in uncourtlike America; such distinct novelties as +black lace. Contemporary descriptions of dress are silent as to it by +the year 1700, and it disappears from portraits until a century later, +when we have pretty black lace collars, capes and fichus, as may be +seen on the portraits of Mrs. Sedgwick, Mrs. Waldo, and others later in +this book. These first black laces of 1660 are Bayeux laces, which are +precisely like our Chantilly laces of to-day. This ancient piece of +black lace has been carefully preserved in an old New York family. A +portrait of the year 1690 has a black lace frill like the Maltese laces +of to-day, with the same guipure pattern. But such laces were not made +in Malta until after 1833. So it must have been a guipure lace of the +kind known in England as parchment lace. This was made in the environs +of Paris, but was seldom black, so this was a rare bit. It was +sometimes made of gold and silver thread. Parchment lace was a favorite +lace of Mary, Queen of Scots, and through her good offices was peddled +in England by French lace-makers. The black moiré hoods of Italian +women sometimes had a narrow edge of black lace, and a little was +brought to England on French hoods, but as a whole black lace was +seldom seen or known. + + +Ancient Black Lace. Ancient Black Lace. + +An evidence of the widespread extent of fashions even in that day, a +proof that English and French women and American women (when American +women there were other than the native squaws) all dressed alike, is +found in comparing portraits. An interesting one from the James Jackson +Jarvis Collection is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is of an +unknown woman and by an unknown artist, and is simply labelled “Of the +School of Susteman.” But this unknown Frenchwoman has a dress as +precisely like Madam Padishal’s and Madam Stoddard’s as are Doucet’s +models of to-day like each other. All have the whisk of rich +straight-edged lace, and the tiny knots of velvet ribbon. All have the +sleeve knots, but the French portrait is gay in narrow red and buff +ribbon. + +Doubtless many have formed their notion of Puritan dress from the +imaginary pictures of several popular modern artists. It can plainly be +seen by any one who examines the portraits in this book that they are +little like these modern representations. The single figures called +“Priscilla” and “Rose Standish” are well known. The former is the +better in costume, and could the close dark cloth or velvet hood with +turned-back band, and plain linen edge displayed beneath, be exchanged +for the horseshoe shaped French hood which was then and many years +later the universal head-wear, the verisimilitude would be increased. +This hood is shown on the portraits of Madam Rawson, Madam Stoddard, +Mistress Paddy, and others in this book. Rose Standish’s cap is a very +pretty one, much prettier than the French hood, but I do not find it +like any cap in English portraits of that day. Nor have I seen her +picturesque sash. I do not deny the existence in portraits of 1620 of +this cap and sash; I simply say that I have never found them myself in +the hundreds of English portraits, effigies, etc., that I have +examined. + +It will be noted that the women in the modern pictures all wear aprons. +I think this is correct as they are drawn in their everyday dress, but +it will be noted that none of these portraits display an apron; nor was +an apron part of any rich dress in the seventeenth century. The reign +of the apron had been in the sixteenth century, and it came in again +with Anne. Of course every woman in Massachusetts used aprons. + +Early inventories of the effects of emigrant dames contain many an item +of those housewifely garments. Jane Humphreys, of Dorchester, +Massachusetts, had in her good wardrobe, in 1668, “2 Blew aprons, A +White Holland Apron with a Small Lace at the bottom. A White Holland +Apron with two breathes in it. My best white apron. My greene apron.” + +In the pictures, _The Return of the Mayflower_ and _The Pilgrim +Exiles_, the masculine dress therein displayed is very close to that of +the real men of the times. The great power of these pictures is, after +all, not in the dress, but in the expression of the faces. The artist +has portrayed the very spirit of pure religious feeling, self-denial, +home-longing, and sadness of exile which we know must have been +imprinted on those faces. + +The lack of likeness in the women’s dress is more through difference of +figure and carriage and an indescribable cut of the garments than in +detail, except in one adjunct, the sleeve, which is wholly unlike the +seventeenth-century sleeve in these portraits. I have ever deemed the +sleeve an important part both of a man’s coat and a woman’s gown. The +tailor in the old play, _The Maid of the Mill_, says, “O Sleeve! O +Sleeve! I’ll study all night, madam, to magnify your sleeves!” By its +inelegant shape a garment may be ruined. By its grace it accents the +beauty of other portions of the apparel. In these pictures of Puritan +attire, it has proved able to make or mar the likeness to the real +dress. It is now a component part of both outer and inner garment. It +was formerly extraneous. + +In the reign of Henry VIII, the sleeve was generally a separate article +of dress and the most gorgeous and richly ornamented portion of the +dress. Outer and inner sleeves were worn by both men and women, for +their doublets were sleeveless. Elizabeth gradually banished the outer +hanging sleeve, though she retained the detached sleeve. + +Sleeves had grown gravely offensive to Puritans; the slashing was +excessive. A Massachusetts statute of 1634 specifies that “No man or +woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes other than one slash in +each sleeve and another in the back. Men and women shall have liberty +to wear out such apparell as they now are provided of except the +immoderate great sleeves and slashed apparel.” + + +Virago-sleeve. Virago-sleeve. + +Size and slashes were both held to be a waste of good cloth. +“Immoderate great sleeves” could never be the simple coat sleeve with +cuff in which our modern artists are given to depicting Virginian and +New England dames. Doubtless the general shape of the dress was simple +enough, but the sleeve was the only part which was not close and plain +and unornamented. I have found no close coat sleeves with cuffs upon +any old American portraits. I recall none on English portraits. You may +see them, though rarely, in England under hanging sleeves upon figures +which have proved valuable conservators of fashion, albeit sombre of +design and rigid of form, namely, effigies in stone or metal upon old +tombs; these not after the year 1620, though these are really a small +“leg-of-mutton” sleeve being gathered into the arm-scye. A beautiful +brass in a church on the Isle of Wight is dated 1615. This has long, +hanging sleeves edged with leaflike points of cut-work; cuffs of +similar work turn back from the wrists of the undersleeves. A _Satyr_ +by Fitzgeffrey, published the same year, complains that the wrists of +women and men are clogged with bush-points, ribbons, or rebato-twists. +“Double cufts” is an entry in a Plymouth inventory—which explains +itself. In the hundreds of inventories I have investigated I have never +seen half a dozen entries of cuffs. The two or three I have found have +been specified as “lace cuffs.” + +George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote with a vivid pen; one of +his own followers said with severity, “He paints high.” Some of his +denunciations of the dress of his day afford a very good notion of the +peculiarities of contemporary costume; though he may be read with this +caution in mind. He writes deploringly of women’s sleeves (in the year +1654); it will be noted that he refers to double cuffs:— + + +“The women having their cuffs double under and above, like a butcher +with his white sleeves, their ribands tied about their hands, and three +or four gold laces about their clothes.” + + + + +Ninon de l’Enclos. Ninon de l’Enclos. + +There were three generations of English heralds named Holme, all +genealogists, and all artists; they have added much to our knowledge of +old English dress. Randle Holme, the Chester herald, lived in the reign +of Charles II, and increased a collection of manuscript begun by his +grandfather and now forming part of the Harleian Collection in the +British Museum. He wrote also the _Academy of Armoury_, published in +1688, and made a vast number of drawings for it, as well as for his +other works. His note-books of drawings are preserved. In one of them +he gives drawings of the sleeve which is found on every +seventeenth-century portrait of American women which I have ever seen. +He calls this a virago-sleeve. It was worn in Queen Elizabeth’s day, +but was a French fashion. It is gathered very full in the shoulder and +again at the wrist, or at the forearm. At intervals between, it is +drawn in by gathering-strings of narrow ribbons, or ferret, which are +tied in a pretty knot or rose on the upper part of the sleeve. One from +a French portrait is given here. Madam Ninon de l’Enclos also wears +one. This gathering may be at the elbow, forming thus two puffs, or +there may be several such drawing-strings. I have seen a virago-sleeve +with five puffs. It is a fine decorative sleeve, not always shapely, +perhaps, but affording in the pretty knots of ribbon some relief to the +severity of the rest of the dress. + +Stubbes wrote, “Some have sleeves cut up the arm, drawn out with sundry +colours, pointed with silk ribbands, and very gallantly tied with love +knotts.” It was at first a convention of fashion, and it lingered long +in some modification, that wherever there was a slash there was a knot +of ribbon or a bunch of tags or aglets. This in its origin was really +that the slash might be tied together. Ribbon knots were much worn; the +early days of the great court of Louis XIV saw an infinite use of +ribbons for men and women. When, in the closing years of the century, +rows of these knots were placed on either side of the stiff busk with +bars of ribbon forming a stomacher, they were called _echelles_, +ladders. _The Ladies’ Dictionary_ (1694) says they were “much in +request.” + +This virago-sleeve was worn by women of all ages and by children, both +boys and girls. A virago-sleeve is worn by Rebecca Rawson (here), and +by Mrs. Simeon Stoddard (here), by Madam Padishal and by her little +girl, and by the Gibbes child shown later in the book. + +A carved figure of Anne Stotevill (1631) is in Westminster Abbey. Her +dress is a rich gown slightly open in front at the foot. It has +ornamental hooks, or frogs, with a button at each end—these are in +groups of three, from chin to toe. Four groups of three frogs each, on +both sides, make twenty-four, thus giving forty-eight buttons. A stiff +ruff is at the neck, and similar smaller ones at the wrist. She wears a +French hood with a loose scarf over it. She has a very graceful +virago-sleeve with handsome knots of ribbon. + +It is certain that men’s sleeves and women’s sleeves kept ever close +company. Neither followed the other; they walked abreast. If a woman’s +sleeves were broad and scalloped, so was the man’s. If the man had a +tight and narrow sleeve, so did his wife. When women had +virago-sleeves, so did men. Even in the nineteenth century, at the +first coming of leg-of-mutton sleeves in 1830 _et seq_., dandies’ +sleeves were gathered full at the armhole. In the second reign of these +vast sleeves a few years ago, man had emancipated himself from the +reign of woman’s fashions, and his sleeves remained severely plain. + +Small invoices of fashionable clothing were constantly being sent +across seas. There were sent to and from England and other countries +“ventures,” which were either small lots of goods sent on speculation +to be sold in the New World, or a small sum given by a private +individual as a “venture,” with instructions to purchase abroad +anything of interest or value that was salable. To take charge of these +petty commercial transactions, there existed an officer, now obsolete, +known as a supercargo. It is told that one Providence ship went out +with the ventures of one hundred and fifty neighbors on board—that is, +one hundred and fifty persons had some money or property at stake on +the trip. Three hundred ventures were placed with another supercargo. +Sometimes women sent sage from their gardens, or ginseng if they could +get it. A bunch of sage paid in China for a porcelain tea-set. Along +the coast, women ventured food-supplies,—cheese, eggs, butter, dried +apples, pickles, even hard gingerbread; another sent a barrel of cider +vinegar. Clothes in small lots were constantly being bought and sold on +a venture. From London, in November, 1667, Walter Banesely sent as a +venture to William Pitkin in Hartford these articles of clothing with +their prices:— + +£ s. “1 Paire Pinck Colour’d mens hose 1 6 10 Paire Mens Silke +Hose, 17s per pair 8 10 10 Paire Womens Silke Hose, 16s per +pair 1 12 10 Paire Womens Green Hose 6 10 1 Pinck +Colour’d Stomacher made of Knotts 3 10 1 Pinck Colour’d Wastcote +A Black Sute of Padisuay. Hatt, Hatt band, Shoo knots &; trunk. The +wastcote and stomacher are a Venture of my wife’s; the Silke Stockens +mine own.” + +There remains another means of information of the dress of Puritan +women in what was the nearest approach to a collection of +fashion-plates which the times afforded. + + +Lady Catharina Howard. Lady Catharina Howard. + +In the year 1640 a collection of twenty-six pictures of Englishwomen +was issued by one Wenceslas Hollar, an engraver and drawing-master, +with this title, _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus. The severall Habits of +Englishwomen, from the Nobilitie to the Country Woman As they are in +these Times._ These bear the same relation to portraits showing what +was really worn, as do fashion-plates to photographs. They give us the +shapes of gowns, bonnets, etc., yet are not precisely the real thing. +The value of this special set is found in three points: First, the +drawings confirm the testimony of Lely, Van Dyck, and other artists; +they prove how slightly Van Dyck idealized the costume of his sitters. +Second, they give representations of folk in the lower walks of life; +such folk were not of course depicted in portraits. Third, the drawings +are full length, which the portraits are not. Four of these drawings +are reduced and shown here. I give here the one entitled _The Puritan +Woman_, though it is one of the most disappointing in the whole +collection. It is such a negative presentation; so little marked detail +or even associated evidence is gained from it. I had a baffled thought +after examining it that I knew less of Puritan dress than without it. I +see that they gather up their gowns for walking after a mode known in +later years as washerwoman style. And by that very gathering up we lose +what the drawing might have told us; namely, how the gowns were shaped +in the back; how attached to the waist or bodice; and how the bodice +was shaped at the waist, whether it had a straight belt, whether it was +pointed, whether slashed in tabs or laps like a samare. The sleeve, +too, is concealed, and the kerchief hides everything else. We know +these kerchiefs were worn among the “fifty other ways,” for some +portraits have them; but the whisk was far more common. Lady Catharina +Howard, aged eleven in the year 1646, was drawn by Hollar in a +kerchief. + +There had been some change in the names of women’s attire in twenty +years, since 1600, when the catalogue of the Queen’s wardrobe was made. +Exclusive of the Coronation, Garter, Parliament, and mourning robes, it +ran thus:— + + +“Robes. +Petticoats. +French gowns. +Cloaks. +Round gowns. +Safeguards. +Loose gowns. +Jupes. +Kirtles. +Doublets. +Foreparts. +Lap mantles.” + + +In her New Year’s gifts were also, “strayt-bodyed gowns, trayn-gowns, +waist-robes, night rayls, shoulder cloaks, inner sleeves, round +kirtles.” She also had nightgowns and jackets, and underwear, hose, and +various forms of foot-gear. Many of these garments never came to +America. Some came under new names. Many quickly disappeared from +wardrobes. I never read in early American inventories of robes, either +French robes or plain robes. Round gowns, loose gowns, petticoats, +cloaks, safeguards, lap mantles, sleeves, nightgowns, nightrails, and +night-jackets continued in wear. + +I have never found the word forepart in this distinctive signification +nor the word kirtle; though our modern writers of historical novels are +most liberal of kirtles to their heroines. It is a pretty, quaint name, +and ought to have lingered with us; but “what a deformed thief this +Fashion is”—it will not leave with us garment or name that we like +simply because it pleases us. + +Doublets were worn by women. + + +“The Women also have doublets and Jerkins as men have, buttoned up the +brest, and made with Wings, Welts and Pinions on shoulder points as +men’s apparell is for all the world, &; though this be a kind of attire +appropriate only to Man yet they blush not to wear it.” + + +Anne Hibbins, the _witch_, had a black satin doublet among other +substantial attire. + +A fellow-barrister of Governor John Winthrop, Sergeant Erasmus Earle, a +most uxorious husband, was writing love-letters to his wife Frances, +who lived out of London, at the same time that Winthrop was writing to +Margaret Winthrop. Earle was much concerned over a certain doublet he +had ordered for his wife. He had bought the blue bayes for this garment +in two pieces, and he could not decide whether the shorter piece should +go into the sleeve or the body, whether it should have skirts or not. +If it did not, then he had bought too much silver lace, which troubled +him sorely. + +Margaret Winthrop had better instincts; to her husband’s query as to +sending trimming for her doublet and gown, she answers, “_When I see +the cloth_ I will send word what trimming will serve;” and she writes +to London, insisting on “the civilest fashion now in use,” and for +Sister Downing, who is still in England, to give Tailor Smith +directions “that he may make it the better.” Mr. Smith sent scissors +and a hundred needles and the like homely gifts across seas as “tokens” +to various members of the Winthrop household, showing his friendly +intimacy with them all. For many years after America was settled we +find no evidence that women’s garments were ever made by mantua-makers. +All the bills which exist are from tailors. One of William Sweatland +for work done for Jonathan Corwin of Salem is in the library of the +American Antiquarian Society:— + +£ s. d. “Sept. 29, 1679. To plaiting a gown for +Mrs. 3 6 To makeing a Childs Coat 6 To makeing a +Scarlet petticoat with Silver Lace for Mrs. 9 For new makeing a +plush somar for Mrs. 6 Dec. 22, 1679. For makeing a somar for +your Maide 10 Mar. 10, 1679. To a yard of Callico 2 To 1 +Douzen and 1/2 of silver buttons 1 6 To Thread 4 +To makeing a broad cloth hatte 14 To makeing a haire +Camcottcoat 9 To makeing new halfsleeves to a silk +Coascett 1 March 25. To altering and fitting a paire of Stays +for Mrs 1 Ap. 2, 1680, to makeing a Gowne for ye Maide 10 +May 20. For removing buttons of yr coat. 6 Juli 25, 1630. +For makeing two Hatts and Jacketts for your two sonnes 19 Aug. +14. To makeing a white Scarsonnett plaited Gowne for Mrs 8 To +makeing a black broad cloth Coat for yourselfe 9 Sept. 3, 1868. +To makeing a Silke Laced Gowne for Mrs 1 8 Oct. 7, 1860, to +makeing a Young Childs Coate 4 To faceing your Owne Coat +Sleeves 1 To new plaiting a petty Coat for Mrs 1 6 +Nov. 7. To makeing a black broad Cloth Gowne for Mrs 18 Feb. 26, +1680-1. To Searing a Petty Coat for Mrs 6 —- —- —- Sum is, +£;8 4s. 10d. ” + +From many bills and inventories we learn that the time of the +settlement of Plymouth and Boston reached a transitional period in +women’s dress as it did in men’s. Mrs. Winthrop had doublets as had +Governor Winthrop, but I think her daughter wore gowns when her sons +wore coats. The doublet for a woman was shaped like that of a man, and +was of double thickness like a man’s. It might be sleeveless, with a +row of welts or wings around the armhole; or if it had sleeves the +welts, or a roll or cap, still remained. The trimming of the arm-scye +was universal, both for men and women. A fuller description of the +doublet than has ever before been written will be given in the chapter +upon the Evolution of the Coat. The “somar” which is the samare, named +also in the bill of the Salem tailor, seems to have been a Dutch +garment, and was so much worn in New York that I prefer to write of it +in the following chapter. We are then left with the gown; the gown +which took definite shape in Elizabeth’s day. Of course no one could +describe it like Stubbes. I frankly confess my inability to approach +him. Read his words, so concise yet full of color and conveying detail; +I protest it is wonderful. + + +“Their Gowns be no less famous, some of silk velvet grogram taffety +fine cloth of forty shillings a yard. But if the whole gown be not +silke or velvet then the same shall be layed with lace two or three +fingers broade all over the gowne or the most parte. Or if not so (as +Lace is not fine enough sometimes) then it must be garded with great +gardes of costly Lace, and as these gowns be of sundry colours so they +be of divers fashions changing with the Moon. Some with sleeves hanging +down to their skirts, trayling on the ground, and cast over the +shoulders like a cow’s tayle. These have sleeves much shorter, cut up +the arme, and pointed with Silke-ribons very gallantly tyed with true +loves knottes—(for soe they call them). Some have capes fastened down +to the middist of their backs, faced with velvet or else with some fine +wrought silk Taffeetie at the least, and fringed about Bravely, and (to +sum up all in a word) some are pleated and ryveled down the back +wonderfully with more knacks than I can declare.” + + +The guards of lace a finger broad laid on over the seams of the gown +are described by Pepys in his day. He had some of these guards of gold +lace taken from the seams of one of his wife’s old gowns to overlay the +seams of one of his own cassocks and rig it up for wear, just as he +took his wife’s old muff, like a thrifty husband, and bought her a new +muff, like a kind one. Not such a domestic frugalist was he, though, as +his contemporary, the great political economist, Dudley North, Baron +Guildford, Lord Sheriff of London, who loved to sit with his wife +ripping off the old guards of lace from her gown, “unpicking” her gown, +he called it, and was not at all secret about it. Both men walked +abroad to survey the gems and guards worn by their neighbors’ wives, +and to bring home word of new stuffs, new trimmings, to their own +wives. Really a seventeenth-century husband was not so bad. Note in my +_Life of Margaret Winthrop_ how Winthrop’s fellow-barrister, Sergeant +Erasmus Earle, bought camlet and lace, and patterns for doublets for +his wife Frances Fontayne, and ran from London clothier to London +mantua-maker, and then to London haberdasher and London tailor, to +learn the newest weaves of cloth, the newest drawing in of the sleeves. +I know no nineteenth-century husband of that name who would hunt +materials and sleeve patterns, and buy doublet laces and find +gown-guards for his wife. And then the gown sleeves! What a description +by Stubbes of the virago-sleeve “tied in and knotted with silk ribbons +in love-knots!” It is all wonderful to read. + +We learn from these tailors’ bills that tailors’ work embraced far more +articles than to-day; in the _Orbis Sensualium Pictus_, 1659, a +tailor’s shop has hanging upon the wall woollen hats, breeches, +waistcoats, jackets, women’s cloaks, and petticoats. There are also +either long hose or lasts for stretching hose, for they made stockings, +leggins, gaiters, buskins; also a number of boxes which look like +muff-boxes. One tailor at work is seated upon a platform raised about a +foot from the floor. His seat is a curious bench with two legs about +two feet long and two about one foot long. The base of the two long +legs are on the floor, the other two set upon the platform. The +tailor’s feet are on the platform, thus his work is held well up before +his face. Sometimes his legs are crossed upon the platform in front of +him. The platform was necessary, or, at any rate, advisable for another +reason. The habits of Englishmen at that time, their manners and +customs, I mean, were not tidy; and floors were very dirty. Any garment +resting on the floor would have been too soiled for a gentleman’s wear +before it was donned at all. + +I have discovered one thing about old-time tailors,—they were just as +trying as their successors, and had as many tricks of trade. A writer +in 1582 says, “If a tailor makes your gown too little, he covers his +fault with a broad stomacher; if too great, with a number of pleats; if +too short, with a fine guard; if too long with a false gathering.” + +In several of the household accounts of colonial dames which I have +examined I have found the prices and items very confusing and irregular +when compared with tailors’ bills and descriptive notes and letters +accompanying them. And in one case I was fain to believe that the +lady’s account-book had been kept upon the plan devised by the simple +Mrs. Pepys,—a plan which did anger her spouse Samuel “most mightily.” +He was filled with admiration of her household-lists—her kitchen +accounts. He admired in the modern sense of the word “admire”; then he +admired in the old-time meaning—of suspicious wonder. For albeit she +could do through his strenuous teaching but simple sums in +“Arithmetique,” had never even attempted long division, yet she always +rendered to her husband perfectly balanced accounts, month after month. +At last, to his angry queries, she whimpered that “whenever she doe +misse a sum of money, she do add some sums to other things,” till she +made it perfectly correct in her book—a piece of such simple duplicity +that I wonder her husband had not suspected it months before. And she +also revealed to him that she “would lay aside money for a necklace” by +pretending to pay more for household supplies than she really had, and +then tying up the extra amount in a stocking foot. He writes, “I find +she is very cunning and when she makes least show hath her wits at +work; and _so_ to my office to my accounts.” + + +Costumes of Englishwomen of the Seventeenth Century. Costumes of +Englishwomen of the Seventeenth Century. + + +CHAPTER III + +ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS + +“Two things I love, two usuall thinges they are: +The Firste, New-fashioned cloaths I love to wear, +Newe Tires, newe Ruffes; aye, and newe Gestures too +In all newe Fashions I do love to goe. + The Second Thing I love is this, I weene + To ride aboute to have those Newe Cloaths scene. + +“At every Gossipping I am at still +And ever wilbe—maye I have my will. +For at ones own Home, praie—who is’t can see +How fyne in new-found fashioned Tyres we bee? +Vnless our Husbands—Faith! but very fewe!— +And whoo’d goe gaie, to please a Husband’s view? + Alas! wee wives doe take but small Delight + If none (besides our husbands) see that Sight” + +—“The Gossipping Wives Complaint,” 1611 (circa). + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS + + +I + + +t is a matter of deep regret that no “Lists of Apparel” were made out +for the women emigrants in any of the colonies. Doubtless many came who +had a distinct allotment of clothing, among them the redemptioners. We +know one case, that of the “Casket Girls,” of Louisiana, where a group +of “virtuous, modest, well-carriaged young maids” each had a casket or +box of clothing supplied to her as part of her payment for emigration. +I wish we had these lists, not that I should deem them of great value +or accuracy in one respect since they would have been made out +naturally by men, but because I should like to read the struggles of +the average shipping-clerk or supercargo, or even shipping-master or +company’s president, over the items of women’s dress. One reason why +the lists we have in the court records are so wildly spelled and often +vague is, I am sure, because the recording-clerks were always men. Such +hopeless puzzles as droll or drowlas, cale or caul or kail, chatto or +shadow, shabbaroon or chaperone, have come to us through these poor +struggling gentlemen. + +There are not to my knowledge any portraits in existence of the wives +of the first Dutch settlers of New Netherland. They would have been +dressed, I am sure, in the full dress of Holland vrouws. We can turn to +the court records of New Netherland to learn the exact item of the +dress of the settlers. Let me give in full this inventory of an +exceptionally rich and varied wardrobe of Madam Jacob de Lange of New +Amsterdam, 1662:— + +£; s. d. One under petticoat with a body of red bay 1 7 +One under petticoat, scarlet 1 15 One petticoat, red cloth with +black lace 2 15 One striped stuff petticoat with black +lace 2 8 Two colored drugget petticoats with gray +linings 1 2 Two colored drugget petticoats with white +linings 18 One colored drugget petticoat with pointed +lace 8 One black silk petticoat with ash gray silk +lining 1 10 One potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk +lining 2 15 One potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta +lining 1 13 One silk potoso-a-samare with lace 3 One tartanel +samare with tucker 1 10 One black silk crape samare with +tucker 1 10 Three flowered calico samares 2 17 Three calico +nightgowns, one flowered, two red 7 One silk waistcoat, one +calico waistcoa. 14 One pair of bodices 4 Five pair white +cotton stockings 9 Three black love-hoods 5 One white +love-hood 2 6 Two pair sleeves with great lace 1 3 Four +cornet caps with lace 3 One black silk rain cloth cap 10 One +black plush mask 1 6 Four yellow lace drowlas 2 + +This is a most interesting list of garments. The sleeves with great +lace must from their price have been very rich articles of dress. The +yellow lace drowlas, since there were four of them (and no other +neckerchiefs, such as gorgets, piccadillies, or whisks are named), must +have been neckwear of some form. I suspect they are the lace drowls or +drolls to which I refer in a succeeding chapter on A Vain Puritan +Grandmother. The rain cloth cap of black silk is curious also, being +intended to wear over another cap or a love-hood. The cornet caps with +lace are a Dutch fashion. The “lace” was in the form of lappets or +pinners which flapped down at the side of the face over the ears and +almost over the cheeks. Evelyn speaks of a woman in “a cornet with the +upper pinner dangling about her cheeks like hound’s ears.” Cotgrave +tells in rather vague definition that a cornet is “a fashion of Shadow +or Boone Grace used in old time and to this day by old women.” It was +not like a bongrace, nor like the cap I always have termed a shadow, +but it had two points like broad horns or ears with lace or gauze +spread over both and hanging from these horns. Cornets and corneted +caps are often in Dutch inventories in early New York. And they can be +seen in old Dutch pictures. They were one of the few distinctly Dutch +modes that lingered in New Netherland; but by the third generation from +the settlement they had disappeared. + + +Mrs. Livingstone. Mrs. Livingstone. + +What the words “potto-foo” and “potoso-a-samare” mean I cannot +decipher. I have tried to find Dutch words allied in sound but in vain. +I believe the samare was a Dutch fashion. We rarely find samares worn +in Virginia and Maryland, but the name frequently occurs in the first +Dutch inventories in New Netherland and occasionally in the Connecticut +valley, where there were a few Dutch settlers; occasionally also in +Plymouth, whose first settlers had been for a number of years under +Dutch influences in Holland; and rarely in Salem and Boston, whose +planters also had felt Dutch influences through the settling in Essex +and Suffolk of opulent Flemish and Dutch “clothiers”—cloth-workers. +These Dutchmen had married Englishwomen, and their presence in English +homes was distinctly shown by the use then and to the present day of +Dutch words, Dutch articles of dress, furniture, and food. From these +Dutch-settled shires of Essex and Suffolk came John Winthrop and all +the so-called Bay Emigration. + +I am convinced that a samare was a certain garment which I have seen in +French, Dutch, and English portraits of the day. It is a tight-fitting +jacket or waist or bodice—call it what you will; its skirt or portion +below the belt-line is four to eight inches deep, cut up in tabs or +oblong flaps, four on each side. These slits are to the belt line. It +is, to explain further, a basque, tight-fitting or with the waist laid +in plaits, and with the basque skirt cut in eight tabs. These laps or +tabs set out rather stiffly and squarely over the full-gathered +petticoats of the day. + +I turn to a Dutch dictionary for a definition of the word “samare,” +though my Dutch dictionary being of the date 1735 is too recent a +publication to be of much value. In it a samare is defined simply as a +woman’s gown. Randle Holme says, rather vaguely, that it is a short +jacket for women’s wear with four side-laps, reaching to the knees. In +this rich wardrobe of the widow De Lange, twelve petticoats are +enumerated and no overdress-jacket or doublet of any kind except those +samares. Their price shows that they were not a small garment. One +“silk potoso-a-samare with lace” was worth £;3. One “tartanel samare +with tucker” was worth £;1 10s. One “black silk crape samare with +tucker” was worth £;1 10s., and three “flowered calico” samares were +worth £;2 10s. They were evidently of varying weights for summer and +winter wear, and were worn over the rich petticoat. + +The bill of the Salem tailor, William Sweatland (1679), shows that he +charged 9s. for making a scarlet petticoat with silver lace; for making +a black broadcloth gown 18s.; while “new-makeing a plush somar for +Mistress.” (which was making over) was 6s.; “making a somar for your +Maide” was 10s., which was the same price he charged for making a gown +for the maid. + +The colors in the Dutch gowns were uniformly gay. Madam Cornelia de Vos +in a green cloth petticoat, a red and blue “Haarlamer” waistcoat, a +pair of red and yellow sleeves, a white cornet cap, green stockings +with crimson clocks, and a purple “Pooyse” apron was a blooming +flower-bed of color. + + +Mrs. Magdalen Beekman. Mrs. Magdalen Beekman. + +I fear we have unconsciously formed our mental pictures of our Dutch +forefathers through the vivid descriptions of Washington Irving. We +certainly cannot improve upon his account of the Dutch housewife of New +Amsterdam:— + + +“Their hair, untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously +pomatumed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a +little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads. +Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey were striped with a variety of +gorgeous dyes, though I must confess those gallant garments were rather +short, scarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the +number, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen’s small-clothes; +and what is still more praise-worthy, they were all of their own +manufacture,—of which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were +not a little vain. + +“Those were the honest days, in which every woman stayed at home, read +the Bible, and wore pockets,—ay, and that, too, of a goodly size, +fashioned with patchwork into many curious devices, and ostentatiously +worn on the outside. These, in fact, were convenient receptacles where +all good housewives carefully stored away such things as they wished to +have at hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed. + +“Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors and +pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbons, or, among the +more opulent and showy classes, by brass and even silver chains, +indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I +cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats; it +doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a +chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted, with +magnificent red clocks; or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle and a +neat though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe, +with a large and splendid silver buckle. + +“There was a secret charm in those petticoats, which no doubt entered +into the consideration of the prudent gallants. The wardrobe of a lady +was in those days her only fortune; and she who had a good stock of +petticoats and stockings was as absolutely an heiress as is a +Kamtschatka damsel with a store of bear-skins, or a Lapland belle with +plenty of reindeer.” + + +A Boston lady, Madam Knights, visiting New York in 1704, wrote also +with clear pen:— + + +“The English go very fashionable in their dress. But the Dutch, +especially the middling sort, differ from our women, in their habitt go +loose, wear French muches which are like a Capp and headband in one, +leaving their ears bare, which are sett out with jewells of a large +size and many in number; and their fingers hoop’t with rings, some with +large stones in them of many Coullers, as were their pendants in their +ears, which you should see very old women wear as well as Young.” + + +The jewels of one settler of New Amsterdam were unusually rich (in +1650), and were enumerated thus:— + + £; s. d. One embroidered purse with silver bugle and chain to + the girdle and silver hook and eye 1 4 One pair black pendants, + gold nocks 10 One gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds &; one + white coral chain 16 One pair gold stucks or pendants each with + ten diamonds 25 Two diamond rings 24 One gold ring with clasp + beck 12 One gold ring or hoop bound round with + diamonds 2 10 + +These jewels were owned by the wife of an English-born citizen; but +some of the Dutch dames had handsome jewels, especially rich +chatelaines with their equipages and etuis with rich and useful +articles in variety. When we read of such articles, we find it +difficult to credit the words of an English clergyman who visited +Albany about the year 1700; namely, that he found the Dutch women of +best Albany families going about their homes in summer time and doing +their household work while barefooted. + +Many conditions existed in Maryland which were found nowhere else in +the colonies. These were chiefly topographical. The bay and its many +and accommodative tide-water estuaries gave the planters the means, not +only of easy, cheap, and speedy communication with each other, but with +the whole world. It was a freedom of intercourse not given to any other +_agricultural_ community in the whole world. It was said that every +planter had salt water within a rifle-shot of his front gate—therefore +the world was open to him. The tide is never strong enough on this +shore to hinder a sailboat nor is the current of the rivers +perceptible. The crop of the settlers was wholly tobacco—indeed, all +the processes of government, of society, of domestic life, began and +ended with tobacco. It was a wonderfully lucrative crop, but it was an +unhappy one for any colony; for the tobacco ships arrived in fleets +only in May and June, when the crops were ready for market. The ships +could come in anywhere by tide-water. Hence there were two or three +months of intense excitement, or jollity, lavishness, extravagance, +when these ships were in; a regular Bartholomew Fair of disorder, +coarse wit, and rough fun; and the rest of the year there was nothing; +no business, no money, no fun. Often the planter found himself after a +month of June gambling and fun with three years’ crops pledged in +advance to his creditors. The factor then played his part; took a +mortgage, perhaps, on both crops and plantation; and invariably ended +in owning everything. A striking but coarse picture of the traffic and +its evils is given in _The Sot-weed Factor_, a poem of the day. + + +Lady Anne Clifford. Lady Anne Clifford. + +Land and living were cheap in this tobacco land, but labor was needed +for the sudden crops; so negro slaves were bought, and warm invitations +were sent back to England for all and every kind of labor. Convicts +were welcomed, redemptioners were eagerly sought for; and the +scrupulous laws which were made for their protection were blazoned in +England. Many laborers were “crimped,” too, in England, and brought of +course, willy-nilly, to Maryland. Landlords were even granted lands in +proportion to their number of servants; a hundred acres per capita was +the allowance. It can readily be seen that an ambitious or unscrupulous +planter would gather in in some way as many heads as possible. + +Maryland under the Baltimores was the only colony that then admitted +convicts—that is, admitted them openly and legally. She even greeted +them warmly, eager for the labor of their hands, which was often +skilled labor; welcomed them for their wits, albeit these had often +been ill applied; welcomed them for their manners, often amply refined; +welcomed them for their possibilities of rehabilitation of morals and +behavior. + +The kidnapped servants did not fare badly. Many examples are known +where they worked on until they had acquired ample means; still the +literature of the day is full of complaints such as this in _The +Sot-weed Factor_:— + +“Not then a slave; for twice two years +My clothes were fashionably new. +Nor were my shifts of linen blue. +But Things are Changed. Now at the Hoe +I daily work; and Barefoot go. +In weeding Corn, or feeding Swine +I spend my melancholy time.” + + +Cheap ballads were sold in England warning English maidens against +kidnapping. + +In the collection of Old Black Letter Ballads in the British Museum is +one entitled _The Trappan’d Maiden or the Distressed Damsel_. Its date +is believed to be 1670. + +“The Girl was cunningly trappan’d +Sent to Virginny from England. +Where she doth Hardship undergo; +There is no cure, it must be so; +But if she lives to cross the Main +She vows she’ll ne’er go there again. + Give ear unto a Maid + That lately was betray’d + And sent unto Virginny O. + In brief I shall declare + What I have suffered there + When that I was weary, O. + The cloathes that I brought in + They are worn so thin + In the Land of Virginny O. + Which makes me for to say + Alas! and well-a-day + When that I was weary, O.” + + +The indentured servant, the redemptioner, or free-willer saw before +him, at the close of his seven years term, a home in a teeming land; he +would own fifty acres of that land with three barrels, an axe, a gun, +and a hoe—truly, the world was his. He would have also a suit of +kersey, strong hose, a shirt, French fall shoes, and a good hat,—a +Monmouth cap,—a suit worthy any man. Abigail had an equal start, a +petticoat and waistcoat of strong wool, a perpetuana or callimaneo, two +blue aprons, two linen caps, a pair of new shoes, two pairs of new +stockings and a smock, and three barrels of Indian corn. + +We find that many of these redemptioners became soldiers in the +colonial wars, often distinguished for bravery. This was through a law +passed by the British government that all who enlisted in military +service in the colonies were released by that act from further bondage. + + +Lady Herrman. Lady Herrman. + +In the year 1659, on an autumn day, two white men with an Indian guide +paddled swiftly over the waters of Chesapeake Bay on business of much +import. They had come from Manhattan, and bore despatches from Governor +Stuyvesant to the governor of Maryland, relating to the ever +troublesome query of those days, namely, the exact placing of boundary +lines. One of these men was Augustine Herrman, a man of parts, who had +been ambassador to Rhode Island, a ship-owner, and man of executive +ability, which was proven by his offer to Lord Baltimore to draw a map +of Maryland and the surrounding country in exchange for a tract of land +at the head of the bay. He was a land-surveyor, and drew an excellent +map; and he received the four thousand acres afterwards known as +Bohemia Manor. His portrait and that of his wife exist; they are +wretched daubs, as were many of the portraits of the day, but, +nevertheless, her dress is plainly revealed by it. You can see a copy +of it here. The overdress, pleated body, and upper sleeve are green. +The little lace collar is drawn up with a tiny ribbon just as we see +collars to-day. Her hair is simplicity itself. The full undersleeves +and heavy ear-rings give a little richness to the dress, which is not +English nor is it Dutch. + +It is easy to know the items of the dress of the early Virginian +settlers, where any court records exist. Many, of course, have perished +in the terrible devastations of two long wars; but wherever they have +escaped destruction all the records of church and town in the various +counties of Virginia have been carefully transcribed and certified, and +are open to consultation in the Virginia State Library at Richmond, +where many of the originals are also preserved. Many have also been +printed. Mr. Bruce, in his fine book, _The Economic History of Virginia +in the Seventeenth Century_, has given frequent extracts from these +certified records. From them and from the originals I gain much +knowledge of the dress of the planters at that time. It varied little +from dress in the New England colonies save that Virginians were richer +than New Englanders, and so had more costly apparel. Almost nothing was +manufactured in Virginia. The plainest and simplest articles of dress, +save those of homespun stuffs, were ordered from England, as well as +richer garments. We see even in George Washington’s day, until he was +prevented by war, that he sent frequent orders, wherein elaborately +detailed attire was ordered with the pettiest articles for household +and plantation use. + + +Elizabeth Cromwell. Elizabeth Cromwell. + +Mrs. Francis Pritchard of Lancaster, Virginia (in 1660), we find had a +representative wardrobe. She owned an olive-colored silk petticoat, +another of silk tabby, and one of flowered tabby, one of velvet, and +one of white striped dimity. Her printed calico gown was lined with +blue silk, thus proving how much calico was valued. Other bodices were +a striped dimity jacket and a black silk waistcoat. To wear with these +were a pair of scarlet sleeves and other sleeves of ruffled holland. +Five aprons, various neckwear of Flanders lace, and several rich +handkerchiefs completed a gay costume to which green silk stockings +gave an additional touch of color. Green was distinctly the favorite +color for hose among all the early settlers; and nearly all the +inventories in Virginia have that entry. + +Mrs. Sarah Willoughby of Lower Norfolk, Virginia, had at the same date +a like gay wardrobe, valued, however, at but £;14. Petticoats of +calico, striped linen, India silk, worsted prunella, and red, blue, and +black silk were accompanied with scarlet waistcoats with silver lace, a +white knit waistcoat, a “pair of red paragon bodices,” and another pair +of sky-colored satin bodices. She had also a striped stuff jacket, a +worsted prunella mantle, and a black silk gown. There were distinctions +in the shape of the outer garments—mantles, jackets, and gowns. Hoods, +aprons, and bands completed her comfortable attire. + +Though so much of the clothing of the Virginia planters was made in +England, there was certain work done by home tailors; such work as +repairs, alterations, making children’s common clothing, and the like, +also the clothing of upper servants. Often the tailor himself was a +bond-servant. Thus, Luke Mathews, a tailor from Hereford, England, was +bound to Thomas Landon for a term of two years from the day he landed. +He was to have sixpence a day while working for the Landon family, but +when working for other persons half of whatever he earned. In the +Lancaster County records is a tailor’s account (one Noah Rogers) from +the year 1690 to 1709; it was paid, of course, in tobacco. We may set +the tobacco as worth about twopence a pound. It will be thus seen from +the following items that prices in Virginia were higher than in New +England:— + +Pounds For making seven womens’ Jacketts 70 For making a Coat for +y’r Wife 60 For altering a Plush Britches 20 For Y’r Wife &; +Daughturs Jackett 30 For y’r Britches 20 Coat 40 Y’r Boys +Jacketts 20 Y’r Sons britches 25 Y’r Eldest Sons Ticking +Suite 60 To making I Dimity Waistcoat, Serge suite 2 Cotton +Waistcoats and y’r Dimity Coat 185 For a pr of buff Gloves 100 +For I Neck Cloth 12 A pr of Stockings 120 A pr Callimmaneo +britches 60 + +Another bill of the year 1643 reads:— + +Pounds To making a suit with buttons to it 80 1 ell canvas 30 for +dimothy linings 30 for buttons &; silke 50 for points 50 for +taffeta 58 for belly pieces 40 for hooks &; eies 10 for +ribbonin for pockets 20 for stiffinin for a collar 10 —- Sum 378 + +The extraordinary prices of one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco +for making a pair of stockings, and one hundred for a pair of gloves, +when making a coat was but forty, must remain a seventeenth-century +puzzle. This coat was probably a petticoat. It is curious, too, to find +a tailor making gloves and stockings at any price. I think both buff +gloves and stockings were of leather. Perhaps he charged thus broadly +because it was “not in his line.” Work in leather was always well paid. +We find tailors making leather breeches and leather drawers; the latter +could not be the garments thus named to-day. Tailors became prosperous +and well-to-do, perhaps because they worked in winter when other +Virginia tradesfolk were idle; and they acquired large tracts of land. + +The conditions of settlement of Virginia were somewhat different from +those of the planting of New England. We find the land of many +Massachusetts towns wholly taken up by a group of settlers who +emigrated together from the Old World and gathered into a town together +in the New. It was like the transferal of a neighborhood. It brought +about many happy results of mutual helpfulness and interdependence. +From it arose that system of domestic service in which the children of +friends rendered helpful duty in other households and were called help. +Nothing of the kind existed in Virginia. There was far less +neighborhood life. Plantations were isolated. Lines of demarcation in +domestic service were much more definite where black life slaves and +white bond-servants for a term of years performed all household +service. For the daughter of one Virginia household to “help” in the +work in another household was unknown. Each system had its benefits; +each had its drawbacks. Neither has wholly survived; but something +better has been evolved, in spite of our lamentations for the good old +times. + +Life is better ordered, but it is not so picturesque as when negro +servants swarmed in the kitchen, and German, Scotch, and Irish +redemptioners served in varied callings. There was vast variety of +attire to be found on the Virginia and Maryland plantations and in the +few towns of these colonies. The black slaves wore homespun cloths and +homespun stuff, crocus and Virginia cloth; and the women were happy if +they could crown their simple attire with gay turbans. Indians stalked +up to the plantation doors, halted in silence, and added their gay +dress of the wild woods. German sectaries and mystics fared on garbed +in their simple peasant dress. Irish sturdy beggars idled and fiddled +through existence, in dress of shabby gentility, with always a wig. +“Wild-Irish” came in brogues and Irish trousers. Sailors and pirates +came ashore gayly dressed in varied costume, with gay sashes full of +pistols and cutlasses, swaggering from wharf to plantation. Queer +details of dress had all these varied souls; some have lingered to +puzzle us. + +A year ago I had sent to me, by a descendant of an old Virginia family, +a photograph of a curious gold medal or disk, a family relic which was +evidently a token of some importance, since it bore tiny holes and had +marks of having been affixed as an insignia. Though I could decipher +the bold initials, cut in openwork, I could judge little by the +colorless photograph, and finally with due misgivings and great +precautions in careful packing, insurance, etc., the priceless family +relic was intrusted to an express company for transmission to my +inspection. Glad indeed was I that the owner had not presented it in +person; for the decoration of honor, the insignia of rank, the trophy +of prowess in war or emblem of conquest in love, was the pauper’s badge +of a Maryland or Virginia parish. It was not a pleasant task to write +back the mortifying news; but I am proud of the letter which I +composed; no one could have done the deed better. + +There was an old law in Virginia which ran thus:— + + +“Every person who shall receive relief from the parish and be sent to +the said alms-house, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of +his uppermost garment in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with +the name of the parish to which he or she belongs, cut in red, blue or +green cloth, as the vestry or church wardens shall direct. And if any +poor person shall neglect or refuse to wear such badge, such offense +may be punished either by ordering his or her allowance to be abridged, +suspended or withdrawn, or the offender to be whipped not exceeding +five lashes for one offense; and if any person not entitled to relief +as aforesaid, shall presume to wear such badge, he or she shall be +whipped for every such offense.” + + +This law did not mean the full name of the parish, but significant +initials. Sometimes the initials “P P” were employed, standing for +public pauper. In other counties a metal badge was ordered, often cast +in pewter. In one case a die-cutter was made by which an oblong brass +badge could be cut, and stamps of letters to stamp the badges +accompanied it. Sometimes these badges were three inches long. + +The expression, “the badge of poverty,” became a literal one when all +persons receiving parochial relief had to wear a large Roman “P” with +the initial of their parish set on the right sleeve of the uppermost +garment in an open and visible manner. Likewise all pensioners were +ordered to wear their badges “so they may be seen.” A pauper who +refused to do this might be whipped and imprisoned for twenty-one days. +Moreover, if the parish beadle neglected to spy out that the badge was +missing from some poor pensioner, he had to pay half a crown himself. +This legality was necessitated by actions like that of the English +goody, who, when ordered to wear this pauper’s badge, demurely fastened +it to her flannel petticoat. For this law, like all the early Virginia +statutes, was simply a transcript of English laws. In New York, for +some years in the eighteenth century, the parish poor—there were no +paupers—were ordered to wear these badges. + +This mode of stigmatizing offenders as well as paupers was in force in +the earlier days of all the colonies. Its existence in New England has +been immortalized in _The Scarlet Letter_. I have given in my book, +_Curious Punishments of By-gone Days_, many examples of the wearing of +significant letters by criminals in various New England towns, in +Plymouth, Salem, Taunton, Boston, Hartford, New London, also in New +York. It offered a singular and striking detail of costume to see +William Bacon in Boston, and Robert Coles in Roxbury, wearing “hanged +about their necks on their outerd garment a D made of Ridd cloth sett +on white.” A Boston woman wore a great “B,” not for Boston, but for +blasphemy. John Davis wore a “V” for viciousness. Others were forced to +wear for years a heavy cord around the neck, signifying that the +offender lived under the shadow of the gallows and its rope. + +But return we to the metal badge which has caused this diversion to so +gloomy a subject as crime and punishment. It was simply an oblong plate +about three and one-half inches long, of humble metal—pinchbeck, or +alchemy—but plated heavily with gold, therefore readily mistaken for +solid gold; upon it the telltale initials “P P” had been stamped with a +die, while smaller letters read “St. J. Psh.” These confirmed my +immediate suspicions, for I had seen an order of relief for a stricken +wanderer—an order for two weeks’ relief, where the wardens of “St. J. +Psh.” ordered the sheriff to send the pauper on—to make him “move +along” to some other parish. This gold badge was not unlike the metal +badges worn on the left arm by “Bedlam beggars,” the licensed beggars +of Bethlehem Hospital, the half-cured patients of that asylum for +lunatics. + +The owner of this badge with ancient letters had not idly accepted +them, or jumped at the conclusion that it was a decoration of honor for +his ancestor. He had searched its history long, and he had found in +Hall’s _Chronicles of the Pageants and Progress of the English Kings_ +ample reference to similar letters, but not as pauper’s badges. Indeed, +like many another well-read and intelligent person, he had never heard +of pauper’s badges. He read:— + + +“In this garden was the King and five with him apparyelled in garments +of purpull satyn, every edge garnished with frysed golde and every +garment full of posyes made of letters of fine gold, of bullion as +thick as might be. And six Ladyes wore rochettes rouled with crymosyn +velvet and set with lettres like Carettes. And after the Kyng and his +compaignions had daunsed, he appointed the Ladies, Gentlewomen, and +Ambassadours to take the lettres off their garments in token of +liberalyte. Which thing the common people perceiving, ranne to them and +stripped them. And at this banket a shypman of London caught certayn +lettres which he sould to a goldsmith for £;3. 14s. 8d.” + + +All this was pleasing to the vanity of our friend, who fancied his +letters as having taken part in a like pageant; perhaps as a gift of +the king himself. We must remember that he believed his badge of pure +gold. He did not know it was a base metal, plated. He proudly pictured +his forbears taking part in some kingly pageant. He scorned so modern +and commonplace a possibility as a society like Knights of the Golden +Horseshoe, which was formed of Virginian gentlefolk. + +It plainly was a relic of some romance, and in the strangely +picturesque events of the early years in this New World need not, +though a pauper’s badge, have been a badge of dishonor. What strange +event or happening, or scene had it overlooked? Why had it been covered +with its golden sheet? Was it in defiance or in satire, in remorse, or +in revenge, or in humble and grateful recognition of some strange and +protecting Providence? We shall never know. It was certainly not an +agreeable discovery, to think that your great-grandmother or +grandfather had probably been branded as a public pauper; but there +were strange exiles and strange paupers in those days, exiles through +political parties, through the disfavor of kings, through religious +conviction, and the pauper of the golden badge, the pauper of “St. J. +Psh.,” may have ended his days as vestryman of that very church. +Certain it was, that no ordinary pauper would have, or could have, thus +preserved it; and from similar reverses and glorifying equally base +objects came the subjects of half the crests of English heraldry. + + +Pocahontas. Pocahontas. + +The likeness of Pocahontas (here) is dated 1616. It is in the dress of +a well-to-do Englishwoman, a woman of importance and means. This +portrait has been a shock to many who idealized the Indian princess as +“that sweet American girl” as Thackeray called her. Especially is it +disagreeable in many of the common prints from it. One flippant young +friend, the wife of an army officer, who had been stationed in the far +West, said of it, in disgust, remembering her frontier residence, “With +a man’s hat on! just like every old Indian squaw!” This hat is +certainly displeasing, but it was not worn through Indian taste; it was +an English fashion, seen on women of wealth as well as of the plainer +sort. I have a score of prints and photographs of English portraits, +wherein this mannish hat is shown. In the original of this portrait of +Pocahontas, the heavy, sombre effect is much lightened by the gold +hatband. These rich hatbands were one of the articles of dress +prohibited as vain and extravagant by the Massachusetts magistrates. +They were costly luxuries. We find them named and valued in many +inventories in all the colonies, and John Pory, secretary of the +Virginia colony, wrote about that time to a friend in England a +sentence which has given, I think to all who read it, an exaggerated +notion of the dress of Virginians:— + + +“Our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sundays goes accoutred all in +ffreshe fflaminge silke, and a wife of one that had in England +professed the blacke arte not of a Scholler but of a Collier weares her +rough beaver hatt with a faire perle hatband, and a silken sute there +to correspond.” + + +Corroborative evidence of the richness and great cost of these hatbands +is found in a letter of Susan Moseley to Governor Yardley of Virginia, +telling of the exchange of a hatband and jewel for four young cows, one +older cow and four oxen, on account of her “great want of cattle.” She +writes on “this Last July 1650, at Elizabeth River in Virginia”:— + + +“I had rayther your wife should weare them then any gentle woman I yet +know in ye country; but good Sir have _no_ scruple concerninge their +rightnesse, for I went my selfe from Rotterdam to ye haugh (The Hague) +to inquire of ye gould smiths and found y’t they weare all Right, +therefore thats without question, and for ye hat band y’t alone coste +five hundred gilders as my husband knows verry well and will tell you +soe when he sees you; for ye Juell and ye ringe they weare made for me +at Rotterdam and I paid in good rex dollars sixty gilders for ye Juell +and fivety and two gilders for ye ringe, which comes to in English +monny eleaven poundes fower shillings. I have sent the sute and Ringe +by your servant, and I wish Mrs. Yeardley health and prosperity to +weare them in, and give you both thanks for your kind token. When my +husband comes home we will see to gett ye Cattell home, in ye meantime +I present my Love and service to your selfe &; wife, and commit you all +to God, and remaine, + + “Your friend and servant, + + “SUSAN MOSELEY.” + + +The purchasing value of five hundred guilders, the cost of the hatband, +would be equal to-day to nearly a thousand dollars. + +In the portrait of Pocahontas in the original, there is also much +liveliness of color, a rich scarlet with heavy braidings; these all +lessen somewhat the forbidding presence of the stiff hat. She carries a +fan of ostrich feathers, such as are depicted in portraits of Queen +Elizabeth. + +These feather fans had little looking-glasses of silvered glass or +polished steel set at the base of the feathers. Euphues says, “The +glasses you carry in fans of feathers show you to be lighter than +feathers; the new-found glass chains that you wear about your necks, +argue you to be more brittle than glass.” + +These fans were, in the queen’s hands, as large as hand fire-screens; +many were given to her as New Year’s gifts or other tokens, one by Sir +Francis Drake. This makes me believe that they were a fashion taken +from the North American Indians and eagerly adopted in England; where, +for two centuries, everything related to the red-men of the New World +was seized upon with avidity—except their costume. + +The hat worn by Pocahontas, or a lower crowned form of it, is seen in +the Hollar drawing of Puritan women (here), where it seems specially +ugly and ineffective, and on the Quaker Tub-preacher. It lingered for +many years, perched on top of French hoods, close caps, kerchiefs, and +other variety of head-gear worn by women of all ranks; never elegant, +never becoming. I can think of no reason for its long existence and +dominance save its costliness. It was not imitated, so it kept its +place as long as the supply of beaver was ample. This hat was also +durable. A good beaver hat was not for a year nor even for a +generation. It lasted easily half a century. But we all know that the +beaver disappeared suddenly from our forests; and as a sequence the +beaver hat was no longer available for common wear. It still held its +place as a splendid, feather-trimmed, rich article of dress, a hat for +dress wear, and it was then comely and becoming. Within a few years, +through national and state protection, the beaver, most interesting of +wild creatures, has increased and multiplied in North America until it +has become in certain localities a serious pest to lumbermen. We must +revive the fashion of real beaver hats—that will speedily exterminate +the race. + + +Duchess of Buckingham and her Two Children. Duchess of Buckingham and +her Two Children. + +It always has seemed strange to me that, in the prodigious interest +felt in England for the American Indian, an interest shown in the +thronging, gaping sight-seers that surrounded every taciturn red-man +who visited the Old World, no fashions of ornament or dress were copied +as gay, novel, or becoming. The Indian afforded startling detail to +interest the most jaded fashion-seeker. The _Works of Captain John +Smith_, Strachey’s _Historie of Travaile into Virginia_, the works of +Roger Williams, of John Josselyn, the letters of various missionaries, +give full accounts of their brilliant attire; and many of these works +were illustrated. The beautiful mantles of the Virginia squaws, made of +carefully dressed skins, were tastefully fringed and embroidered with +tiny white beads and minute disks of copper, like spangles, which, with +the buff of the dressed skin, made a charming color-study—copper and +buff—picked out with white. Sometimes small brilliant shells or +feathers were added to the fringes. An Indian princess, writes one +chronicler, wore a fair white deerskin with a frontal of white coral +and pendants of “great but imperfect-colored and worse-drilled +pearls”—our modern baroque pearls. A chain of linked copper encircled +her neck; and her maid brought to her a mantle called a “puttawas” of +glossy blue feathers sewed so thickly and evenly that it seemed like +heavy purple satin. + +A traveller wrote thus of an Indian squaw and brave:— + + +“His wife was very well favored, of medium stature and very bashful. +She had on her back a long cloak of leather, with the fur side next to +her body. About her forehead she had a band of white coral. In her ears +she had bracelets of pearls hanging down to her waist. The rest of her +women of the better sort had pendants of copper hanging in either ear, +and some of the children of the King’s brother and other noblemen, had +five or six in either ear. He himself had upon his head a broad plate +of gold or copper, for being unpolished we knew not which metal it +might be, neither would he by any means suffer us to take it off his +head. His apparel was like his wife’s, only the women wear their hair +long on both sides of the head, and the men on but one side. They are +of color yellowish, and their hair black for the most part, and yet we +saw children who had very fine auburn and chestnut colored hair.” + + +John Josselyn wrote of tawny beauties:— + + +“They are girt about the middle with a Zone wrought with Blue and White +Beads into Pretty Works. Of these Beads they have Bracelets for the +Neck and Arms, and Links to hang in their Ears, and a Fair Table +curiously made up with Beads Likewise to wear before their Breast. +Their Hair they combe backward, and tye it up short with a Border about +two Handsfull broad, wrought in works as the Other with their Beads.” + + +Powhatan’s “Habit” still exists. It is in England, in the Tradescant +Collection which formed the nucleus of the Ashmolean Collection. It was +probably presented by Captain John Smith himself. It is made of two +deerskins ornamented with “roanoke” shell-work, about seven feet long +by five feet wide. Roanoke is akin to wampum, but this is made of West +Indian shells. The figures are circles, a crude human figure and two +mythical composite animals. He also wore fine mantles of raccoon skins. +A conjurer’s dress was simply a girdle with a single deerskin, while a +great blackbird with outstretched wings was fastened to one ear—a +striking ornament. I am always delighted to read such proof as this of +a fact that I have ever known, namely, that the American Indian is the +most accomplished, the most telling _poseur_ the world has ever known. +The ear of the Indian man and woman was pierced along the entire outer +edge and filled with long drops, a fringe of coral, gold, and pearl. +The wives of Powhatan wore triple strings of great pearls close around +their throats, and a long string over one shoulder, while their mantles +were draped to show their full handsome neck and arms. Altogether, with +their carefully dressed hair, they would have made in full dress a fine +show in a modern opera-box, and, indeed, the Indian squaws did cause +vast exhibition of curiosity and delight when they visited London and +were taken sight-seeing and sight-seen. + +As early as 1629 an Indian chief with his wife and son came from Nova +Scotia to England. Lord Poulet paid them much attention in +Somersetshire, and Lady Poulet took Lady Squaw up to London and gave +her a necklace and a diamond, which I suppose she wore with her blue +and white beads. + +Be the story of the saving of John Smith by Pocahontas a myth or the +truth, it forever lives a beautiful and tender reality in the hearts of +American children. Pocahontas was not the only Indian squaw who played +a kindly part in the first colonization of this country. There were +many, though their deeds and names are forgotten; and there was one +Indian woman whose influence was much greater and more prolonged than +was that of Pocahontas, and was haloed with many years of exciting +adventure as well as romance. Let me recount a few details of her life, +that you may wonder with me that the only trace of Indian life marked +indelibly on England was found on the swinging signs of inns known by +the name of “The Bell Savage,” “La Belle Sauvage,” and even “The Savage +and Bell.” + +This second Indian squaw was a South Carolina neighbor of our beloved +Pocahontas; she had not, alas, the lovely disposition and noble +character of Powhatan’s daughter. She was systematically and +constitutionally mischievous, like a rogue elephant, so I call her a +rogue squaw. Her name was Coosaponakasee. The name is too long and too +hard to say with frequency, so we will do as did her English friends +and foes—call her Mary. Indeed, she was baptized Mary, for she was a +half-breed, and her white father had her reared like a Christian, had +her educated like an English girl as far as could be done in the little +primitive settlement of Ponpon, South Carolina. It will be shown that +the attempt was not over-successful. + +She was a princess, the niece of crafty old Brim, the king of two +powerful tribes of Georgia Indians, the Creeks and Uchees. In 1715, +when she was about fifteen years old, a fierce Indian war broke out in +the early spring, and at the defeat of the Indians she promptly left +her school and her church and went out into the wilds, a savage among +savages, preferring defeat and a wild summer in the woods with her own +people to decorous victory within doors with her fellow Christians. + + +A Woman’s Doublet. A Woman’s Doublet. Mrs. Anne Turner. + +The following year an Englishman, Colonel John Musgrove, accompanied by +his son, went out as a mediator to the Creek Indians to secure their +friendship, or at any rate their neutrality. The young squaw, Mary, +served as interpreter, and the younger English pacificator promptly +proved his amicable disposition by falling in love with her. He did +what was more unusual, he married her; and soon they set up a large +trading-house on the Savannah River, where they prospered beyond +belief. On the arrival of the shipload of emigrants sent out by the +Trustees of Georgia the English found Mary Musgrove and her husband +already carrying on a large trade, in securing and transacting which +she had served as interpreter. When Oglethorpe landed, he at once went +to her, and asked permission to settle near her trading-station. She +welcomed him, helped him, interpreted for him, and kept things in +general running smoothly in the settlement between the English and the +Indians. The two became close friends, and as long as generous but +confiding Oglethorpe remained, all went well in the settlement; but in +time he returned to England, giving her a handsome diamond ring in +token of his esteem. Her husband died soon after and she removed to a +new station called Mount Venture. Oglethorpe shortly wrote of her:— + + +“I find that there is the utmost endeavour by the Spaniards to destroy +her because she is of consequence and in the King’s interests; therefor +it is the business of the King’s friends to support her; besides which +I shall always be desirous to serve her out of the friendship she has +shown me as well as the colony.” + + +In a letter of John Wesley’s written to Lady Oglethorpe, and now +preserved in the Georgia Historical Society, he refers frequently to +Mary Musgrove, saying:— + + +“I had with me an interpreter the half-breed, Mary Musgrove, and daily +had meetings for instruction and prayer. One woman was baptized. She +was of them who came out of great tribulation, her husband and all her +three children having been drowned four days before in crossing the +Ogeechee River. Her happiness in the gospel caused me to feel that, +like Job, the widow’s heart had been caused to sing for joy. She was +married again the day following her baptism. I suggested longer days of +mourning. She replied that her first husband was surely dead; and that +his successor was of much substance, owning a cornfield and gun. I +doubt the interpreter Mary Musgrove, that she is yet in the valley and +shadow of darkness.” + + +One can picture the excitement of the Choctaw squaw to lose her husband +and children, and to get another husband and religion in a week’s time. +Her reply that her husband “was surely dead” bears a close resemblance +to the hackneyed story of the response to a charivari query of the +Dutch bridegroom who had been a widower but a week, “Ain’t my vife as +deadt as she ever vill be?” + +Her usefulness continued. If a “talk” were had with the Indians in +Savannah, Fredonia, or any other settlement, Mary had to be sent for; +if Indian warriors had to be hired, to keep an army against the Spanish +or marauding Indians, Mary obtained them from her own people. If land +were bought of the Indians, Mary made the trade. She soon married +Captain Matthews, who had been sent out with a small English troop to +protect her trading-post; he also speedily died, leaving her free, +after alliances with trade and war, to find a third husband in +ecclesiastical circles, in the person of one Chaplain Bosomworth, a +parson of much pomposity and ambition, and of liberal education without +a liberal brain. He had had a goodly grant of lands to prompt and +encourage him in his missionary endeavors; and he was under the +direction and protection of the Society for the Propagation of the +Gospel. His mission was to convert the Indians, and he began by +marrying one; he then proceeded to break the law by bringing in the +first load of negro slaves in that colony, a trade which was positively +prohibited by the conditions and laws of the colony. When his illegal +traffic was stopped, he got his wife to send in back claims to the +colony of Georgia for $25,000 as interpreter, mediator, agent, etc., +for the English. She had already been paid about a thousand dollars. +This demand being promptly refused, the hitherto pacific and friendly +Mary, edged on by that sorry specimen of a parson, her husband, began a +series of annoying and extraordinary capers. She declared herself +empress of Georgia, and after sending her half-brother, a full-blooded +Indian, as an advance-courier, she came with a body of Indians to +Savannah. The Rev. Thomas Bosomworth, decked in full canonical robes, +headed the Indians by the side of his empress wife, dressed in Indian +costume; and an imposing procession they made, with plenty of +theatrical color. At first the desperate colonists thought of seizing +Mary and shipping her off to England to Oglethorpe, but this notion was +abandoned. As the English soldiers were very few at that special time, +and the Indian warriors many, we can well believe that the colonists +were well scared, the more so that when the Indians were asked the +reason of their visit, “their answers were very trifling and very +dark.” So a feast was offered them, but Mary and her brother refused to +come and to eat; and the dinner was scarcely under way when more armed +Indians appeared from all quarters in the streets, running up and down +in an uproar, and the town was in great confusion. The alarm drums were +beaten, and it was reported that the Indians had cut off the head of +the president as they sat together at the feast. Every man in the +colony turned out in full arms for duty, the women and children +gathered in groups in their homes in unspeakable terror. Then the +president and his assistants who had been at the dinner, and who had +gone unarmed to show their friendly intent, did what they should have +done in the beginning, seized that disreputable specimen of an English +missionary, the Rev. Mr. Bosomworth, and put him in prison; and we +wonder they kept their hands off him as long as they did. Still trying +to settle the matter without bloodshed, the president asked the Indian +chiefs to adjourn to his house “to drink a glass of wine and talk the +matter over.” Into this conference came Mary, bereft of her husband, +raging like a madwoman, threatening the lives of the magistrates, +swearing she would annihilate the colony. “A fig for your general,” +screamed she, “you own not a foot of land in this colony. The whole +earth is mine.” Whereupon the Empress of Georgia, too, was placed under +military guard. + +Then a harassing week of apprehension ensued; the Indians were fed, and +parleyed with, and reasoned with, and explained to. At last Mary’s +brother Malatche, at a conference, presented as a final demand a paper +setting forth plainly the claims of the Indians. The sequel of this +presentation is almost comic. The paper was so evidently the production +of Bosomworth, and so wholly for his own personal benefit and not for +that of the Indians, and the astonishment of the president and his +council was so great at his vast and open assumption, that the Indians +were bewildered in turn by the strange and unexpected manner of the +white men upon reading the paper; and childishly begged to have the +paper back again “to give to him who made it.” A plain exposition of +Bosomworth’s greed and craft followed, and all seemed amicably +explained and settled, and the Creeks offered to smoke the pipe of +peace; when in came Mary, having escaped her guards, full of rum and of +rancor. The president said to her in a low voice that unless she ceased +brawling and quarrelling he would at once put her into close +confinement; she turned in a rage to her brother, and translated the +threat. He and every Indian in the room sprang to their feet, drew +tomahawks, and for a short time a complete massacre was imminent. Then +the captain of the guard, Captain Noble Jones, who had chafed under all +this explaining diplomacy, lost his much-tried patience, and like a +brave and fearless English soldier ordered the Indians to surrender +arms. Though far greater in number than the English, they yielded to +his intrepidity and wrath; and the following night and day they sneaked +out of the town, as ordered, by twos and threes. + +For one month this fright and commotion and expense had existed; and at +last wholly alone were left the two contemptible malcontents and +instigators of it all. Mr. and Mrs. Bosomworth thereafter ate very +humble pie; he begged sorely and cried tearfully to be forgiven; and he +wailed so deeply and promised so broadly that at last the two were +publicly pardoned. + +Yet, after all, they had their own way; for they soon went to London +and cut an infinitely fine figure there. Mary was the top of the mode, +and there Bosomworth managed to get for his wife lands and coin to the +amount of about a hundred thousand dollars. + +The prosperous twain returned to America in triumph, and built a +curious and large house on an island they had acquired; in it the +Empress did not long reign; at her death the Rev. Mr. Bosomworth +married his chambermaid. + +Such is the sorry tale of the Indian squaw and the English parson, a +tale the more despicable because, though she had been reared in English +ways, baptized in the English faith, had been the friend of English men +and women, and married three English husbands; yet when fifty years old +she returned at vicious suggestion with promptitude and fierceness to +violent savage ways, to incite a massacre of her friends. And that +suggestion came not from her barbarian kin, but from an English +gentleman—a Christian priest. + + +CHAPTER IV + +A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER + +_“Things farre-fetched and deare-bought are good for Ladies.”_ + +—“Arte of English Poesie,” G. PUTTENHAM, 1589. + + +_“I honour a Woman that can honour herself with her Attire. A good Text +deserves a Fair Margent.”_ + +—“The Simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER + + +T + + +here was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England, +and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefolk—and gentle folk; they were of +birth and breeding; and they were kindly, tender, affectionate to one +another. They were given to much letter-writing, and better still to +much letter-keeping. Knowing the quality of their letters, I cannot +wonder at either habit; for the prevalence of the letter-keeping was +due, I am sure, to the perfection of the writing. Their letters were +ever lively in diction, direct and lucid in description, and widely +varied in interest; therefore they were well worthy of preservation, +simply for the owner’s re-reading. They have proved so for all who have +brushed the dust from the packages and deciphered the faded words. +Moreover, these letters are among the few family letters of our two +centuries which convey, either to the original reader or to his +successor of to-day, anything that could, by most generous construction +or fullest imagination, be deemed equivalent to what we now term News. + +Of course their epistles contained many moral reflections and ample +religious allusions and aspirations; and they even transcribed to each +other, in full, long Biblical quotations with as much exactness and +length as if each deemed his correspondent a benighted heathen, with no +Bible to consult, instead of being an equally pious kinsman with a +Bible in every room of his house. + +Their name was Hall. The heads of the family in early colonial days +were the merchants John Hall and Hugh Hall; these surnames have +continued in the family till the present time, as has the cunning of +hand and wit of brain in letter-writing, even into the seventh and +eighth generation, as I can abundantly testify from my own private +correspondence. I have quoted freely in several of my books from old +family letters and business letter-books of the Hall family. Many of +these letters have been intrusted to me from the family archives; +others, especially the business letters, have found their way, through +devious paths, to our several historical societies; where they have +been lost in oblivion, hidden through churlishness, displayed in pride, +or offered in helpfulness, as suited the various humors of their +custodians. To the safe, wise, and generous guardianship of the +American Antiquarian Society fell a collection of letters of the years +1663 to 1684, written from London by the merchant John Hall to his +mother, Madam Rebekah Symonds, who, after a fourth matrimonial +venture,—successful, as were all her marriages,—was living, in what +must have seemed painful seclusion to any Londoner, in the struggling +little New England hamlet of Ipswich, Massachusetts. + +I wish to note as a light-giving fact in regard to these letters that +the Halls were as happy in marrying as in letter-writing, and as +assiduous. They married early; they married late. And by each marriage +increased wonderfully either the number of descendants, or of +influential family connections, who were often also business +associates. + +Madam Symonds had four excellent husbands, more than her share of good +fortune. She married Henry Byley in 1636; John Hall in 1641; William +Worcester in 1650; and Deputy Governor Symonds in 1663. She was, +therefore, in 1664, scarcely more than a bride (if one may be so termed +for the fourth time), when many costly garments were sent to her by her +devoted and loving son, John Hall; she was then about forty-eight years +of age. Her husband, Governor Symonds, was a gentle and noble old +Puritan gentleman, a New Englishman of the best type; a Christian of +missionary spirit who wrote that he “could go singing to his grave” if +he felt sure that the poor benighted Indians were won to Christ. His +stepson, John Hall, never failed in respectful and affectionate +messages to him and sedately appropriate gifts, such as “men’s knives.” +Governor Symonds had two sons and six married daughters by two—or +three—previous marriages. He died in Boston in 1678. + +A triangle of mutual helpfulness and prosperity was formed by England, +New England, and the Barbadoes in this widespread relationship of the +Hall family in matrimony, business, kin, and friendly allies. England +sent to the Barbadoes English trading-stuffs and judiciously cheap and +attractive trinkets. The islands sent to New England sugar and +molasses, and also the young children born in the islands, to be +educated in Boston schools ere they went to English universities, or +were presented in the English court and London society. There was one +school in Boston established expressly for the children of the +Barbadoes planters. You may read in a later chapter upon the dress of +old-time children of some naughty grandchildren of John Hall who were +sent to this Boston school and to the care of another oft-married +grandmother. In this triangle, New England returned to the Barbadoes +non-perishable and most lucrative rum and salt codfish—codfish for the +many fast-days of the Roman Catholic Church; New England rum to +exchange with profit for slaves, coffee, and sugar. The Barbadoes and +New England sent good, solid Spanish coin to England, both for +investment and domestic purchases; and England sent to New England what +is of value to us in this book—the latest fashions. + + +A Puritan Dame. A Puritan Dame. + +When I ponder on the conditions of life in Ipswich at the time these +letters were written—the few good houses, the small amount of tilled +land, the entire lack of all the elegancies of social life; when I +think upon the proximity and ferocity of the Indian tribes and the ever +present terror of their invasion; when I picture the gloom, the dread, +the oppression of the vast, close-lying, primeval forest,—then the rich +articles of dress and elaborate explanation of the modes despatched by +John Hall to his mother would seem more than incongruous, they would be +ridiculous, did I not know what a factor dress was in public life in +that day. + +Poor Madam Symonds dreaded deeply lest The Plague be sent to her in her +fine garments from London; and her dutiful son wrote her to have no +fear, that he bought her finery himself, in safe shops, from reliable +dealers, and kept all for a month in his own home where none had been +infected. But she must have had fear of disaster and death more +intimately menacing to her home than was The Plague. + +She had seen the career of genial Master Rowlandson, a neighbor’s son, +full of naughtiness, fun, and life. While an undergraduate at Harvard +College he had written in doggerel what was termed pompously a +“scandalous libell,” and he had pinned it on the door of Ipswich +Meeting-house, along with the tax-collector’s and road-mender’s notices +and the announcement of intending marriages, and the grinning wolves’ +heads brought for reward. For this prank he had been soundly whipped by +the college president on the College Green; but it did not prevent his +graduating with honor at the head of his class. He was valedictorian, +class-orator, class-poet—in fact, I may say that he had full honors. (I +have to add also that in his case honors were easy; for his class, of +the year 1652, had but one graduate, himself.) The gay, mischievous boy +had become a faithful, zealous, noble preacher to the Puritan church in +the neighboring town of Lancaster; and in one cruel night, in 1676, his +home was destroyed, the whole town made desolate, his parishioners +slaughtered, and his wife, Esther Rowlandson, carried off by the savage +red-men, from whom she was bravely rescued by my far-off grandfather, +John Hoar. Read the thrilling story of her “captivation” and rescue, +and then think of Madam Symonds’s finery in her gilt trunk in the +near-by town. For four years the valley of the Nashua—blood-stained, +fire-blackened—lay desolate and unsettled before Madam Symonds’s eyes; +then settlers slowly crept in. But for fifty years Ipswich was not +deemed a safe home nor free from dread of cruel Indians; “Lovewell’s +War” dragged on in 1726. But mantuas and masks, whisks and drolls, were +just as eagerly sought by the governor’s wife as if Esther Rowlandson’s +capture had been a dream. + +There was a soured, abusive, intolerant old fellow in New England in +the year 1700, a “vituperative epithetizer,” ready to throw mud on +everything around him (though not working—to my knowledge—in cleaning +out any mud-holes). He was not abusive because he was a Puritan, but +because “it was his nature to.” He styled himself a “Simple Cobbler,” +and he announced himself “willing to Mend his Native Country, +lamentably tattered both in the upper Leather and in the Sole, with all +the Honest Stitches he can take,” but he took out his aid in loud +hammering of his lapstone and noisy protesting against all other +footwear than his own. I fancy he thought himself another Stubbes. I +know of no whole soles he set, nor any holes he mended, and his +“Simple” ideas are so involved in expression, in such twisted +sentences, and with such “strange Ink-pot termes” and so many Latin +quotations and derivatives, that I doubt if many sensible folk knew +what he meant, even in his own day. His words have none of the +directness, the force, the interest that have the writings of old +Stubbes. Such words as nugiperous, perquisquilian, ill-shapen-shotten, +nudistertian, futulous, overturcased, quaematry, surquedryes, +prodromie, would seem to apply ill to woman’s attire; they really fall +wide of the mark if intended as weapons, but it was to such vain dames +as the governor’s wife that the Simple Cobbler applied them. Some of +the ministers of the colony, terrified by the Indian outbreaks, +gloomily held the vanity and extravagance of dames and goodwives as +responsible for them all. Others, with broader minds, could discern +that both the open and the subtle influence of good clothes was needed +in the new community. They gave an air of cheerfulness, of substance, +of stability, which is of importance in any new venture. For the +governor’s wife to dress richly and in the best London modes added +lustre to the governor’s office. And when the excitement had quieted +and the sullen Indian sachem and his tawny braves stalked through the +little town in their gay, barbaric trappings, they were sensible that +Madam Symonds’s embroidered satin manteau was rich and costly, even if +they did not know what we know, that it was the top of the mode. + +Governor Symonds’s home in Ipswich was on the ground where the old +seminary building now stands; but the happy married pair spent much of +the time at his farm-house on Argilla Farm, on Heart-Break Hill, by +Labor-in-vain Creek, which was also in Ipswich County. This lonely +farm, so sad in name, was the only dwelling-place in that region; it +was so remote that when Indian assault was daily feared, the general +court voted to station there a guard of soldiers at public expense +because the governor was “so much in the country’s service.” He says +distinctly, however, concerning the bargain in the purchase of Argilla +Farm, that his wife was well content with it. + + +Penelope Winslow. Penelope Winslow. + +There were also intimate personal considerations which would apparently +render so luxurious a wardrobe unnecessary and unsuitable. The age and +health of the wearer might generally be held to be sufficient reason +for indifference to such costly, delicate, and gay finery. When Madam +Symonds was fifty-eight years old, in 1674, her son wrote, “Oh, Good +Mother, grieved am I to learn that Craziness creeps upon you, yet am I +glad that you have Faith to look beyond this Life.” Craziness had +originally no meaning of infirmity of mind; it meant feebleness, +weakness of body. Her letters evidently informed him of failing health, +but even that did not hinder the export of London finery. + +Governor Symonds’s estate at his death was under £;3000, and Argilla +Farm was valued only at £;150; yet Madam had a “Manto” which is marked +distinctly in her son’s own handwriting as costing £;30. She had money +of her own, and estates in England, of which John Hall kept an account, +and with the income of which he made these purchases. This manteau was +of flowered satin, and had silver clasps and a rich pair of embroidered +satin sleeves to wear with it; it was evidently like a sleeveless cape. +We must always remember that seventeenth-century accounts must be +multiplied by five to give twentieth-century values. Even this +valuation is inadequate. Therefore the £;30 paid for the manteau would +to-day be £;150; $800 would nearly represent the original value. As it +was sent in early autumn it was evidently a winter garment, and it must +have been furred with sable to be so costly. + +In the early inventories of all the colonies “a pair of sleeves” is a +frequent item, and to my delight—when so seldom color is given—I have +more than once a pair of green sleeves. + +“Thy gown was of the grassy green + Thy sleeves of satin hanging by, + Which made thee be our harvest queen + And yet thou wouldst not love me. + Green sleeves was all my joy, + Green sleeves was my delight, + Green sleeves was my Heart of Gold, + And who but Lady Green-sleeves!” + + +Let me recount some of “My Good Son’s labors of love and pride in +London shops” for his vain old mother. She had written in the year 1675 +for lawn whisks, but he is quick to respond that she has made a very +countrified mistake. + + +“Lawn whisks is not now worn either by Gentil or simple, young or old. +Instead whereof I have bought a shape and ruffles, what is now the ware +of the bravest as well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked +neckes, wear a black whisk over it. Therefore I have not only bought a +plain one you sent for, but also a Lustre one, such as are most in +fashion.” + + +John Hall’s “lustre for whisks” was of course lustring, or lutestring, +a soft half-lustred pure silk fabric which was worn constantly for two +centuries. He sent his mother many yards of it for her wear. + +We have ample proof that these black whisks were in general wear in +England. In an account-book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall in 1673, +are these items: “a black alamode whiske for Sister Rachel; a round +whiske for Susanna; a little black whiske for myself.” This English +Quaker sends also a colored stuff manteo to her sister; scores of +English inventories of women’s wardrobes contain precisely similar +items to those bought by Son Hall. And it is a tribute to the devotion +of American women to the rigid laws of fashion, even in that early day, +to find that all whisks, save black whisks and lustring ones, disappear +at this date from colonial inventories of effects. + +She wrote to him for a “side of plum colored leather” for her shoes. +This was a matter of much concern to him, not at all because this +leather was a bit gay or extravagant, or frail wear for an elderly +grandmother, but because it was not the very latest thing in leather. +He writes anxiously:— + + +“Secondly you sent for Damson-Coloured Spanish Leather for Womans +Shoes. But there is noe Spanish Leather of that Colour; and Turkey +Leather is coloured on the grain side only, both of which are out of +use for Women’s Shoes. Therefore I bought a Skin of Leather that is all +the mode for Women’s Shoes. All that I fear is, that it is too thick. +But my Coz. Eppes told me yt such thin ones as are here generally used, +would by rain and snow in N. England presently be rendered of noe +service and therefore persuaded me to send this, which is stronger than +ordinary. And if the Shoemaker fit it well, may not be uneasy.” + + +Perhaps his anxious offices and advices in regard to fans show more +curiously than other quotations, the insistent attitude of the New +England mind in regard to the latest fashions. I cannot to-day conceive +why any woman, young or old, could have been at all concerned in +Ipswich in 1675 as to which sort of fan she carried, or what was +carried in London, yet good Son John writes:— + + +“As to the feathered fan, I should also have found it in my heart to +let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very +few) use it. That now ’tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets and more +rare to be seen than a yellow Hood. But the Thing being Civil and not +very dear, Remembering that in the years 64 and 68, if I mistake not, +you had Two Fans sent, I have bought one now on purpose for you, and I +hope you will be pleased.” + + +Evidently the screen-fan of Pocahontas’s day was no longer a novelty. +His mother had had far more fans that he remembered. In 1664 two +“Tortis shell fanns” had gone across seas; one had cost five shillings, +the other ten shillings. The following year came a black feather fan +with silver handle, and two tortoise-shell fans; in 1666 two more +tortoise-shell fans; in 1688 another feather fan, and so on. These many +fans may have been disposed of as gifts to others, but the entire trend +of the son’s letters, as well as his express directions, would show +that all these articles were for his mother’s personal use. When finery +was sent for madam’s daughter, it was so specified; in 1675, when the +daughter became a bride, Brother John sent her her wedding gloves, ever +a gift of sentiment. A pair of wedding gloves of that date lies now +before me. They are mitts rather than gloves, being fingerless. They +are of white kid, and are twenty-two inches long. They are very wide at +the top, and have three drawing-strings with gilt tassels; these are +run in welts about two inches apart, and were evidently drawn into +puffs above the elbow when worn. A full edging of white Swiss lace and +a pretty design of dots made in gold thread on the back of the hand, +form altogether a very costly, elegant, and decorative article of +dress. I should fancy they cost several pounds. Men’s gloves were +equally rich. Here are the gold-fringed gloves of Governor Leverett +worn in 1640. + + +Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett. Gold-fringed Gloves of +Governor Leverett. + +Of course the only head-gear of Madam Symonds for outdoor wear was a +hood. Hats were falling in disfavor. I shall tell in a special chapter +of the dominance at this date and the importance of the French hood. +Its heavy black folds are shown in the portraits of Rebecca Rawson +(here), of Madam Simeon Stoddard (here), and on other heads in this +book. Such a hood probably covered Madam Symonds’s head heavily and +fully, whene’er she walked abroad; certainly it did when she rode a +pillion-back. She had other fashionable hoods—all the fashionable +hoods, in fact, that were worn in England at that time; hoods of +lustring, of tiffany, of “bird’s-eye”—precisely the same as had Madam +Pepys, and one of spotted gauze, the last a pretty vanity for summer +wear. We may remember, in fact, that Madam Symonds was a +contemporary—across-seas—of Madam Pepys, and wore the same garments; +only she apparently had richer and more varied garments than did that +beautiful young woman whose husband was in the immediate employ of the +king. + +Arthur Abbott was the agent in Boston through whom this London finery +and flummery was delivered to Madam Symonds in safety; and it is an +amusing side-light upon social life in the colony to know that in 1675 +Abbott’s wife was “presented before the court” for wearing a silk hood +above her station, and her husband paid the fine. Knowing womankind, +and knowing the skill and cunning in needlework of women of that day, I +cannot resist building up a little imaginative story around this +“presentment” and fine. I believe that the pretty young woman could not +put aside the fascination of all the beautiful London hoods consigned +to her husband for the old lady at Ipswich; I suspect she tried all the +finery on, and that she copied one hood for herself so successfully and +with such telling effect that its air of high fashion at once caught +the eye and met with the reproof of the severe Boston magistrates. She +was the last woman, I believe, to be fined under the colonial sumptuary +laws of Massachusetts. + +The colors of Madam Symonds’s garments were seldom given, but I doubt +that they were “sad-coloured” or “grave of colour” as we find Governor +Winthrop’s orders for his wife. One lustring hood was brown; and +frequently green ribbons were sent; also many yards of scarlet and pink +gauze, which seem the very essence of juvenility. Her son writes a list +of gifts to her and the members of her family from his own people:— + + +“A light violet-colored Petti-Coat is my wife’s token to you. The +Petti-Coat was bought for my wife’s mother and scarcely worn. This my +wife humbly presents to you, requesting your acceptance of it, for your +own wearing, as being Grave and suitable for a Person of Quality.” + + +Even a half-worn petticoat was a considerable gift; for petticoats were +both costly and of infinite needlework. Even the wealthiest folk +esteemed a gift of partly worn clothing, when materials were so rich. +Letters of deep gratitude were sent in thanks. + +The variety of stuffs used in them was great. Some of these are wholly +obsolete; even the meaning of their names is lost. In an inventory of +1644, of a citizen of Plymouth there was, for instance, “a petticoate +of phillip &; cheny” worth £;1. Much of the value of these petticoats +was in the handwork bestowed upon them; they were both embroidered and +elaborately quilted. About 1730, in the Van Cortlandt family, a woman +was paid at one time £;2 5s. for quilting, a large amount for that day. +Often we find items of fifteen or twenty shillings for quilting a +petticoat. + + +Embroidered Petticoat Band. Embroidered Petticoat Band. + +The handsomest petticoats were of quilted silk or satin. No pattern was +so elaborate, no amount of work so large, that it could dismay the +heart or tire the fingers of an eighteenth-century needlewoman. One +yellow satin petticoat has a lining of stout linen. These are quilted +together in an exquisite irregular design of interlacing ribbons, +slender vines, and long, narrow leaves, all stuffed with white cord. +Though the general effect of this pattern is very regular, an +examination shows it is not a set design, but must have been drawn as +well as worked by the maker. Another petticoat has a curious design +made with two shades of blue silk cord sewed on in a pattern. Another +of infinite work has a design outlined in tiny rolls of satin. + +These petticoats had many flat trimmings; laces of silver, gold, or +silk thread were used, galloons and orrice. Tufts of fringed silk were +dotted in clusters and made into fly-fringe. Bridget Neal, writing in +1685 to her sister, says:— + + +“I am told las is yused on petit-coats. Three fringes is much yused, +but they are not set on the petcot strait, but in waves; it does not +look well, unless all the fringes yused that fashion is the plane +twisted fring not very deep. I hear some has nine fringes sett in this +fashion.” + + +Anxiety to please his honored mother, and desire that she should be +dressed in the top of the mode, show in every letter of John Hall:— + + +“I bought your muffs of my Coz. Jno. Rolfe who tells me they are worth +more money than I gave for them. You desired yours Modish yet Long; but +here with us they are now much shorter. These were made a Purpose for +you. As to yr Silk Flowered Manto, I hope it may please you; Tis not +the Mode to lyne you now at all; but if you like to have it soe, any +silke will serve, and may be done at yr pleasure.” + + +In 1663 Pepys notes (with his customary delight at a new fashion, +mingled with fear that thereby he might be led into more expense) that +ladies at the play put on “vizards which hid the whole face, and had +become a great fashion; and _so_ to the Exchange to buy a Vizard for my +wife.” Soon he added a French mask, which led to some unpleasant +encounters for Mrs. Pepys with dissolute courtiers on the street. The +plays in London were then so bold and so bad that we cannot wonder at +the masks of the play-goers. The masks concealed constant blushes; but +wearers and hearers did not stay away, for neither eyes nor ears were +covered by the mask. Busino tells of a woman at the theatre all in +yellow and scarlet, with two masks and three pairs of gloves, worn one +pair over the other. Suddenly out came disappointing Queen Anne with +her royal command that the plays be refined and reformed, and then +masks were abandoned. + + +Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat. Blue Brocade Gown and +Quilted Satin Petticoat. + +Masks were in those years in constant wear in the French court and +society, as a protection to the complexion when walking or riding. +Sometimes plain glass was fitted in the eye-holes. French masks had +wires which fastened behind the ears, or a mouthpiece of silver; or +they had an ingenious and simple stay in the form of two strings at the +corners of the mouth-opening of the mask. These strings ended in a +silver button or glass bead. With a bead held firmly in either corner +of her mouth, the mask-wearer could talk. These vizards are seen in old +English wood-cuts, often hanging by the side, fastened to the belt with +a small cord or chain. They brought forth the bitter denunciations of +the old Puritan Stubbes. He writes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_:— + + +“When they vse to ride abroad, they haue visors made of ueluet (or in +my iudgment they may rather be called inuisories) wherewith they couer +all their faces, hauing holes made in them agaynst their eies, whereout +they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, shoulde +chaunce to meete one of theme, he would thinke he mette a monster or a +deuill; for face he can see none, but two broad holes against their +eyes with glasses in them.” + + +Masks were certainly worn to a considerable extent in America. As early +as 1645, masks were forbidden in Plymouth, Massachusetts, “for improper +purposes.” When you think of the Plymouth of that year, its few houses +and inhabitants, its desperate struggle to hold its place at all as a +community, the narrow means of its citizens, the comparatively scant +wardrobes of the wives and daughters, this restriction as to +mask-wearing seems a grim jest. They were for sale in Salem and Boston, +black velvet masks worth two shillings each; but these towns were more +flourishing than Plymouth. And New York dames had them, and the +planters’ wives of Virginia and South Carolina. + +I suppose Madam Symonds wore her mask when she mounted on a pillion +behind some strong young lad, and rode out to Argilla Farm. + +A few years later than the dates when Madam Symonds was ordering these +fashionable articles of dress from England a rhyming catalogue of a +lady’s toilet was written by John Evelyn and entitled, _Mundus +Muliebris or a Voyage to Mary-Land_; it might be a list of Madam +Symonds’s wardrobe. Some of the lines run:— + +“One gown of rich black silk, which odd is +Without one coloured embroidered boddice. +Three manteaux, nor can Madam less +Provision have for due undress. +Of under-boddice three neat pair +Embroidered, and of shoes as fair; +Short under petticoats, pure fine, +Some of Japan stuff, some of Chine, +With knee-high galoon bottomed; +Another quilted white and red, +With a broad Flanders lace below. +Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff; +Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough. +A manteau girdle, ruby buckle, +And brilliant diamond ring for knuckle. +Fans painted and perfumed three; +Three muffs of ermine, sable, grey.” + + +Other articles of personal and household comfort were gathered in +London shops by her dutiful son and sent to Madam Symonds. The list is +full of interest, and helps to fill out the picture of daily life. He +despatched to her cloves, nutmegs, spices, eringo roots, “coronation” +and stock-gilly-flower seed, “colly flower seed,” hearth brushes (these +came every year), silver whistles and several pomanders and +pomander-beads, bouquet-glasses (which could hardly have been the bosom +bottles which were worn later), necklaces, amber beads, many and varied +pins, needles, silk lacings, kid gloves, silver ink-boxes, sealing-wax, +gilt trunks, fancy boxes, painted desks, tape, ferret, bobbin, bone +lace, calico, gimp, many yards of ducape, lustring, persian, and other +silk stuffs—all these items of transport show the son’s devoted +selection of the articles his mother wished. Gowns seem never to have +been sent, but manteaus, mantles, and “ferrandine” cloaks appear +frequently. Of course there are some articles which cannot be +positively described to-day, such as the “shape, with ruffles” and +“double pleated drolls” and “lace drolls” which appear several times on +the lists. These “drolls” were, I believe, the “drowlas” of Madame de +Lange, in New Amsterdam. “Men’s knives” occasionally were sent, and +“women’s knives” many times. These latter had hafts of ivory, agate, +and “Ellotheropian.” This Ellotheropian or Alleteropeain or +Illyteropian stone has been ever a great puzzle to me until in another +letter I chanced to find the spelling Hellotyropian; then I knew the +real word was the Heliotropium of the ancients, our blood-stone. It was +a favorite stone of the day not only for those fancy-handled knives, +but for seals, finger-rings and other forms of ornament. + +A few books were on the list,—a Greek Lexicon ordered as a gift for a +student; a very costly Bible, bound in velvet, with silver clasps, the +expense of which was carefully detailed down to the Indian silk for the +inner-end leaves; “_Dod on Commandments_—my Ant Jane said you had a +fancie for it, and I have bound it in green plush for you.” Fancy any +one having a fancy for Dod on anything! and fancy Dod in green plush +covers! + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS + + +_This day the King began to put on his vest; and I did see several +persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers who are +in it, being a long cassock close to the body, of long cloth, pinked +with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with +white ribbon like a pigeon’s leg; and upon the whole I wish the King +may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment._ + +—“Diary,” SAMUEL PEPYS, October 8, 1666. + + +_Fashion then was counted a disease and horses died of it._ + +—“The Gulls Hornbook,” ANDREW DEKKER, 1609. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS + + +B + + +oth word and garment—coat—are of curious interest, one as a +philological study, the other as an evolution. A singular transfer of +meaning from cot or cote, a house and shelter, to the word coat, used +for a garment, is duplicated in some degree in chasuble, casule, and +cassock; the words body, and bodice; and corse or corpse, and corselet +and corset. The word coat, meaning a garment for men for covering the +upper part of the body, has been in use for centuries; but of very +changeable and confusing usage, for it also constantly meant petticoat. +The garment itself was a puzzle, for many years; most bewildering of +all the attire which was worn by the first colonists was the elusive, +coatlike over-garment called in shipping-lists, tailors’ orders, +household inventories, and other legal and domestic records a doublet, +a jerkin, a jacket, a cassock, a paltock, a coat, a horseman’s coat, an +upper-coat, and a buff-coat. All these garments resembled each other; +all closed with a single row of buttons or points or hooks and eyes. +There was not a double-breasted coat in the _Mayflower_, nor on any man +in any of the colonies for many years; they hadn’t been invented. Let +me attempt to define these several coatlike garments. + + +A Plain Jerkin. A Plain Jerkin. + +In 1697 a jerkin was described by Randle Holme as “a kind of jacket or +upper doublet, with four skirts or laps.” These laps were made by slits +up from the hem to the belt-line, and varied in number, but four on +each side was a usual number, or there might be a slit up the back, and +one on each hip, which would afford four laps in all. Mr. Knight, in +his notes on Shakespere’s use of the word, conjectures that the jerkin +was generally worn over the doublet; but one guess is as good as +another, and I guess it was not. I agree, however, with his surmise +that the two garments were constantly confounded; in truth it is not a +surmise, it is a fact. Shakespere expressed the situation when he said +in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, “My jerkin is a doublet;” and I fancy +there was slight difference in the garments, save that in the beginning +the doublet was always of two thicknesses, as its name indicates; and +it was wadded. + +As the jerkin was often minutely slashed, it could scarcely have been +wadded; though it may have had a lining for special display through the +slashes. + +A jerkin had no skirts in our modern sense of the word,—a piece set on +at the waist-line,—nor could it on that account be what we term a coat, +nor was it a coat, nor was it what the colonists deemed a coat. + +The old Dutch word is _jurkken_, and it was often thus spelt, which has +led some to deem it a Dutch name and article of dress. But then it was +also spelt _irkin, ircken, jorken, jorgen, erkyn_, and _ergoin_—which +are not Dutch nor any other tongue. Indeed, under the name _ergoin_ I +wonder that we recognize it or that it knew itself. A jerkin was often +of leather like a buff-coat, but not always so. + +Sir Richard Saltonstall wears a buff-coat, with handsome sword-belt, or +trooping-belt, and rich gloves. His portrait is shown here. As we look +at his fine countenance we think of Hawthorne’s words:— + + +“What dignitary is this crossing to greet the Governor. A stately +personage in velvet cloak—with ample beard and a gold band across his +breast. He has the authoritative port of one who has filled the highest +civic position in the first of cities. Of all men in the world, we +should least expect to meet the Lord Mayor of London—as Sir Richard +Saltonstall has been once and again—in a forest-bordered settlement in +the western wilderness.” + + +A fine buff-coat and a buff-coat sleeve are given in the chapter upon +Armor. + +All the early colonial inventories of wearing-apparel contain doublets. +Richard Sawyer died in 1648 in Windsor, Connecticut; he was a plain +average “Goodman Citizen.” A part of his apparel was thus inventoried:— + +£; s. d. 1 musck-colour’d cloth doublitt &; breeches 1 1 +bucks leather doublitt 12 1 calves leather doublitt 6 1 +liver-colour’d doublitt &; jacket &; breeches 7 1 haire-colour’d +doublitt &; jackett &; breeches 5 1 paire canvas +drawers 1 6 1 olde coate. 1 paire old gray breeches 5 +1 stuffe jackett 2 6 + +William Kempe of “Duxborrow,” a settler of importance, died in 1641. +His wardrobe was more varied, and ample and rich. He left two +buff-coats and leather doublets with silver buttons; cloth doublets, +three horsemen’s coats, “frize jerkines,” three cassocks, two cloaks. + +Of course we turn to Stubbes to see what he can say for or against +doublets. His outcry here is against their size; and those who know the +“great pease-cod-bellied doublets” of Elizabeth’s day will agree with +him that they look as if a man were wholly gone to “gourmandice and +gluttonie.” + + +A Doublet. A Doublet. + +Stubbes has a very good list of coats and jerkins in which he gives +incidentally an excellent description by which we may know a +mandillion:— + + +“Their coates and jerkins as they be diuers in colours so be they +diuers in fashions; for some be made with collars, some without, some +close to the body, some loose, which they call mandilians, couering the +whole body down to the thigh, like bags or sacks, that were drawne ouer +them, hiding the dimensions and lineaments of the body. Some are +buttoned down the breast, some vnder the arme, and some down the backe, +some with flaps over the brest, some without, some with great sleeves, +some with small, some with none at all, some pleated and crested behind +and curiously gathered and some not.” + + +An old satirical print, dated 1644, gives drawings of men of all the +new varieties of religious belief and practices which “pestered +Christians” at the beginning of the century. With the exception of the +Adamite, whose garb is that of Adam in the Garden of Eden, all ten wear +doublets. These vary slightly, much less than in Stubbes’s list of +jerkins. One is open up the back with buttons and button-loops. Another +has the “four laps on a side,” showing it is a jerkin. Another is +opened on the hips; one is slit at back and hips. All save one from +neck to hem are buttoned in front with a single row of buttons, with no +lapells, collar, or cuffs, and no “flaps,” no ornaments or trimming. A +linen shirt-cuff and a plain band finish sleeves and neck of all save +the Arminian, who wears a small ruff. Not one of these doublets is a +graceful or an elegant garment. All are shapeless and over-plain; and +have none of the French smartness that came from the spreading +coat-skirts of men’s later wear. + +The welts or wings named in the early sumptuary laws were the pieces of +cloth set at the shoulder over the arm-hole where body and sleeves +meet. The welt was at first a sort of epaulet, but grew longer and +often set out, thus deserving its title of wings. + +A dress of the times is thus described:— + + +“His doublet was of a strange cut, the collar of it was up so high and +sharp as it would cut his throat. His wings according to the fashion +now were as little and diminutive as a Puritan’s ruff.” + + +A note to this says that “wings were lateral projections, extending +from each shoulder”—a good round sentence that by itself really means +nothing. Ben Jonson calls them “puff-wings.” + +There is one positive rule in the shape of doublets; they were always +welted at the arm-hole. Possibly the sleeves were sometimes sewn in, +but even then there was always a cap, a welt or a hanging sleeve or +some edging. In the illustrations of the _Roxburghe Ballads_ there is +not a doublet or jerkin on man, woman, or child but is thus welted. +Some trimming around the arm-hole was a law. This lasted until the coat +was wholly evolved. This had sleeves, and the shoulder-welt vanished. + +These welts were often turreted or cut in squares. You will note this +turreted shoulder in some form on nearly all the doublets given in the +portraits displayed in this book—both on men and women. For doublets +were also worn by women. Stubbes says, “Though this be a kind of attire +proper only to a man, yet they blush not to wear it.” The old print of +the infamous Mrs. Turner given here shows her in a doublet. + + +The high borne Prince Iames Dvke of Yorke borne October = the 13.1633 +James, Duke of York. + +Another author complains:— + + +“If Men get up French standing collars Women will have the French +standing collar too: if Dublets with little thick skirts, so short none +are able to sit upon them, women’s foreparts are thick skirted too.” + + +Children also had doublets and this same shoulder-cap at the arm-hole; +their little doublets were made precisely like those of their parents. +Look at the childish portrait of Lady Arabella Stuart, the portrait +with the doll. Her fat little figure is squeezed in a doublet which has +turreted welts like those worn by Anne Boleyn and by Pocahontas (shown +here). Often a button was set between each square of the welt, and the +sleeve loops or points could be tied to these buttons and thus hold up +the detached undersleeves. The portrait of Sir Richard Saltonstall +vaguely shows these buttons. Nearly all these garments-jerkins, +jackets, doublets, buff-coats, paltocks, were sleeveless, especially +when worn as the uppermost or outer garment. Holinshed tells of +“doublets full of jagges and cuts and sleeves of sundry colours.” These +welts were “embroidered, indented, waved, furred, chisel-punched, +dagged,” as well as turreted. On one sleeve the turreted welt varied, +the middle square or turret was long, the others each two inches +shorter. Thus the sleeve-welt had a “crow-step” shape. A charming +doublet sleeve of Elizabeth’s day displayed a short hanging sleeve that +was scarce more than a hanging welt. This was edged around with crystal +balls or buttons. Other welts were scalloped, with an eyelet-hole in +each scallop, like the edge of old ladies’ flannel petticoats. +Othersome welts were a round stuffed roll. This roll also had its day +around the petticoat edge, as may be seen in the petticoat of the child +Henry Gibbes. This roll still appears on Japanese kimonos. + +We are constantly finding complaints of the unsuitably ambitious attire +of laboring folk in such sentences as this:— + + +“The plowman, in times past content in russet, must now-a-daies have +his doublett of the fashion with wide cuts; his fine garters of +Granada, to meet his Sis on Sunday. The fair one in russet frock and +mockaldo sleeves now sells a cow against Easter to buy her silken +gear.” + + +Velvet jerkins and damask doublets were for men of dignity and estate. +Governor Winthrop had two tufted velvet jerkins. + +Jerkins and doublets varied much in shape and detail:— + + +“These doublets were this day short-waisted, anon, long-bellied; +by-and-by-after great-buttoned, straight-after plain-laced, or else +your buttons as strange for smallness as were before for bigness.” + + + + +An Embroidered Jerkin. An Embroidered Jerkin. + +In Charles II’s time at the May-pole dances still appear the old, +welted doublets. Jack may have worn Cicily’s doublet, and Peg may have +borrowed Will’s for all the difference that can be seen. The man’s +doublet did not ever have long, hanging sleeves, however, in the +seventeenth century, while women wore such sleeves. + +Sometimes the sleeves were very large, as in the Bowdoin portrait +(here). The great puffs were held out by whalebones and rolls of +cotton, and “tiring-sleeves” of wires, a fashion which has obtained for +women at least seven times in the history of English costume. Gosson +describes the vast sleeves of English doublets thus;— + +“This Cloth of Price all cut in ragges, + These monstrous bones that compass arms, +These buttons, pinches, fringes, jagges, + With them he (the Devil) weaveth woeful harms.” + + +We have seen how bitterly the slashing of good cloth exercised good +men. The “cutting in rags” was slashing. + +A favorite pattern of slashing is in small, narrow slits as shown in +the portrait here of James Douglas. These jerkins are of leather, and +the slashes are of course ornamental, and are also for health and +comfort, as those know who wear chamois jackets with perforated holes +throughout them, or slashes if we choose to call them so. They permit a +circulation of the skin and a natural condition. These jerkins are +slashed in curious little cuts, “carved of very good intail,” as was +said of King Henry’s jerkin, which means, in modern English, cut in +very good designs. And I presume, being of buff leather, the slashes +were simply cut, not overcast or embroidered as were some wool stuffs. + +The guard was literally a guard to the seam, a strip of galloon, silk, +lace, velvet, put on over the seam to protect and strengthen it. + +The large openings or slashes were called panes. Fynes Mayson says, +“Lord Mountjoy wore jerkins and round hose with laced panes of russet +cloth.” The Swiss dress was painted by Coryat as doublet and hose of +panes intermingled of red and yellow, trimmed with long puffs of blue +and yellow rising up between the panes. It was necessarily a costly +dress. Of course this is the same word with the same meaning as when +used in the term a “pane of glass.” + +The word “pinches” refers to an elaborate pleating which was worn for +years; it lingered in America till 1750, and we have revived it in what +we term “accordion pleating.” The seventeenth-century pinching was +usually applied to lawn or some washable stuff; and there must have +been a pinching, a goffering machine by which the pinching was done to +the washed garment by means of a heated iron. + + +John Lilburne. John Lilburne. + +Pinched sleeves, pinched partlets, pinched shirts, pinched wimples, +pinched ruffs, are often referred to, all washable garments. The good +wife of Bath wore a wimple which was “y-pinched full seemly.” Henry +VIII wore a pinched habit-shirt of finest lawn, and his fine, healthy +skin glowed pink through the folds of the lawn after his hearty +exercise at tennis and all kinds of athletic sports, for which he had +thrown off his doublet. We are taught to deem him “a spot of grease and +blood on England’s page.” There was more muscle than fat in him; he +could not be restrained from constant, violent, dangerous exercise; +this was one of the causes of the admiration of his subjects. + +The pinched partlet made a fine undergarment for the slashed doublet. + +So full, so close, were these “pinchings,” that one author complained +that men wearing them could not draw their bowstrings well. It was said +that the “pinched partlet and puffed sleeves” of a courtier would +easily make a lad a doublet and cloak. + +In my chapter on Children’s Dress I tell of the pinched shirt worn by +Governor Bradford when an infant, and give an illustration of it. + +Aglets or tags were a pretty fashion revived for women’s wear three +years ago. Under Stuart reign, these aglets were of gold or silver, and +set with precious stones such as pear-shaped pearls. For ordinary wear +they were of metal, silk, or leather. They secured from untwisting or +ravelling the points which were worn for over a century; these were +ties or laces of ribbon, or woollen yarn or leather, decorated with +tags or aglets at one end. Points were often home-woven, and were +deemed a pretty gift to a friend. They were employed instead of buttons +in securing clothes, and were used by the earliest settlers, chiefly, I +think, as ornaments at the knee or for holding up the stockings in the +place of garters. They were regarded as but foolish vanities, and were +one of the articles of finery tabooed in early sumptuary laws. In 1651 +the general court of Massachusetts expressed its “utter detestation and +dislike that men of meane condition, education and calling should take +upon them the garbe of gentlemen by the wearinge of poynts at the +knees.” Fashion was more powerful than law; the richly trimmed, +sashlike garters quickly displaced the modest points. + +The Earl of Southampton, friend of Shakespere and of Virginia, as +pictured on a later page, wears a doublet with agletted points around +his belt, by which breeches and doublet are tied together. This is a +striking portrait. The face is very noble. A similar belt was the +favorite wear of Charles I. + +Martin Frobisher, the hero of the Armada, wears a jerkin fastened down +the front with buttons and aigletted points. (See here.) I suppose, +when the fronts of the jerkin were thoroughly joined, each button had a +point twisted or tied around it. Frobisher’s lawn ruff is a modest and +becoming one. This portrait in the original is full length. The +remainder of the costume is very plain; it has no garters, no +knee-points, no ribbons, no shoe-roses. The foot-covering is Turkish +slippers precisely like the Oriental slippers which are imported +to-day. + +The Earl of Morton (here) wore a jerkin of buff leather curiously +pinked and slashed. Fulke Greville’s doublet (here) has a singular puff +around the waist, like a farthingale.Here is shown a doublet of the +commonest form; this is worn by Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. +The portrait is painted by Sir Antonio More—the portrait of one artist +by another, and a very fine one, too. + +Another garment, which is constantly named in lists of clothing, was +the cassock. Steevens says a cassock “signifies a horseman’s loose +coat, and is used in that sense by the writers of the age of +Shakespere.” It was apparently a garment much like a doublet or jerkin, +and the names were used interchangeably. I think the cassock was longer +than the doublet, and without “laps.” The straight, long coats shown on +the gentlemen in the picture here were cassocks. The name finally +became applied only to the coat or gown of the clergy. In the will of +Robert Saltonstall, made in 1650, he names a “Plush Cassock,” but cloth +cassocks were the commonest wear. + +There were other names for the doublet which are now difficult to place +precisely. In the reign of Henry VIII a law was passed as to men’s wear +of velvet in their sleeveless cotes, jackets, and jupes. This word jupe +and its ally jupon were more frequently heard in women’s lists; but +jump, a derivative, was man’s wear. Randle Holme said: “A jump +extendeth to the thighs; is open and buttoned before, and may have a +slit half way behind.” It might be with or without sleeves—all this +being likewise true of the doublet. From this jump descended the modern +jumper and the eighteenth century jumps—what Dr. Johnson defined in one +of his delightsome struggles with the names of women’s attire, “Jumps: +a kind of loose or limber stays worn by sickly ladies.” + + +Colonel William Legge. Colonel William Legge. + +Coats were not furnished to the Massachusetts or Plymouth planters, but +those of Piscataquay in New Hampshire had “lined coats,” which were +simply doublets like all the rest. + +In 1633 we find that Governor Winthrop had several dozen scarlet coats +sent from England to “the Bay.” The consigner wrote, “I could not find +any Bridgwater cloth but Red; so all the coats sent are red lined with +blew, and lace suitable; which red is the choise color of all.” These +coats of double thickness were evidently doublets. + +The word “coat” in the earliest lists must often refer to a waistcoat. +I infer this from the small cost of the garments, the small amount of +stuff it took to make them, and because they were worn with “Vper +coats”—upper coats. Raccoon-skin and deerskin coats were many; these +were likewise waistcoats, and the first lace coats were also +waistcoats. Robert Keayne of Boston had costly lace coats in 1640, +which he wore with doublets—these likewise were waistcoats. + +As years go on, the use of the word becomes constant. There were +“moose-coats” of mooseskin. Josselyn says mooseskin made excellent +coats for martial men. Then come papous coats and pappous coats. These +I inferred—since they were used in Indian trading—were for pappooses’ +wear, pappoose being the Indian word for child. But I had a painful +shock in finding in the _Traders’ Table of Values_ that “3 Pappous +Skins equal 1 Beaver”—so I must not believe that pappoose here means +Indian baby. Match-coats were originally of skins dressed with the fur +on, shaped in a coat like the hunting-shirt. The “Duffield Match-coat” +was made of duffels, a woollen stuff, in the same shape. Duffels was +called match-cloth. The word “coat” here is not really an English word; +it is matchigode, the Chippewa Indian name for this garment. + + +[Illustration: Sir Thomas Orchard, Knight] + +We have in old-time letters and accounts occasional proof that the coat +of the Puritan fathers was not at all like the shapely coat of our day. +We have also many words to prove that the coat was a doublet which, as +old Stubbes said, could be “pleated, or crested behind and curiously +gathered.” + +The tailor of the Winthrop family was one John Smith; he made garments +for them all, father, mother, children, and children’s wives, and +husband’s sisters, nieces, cousins, and aunts. He was a good Puritan, +and seems to have been much esteemed by Winthrop. One letter +accompanying a coat runs: “Good Mr. Winthrop, I have, by Mr. Downing’s +direction sent you a coat, a sad foulding colour without lace. For the +fittness I am a little vncerteyne, but if it be too bigg or too little +it is esie to amend, vnder the arme to take in or let out the lyning; +the outside may be let out in the gathering or taken in also without +any prejudice.” This instruction would appear to prove not only that +the coat was a doublet, “curiously gathered” but that the “fittness” +was more than “uncerteyne” of the coats of the Fathers. Since even such +wildly broad directions could not “prejudice” the coat, we may assume +that Governor Winthrop was more easily suited as to the cut of his +apparel, than would have been Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Philip Sidney. + +Though Puritan influence on dress simplified much of the flippery and +finery of the days of Elizabeth and James, and the refining elegance of +Van Dyck gave additional simplicity as well as beauty to women’s +attire, which it retained for many years, still there lingered +throughout the seventeenth century, ready to spring into fresh life at +a breath of encouragement, many grotesqueries of fashion in men’s dress +which, in the picturesque sneer of the day, were deemed meet only for +“a changeable-silk-gallant.” At the restoration of the crown, courtiers +seemed to love to flaunt frivolity in the faces of the Puritans. + +One of these trumperies came through the excessive use of ribbons, a +use which gave much charm to women’s dress, but which ever gave to +men’s garments a finicky look. Beribboned doublets came in the +butterfly period, between worm and chrysalis, between doublet and coat; +beribboned breeches were eagerly adopted. + +Shown here is the copy of an old print, which shows the dress of an +estimable and sensible gentleman, Sir Thomas Orchard, with ribbon-edged +garments and much galloon or laces. It is far too much trimmed to be +rich or elegant. See also _The English Antick_ on this page, from a +rare broadside. His tall hat is beribboned and befeathered; his face is +patched, ribbons knot his love-locks, his breeches are edged with +agletted ribbons, and “on either side are two great bunches of ribbons +of several colors.” Similar knots are at wrists and belt. His boots are +fringed with lace, and so wide that he “straddled as he went along +singing.” + + +The English Antick. The English Antick. + +Ribboned sleeves like those of Colonel Legge, here, were a pretty +fashion, but more suited to women’s wear than to men’s. + +George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, tells us what he thought of such +attire. He wrote satirically:— + + +“If one have store of ribands hanging about his waist or his knees and +in his hat; of divers colours red, white black or yellow, O! then he is +a brave man. He hath ribands on his back, belly and knees, and his hair +powdered, this is the array of the world. Are not these that have got +ribands hanging about their arms, hands, back, waist, knees, hats, like +fiddlers’ boys? And further if one get a pair of breeches like a coat +and hang them about with points, and tied up almost to the middle, a +pair of double cuffs on his hands, and a feather in his cap, here is a +gentleman!” + + +These beribboned garments were a French mode. The breeches were the +“rhingraves” of the French court, which were breeches made wholly of +loops of ribbons—like two ribboned petticoats. They caught the eye of +seafaring men; we know that Jack ashore loves finery. We are told of +sea-captains wearing beribboned breeches as they came into quiet little +American ports, and of one English gallant landing from a ship in sober +Boston, wearing breeches made wholly from waist to knee of overlapping +loops of gay varicolored ribbon. It is recorded that “the boys did +wonder and call out thereat,” and they “were chided therefor.” It is +easy to picture the scene: the staring boys, born in Boston, of Puritan +parents, of dignified dress, and more familiar with fringes on the +garments of savage Indians than on the breeches of English gentlemen; +we can see the soberly reproving minister or schoolmaster looking with +equal disapproval on the foppish visitor and the mannerless boys; and +the gayly dressed ship’s captain, armed with self-satisfaction and +masculine vanity, swaggering along the narrow streets of the little +town. It mattered not what he wore or what he did, a seafaring man was +welcome. I wonder what the governor thought of those beribboned +breeches! Perhaps he ordered a pair from London for himself,—of +sad-colored ribbons,—offering the color as a compromise for the +over-gayety of the ribbons. Randle Holme gave in 1658 three +descriptions of the first petticoat-breeches, with drawings of each. +One had the lining lower than the breeches, and tied in about the +knees; ribbons extended halfway up the breeches, and ribbons hung out +from the doublet all about the waistband. The second had a single row +of pointed ribbons hanging all around the lower edge of the breeches; +these were worn with stirrup-hose two yards wide at the top, tied by +points and eyelet-holes to the breeches. The third had stirrup-hose +tied to the breeches, and another pair of hose over them turned down at +the calf of the leg, and the ribbons edged the stirrup-hose. His +drawings of them are foolish things—not even pretty. He says ribbons +were worn first at the knees, then at the waist at the doublet edge, +then around the neck, then on the wrists and sleeves. These +knee-ribbons formed what Dryden called in 1674 “a dangling +knee-fringe.” It is difficult for me to think of Dryden living at that +period of history. He seems to me infinitely modern in comparison with +it. Evelyn describes the wearer of such a suit as “a fine silken +thing”; and tells that the ribbons were of “well-chosen colours of red, +orange, and blew, of well-gummed satin, which augured a happy fancy.” + +In 1672 a suit of men’s clothes was made for the beautiful Duchess of +Portsmouth to wear to a masquerade; this was with “Rhingrave breeches +and cannons.” The suit was of dove-colored silk brocade trimmed with +scarlet and silver lace and ribbons. + +The ten yards of brocade for this beautiful suit cost £;14. The +Rhingrave breeches were trimmed with thirty-six yards of figured +scarlet ribbon and thirty-six yards of plain satin ribbon and +thirty-six of scarlet taffeta ribbon; this made one hundred and eight +yards of ribbon—a great amount—an unusable amount. I fear the tailor +was not honest. There were also as trimmings twenty-two yards of +scarlet and silver vellum lace for guards; six dozen scarlet and silver +vellum buttons, smaller breast buttons, narrow laces for the waistcoat, +and silver twist for buttonholes. The suit was lined with lutestring. +There was a black beaver hat with scarlet and silver edging, and lace +embroidered scarlet stockings, a rich belt and lace garters, and point +lace ruffles for the neck, sleeves, and knees. This suit had an +interlining of scarlet camlet; and lutestring drawers seamed with +scarlet and silver lace. The total bill of £;59 would be represented +to-day by $1400,—a goodly sum,—but it was a goodly suit. There is a +portrait of the Duchess of Richmond in a similar suit, now at +Buckingham Palace. Portraits of the Duke of Bedford, and of George I, +painted by Kneller, are almost equally beribboned. The one of the king +is given facing this page to show his ribbons and also the +extraordinary shoes, which were fashionable at this date. + + +George I. George I. + +“Indians gowns,” or banyans, were for a century worn in England and +America, and are of enough importance to receive a separate chapter in +this book. The graceful folds allured all men and all portrait +painters, just as the fashionable new china allured all women. The +banyan was not the only Oriental garment which had become of interest +to Englishmen. John Evelyn described in his _Tyrannus or the Mode_ the +“comeliness and usefulnesse” of all Persian clothing; and he noted with +justifiable gratification that the new attire which had recently been +adopted by King Charles II was “a comely dress after ye Persian mode.” +He says modestly, “I do not impute to this my discourse the change +which soone happened; but it was an identity I could not but take +notice of.” + +Rugge in his _Diurnal_ describes the novel dress which was assumed by +King Charles and the whole court, due notice of a subject of so much +importance having been given to the council the previous month; and +notice of the king’s determination “never to change it,” which he kept +like many another of his promises and resolutions. + + +“It is a close coat of cloth pinkt with a white taffety under the +cutts. This in length reached the calf of the leg; and upon that a +sercoat cutt at the breast, which hung loose and shorter than the vest +six inches. The breeches the Spanish cutt; and buskins some of cloth, +some of leather but of the same colour as the vest or garment; of never +the like garment since William the Conqueror.” + + + + +Three Cassock Sleeves and a Buff-coat Sleeve. Three Cassock Sleeves and +a Buff-coat Sleeve. + +Pepys we have seen further explained that it was all black and white, +the black cassock being close to the body. “The legs ruffled with black +ribands like a pigeon’s leg, and I wish the King may keep it for it is +a fine and handsome garment.” The news which came to the English court +a month later that the king of France had put all his footmen and +servants in this same dress as a livery made Pepys “mightie merry, it +being an ingenious kind of affront, and yet makes me angry,” which is +as curious a frame of mind as even curious Pepys could record. Planché +doubts this act of the king of France; but in _The Character of a +Trimmer_ the story is told _in extenso_—that the “vests were put on at +first by the King to make Englishmen look unlike Frenchmen; but at the +first laughing at it all ran back to the dress of French gentlemen.” +The king had already taken out the white linings as “’tis like a +magpie;” and was glad to quit it I do not doubt. Dr. Holmes—and the +rest of us—have looked askance at the word “vest” as allied in usage to +that unutterable contraction, pants. But here we find that vest is a +more classic name than waistcoat for this dull garment—a garment with +too little form or significance to be elegant or interesting or +attractive. + + +Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. + +Though this dress was adopted by the whole court, and though it was an +age of portrait painting,—and surely no more delicate flattery to the +king’s taste could be given than to have one’s portrait painted in the +king’s chosen vestments,—yet but one portrait remains which is stated +to display this dress. This is the portrait of Henry Bennet, Earl of +Arlington—it is shown on this page. This was painted by the king’s own +painter, Sir Peter Lely. I must say that I cannot find much resemblance +to Pepys’s or Rugge’s description, unless the word “pinked” means cut +out in an all-over pattern like Italian cut-work; then this inner vest +might be of “cloth pinkt with a white taffeta under the coat.” The +surcoat is of black lined with white. Of course the sash is present, +but not in any way distinctive. It was a characteristic act in the Earl +to be painted in this dress, for he was a courtier of courtiers, +perhaps the most rigid follower of court rules in England. He was “by +nature of a pleasant and agreeable humour,” but after a diplomatic +journey on the continent he assumed an absurd formality of manner which +was much ridiculed by his contemporaries. His letters show him to be +exceeding nice in his phraseology; and he prided himself upon being the +best-bred man in court. He was a trimmer, “the chief trickster of the +court,” a member of the Cabal, the first _a_ in the word; and he was +heartily hated as well as ridiculed. When a young man he received a cut +on the nose in a skirmish in Ireland; he never let his prowess be +forgotten, but ever after wore a black patch over the scar—it may be +seen in his portrait. When his fellow courtiers wished to gibe at him, +they stuck black patches on their noses and with long white staves +strutted around the court in imitation of his pompous manner. He is a +handsome fellow, but too fat—which was not a curse of his day as of the +present. + + +Figures from Funeral Procession of the Duke of Albemarle, 1670. Figures +from Funeral Procession of the Duke of Albemarle, 1670. + +Of course the king changed his dress many times after this solemn +assumption of a lifelong garment. It was a restless, uncertain, trying +time in men’s dress. They had lost the doublet, and had not found the +skirted coat, and stood like the Englishman of Andrew Borde—ready to +take a covering from any nation of the earth. I wonder the coat ever +survived—that it did is proof of an inherent worth. Knowing the nature +of mankind and the modes, the surprise really is that the descendants +of Charles and all English folk are not now wearing shawls or peplums +or anything save a coat and waistcoat. + +Some of the sturdy rich members of the governors’ cabinets and the +assemblies and some of our American officers who had been in his +Majesty’s army, or had served a term in the provincial militia, and had +had a hot skirmish or two with marauding Indians on the Connecticut +River frontier, and some very worthy American gentlemen who were not +widely renowned either in military or diplomatic circles and had never +worn armor save in the artist’s studio,—these were all painted by Sir +Godfrey Kneller and by Sir Peter Lely, and by lesser lights in art, +dressed in a steel corselet of the artist, and wearing their own good +Flanders necktie and their own full well-buckled wig. There were some +brave soldiers, too, who were thus painted, but there were far more in +armor than had ever smelt smoke of powder. It was a good comfortable +fashion for the busy artist. It must have been much easier when you had +painted a certain corselet a hundred times to paint it again than to +have to paint all kinds of new colors and stuffs. And the portrait in +armor was almost always kitcat, and that disposed of the legs, ever a +nuisance in portrait-painting. + +While the virago-sleeves were growing more and more ornamental, and +engageants were being more and more worn by women, men’s sleeves +assumed a most interesting form. The long coat, or cassock, had sleeves +which were cut off at the elbow with great cuffs and were worn over +enormous ruffled undersleeves; and they were even cut midway between +shoulder and elbow, were slashed and pointed and beribboned to a +wonderful degree. This lasted but a few years, the years when the +cassock was shaping itself definitely into a skirted coat. Perhaps the +height of ornamentation in sleeves was in the closing years of the +reign of Charles II, though fancy sleeves lingered till the time of +George I. + + +Earl of Southampton. Earl of Southampton. + +In an account of the funeral of George Monck, the Duke of Albemarle, in +the year 1670, the dress is very carefully drawn of those who walked in +the procession. (Some of them are given here.) It may be noted, first, +that all the hats are lower crowned and straight crowned, not like a +cone or a truncated cone, as crowns had been. The _Poor Men_ are in +robes with beards and flowing natural hair; they wear square bands, and +carry staves. The _Clergymen_ wear trailing surplices; but these are +over a sort of cassock and breeches, and they all have high-heeled +shoes with great roses. They also have their own hair. The _Doctors of +Physic_ are dressed like the _Gentlemen and Earls_, save that they wear +a rich robe with bands at the upper arm, over the other fine dress. The +gentlemen wear a cassock, or coat, which reaches to the knee; the +pockets are nearly as low as the knee. These cassocks have lapels from +neck to hem, with a long row of gold buttons which are wholly for +ornament, the cassock never being fastened with the buttons. The +sleeves reach only to the elbow and turn back in a spreading cuff; and +from the elbow hang heavy ruffles and under-sleeves, some of rich lace, +others of embroidery. The gentlemen and earls wear great wigs. + +This coat was called a surcoat or tunic. The under-coat, or waistcoat, +was also called a vest, as by Charles the king. + +From this vest, or surcoat, was developed a coat, with skirts, such as +had become, ere the year 1700, the universal wear of English and +American men. Its first form was adopted about at the close of the +reign of Charles II. By 1688 Quaker teachers warned their younger sort +against “cross-pockets on men’s coats, side slopes, over-full skirted +coats.” + +In an old play a man threatens a country lad, “I’ll make your buttons +fly.” The lad replies, “All my buttons is loops.” Some garments, +especially leather ones, like doublets, which were cumbersome to +button, were secured by loops. For instance, in spatterdashes, a row of +holes was set on one side, and of loops on the other. To fasten them, +one must begin at the lower loop, pass this through the first hole, +then put the second loop through that first loop and the second hole, +and so on till the last loop was fastened to the breeches by buckle and +strap or large single button. From these loops were developed frogs and +loops. + +Major John Pyncheon had, in 1703, a “light coulour’d cape-coat with +Frogs on it.” In the _New England Weekly Journal_ of 1736 “New +Fashion’d Frogs” are named; and later, “Spangled Scalloped &; Brocaded +Frogs.” + +Though these jerkins and mandillions and doublets which were furnished +to the Bay colonists were fastened with hooks and eyes, buttons were +worn also, as old portraits and old letters prove. John Eliot ordered +for traffic with the Indians, in 1651, three gross of pewter buttons; +and Robert Keayne, of Boston, writing in 1653, said bitterly that a +“haynous offence” of his had been selling buttons at too large +profit—that they were gold buttons and he had sold them for two +shillings ninepence a dozen in Boston, when they had cost but two +shillings a dozen in London (which does not seem, in the light of our +modern profits on imported goods, a very “haynous” offence). He also +added with acerbity that “they were never payd for by those that +complayned.” + +Buttonholes were a matter of ornament more than of use; in fact, they +were never used for closing the garment after coats came to be worn. +They were carefully cut and “laid around” in gay colors, embroidered +with silver and gold thread, bound with vellum, with kid, with velvet. +We find in old-time letters directions about modish buttonholes, and +drawings even, in order that the shape may be exactly as wished. An +English contemporary of John Winthrop’s has tasselled buttonholes on +his doublet. + +Various are the reasons given for the placing of the two buttons on the +back of a man’s coat. One is that they are a survival of buttons which +were used on the eighteenth-century riding-coat. The coat-tails were +thus buttoned up when the wearer was on horseback. Another is that they +were used for looping back the skirts of the coats; it is said that +loops of cord were placed at the corners of the said skirts. + +A curious anecdote about these two buttons on the back of the coat is +that a tribe of North American Indians, deep believers in the value of +symbolism, refused to heed a missionary because he could not explain to +them the significance of these two buttons. + + +CHAPTER VI + +RUFFS AND BANDS + +_“Fashion has brought in deep ruffs and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and +thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of the quick and +the dead shall appear he will not know those who have so defaced the +fashion he hath created.”_ + +—Sermon, JOHN KING, Bishop of London, 1590. + + +“Now up aloft I mount unto the Ruffe +Which into foolish Mortals pride doth puffe; +Yet Ruffe’s antiquitie is here but small— +Within these eighty Tears not one at all +For the 8th Henry, as I understand +Was the first King that ever wore a Band +And but a Falling Band, plaine with a Hem +All other people know no use of them.” + +—“The Prayse of Clean Linnen,” JOHN TAYLOR, the “Water Poet,” 1640. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RUFFS AND BANDS + + +W + + +e have in this poem of the old “Water Poet” a definite statement of the +date of the introduction of ruffs for English wear. We are afforded in +the portraiture given in this book ample proof of the fall of the ruff. + + +A Bowdoin Portrait. A Bowdoin Portrait. + +Like many of the most striking fashions of olden times, the ruff was +Spanish. French gentlemen had worn frills or ruffs about 1540; soon +after, these appeared in England; by the date of Elizabeth’s accession +the ruff had become the most imposing article of English men’s and +women’s dress. It was worn exclusively by fine folk; for it was too +frail and too costly for the common wear of the common people, though +lawn ruffs were seen on many of low degree. A ruff such as was worn by +a courtier contained eighteen or nineteen yards of fine linen lawn. A +quarter of a yard wide was the fashionable width in England. Ruffs were +carefully pleated in triple box-plaits as shown in the Bowdoin portrait +here. Then they were bound with a firm neck-binding. + +This carefully made ruff was starched with good English or Dutch +starch; fluted with “setting sticks” of wood or bone, to hold each +pleat up; then fixed with struts—also of wood—placed in a manner to +hold the pleats firmly apart; and finally “seared” or goffered with +“poking sticks” of iron or steel, which, duly heated, dried the +stiffening starch. To “do up” a formal ruff was a wearisome, difficult, +and costly precess. Women of skill acquired considerable fortunes as +“gofferers.” + +Stubbes tells us further of the rich decoration of ruffs with gold, +silver, and silk lace, with needlework, with openwork, and with purled +lace. This was in Elizabeth’s day. John Winthrop’s ruff (here) is edged +with lace; in general a plain ruff was worn by plain gentlemen; one may +be seen on Martin Frobisher (here). Rich lace was for the court. Their +great cost, their inconvenience, their artificiality, their size, were +sure to make ruffs a “reason of offence” to reformers. Stubbes gave +voice to their complaints in these words:— + + +“They haue great and monstrous ruffes, made either of cambrike, +holland, lawne, or els of some other the finest cloth that can be got +for money, whereof some be a quarter of a yarde deepe, yea, some more, +very few lesse, so that they stande a full quarter of a yearde (and +more) from their necks hanging ouer their shoulder points in steade of +a vaile.” + + +Still more violent does he grow over starch:— + + +“The one arch or piller whereby his (the Devil’s) kyngdome of great +ruffes is vnderpropped, is a certaine kind of liquid matter, whiche +they call starch, wherein the deuill hath willed them to washe and dive +their ruffes well, whiche, beeying drie, will then stande stiff and +inflexible about their necks. + +“The other piller is a certaine device made of wiers, crested for the +purpose; whipped over either with gold thred, silver, or silke, and +this he calleth a supportasse or vnderpropper; this is to bee applied +round about their neckes under the ruffe, upon the out side of the +bande, to beare up the whole frame and bodie of the ruffe, from +fallying and hangying doune.” + + +Starch was of various colors. We read of “blue-starch-women,” and of +what must have been especially ugly, “goose-green starch.” Yellow +starch was most worn. It was introduced from France by the notorious +Mrs. Turner. (See here.) + +Wither wrote thus of the varying modes of dressing the neck:— + +“Some are graced by their Tyres +As their Quoyfs, their Hats, their Wyres, +One a Ruff cloth best become; +Falling bands allureth some; +And their favours oft we see +Changèd as their dressings be.” + + +The transformation of ruff to band can be seen in the painting of King +Charles I. The first Van Dyck portrait of him shows him in a moderate +ruff turned over to lie down like a collar; the lace edge formed itself +by the pleats into points which developed into the lace points +characteristic of Van Dyck’s later pictures and called by his name. + +Evelyn, describing a medal of King Charles I struck in 1633, says, “The +King wears a falling band, a new mode which has succeeded the +cumbersome ruff; but neither do the bishops nor the Judges give it up +so soon.” Few of the early colonial portraits show ruffs, though the +name appears in many inventories, but “playne bands” are more +frequently named than ruffs. Thus in an Inventory of William Swift, +Plymouth, 1642, he had “2 Ruff Bands and 4 Playne Bands.” The “playne +band” of the Puritans is shown in this portrait of William Pyncheon, +which is dated 1657. + + +William Pyncheon. William Pyncheon. + +The first change from the full pleated ruff of the sixteenth century +came in the adoption of a richly laced collar, unpleated, which still +stood up behind the ears at the back of the head. Often it was wired in +place with a supportasse. This was worn by both men and women. You may +see one here, on the neck of Pocahontas, her portrait painted in 1616. +This collar, called a standing-band, when turned down was known as a +falling-band or a rebato. + +The rich lace falling-band continued to be worn until the great flowing +wig, with long, heavy curls, covered the entire shoulders and hid any +band; the floating ends in front were the only part visible. In time +they too vanished. Pepys wrote in 1662, “Put on my new lace band and so +neat; am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will set +off anything else the more.” + +I scarcely need to point out the falling-band in its various shapes as +worn in America; they can be found readily in the early pages of this +book. It was a fashion much discussed and at first much disliked; but +the ruff had seen its last day—for men’s wear, when the old fellows who +had worn it in the early years of the seventeenth century dropped off +as the century waned. The old Bowdoin gentleman must have been one of +the last to wear this cumbersome though stately adjunct of dress—save +as it was displaced on some formal state occasion or as part of a +uniform or livery. + +There is a constant tendency in all times and among all +English-speaking folk to shorten names and titles for colloquial +purposes; and soon the falling-band became the fall. In the _Wits’ +Recreation_ are two epigrams which show the thought of the times:— + +“WHY WOMEN WEARE A FALL + +“A Question ’tis why Women wear a fall? +And truth it is to Pride they’re given all. +And _Pride_, the proverb says, _will have a fall_.” + + +“ON A LITTLE DIMINUTIVE BAND + +“What is the reason of God-dam-me’s band, +Inch deep? and that his fashion doth not alter, +God-dam-me saves a labor, understand +In pulling it off, where he puts on the Halter.” + + +“God-dam-me” was one of the pleasant epithets which, by scores, were +applied to the Puritans. + + +Reverend Jonathan Edwards. Reverend Jonathan Edwards. + +The bands worn by the learned professions, two strips of lawn with +squared ends, were at first the elongated ends of the shirt collar of +Jonathan Edwards. We have them still, to remind us of old fashions; and +we have another word and thing, band-box, which must have been a stern +necessity in those days of starch, and ruff, and band. + +It was by no means a convention of dress that “God-dam-me” should wear +a small band. Neither Cromwell nor his followers clung long to plain +bands; nor did they all assume them. It would be wholly impossible to +generalize or to determine the standing of individuals, either in +politics or religion, by their neckwear. I have before me a little +group of prints of men of Cromwell’s day, gathered for extra +illustration of a history of Cromwell’s time. Let us glance at their +bands. + +First comes Cromwell himself from the Cooper portrait at Cambridge; +this portrait has a plain linen turnover collar, or band, but two to +three inches wide. Then his father is shown in a very broad, square, +plain linen collar extending in front expanse from shoulder seam to +shoulder seam. Sir Harry Vane and Hampden, both Puritans, have narrow +collars like Cromwell’s; Pym, an equally precise sectarian, has a +broader one like the father’s, but apparently of some solid and rich +embroidery like cut-work. Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, in narrow +band, Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, in band and band-strings, were +members of the Long Parliament, but passed in time to the Royal Camp. +Other portraits of both noblemen are in richly laced bands. The Earl of +Bristol, who was in the same standing, has the widest of lace, Vandyked +collars. John Selden wears the plain band; but here is Strafford, the +very impersonation of all that was hated by Puritans, and yet he wears +the simplest of puritanical bands. William Lenthal, Speaker of the +House of Commons, is in a beautiful Cavalier collar with straight lace +edges. There are a score more, equally indifferent to rule. + +There is no doubt, however, that the Puritan regarded his plain band—if +he wore it—with jealous care. Poor Mary Downing, niece of Governor +Winthrop, paid dearly for her careless “searing,” or ironing, of her +brother’s bands. Her stepmother’s severity at her offence brought forth +this plaintive letter:— + + +“Father, I trust that I have not provoked you to harbour soe ill an +opinion of mee as my mothers lettres do signifie and give me to +understand; the ill opinion and hard pswasion which shee beares of mee, +that is to say, that I should abuse yor goodness, and bee prodigall of +yor purse, neglectful of my brothers bands, and of my slatterishnes and +lasines; for my brothers bands I will not excuse myselfe, but I thinke +not worthy soe sharpe a reproofe; for the rest I must needs excuse, and +cleare myselfe if I may bee believed. I doe not know myselfe guilty of +any of them; for myne owne part I doe not desire to be myne owne judge, +but am willinge to bee judged by them with whom I live, and see my +course, whether I bee addicted to such things or noe.” + + +Ruffs and bands were not the only neckwear of the colonists. Very soon +there was a tendency to ornament the band-strings with tassels of silk, +with little tufts of ribbon, with tiny rosettes, with jewels even; and +soon a graceful frill of lace hung where the band was tied together. +This may be termed the beginning of the necktie or cravat; but the +article itself enjoyed many names, and many forms, which in general +extended both to men’s and women’s wear. + + +Captain George Curwen. Captain George Curwen. + +Let us turn to the old inventories for the various names of this +neckwear. + +A Maryland gentleman left by will, with other attire, in 1642, “Nine +laced stripps, two plain stripps, nine quoifes, one call, eight +crosse-cloths, a paire holland sleeves, a paire women’s cuffs, nine +plaine neck-cloths, five laced neck-cloths, two plaine gorgetts, seven +laced gorgetts, three old clouts, five plaine neckhandkerchiefs, two +plain shadowes.” + +John Taylor, the “Water Poet,” wrote a poem entitled The Needles +Excellency. I quote from the twelfth edition, dated 1640. In the list +of garments which we owe to the needle he names:— + +“Shadows, Shapparoones, Cauls, Bands, Ruffs, Kuffs, +Kerchiefs, Quoyfes, Chin-clouts, Marry-muffes, +Cross-cloths, Aprons, Hand-kerchiefs, or Falls.” + + +His list runs like that of the Maryland planter. The strip was +something like the whisk; indeed, the names seem interchangeable. +Bishop Hall in his _Satires_ writes:— + +“When a plum’d fan may hide thy chalked face +And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.” + + +Dr. Smith wrote in 1658 in _Penelope and Ulysses_:— + +“A stomacher upon her breast so bare +For strips and gorget were not then the wear.” + + +The gorget was the frill in front; the strip the lace cape or whisk. It +will be noted that nine gorgets are named with these strips. + +The gorget when worn by women was enriched with lace and needlework. + +“These Holland smocks as white as snow +And gorgets brave with drawn-work wrought +A tempting ware they are you know.” + + +Thus runs a poem published in 1596. + +Mary Verney writes in 1642 her desire for “gorgetts and eyther cutt or +painted callico to wear under them or what is most in fashion.” + +The shadow has been a great stumbling-block to antiquaries. Purchas’s +_Pilgrimage_ is responsible for what is to me a very confusing +reference. It says of a certain savage race:— + + +“They have a skin of leather hanging about their necks whenever they +sit bare-headed and bare-footed, with their right arms bare; and a +broad Sombrero or Shadow in their hands to defend them in Summer from +the Sunne, in Winter from the Rain.” + + +This would make a shadow a sort of hand-screen or sunshade; but all +other references seem as if a shadow were a cap. As early as 1580, +Richard Fenner’s Wardship Roll has “Item a Caul and Shadoe 4 +shillings.” I think a shadow was a great cap like a cornet. +Cross-cloths were a form of head-dress. I have seen old portraits with +a cap or head-dress formed of crossed bands which I have supposed were +cross-cloths. + +Cross-cloths also bore a double meaning; for certainly neck-cloths or +neckerchiefs were sometimes called cross-cloths or cross-clothes. +Another name is the picardill or piccadilly, a French title for a +gorget. Fitzgerald, in 1617, wrote of “a spruse coxcomb” that he +glanced at his pocket looking-glass to see:— + +“How his Band jumpeth with his Peccadilly +Whether his Band-strings ballance equally.” + + +Another satirical author could write in 1638 that “pickadillies are now +out of request.” + +The portrait of Captain Curwen of Salem (here) is unlike many of his +times. Over his doublet he wears a handsome embroidered shoulder sash +called a trooping-scarf; and his broad lace tie is very unusual for the +year 1660. I know few like it upon American gentlemen in portraits; and +I fancy it is a gorget, or a piccadilly. It is pleasant to know that +this handsome piece of lace has been preserved. It is here shown with +his cane. + + +Lace Gorget and Cane of Captain George Curwen. Lace Gorget and Cane of +Captain George Curwen. + +A little negative proof may be given as to one word and article. The +gorget is said to be an adaptation of the wimple. Our writers of +historical tales are very fond of attiring their heroines in wimples +and kirtles. Both have a picturesque, an antique, sound—the wimple is +Biblical and Shakesperian, and therefore ever satisfying to the ear, +and to the sight in manuscript. But I have never seen the word wimple +in an inventory, list, invoice, letter, or book of colonial times, and +but once the word kirtle. Likewise are these modern authors a bit vague +as to the manner of garment a wimple is. One fair maid is described as +having her fair form wrapped in a warm wimple. She might as well be +described as wrapped in a warm cravat. For a wimple was simply a small +kerchief or covering for the neck, worn in the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries. + +Another quaint term, already obsolete when the _Mayflower_ sailed, was +partlet. A partlet was an inner kerchief, worn with an open-necked +bodice or doublet. Its trim plaited edge or ruffle seems to have given +rise to the popular name, “Dame Partlet,” for a hen. It appeared in the +reign of Henry VIII; the courtiers imitating the king threw open their +garments at the throat, and further opened them with slashes; hence the +use of the partlet, which was a trim form of underhabit or gorget, worn +well up to the throat. An old dictionary explains that the partlet can +be “set on or taken off by itself without taking off the bodice, as can +be pickadillies now-a-days, or men’s bands.” It adds that women’s +neckerchiefs have been called partlets. + +In October, 1662, Samuel Pepys wrote in his _Diary_, “Made myself fine +with Captain Ferrers lace band; being loathe to wear my own new +scallop; it is so fine.” This is one of his several references to this +new fashion of band which both he and his wife adopted. He paid £;3 for +his scallop, and 45s. for one for his wife. He was so satisfied with +his elegance in this new scallop, that like many another lover of dress +he determined his chief extravagance should be for lace. The fashion of +scallop-wearing came to America. For several years the word was used in +inventories, then it became as obsolete as a caul, a shadow, a cornet. + +The word “cravat” is not very ancient. Its derivation is said to be +from the Cravates or Croats in the French military service, who adopted +such neckwear in 1636. An early use of the word is by Blount in 1656, +who called a cravat “a new fashioned Gorget which Women wear.” + +The cravat is a distinct companion of the wig, and was worn whenever +and wherever wigs were donned. + +Evelyn gave the year 1666 as the one when vest, cravat, garters, and +buckles came to be the fashion. We could add likewise wigs. Of course +all these had been known before that year, but had not been general +wear. + +An early example of a cravat is shown in the portrait of old William +Stoughton in my later chapter on Cloaks. His cravat is a distinctly new +mode of neck-dressing, but is found on all American portraits shortly +after that date. One is shown with great exactness in the portrait +here, which is asserted to be that of “the handsomest man in the +Plantations,” William Coddington, Governor of Rhode Island and +Providence Plantations. + + +Governor Coddington. Governor Coddington. + +He was a precise man, and wearisome in his precision—a bore, even, I +fear. His beauty went for little in his relation of man to man, and, +above all, of colonist to colonist; and poor Governor Winthrop must +have been sorely tormented with his frequent letters, which might have +been written from Mars for all the signs they bore of news of things of +this earth. His dress is very neat and rich—a characteristic dress, I +think. It has slightly wrought buttonholes, plain sleeve ruffles and +gloves. His full curled peruke has a mass of long curls hanging in +front of the right shoulder, while the curls on the left side are six +or eight inches shorter. This was the most elegant London fashion, and +extreme fashion too. His neck-scarf or cravat was a characteristic one. +It consisted of a long scarf of soft, fine, sheer, white linen over two +yards long, passed twice or thrice close around the throat and simply +lapped under the chin, not knotted. The upper end hung from twelve to +sixteen inches long. The other and longer end was carried down to a low +waistline and tucked in between the buttons of the waistcoat. Often the +free end of this scarf was trimmed with lace or cut-work; indeed, the +whole scarf might be of embroidery or lace, but the simpler lawn or +mull appears to have been in better taste. This tie is seen in this +portrait of Thomas Fayerweather, by Smybert, and in modified forms on +many other pages. + + +Thomas Fayerweather. Thomas Fayerweather. + +We now find constant references to the Steinkirk, a new cravat. As we +see it frequently stated that the Steinkirk was a black tie, I may +state here that all the Steinkirks I have seen have been white. I know +no portraits with black neck-cloths. I find no allusions in old-time +literature or letters to black Steinkirks. + +A Steinkirk was a white cravat, not knotted, but fastened so loosely as +to seem folded rather than tied, twisted sometimes twice or thrice, +with one or both ends passed through a buttonhole of the coat. Ladies +wore them, as well as men, arranged with equal appearance of careless +negligence; and the soft diagonal folds of linen and lace made a pretty +finish at the throat, as pretty as any high neck-dressing could be. +These cravats were called Steinkirks after the battle of Steinkirk, +when some of the French princes, not having time to perform an +elaborate toilet before going into action, hurriedly twisted their lace +cravats about their necks and pulled them through a buttonhole, simply +to fix them safely in place. The fashionable world eagerly followed +their example. It is curious that the Steinkirk should have been +popular in England, where the name might rather have been a bitter +avoidance. + +The battle of Steinkirk took place in 1694. An early English allusion +to the neckwear thus named is in _The Relapse_, which was acted in +1697. In it the Semstress says, “I hope your Lordship is pleased with +your Steenkirk.” His Lordship answers with eloquence, “In love with it, +stap my vitals! Bring your bill, you shall be paid tomorrow!” + +The Steinkirk, both for men’s and women’s wear, came to America very +promptly, and was soon widely worn. The dashing, handsome figure of +young King Carter gives an illustration of the pretty studied +negligence of the Steinkirk. I have seen a Steinkirk tie on at least +twenty portraits of American gentlemen, magistrates, and officers; some +of them were the royal governors, but many were American born and bred, +who never visited Europe, but turned eagerly to English fashions. + + +“King” Carter in Youth, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. “King” Carter in Youth, +by Sir Godfrey Kneller. + +Certain old families have preserved among their ancient treasures a +very long oval brooch with a bar across it from end to end—the longest +way of the brooch. These are set sometimes with topaz or moonstone, +garnet, marcasite, heliotropium, or paste jewels. Many wonder for what +purpose these were used. They were to hold the lace Steinkirk in place, +when it was not pulled through the buttonhole. The bar made it seem +like a tongueless buckle—or perhaps it was like a long, narrow buckle +to which a brooch pin had been affixed to keep it firmly in place. + +The cravat, tied and twisted in Steinkirk form, or more simply folded, +long held its place in fashionable dress. + +“The stock with buckle made of paste +Has put the cravat out of date,” + + +wrote Whyte in 1742. + +With this quotation we will turn from neckwear until a later period. + + +CHAPTER VII + +CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS + + +_“So many poynted cappes +Lased with double flaps +And soe gay felted cappes + Saw I never. + +“So propre cappes +So lyttle hattes +And so false hartes +Saw I never.” +_ +—“The Maner of the World Nowe-a-dayes,” JOHN SKELTON, 1548. + + +“_The Turk in linen wraps his head + The Persian his in lawn, too, +The Russ with sables furs his cap + And change will not be drawn to. + +“The Spaniard’s constant to his block + The Frenchman inconstant ever; +But of all felts that may be felt + Give me the English beaver. + +“The German loves his coney-wool + The Irishman his shag, too, +The Welsh his Monmouth loves to wear + And of the same will brag, too”_ + +—“A Challenge for Beauty,” THOMAS HAYWARD + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS + + +A + + +ny student of English history and letters would know that caps would +positively be part of the outfit of every emigrating Englishman. A cap +was, for centuries, both the enforced and desired headwear of English +folk of quiet lives. + + +City Flat-cap worn by “Bilious” Bale. City Flat-cap worn by “Bilious” +Bale. + +Belgic Britons, Welshmen, Irish, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans all +had worn caps, as well as ancient Greeks and Romans. These English caps +had been of divers colors and manifold forms, some being grotesque +indeed. When we reach the reign of Henry VIII we are made familiar in +the paintings of Holbein with a certain flat-cap which sometimes had a +small jewel or leather or a double fold, but never varied greatly. This +was known as the city flat-cap. + +It is shown also in the Holbein portrait of Adam Winthrop, grandfather +of Governor John Winthrop; he was a man of dignity, Master of the Cloth +Workers’ Guild. + +The muffin-cap of the boys of Christ’s Hospital is a form of this cap. + +This was at first and ever a Londoner’s cap. A poet wrote in 1630:— + + +“Flat caps as proper are to city gowns +As to armour, helmets, or to kings, their crowns.” + + +Winthrop also wears the city gown. + +This flat-cap was often of gay colors, scarlet being a favorite hue. + + +“Behold the bonnet upon my head +A staryng colour of scarlet red +I promise you a fyne thred + And a soft wool + It cost a noble.” + + +These lines were written for the character “Pride,” in the _Interlude +of Nature_, before the year 1500. + +A statute was passed in 1571, “If any person above six years of age +(except maidens, ladies, gentlemen, nobles, knights, gentlemen of +twenty marks by year in lands, and their heirs, and such as have born +office of worship) have not worn upon the Sunday or holyday (except it +be in the time of his travell out of the city, town or hamlet where he +dwelleth) one cap of wool, knit, thicked and dressed in England, and +only dressed and furnished by some of the trade of cappers, shall be +fined £;3 4d. for each day’s transgression.” The caps thus worn were +called Statute caps. + +This was, of course, to encourage wool-workers in the pride of the +nation. Winthrop, master of a guild whose existence depended on wool, +would, of course, wear a woollen cap had he not been a Londoner. It was +a plain head-covering, but it was also the one worn by King Edward VI. + +There was a formal coif or cap worn by men of dignity; always worn, I +think, by judges and elderly lawyers, ere the assumption of the formal +wig. This coif may be seen on the head of the venerable Dr. Dee, and +also on the head of Lord Burleigh, and of Thomas Cecil, surmounted with +the citizen’s flat-cap. One of these caps in heavy black lustring +lingered by chance in my home—worn by some forgotten ancestor. It had a +curious loop, as may be seen on Dr. Dee. This was not a narrow string +for tying the coif on the head; it was a loop. And if there was any +need of fastening the cap on the head, a narrow ribbon or ferret, a +lacing, was put through both loops. + +In the inventory of the apparel of the first settlers which I have +given in the early pages of this book, we find that each colonist to +the Massachusetts Bay settlement had one Monmouth cap and five red +milled caps. All the lists of necessary clothing for the planters have +as an item, caps; but a well-made, well-lined hat was also supplied. + +Monmouth caps were in general wear in England. Thomas Fuller said, +“Caps were the most ancient, general, warm, and profitable coverings of +men’s heads in this Island.” In making them thousands of people were +employed, especially before the invention of fulling-mills, when caps +were wrought, beaten, and thickened by the hands and feet of men. +Cap-making afforded occupation to fifteen different callings: carders, +spinners, knitters, parters of wool, forcers, thickers, dressers, +walkers, dyers, battellers, shearers, pressers, edgers, liners, and +band-makers. + + +King James I of England. King James I of England. + +The Monmouth caps were worth two shillings each, which were furnished +to the Massachusetts colonists. These were much affected by seafaring +men. We read, in _A Satyr on Sea Officers_, “With Monmouth cap and +cutlass at my side, striding at least a yard at every stride.” “The +Ballad of the Caps,” 1656, gives a wonderful list of caps. Among them +are: + + +The Monmouth Cap, the Saylors thrum, +And that wherein the tradesmen come, +The Physick, Lawe, the Cap divine, +And that which crowns the Muses nine, +The Cap that Fools do countenance, +The goodly Cap of Maintenance, +And any Cap what e’re it be, +Is still the sign of some degree. + +“The sickly Cap both plaine and wrought, +The Fuddling-cap however bought, +The quilted, furred, the velvet, satin, +For which so many pates learn Latin, +The Crewel Cap, the Fustian pate, +The Perriwig, the Cap of Late, +And any Cap what e’er it be +Is still the sign of some degree.” + +—“Ballad of the Caps,” 1656. + + +We seldom have in manuscript or print, in America, titles or names +given to caps or hats, but one occasionally seen is the term +“montero-cap,” spelled also mountero, montiro, montearo; and Washington +Irving tells of “the cedar bird with a little mon-teiro-cap of +feathers.” Montero-caps were frequently recommended to emigrants, and +useful dress they were, being a horseman’s or huntsman’s cap with a +simple round crown, and a flap which went around the sides and back of +the cap and which could be worn turned up or brought down over the back +of the neck, the ears and temples, thus making a most protecting +head-covering. They were, in general, dark colored, of substantial +woollen stuff, but Sterne writes in Tristram Shandy of a montero-cap +which he describes as of superfine Spanish cloth, dyed scarlet in the +grain, mounted all round with fur, except four inches in front, which +was faced with light blue lightly embroidered. It is a montero-cap +which is seen on the head of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the “King of the +Mumpers,” a most genial English rogue, sneak-thief, and cheat of the +eighteenth century, who spent some of his ill-filled years in the +American colonies, whither he was brought after being trepanned, and +where he had to bear the ignominy of wearing an iron collar welded +around his neck. + +A montero-cap seems to have been the favorite dress of rogues. In +Head’s _English Rogue_ we read, “Beware of him that rides in a +montero-cap and of him that whispers oft.” The picaro Guzman wore one; +and as montero is the Spanish word for huntsman, Head may have obtained +the word from that special scamp, Guzman, whose life was published in +1633. It is a very ancient name, being given in Cotgrave as a hood, or +as the horseman’s helmet. It is worn still by Arctic travellers and +Alpine climbers. Sets of knitted montero-caps were presented by the +Empress Eugenie to the Arctic expedition of 1875, and the Jackies +dubbed them “Eugenie Wigs.” + +Another and widely different class of men wore likewise the +montero-cap, the English and American Quakers. Thomas Ellwood, in the +early days of his Quaker belief, suffered much for his hat, both from +his fellow Quakers and his father, a Church of England man. The Quakers +thought his “large Mountier cap of black velvet, the skirt of which +being turned up in Folds looked somewhat above the common Garb of a +Quaker.” A young priest at another time snatched this montero-cap off +because he wore it in the presence of magistrates, and then Ellwood’s +father fell upon it in this wise:— + + +“He could not contain himself but running upon me with both hands, +first violently snatcht off my Hat and threw it away and then giving me +some buffets in the head said Sirrah get you up to your chamber. I had +now lost one hat and had but one more. The next Time my Father saw it +on my head he tore it violently from me and laid it up with the other, +I know not where. Wherefore I put my Mountier Cap which was all I had +left to wear on my head, and but a little while I had that, for when my +Father came where I was, I lost that also.” + + + + +Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke). Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke). + +Finally the father refused to let him wear his “Hive,” as he called the +hat, at the table while eating, and thereafter Ellwood ate with his +father’s servants. + +The vogue of beaver hats was an important factor in the settlement of +America. + +The first Spanish, Dutch, English, and French colonists all came to +America to seek for gold and furs. The Spaniards found gold, the Dutch +and French found furs, but the English who found fish found the +greatest wealth of all, for food is ever more than raiment. + +Of the furs the most important and most valuable was beaver. The +English sent some beaver back to Europe; the very first ship to return +from Plymouth carried back two hogsheads. Winslow sent twenty hogsheads +as early as 1634, and Bradford shows that the trade was deemed +important. But the wild creatures speedily retreated. Johnson declares +that as early as 1645 the beaver trade had left the frontier post of +Springfield, on the Connecticut River. + +From the earliest days both the French and English crown had treated +the fishing and fur industries with unusual discretion, giving a +monopoly to the fur trade and leaving the fisheries free, so the latter +constantly increased, while in New England the fur trade passed over to +the Dutch, distinctly to the advantage of the English, for the lazy +trader at a post was neither a good savage nor a good citizen, while +the hardy fishermen and bold sailors of New England brought wealth to +every town. For some years the Dutch appeared to have the best of it, +for they received ten to fifteen thousand beaver skins annually from +New England; and they had trading-posts on Narragansett and Buzzards +Bay. Still the trade drew the Dutch away from agriculture, and the real +success of New Netherland did not come with furs, but with corn. + + +James Douglas (Earl of Morton). James Douglas (Earl of Morton). + +The fur trade was certainly an interesting factor in the growth of the +Dutch settlement. Fort Orange, or Albany, called the _Fuyck_, was the +natural topographical _fuyck_ or trap-net to catch this trade, and in +the very first season of its settlement fifteen hundred beaver and five +hundred otter skins were despatched to Holland. In 1657 Johannes +Dyckman asserted that 40,900 beaver and otter skins were sent that year +from Fort Orange to Fort Amsterdam (New York City). As these skins were +valued at from eight to ten guilders apiece (about $3.50 and with a +purchasing value equal to $20 to-day), it can readily be seen what a +source of wealth seemed opened. The authorities at Fort Orange, the +patroons of Renssalaerwyck and Beverwyck, were not to be permitted to +absorb all this wondrous gain in undisturbed peace. The increment of +the India Company was diverted and hindered in various ways. +Unscrupulous and crafty citizens of Fort Orange (independent +_handaelers_ or handlers) and their thrifty, penny-turning _vrouws_ +decoyed the Indian trappers and hunters into their peaceful, honest +kitchens under pretence of kindly Christian welcome to the +peltry-bearing braves; and they filled the guileless savages with Dutch +schnapps, or Barbadoes “kill-devil,” until the befuddled or half-crazed +Indians parted with their precious stores of hard-trapped skins and +threw off their well-perspired and greased beaver coats and exchanged +them for such valuable Dutch wares as knives, scissors, beads, and +jews’-harps, or even a few pints of quickly vanishing rum, instead of +solid Dutch guilders or substantial Dutch blankets. And even before +these strategic Dutch citizens could corral and fleece them, the +incoming fur-bearers had to run as insinuating a gantlet of +_boschloopers_, bush-runners, drummers, or “broakers,” who sallied out +on the narrow Indian paths to buy the coveted furs even before they +were brought into Fort Orange. Much legislation ensued. Scout-buying +was prohibited. Citizens were forbidden “to addresse to speak to the +wilden of trading,” or to entice them to “traffique,” or to harbor them +over night. Indian houses to lodge the trappers were built just outside +the gate, where the dickering would be public. These were built by +rates collected from all “Christian dealers” in furs. + +But Indian paths were many, and the water-ways were unpatrolled, and +kitchen doors could be slyly opened in the dusk; so the government, in +spite of laws and shelter-houses, did not get all the beaver skins. Too +many were eager for the lucrative and irregular trade; agricultural +pursuits were alarmingly neglected; other communities became rivals, +and the beavers soon were exterminated from the valley of the Hudson, +and by 1660 the Fort Orange trade was sadly diminished. The governor of +Canada had an itching palm, and lured the Indians—and beaver skins—to +Montreal. Thus “impaired by French wiles,” scarce nine thousand +peltries came in 1687 to Fort Orange. With a few fluttering rallies +until Revolutionary times the fur trade of Albany became extinct; it +passed from both Dutch and French, and was dominated by the Hudson Bay +Fur Company. + +So clear a description of the fur of the beaver and the use of the pelt +was given by Adriaen van der Donck, who lived at Fort Orange from the +year 1641 to 1646, and traded for years with the Indians, that it is +well to give his exact words:— + + +“The beaver’s skin is rough but thickly set with fine fur of an +ash-gray color inclining to blue. The outward points also incline to a +russet or brown color. From the fur of the beaver the best hats are +made that are worn. They are called beavers or castoreums from the +material of which they are made, and they are known by this name over +all Europe. Outside of the coat of fur many shining hairs appear called +wind-hairs, which are more properly winter-hairs, for they fall out in +summer and appear again in winter. The outer coat is of a +chestnut-brown color, the browner the color the better is the fur. +Sometimes it will be a little reddish. + +“When hats are made of the fur, the rough hairs are pulled out for they +are useless. The skins are usually first sent to Russia, where they are +highly valued for their outside shining hair, and on this their +greatest recommendation depends with the Russians. The skins are used +there for mantle-linings and are also cut into strips for borders, as +we cut rabbit-skins. Therefore we call the same peltries. Whoever has +there the most and costliest fur-trimmings is deemed a person of very +high rank, as with us the finest stuffs and gold and silver +embroideries are regarded as the appendages of the great. After the +hairs have fallen out, or are worn, and the peltries become old and +dirty and apparently useless, we get the article back, and convert the +fur into hats, before which it cannot be well used for this purpose, +for unless the beaver has been worn, and is greasy and dirty, it will +not felt properly, hence these old peltries are the most valuable. The +coats which the Indians make of beaver-skins and which they have worn +for a long time around their bodies until the skins have become foul +with perspiration and grease are afterwards used by the hatters and +make the best hats.” + + +One notion about beaver must be told. Its great popularity for many +years arose, it is conjectured, from its original use as a cap for +curative purposes. Such a beaver cap would “unfeignedly” recover to a +man his hearing, and stimulate his memory to a wonder, especially if +the “oil of castor” was rubbed in his hair. + + +Elihu Yale. Elihu Yale. + +The beaver hat was for centuries a choice and costly article of dress; +it went through many bizarre forms. On the head of Henry IV of France +and Navarre, as made known in his portrait, is a hat which effectually +destroys all possibility of dignity. It is a bell-crowned stove-pipe, +of the precise shape worn later by coachmen and by dandies about the +years 1820 to 1830. It is worn very much over one royal ear, like the +hat of a well-set-up, self-important coachman of the palmy days of +English coaching, and gives an air of absurd modernity and cockney +importance to the picture of a king of great dignity. The hat worn by +James I, ere he was King of England, is shown here. It is funnier than +any seen for years in a comic opera. The hat worn by Francis Bacon is a +plain felt, greatly in contrast with his rich laced triple ruff and +cuffs and embroidered garments. That of Thomas Cecil here varies +slightly. + +Two very singular shapings of the plain hat may be seen, one here on +the head of Fulke Greville, where the round-topped, high crown is most +disproportionate to the narrow brim. The second, here, shows an extreme +sugar-loaf, almost a pointed crown. + +A good hat was very expensive, and important enough to be left among +bequests in a will. They were borrowed and hired for many years, and +even down to the time of Queen Anne we find the rent of a _subscription +hat_ to be £;2 6s. per annum! The hiring out of a hat does not seem +strange when hiring out clothes was a regular business with tailors. +The wife of a person of low estate hired a gown of Queen Elizabeth’s to +be married in. Tailor Thomas Gylles complained of the Yeoman of the +queen’s wardrobe for suffering this. He writes, “The copper cloth of +gold gowns which were made last, and another, were sent into the +country for the marriage of Lord Montague.” The bequest of half-worn +garments was highly regarded. On the very day of Darnley’s funeral, +Mary Queen of Scots gave his clothes to Bothwell, who sent them to his +tailor to be refitted. The tailor, bold with the riot and disorder of +the time, returned them with the impudent message that “the duds of +dead men were given to the hangman.” The duds of men who were hanged +were given to the hangman almost as long as hangings took place. A poor +New England girl, hanged for the murder of her child, went to the +scaffold in her meanest attire, and taunted the executioner that he +would get but a poor suit of clothes from her. The last woman hanged in +Massachusetts wore a white satin gown, which I expect the sheriff’s +daughter much revelled in the following winter at dancing-parties. + + +Thomas Cecil. Thomas Cecil. + +Old Philip Stubbes has given us a wonderful description of English +head-gear:— + + +“HATS OF SUNDRIE FATIONS” + + +“Sometymes they vse them sharpe on the Croune, pearking vp like the +Spire, or Shaft of a Steeple, standyng a quarter of a yarde aboue the +Croune of their heades, somemore, some lesse, as please the phantasies +of their inconstant mindes. Othersome be flat and broad on the Crowne, +like the battlemetes of a house. An other sorte haue rounde Crownes, +sometymes with one kinde of Band, sometymes with another, now black, +now white, now russet, now red, now grene, now yellowe, now this, now +that, never content with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende. +And thus in vanitie they spend the Lorde his treasure, consuming their +golden yeres and siluer daies in wickednesse and sinne. And as the +fashions bee rare and strange, so is the stuffe whereof their hattes be +made divers also; for some are of Silke, some of Veluet, some of +Taffatie, some of Sarcenet, some of Wooll, and, whiche is more curious, +some of a certaine kinde of fine Haire; these they call Bever hattes, +or xx. xxx. or xl. shillinges price, fetched from beyonde the seas, +from whence a greate sorte of other vanities doe come besides. And so +common a thing it is, that euery seruyngman, countrieman, and other, +euen all indefferently, dooe weare of these hattes. For he is of no +account or estimation amongst men if he haue not a Veluet or Taffatie +hatte, and that must be Pincked, and Cunnyngly Carved of the beste +fashion. And good profitable hattes be these, for the longer you weare +them the fewer holes they haue. Besides this, of late there is a new +fashion of wearyng their hattes sprong vp amongst them, which they +father vpon a Frenchman, namely, to weare them with bandes, but how +vnsemely (I will not saie how hassie) a fashion that is let the wise +judge; notwithstanding, howeuer it be, if it please them, it shall not +displease me. + + +“And another sort (as phantasticall as the rest) are content with no +kinde of hat without a greate Bunche of Feathers of diuers and sondrie +Colours, peakyng on top of their heades, not vnlike (I dare not saie) +Cockescombes, but as sternes of pride, and ensignes of vanity. And yet, +notwithstanding these Flutterying Sailes, and Feathered Flagges of +defiaunce of Vertue (for so they be) are so advanced that euery child +hath them in his Hat or Cap; many get good liuing by dying and selling +of them, and not a few proue the selues more than Fooles in wearyng of +them.” + + +Notwithstanding this list of Stubbes, it is very curious to note that +in general the shape of the real beaver hat remained the same as long +as it was worn uncocked. + + +Cornelius Steinwyck. Cornelius Steinwyck. + +The hat was worn much more constantly within-doors than in the present +day. Pepys states that they were worn in church; even the preacher wore +his hat. Hats were removed in the presence of royalty. An hereditary +honor and privilege granted to one of my ancestors was that he might +wear his hat before the king. + +It is somewhat difficult to find out the exact date when the wearing of +hats by men within-doors ceased to be fashionable and became distinctly +low bred. We can turn to contemporary art. In 1707 at a grand banquet +given in France to the Spanish Embassy, a ceremonious state affair with +the women in magnificent full-dress, the men seated at the table and in +the presence of royalty wore their cocked hats—so much for courtly +France. + +This wearing of the hat in church, at table, and elsewhere that seems +now strange to us, was largely as an emblem of dignity and authority. +Miss Moore in the _Caldwell Papers_ writes of her grandfather:— + + +“I’ my grandfather’s time, as I have heard him tell, ilka maister of a +family had his ain seat in his ain house; aye, and sat there with his +hat on, afore the best in the land; and had his ain dish, and was aye +helpit first and keepit up his authority as a man should so. Parents +were parents then; and bairns dared not set up their gabs afore them as +they do now.” + + +That the covering of the head in church still has a significance on +important occasions, is shown by a rubric from the “Form and Order” for +the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; this provides +that the king remains uncovered during the saying of the Litany and the +beginning of the Communion Service, but when the sermon begun that he +should put on his “Cap of crimson velvet turned up with Ermine, and so +continue,” to the end of the discourse. + +Hatbands were just as important for men’s hats as women’s—especially +during the years of the reign of James I. Endymion Porter had his +wife’s diamond necklace to wear on his hat in Spain. It probably looked +like paste beside the gorgeousness of the Duke of Buckingham, who had +“the Mirror of France,” a great diamond, the finest in England, “to +wear alone in your hat with a little blacke feather,” so the king wrote +him. A more curious hat ornament was a glove. + + +Hat with a Glove as a Favor. Hat with a Glove as a Favor. + +This handsome hat is from a portrait of George, Earl of Cumberland. It +has a woman’s glove as a favor. This is said to have been a gift of +Queen Elizabeth after his prowess in a tournament. He always wore this +glove on state occasions. Gloves were worn on a hat in three meanings: +as a memorial of a dead friend, as a favor of a mistress, or as a mark +of challenge. A pretty laced or tasselled handkerchief was also a favor +and was worn like a cockade. + +An excellent representation of the Cavalier hat may be seen on the +figure of Oliver Cromwell (here), which shows him dismissing +Parliament. Cornelius Steinwyck’s flat-leafed hat has no feather. + +The steeple-crowned hat of both men and women was in vogue in the +second half of the seventeenth century in both England and America, at +the time when the witchcraft tragedies came to a culmination. The long +scarlet cloak was worn at the same date. It is evident that the +conventional witch of to-day, an old woman in scarlet cloak and +steeple-crowned hat, is a relic of that day. Through the striking +circumstances and the striking dress was struck off a figurative type +which is for all time. + +William Kempe of “Duxburrow” in 1641 left hats, hat-boxes, rich +hatbands, bone laces, leather hat-cases; also ten “capps.” Hats were +also made of cloth. In the tailor’s bill of work done for Jonathan +Corwin of Salem, in 1679, we read “To making a Broadcloth Hatt 14s. To +making 2 hatts &; 2 jackets for your two sonnes 19s.” In 1672 an +association of Massachusetts hatters asked privileges and protection +from the colonial government to aid and encourage American manufacture, +but they were refused until they made better hats. Shortly after, +however, the exportation of raccoon fur to England was forbidden, or +taxed, as it was found to be useful in the home manufacture of hats. + +The eighteenth century saw many and varied forms of the cocked hat; the +nineteenth returned to a straight crown and brim. The description of +these will be given in the due course of the narrative of this book. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE VENERABLE HOOD + + +_“Paul saith, that a woman ought to have a Power on her head. This +Power that some of them have is disguised gear and strange fashions. +They must wear French Hoods—and I cannot tell you—I—what to call it. +And when they make them ready and come to the Covering of their Head +they will say, ‘Give me my French Hood, and Give me my Bonnet or my +Cap.’ Now here is a Vengeance-Devil; we must have our Power from Turkey +of Velvet, and gay it must be; far-fetched and dear-bought; and when it +cometh it is a False Sign.”_ + +—Sermon, ARCHBISHOP LATIMER, 1549. + + +_“Hoods are the most ancient covering for the head and far more elegant +and useful than the more modern fashion of hats, which present a +useless elevation, and leave the neck and ears completely exposed.”_ + +—“Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume,” PUGIN, 1868. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE VENERABLE HOOD + + +W + + +e are told by the great Viollet le Duc that the faces of +fifteenth-century women were of a uniform type. Certainly a uniform +head-dress tends to establish a seeming resemblance of the wearers; the +strange, steeple head-dress of that century might well have that +effect; and the “French hood” worn so many years by English, French, +and American women has somewhat the same effect on women’s +countenances; it gives a uniformity of severity. It is difficult for a +face to be pretty and gay under this gloomy hood. This French hood is +plainly a development of the head-rail, which was simply an unshaped +oblong strip of linen or stuff thrown over the head, and with the ends +twisted lightly round the neck or tied loosely under the chin with +whatever grace or elegance the individual wearer possessed. + +Varying slightly from reign to reign, yet never greatly changed, this +sombre plain French hood was worn literally for centuries. It was +deemed so grave and dignified a head-covering that, in the reign of +Edward III, women of ill carriage were forbidden the wearing of it. + + +Gulielma Penn. Gulielma Penn. + +In the year 1472 “Raye Hoods,” that is, striped hoods, were enjoined in +several English towns as the distinctive wear of women of ill +character. And in France this black hood was under restriction; only +ladies of the French court were permitted to wear velvet hoods, and +only women of station and dignity, black hoods. + +This black hood was dignified in allegorical literature as “the +venerable hood,” and was ever chosen by limners to cover the head of +any woman of age or dignity who was to be depicted. + +In the _Ladies’ Dictionary_ a hood is defined thus: “A Dutch attire +covering the head, face and all the body.” And the long cloak with this +draped hood, which must have been much like the Shaker cloak of to-day, +seems to have been deemed a Dutch garment. It was warm and comfortable +enough to be adopted readily by the English Pilgrims in Holland. It had +come to England, however, in an earlier century. Of Ellinor Rummin, the +alewife, Skelton wrote about the year 1500:— + + +“A Hake of Lincoln greene +It had been hers I weene +More than fortye yeare +And soe it doth appeare +And the green bare threds +Looked like sere wedes +Withered like hay +The wool worn awaye +And yet I dare saye +She thinketh herself gaye +Upon a holy day.” + + +It is impossible to know how old this hood is. When I have fancied I +had the earliest reference that could be found, I would soon come to +another a few years earlier. We know positively from the _Lisle Papers_ +that it was worn in England by the name “French hood” in 1540. Anne +Basset, daughter of Lady Lisle, had come into the household of the +queen of Henry VIII, who at the time was Anne of Cleves. The “French +Apparell” which the maid of honor fetched from Calais was not pleasing +to the queen, who promptly ordered the young girl to wear “a velvet +bonnet with a frontlet and edge of pearls.” These bonnets are familiar +to us on the head of Anne’s predecessor, Anne Boleyn. They were worn +even by young children. One is shown here. The young lady borrowed a +bonnet; and a factor named Husee—the biggest gossip of his day—promptly +chronicles to her mother, “I saw her (Anne Basset) yesterday in her +velvet bonnet that my Lady Sussex had tired her in, and thought it +became her nothing so well as the French hood,—but the Queen’s pleasure +must be done!” + + +Hannah Callowhill Penn. Hannah Callowhill Penn. + +Doubtless some of the Pilgrim Mothers wore bonnets like this one of +Anne Basset’s, especially if the wearer were a widow, when there was +also an under frontlet which was either plain, plaited, or folded, but +which came in a distinct point in the middle of the forehead. + +This cap, or bandeau, with point on the forehead, is precisely the +widow’s cap worn by Catherine de Medicis. She was very severe in dress, +but she introduced the wearing of neck-ruffs. She also wore hoods, the +favorite head-covering of all Frenchwomen at that time. This form of +head-gear was sometimes called a widow’s peak, on account of a similar +peak of black silk or white being often worn by widows, apparently of +all European nations. Magdalen Beeckman, an American woman of Dutch +descent (here), wears one. The name is still applied to a pointed +growth of hair on the forehead. It has also been known as a headdress +of Mary Queen of Scots, because some of her portraits display this +pointed outline of head-gear. It continued until the time of Charles +II. It is often found on church brasses, and was plainly a head-gear of +dignity. A modified form is shown in the portrait of Lady Mary Armine. + +Stubbes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_ gives a notion of the importance of +the French hood when he speaks of the straining of all classes for rich +attire: that “every artificer’s wife” will not go without her hat of +velvet every day; “every merchant’s wife and meane gentlewoman” must be +in her “French hood”; and “every poor man’s daughter” in her “taffatie +hat or of wool at least.” We have seen what a fierce controversy burned +over Madam Johnson’s “schowish” velvet hood. + +An excellent account of this black hood as worn by the Puritans is +given in rhyme in “Hudibras _Redivivus_,” a long poem utterly worthless +save for the truthful descriptions of dress; it runs:— + + +“The black silk Hood, with formal pride +First roll’d, beneath the chin was tied +So close, so very trim and neat, +So round, so formal, so complete, +That not one jag of wicked lace +Or rag of linnen white had place +Betwixt the black bag and the face, +Which peep’d from out the sable hood +Like Luna from a sullen cloud.” + + +It was doubtless selected by the women followers of Fox on account of +its ancient record of sobriety and sanctity. + + +“Are the pinch’d cap and formal hood the emblems of sanctity? Does your +virtue consist in your dress, Mrs. Prim?” + + +writes Mrs. Centlivre in _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_. + +The black hood was worn long by Quaker women ere they adopted the +beaver hat of the eighteenth century, and the poke-bonnet of the +nineteenth century. Here is given a portrait of Hannah Callowhill Penn, +a Quaker, the second wife of William Penn. She was a sensible woman +brought up in a home where British mercantile thrift vied with Quaker +belief in adherence to sober attire, and her portrait plainly shows her +character. Penn’s young and pretty wife of his youth wears a +fashionable pocket-hoop and rich brocade dress; but she wears likewise +the simple black hood (here). + +The dominance of this black French hood came not, however, through its +wear by sober-faced, discreet English Puritans and Quakers, but through +a French influence, a court influence, the earnestness of its adoption +by Madame de Maintenon, wife of King Louis XIV of France. The whole +dress of this strange ascetic would by preference have been that of a +penitent; but the king had a dislike of anything like mourning, so she +wore dresses of some dark color other than black, generally a dull +brown. The conventual aspect of her attire was added to by this large +black hood, which was her constant wear, and is seen in her portraits. +The life at court became melancholy, dejected, filled with icy reserve. +And Madame, whether she rode “shut up in a close chair,” says Duclos, +“to avoid the least breath of air, while the King walked by her side, +taking off his hat each time he stopped to speak to her”; or when she +attended services in the chapel, sitting in a closed gallery; or even +in her own sombre apartments, bending in silence over ecclesiastic +needlework,—everywhere, her narrow, yellow, livid face was shadowed and +buried in this black hood. + + +Madame de Miramion. Madame de Miramion. + +Her strange power over the king was in force in 1681, and, until his +death in 1715, this sable hood, so unlike the French taste, covered the +heads of French women of all ages and ranks. The genial, almost +quizzical countenance of that noble and charitable woman, Madame de +Miramion, wears a like hood. + +This French hood is prominent everywhere in book illustrations of the +eighteenth century and even of earlier years. The loosely tied corners +and the sides appear under the straw hats upon many of the figures in +Tempest’s _Cryes of London_, 1698, such as the Milk woman, the “Newes” +woman, etc., which publication, I may say in passing, is a wonderful +source for the student of everyday costume. I give the Strawberry Girl +on this page to show the ordinary form of the French hood on plain +folk. _Misson’s Memories_, published also in 1698, it gives the +milkmaids on Mayday in like hoods. The early editions of Hudibras show +these hoods, and in Hogarth’s works they may be seen; not always of +black, of course, in later years, but ever of the same shape. + + +The Strawberry Girl. The Strawberry Girl. + +The hood worn by the Normans was called a chaperon. It was a sort of +pointed bag with an oval opening for the face; sometimes the point was +of great length, and was twisted, folded, knotted. In the Bodleian +Library is a drawing of eleven figures of young lads and girls playing +_Hoodman-blind_ or _Blindman’s-buff_. The latter name came from the +buffet or blow which the players gave with their twisted chaperon +hoods. The blind man simply put his hood on “hind side afore,” and was +effectually blinded. These figures are of the fifteenth century. + + +Black Silk Hood. Black Silk Hood. + +The wild latitude of spelling often makes it difficult to define an +article of dress. I have before me a letter of the year 1704, written +in Boston, asking that a riding-hood be sent from England of any color +save yellow; and one sentence of the instructions reads thus, “If ’tis +velvet let it be a shabbaroon; if of cloth, a French hood.” I abandoned +“shabbaroon” as a wholly lost word; until Mrs. Gummere announced that +the word was chaperon, from the Norman hood just described. This +chaperon is specifically the hood worn by the Knights of the Garter +when in full dress; in general it applies to any ample hood which +completely covers head and face save for eye-holes. Another hood was +the sortie. + + +Quilted Hood. Quilted Hood. + +The term “coif,” spelt in various ways, quoif, quoiffe, coiffer, +ciffer, quoiffer, has been held to apply to the French hood; but it +certainly did not in America, for I find often in inventories side by +side items of black silk hoods and another of quoifs, which I believe +were the white undercaps worn with the French hood; just as a coif was +the close undercap for men’s wear. + +Through the two centuries following the assumption of the French hood +came a troop of hoods, though sometimes under other names. In 1664 +Pepys tells of his wife’s yellow bird’s-eye hood, “very fine, to +church, as the fashion now is.” Planché says hoods were not displaced +by caps and bonnets till George II’s time. + +In the list of the “wedding apparell” of Madam Phillips, of Boston, are +velvet hoods, love-hoods, and “sneal hoods”; hoods of Persian, of +lustring, of gauze; frequently scarlet hoods are named. In 1712 Richard +Hall sent, from Barbadoes to Boston, a trunk of his deceased wife’s +finery to be sold, among which was “one black Flowered Gauze Hoode,” +and he added rather spitefully that he “could send better but it would +be too rich for Boston.” He was a grandson of Madam Symonds of Ipswich. +Furbelowed gauze hoods were then owned by Boston women, and must have +been pretty things. Their delicacy has kept them from being preserved +as have been velvet and Persian hoods. + +For the years 1673 to 1721 we have a personal record of domestic life +in Boston, a diary which is the sole storehouse to which we can turn +for intimate knowledge of daily deeds in that little town. A scant +record it is, as to wearing apparel; for the diary-writer, Samuel +Sewall, sometime business man, friend, neighbor, councillor, judge,—and +always Puritan,—had not a regard of dress as had his English +contemporary, the gay Samuel Pepys, or even that sober English +gentleman, John Evelyn. In Pepys’s pages we have frequent and +light-giving entries as to dress, interested and interesting entries. +In Judge Sewall’s diary, any references to dress are wholly accidental +and not related as matters of any moment, save one important exception, +his attitude toward wigs and wig-wearing. I could wish Sewall had had a +keener eye for dress, for he wrote in strong, well-ordered English; and +when he was deeply moved he wrote with much color in his pen. The most +spirited episodes in the book are the judge’s remarkable and varied +courtships after he was left a widower at the age of sixty-five, and +again when sixty-eight. While thus courting he makes almost his sole +reference to women’s dress,—that Madam Mico when he called came to him +in a splendid dress, and that Madam Winthrop’s dress, _after she had +refused him_, was “not so clean as sometime it had been.” But an +article of his own dress, nevertheless, formed an important factor in +his unsuccessful courtship of Madam Winthrop—his hood. When all the +other widowers of the community, dignified magistrates, parsons, and +men of professions, all bourgeoned out in stately full-bottomed wigs, +what woman would want to have a lover who came a-courting in a hood? A +detachable hood with a cloak, I doubt not he wore, like the one owned +by Judge Curwen, his associate in that terrible tale of Salem’s +bigotry, cruelty, and credulity, the Witchcraft Trial. I cannot fancy +Judge Sewall in a scarlet cloak and hood—a sad-colored one seems more +in keeping with his temperament. + +Perhaps our old friend, the judge, wore his hood under his hat, as did +the sober citizens in Piers Plowman; and as did judges in England. + +It is certain that many men wore hoods; and they wore occasionally a +garment which was really woman’s wear, namely, a “riding hood”; which +was also called a Dutch hood, and was like Elinor Rummin’s hake. This +riding-hood was really more of a cloak than a head-covering, as it +often had arm-holes. It might well be classed with cloaks. I may say +here that it is not possible, either by years or by topics, to isolate +completely each chapter of this book from the other. Its very +arrangement, being both by chronology and subject, gives me +considerable liberty, which I now take in this chapter, by retaining +the riding-hood among hoods, simply because of its name. + + +Pink Silk Hood. Pink Silk Hood. + + +Pug Hood. Pug Hood. + +On May 6, 1717, the _Boston News Letter_ gave a description of a gayly +attired Indian runaway; she wore off a “red Camblet Ryding Hood fac’d +with blue.” Another servant absconded with an orange-colored +riding-hood with arm-holes. I have an ancient pattern of a riding-hood; +it was found in the bottom of an old hair-covered trunk. It was marked +“London Ryding Hood.” With it were rolled several packages of bits of +woollen stuff, one of scarlet broadcloth, one of blue camlet, plainly +labelled “Cuttings from Apphia’s ryding hood” and “Pieces from Mary’s +ryding hood,” showing that they had been placed there with the pattern +when the hood was cut. It is a cape, cut in a deep point in front and +back; the extreme length of the points from the collar being about +twenty-six inches. The hood is precisely like the one on Judge Curwen’s +cloak, like the hoods of Shaker cloaks. As bits of silk are rolled with +the wool pieces, I infer that these riding-hoods were silk lined. + +A most romantic name was given to the riding-hood after the battle of +Preston in 1715. The Earl of Nithsdale, after the defeat of the +Jacobites, was imprisoned in the Tower of London under sentence of +death. From thence he made his escape through his wife’s coolness and +ingenuity. She visited him dressed in a large riding-hood which could +be drawn closely over her face. He escaped in her dress and hood, fled +to the continent, and lived thirty years in safety in France. After +that dashing rescue, these hoods were known as Nithsdales. The +head-covering portion still resembled the French hood, but the +shoulder-covering portion was circular and ruffled—according to +Hogarth. In Durfey’s _Wit and Mirth_, 1719, is a spirited song +commemorating this “sacred wife,” who— + + +“by her Wits immortal pains +With her quick head has saved his brains.” + + +One verse runs thus:— + + +“Let Traitors against Kings conspire +Let secret spies great Statesmen hire, +Nought shall be by detection got +If Woman may have leave to plot. +There’s nothing clos’d with Bars or Locks +Can hinder Night-rayls, Pinners, Smocks; +For they will everywhere make good +As now they’ve done the Riding-hood.” + + +In 1737 “pug hoods” were in fashion. We have no proof of their shape, +though I am told they were the close, plain, silk hood sometimes worn +under other hoods. One is shown here. Pumpkin hoods of thickly wadded +wool were prodigiously hot head-coverings; they were crudely pumpkin +shaped. Knitted hoods, under such names as “comforters,” “fascinators,” +“rigolettes,” “nubias,” “opera hoods,” “molly hoods,” are of +nineteenth-century invention. + + +CHAPTER IX + +CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS + + +_“Within my memory the Ladies covered their lovely Necks with a Cloak, +this was exchanged for the Manteel; this again was succeeded by the +Pelorine; the Pelorine by the Neckatee; the Neckatee by the Capuchin, +which hath now stood its ground for a long time.”_ + +—“Covent Garden Journal,” May 1, 1752. + + +_“Mary Wallace and Clemintina Ferguson Just arrived from the Kingdom of +Ireland intend to follow the business of Mantua making and have +furnished themselves from London in patterns of the following kinds of +wear, and have fixed a correspondence so to have from thence the +earliest Fashions in Miniature. They are at Peter Clarke’s within two +doors of William Walton’s, Esq., in the Fly. Ladies and Gentlemen that +employ them may depend on being expeditiously and reasonably served in +making the following Articles, that is to say—Sacks, Negligees, +Negligee-night-gowns, plain-nightgowns, pattanlears, shepherdesses, +Roman cloaks, Cardinals, Capuchins, Dauphinesses, Shades lorrains, +Bonnets and Hives.”_ + +—“New York Mercury,” May, 1757. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS + + +U + + +nder the general heading of cloaks I intend to write of the various +capelike shoulder-coverings, for both men and women, which were worn in +the two centuries of costume whereof this book treats. Often it is +impossible to determine whether a garment should be classed as a hood +or a cloak, for so many cloaks were made with head-coverings. Both +capuchins and cardinals, garments of popularity for over a century, had +hoods, and were worn as head-gear. + +There is shown here a full, long cloak of rich scarlet broadcloth, +which is the oldest cloak I know. It has an interesting and romantic +history. No relic in Salem is more noteworthy than this. It has +survived since witchcraft days; and with right care, care such as it +receives from its present owner, will last a thousand years. It was +worn by Judge Curwen, one of the judges in those dark hours for Salem; +and is still owned by Miss Bessie Curwen, his descendant. It will be +noted that it bears a close resemblance to the Shaker cloaks of to-day, +though the hood is handsomer. This hood also is detached from the cape. +The presiding justice in the Salem witchcraft trials was William +Stoughton, a severe Puritan. In later years Judge Sewall, his +fellow-judge, in an agony of contrition, remorse, self-reproach, +self-abnegation, and exceeding sorrow at those judicial murders, stood +in Boston meeting-house, at a Sabbath service while his pastor read +aloud his confession of his cruel error, his expression of his remorse +therefor. A striking figure is he in our history. No thoughtful person +can regard without emotions of tenderest sympathy and admiration that +benignant white-haired head, with black skullcap, bowed in public +disgrace, which was really his honor. But Judge Stoughton never +expressed, in public or private, remorse or even regret. I doubt if he +ever felt either. He plainly deemed his action right. I wish he could +tell us what he thinks of it now. In his portrait here he wears a +skullcap, as does Judge Sewall in his portrait, and a cloak with a cape +like that of his third associate, Judge Curwen. Judge Sewall had both +cloak and hood. Possibly all judges wore them. Judge Stoughton’s cloak +has a rich collar and a curious clasp. + + +Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak. Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak. + +Stubbes of course told of the fashion of cloak-wearing:— + + +“They have clokes also in nothing discrepant from the rest; of dyverse +and sundry colours, white red tawnie black, green yellow russet purple +violet and an infinyte of other colours. Some of cloth silk velvet +taffetie and such like; some of the Spanish French or Dutch fashion. +Some short, scarcely reaching to the gyrdlestead or waist, some to the +knee, and othersome trayling upon the ground almost like gownes than +clokes. These clokes must be garded laced &; thorouly full, and +sometimes so lined as the inner side standeth almost in as much as the +outside. Some have sleeves, othersome have none. Some have hoodes to +pull over the head, some have none. Some are hanged with points and +tassels of gold silver silk, some without all this. But howsoever it +bee, the day hath bene when one might have bought him two Clokes for +lesse than now he can have one of these Clokes made for. They have such +store of workmanship bestowed upon them.” + + +It is such descriptions as this that make me regard in admiration this +ancient Puritan. Would that I had the power of his pen! Fashion-plates, +forsooth! The _Journal of the Modes_!—pray, what need have we of any +pictures or any mantua-maker’s words when we can have such a +description as this. Why! the man had a perfect genius for millinery! +Had he lived three centuries later, we might have had Master Stubbes in +full control (openly or secretly, according to his environment) of some +dress-making or tailoring establishment _pour les dames_. + +The lining of these cloaks was often very gay in color and costly; +“standing in as much as the outside.” We find a son of Governor +Winthrop writing in 1606:— + + +“I desire you to bring me a very good camlet cloake lyned with what you +like except blew. It may be purple or red or striped with those or +other colors if so worn suitable and fashionable.... I would make a +hard shift rather than not have the cloak.” + + +Similar cloaks of scarlet, and of blue lined with scarlet, formed part +of the uniform of soldiers for many years and for many nations. They +were certainly the wear of thrifty comfortable English gentlemen. Did +not John Gilpin wear one on his famous ride? + + +“There was all that he might be + Equipped from head to toe, +His long red cloak well-brushed and neat + He manfully did throw.” + + +Scarlet was a most popular color for all articles of dress in the early +years of the eighteenth century. Like the good woman in the Book of +Proverbs, both English and American housewife “clothed her household in +scarlet.” Women as well as men wore these scarlet cloaks. It is curious +to learn from Mrs. Gummere that even Quakers wore scarlet. When +Margaret Fell married George Fox, greatest of Quakers, he bought her a +scarlet mantle. And in 1678 he sent her scarlet cloth for another +mantle. There was good reason in the wear of scarlet; it both was warm +and looked warm; and the color was a lasting one. It did not fade like +many of the homemade dyes. + + +Judge Stoughton. Judge Stoughton. + +A very interesting study is that of color in wearing apparel. Beginning +with the few crude dyes of mediaeval days, we could trace the history +of dyeing, and the use and invention of new colors and tints. The names +of these colors are delightful; the older quaint titles seem +wonderfully significant. We read of such tints as billymot, phillymurt, +or philomot (feuille-mort), murry, blemmish, gridolin (gris-de-lin or +flax blossom), puce colour, foulding colour, Kendal green, Lincoln +green, treen-colour, watchet blue, barry, milly, tuly, stammel red, +Bristol red, zaffer-blue, which was either sapphire-blue or +zaffre-blue, and a score of fanciful names whose signification and +identification were lost with the death of the century. Historical +events were commemorated in new hues; we have the political, +diplomatic, and military history of various countries hinted to us. +Great discoveries and inventions give names to colors. The materials +and methods of dyeing, especially domestic dyes, are most interesting. +An allied topic is the significance of colors, the limitation of their +use. For instance, the study of blue would fill a chapter. The dress of +’prentices and serving-men in Elizabeth’s day was always blue blue +cloaks in winter, blue coats in summer. Blue was not precisely a +livery; it was their color, the badge of their condition in life, as +black is now a parson’s. Different articles of dress clung to certain +colors. Green stockings had their time and season of clothing the +sturdy legs of English dames as inevitably as green stalks filled the +fields. Think of the years of domination of the green apron; of the +black hood—it is curious indeed. + +In such exhaustive books upon special topics as the _History of the +Twelve Great Livery Companies of London_ we find wonderfully +interesting and significant proof of the power of color; also in many +the restrictive sumptuary laws of the Crown. + +It would appear that this long, scarlet cloak never was out of wear for +men and women until the nineteenth century. It was, at times, not the +height of the fashion, but still was worn. Various ancient citizens of +Boston, of Salem, are recalled through letter or traditions as clinging +long to this comfortable cloak. Samuel Adams carried a scarlet cloak +with him when he went to Washington. + +I shall tell in a later chapter of my own great-great-grandmother’s +wear of a scarlet cloak until the opening years of the nineteenth +century. During and after the Revolution these cloaks remained in high +favor for women. French officers, writing home to France glowing +accounts of the fair Americans, noted often that the ladies wore +scarlet cloaks, and Madame Riedesel asserted that all gentlewomen in +Canada never left the house save in a scarlet silk or cloth cloak. + +“A woman’s long scarlet cloak, almost new with a double cape,” had been +one of the articles feloniously taken from the house of Benjamin +Franklin, printer, in Philadelphia, in 1750. Debby Franklin’s dress, if +we can judge from what was stolen, was a gay revel of color. Among the +articles was one gown having a pattern of “large red roses and other +large yellow flowers with blue in some of the flowers with many green +leaves.” + +In the _Life of Jonathan Trumbull_ we read that when a collection was +taken in the Lebanon church for the benefit of the soldiers of the +Continental army, when money, jewels, clothing, and food were gathered +in a great heap near the pulpit, Madam Faith Trumbull rose up, threw +from her shoulders her splendid scarlet cloth cloak, a gift from Count +Rochambeau, advanced to the altar and laid the cloak with other +offerings of patriotism and generosity. It was used, we are told, to +trim the uniforms of the Continental officers and soldiers. + + +Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth. Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth. + +One of the first entries in regard to dress made by Philip Fithian in +1773, when he went to Virginia as a school-teacher, was that “almost +every Lady wears a Red Cloak; and when they ride out they tye a Red +Handkerchief over their Head &; Face; so when I first came to Virginia, +I was distrest whenever I saw a Lady, for I thought she had the +Tooth-Ach!” When the young tutor left his charge a year later, he wrote +a long letter of introduction, instruction, and advice to his +successor; and so much impression had this riding-dress still upon him +that he recounted at length the “Masked Ladies,” as he calls them, +explaining that the whole neck and face was covered, save a narrow slit +for the eyes, as if they had “the Mumps or Tooth-Ach.” It is possible +that the insect torments encountered by the fair riders may have been +the reason for this cloaking and masking. Not only mosquitoes and flies +and fleas were abundant, but Fithian tells of the irritating illness +and high fever of the fairest of his little flock from being bitten +with ticks, “which cover her like a distinct smallpox.” + +In seventeenth-century inventories an occasional item is a rocket. I +think no better description of a rocket can be given than that of Celia +Fiennes:— + + +“You meete all sorts of countrywomen wrapped up in the mantles called +West Country Rockets, a large mantle doubled together, of a sort of +serge, some are linsey-woolsey and a deep fringe or fag at the lower +end; these hang down, some to their feet, some only just below the +waist; in the summer they are all in white garments of this sort, in +the winter they are in red ones.” + + +This would seem much like a blanket shawl, but the word was also +applied to the scarlet round cloak. + +Another much-used name and cloaklike garment was the roquelaure. A very +good contemporary definition may be copied from _A Treatise on the +Modes_, 1715; it says it is “a short abridgement or compendium of a +coat which is dedicated to the Duke of Roquelaure.” It was simply a +shorter cloak than had been worn, and it was hoodless; for the great +curled wigs with heavy locks well over the shoulders made hoods +superfluous; and even impossible, for men’s wear. It was very speedily +taken into favor by women; and soon the advertisements of lost articles +show that it was worn by women universally as by men. In the _Boston +News Letter_, in 1730, a citizen advertises that he has lost his “Blue +Cloak or Roculo with brass buttons.” This was the first of an ingenious +series of misspellings which produced at times a word almost unrelated +to the original French word. Rocklow, rockolet, roquelo, rochelo, +roquello, and even rotkello have I found. Ashton says that scarlet +cloth was the favorite fabric for roquelaures in England; and he deems +the scarlet roclows and rocliers with gold loops and buttons “exceeding +magnifical.” I note in the American advertisements that the lost +roquelaures are of very bright colors; some were of silk, some of +camlet; generally they are simply ‘cloth.’ Many of the American +roquelaures had double capes. I think those handsome, gay cloaks must +have given a very bright, cheerful aspect to the town streets of the +middle of the eighteenth century. + +Sir William Pepperell, who was ever a little shaky in his spelling, but +possibly no more so than his neighbors, sent in 1737 from Piscataqua to +one Hooper in England for “A Handsom Rockolet for my daughter of about +15 yrs. old, or what is ye Most Newest Fashion for one of her age to +ware at meeting in ye Winter Season.” + +The capuchin was a hooded cloak named from the hooded garment worn by +the Capuchin monks. The date 1752 given by Fairholt as an early date of +its wear is far wrong. Fielding used the word in _Tom Jones_ in 1749; +other English publications, in 1709; and I find it in the _Letters of +Madame de Sévigné_ as early as 1686. The cardinal, worn at the same +date, was originally of scarlet cloth, and I find was generally of some +wool stuff. At one time I felt sure that cardinal was always the name +for the woollen cloak, and capuchin of the silken one; but now I am a +bit uncertain whether this is a rule. Judging from references in +literature and advertisements, the capuchin was a richer garment than +the cardinal. Capuchins were frequently trimmed liberally with lace, +ribbons, and robings; were made of silk with gauze ruffles, or of +figured velvet. One is here shown which is taken from one of Hogarth’s +prints. + + +A Capuchin. From Hogarth. A Capuchin. From Hogarth. + +This notice is from the _Boston Evening Post_ of January 13, 1772:— + + +“Taken from Concert Hall on Thursday Evening a handsom Crimson Satin +Capuchin trimmed with a rich white Blond Lace with a narrow Blond Lace +on the upper edge Lined with White Sarsnet.” + + +In 1752 capuchins and cardinals were much worn, especially purple ones. +The _Connoisseur_ says all colors were neglected for purple. “In purple +we glowed from hat to shoe. In such request were ribbons and silks of +that famous color that neither milliner mercer nor dyer could meet the +demand.” + +The names “cardinal” and “capuchin” had been derived from monkish wear, +and the cape, called a pelerine, had an allied derivation; it is said +to be derived from _pèlerin_—meaning a pilgrim. It was a small cape +with longer ends hanging in front; and was invented as a light, easily +adjustable covering for the ladies’ necks, which had been left so +widely and coldly bare by the low-cut French bodices. It is said that +the garment was invented in France in 1671. I do not find the word in +use in America till 1730. Then mantua-makers advertised that they would +make them. Various materials were used, from soft silk and thin cloth +to rich velvet; but silk pelerines were more common. + +In 1743, in the _Boston News Letter_, Henrietta Maria East advertised +that “Ladies may have their Pellerines made” at her mantua-making shop. +In 1749 “pellerines” were advertised for sale in the _Boston Gazette_ +and a black velvet “pellerine” was lost. + +In the quotation heading this chapter, manteel, pelerine, and neckatee +precede the capuchin; but in fact the capuchin is as old as the +pelerine. Beyond the fact that all mantua-makers made neckatees, and +that they were a small cape, this garment cannot be described. It +required much less stuff than either capuchin or cardinal. The +“manteel” was, of course, as old as the cloak. Elijah “took his mantle +and wrapped it together, and smote the waters.” In the Middle Ages the +mantle was a great piece of cloth in any cloaklike shape, of which the +upper corners were fastened at the neck. Often one of the front edges +was thrown over one shoulder. In the varied forms of spelling and +wearing, as manto, manteau, mantoon, mantelet, and mantilla the +foundation is the same. We have noted the richness and elegance of +Madam Symonds’s mantua. We could not forget the word and its +signification while we have so important a use of it in mantua-maker. + + +Lady Caroline Montagu. Lady Caroline Montagu. + +Dauphiness was the name of a certain style of mantle, which was most +popular about 1750. Harriot Paine had “Dauphiness Mantles” for sale in +Boston in 1755. A rude drawing in an old letter indicates that the +“Dauphiness” had a deep point at the back, and was cut up high at the +arm-hole. It was of thin silk, and was trimmed all around the lower +edge with a deep, full frill of the silk, which at the arm-hole fell +over the arm like a short sleeve. + +Many were the names of those pretty little cloaks and capes which were +worn with the sacque-shaped gowns. The duchess was one; we revived the +name for a similar mantle in 1870. The pelisse was in France the cloak +with arm-holes, shown, here, upon one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s engaging +children. The pelisse in America sometimes had sleeves, I am sure; and +was hardly a cloak. It is difficult to classify some forms which seem +almost jackets. A general distinction may be made not to include +sleeved garments with the cloaks; but several of the manteaus had +loose, large, flowing sleeves, and some like Madam Symonds’s had +detached sleeves. It is also difficult to know whether some of the +negligees were cloaks or sacque-like gowns. And there is the other +extreme; some of the smaller, circular neck-coverings like the +van-dykes are not cloaks. They are scarcely capes; they are merely +collars; but there are still others which are a bit bigger and are +certainly capes. And are there not also capes, like the neckatee, which +may be termed cloaks? Material, too, is bewildering; a light gauze +thing of ribbons and furbelows like the Unella is not really a cloak, +yet it takes a cloaklike form. There are no cut and dried rules as to +size, form, or weight of these cloaks, capes, collars, and hoods, so I +have formed my own classes and assignments. + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN + + +_“Rise up to thy Elders, put off thy Hat, make a Leg”_ + +—“Janua Linguarum,” COMENIUS, 1664. + + +_“Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can +put them on.”_ + +—“Essay on Human Understanding,” LOCKE, 1687. + + +_“When thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery Freshman and newcomer on +this Planet, sattest mewling in thy nurse’s arms; sucking thy coral, +and looking forth into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst +thou been without thy blankets and bibs and other nameless hulls?”_ + +—“Sartor Resartus,” THOMAS CARLYLE, 1836. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN + + +W + + +hen we reflect that in any community the number of “the younger sort” +is far larger than of grown folk, when we know, too, what large +families our ancestors had, in all the colonies, we must deem any +picture of social life, any history of costume, incomplete unless the +dress of children is shown. French and English books upon costume are +curiously silent regarding such dress. It might be alleged as a reason +for this singular silence that the dress of young children was for +centuries precisely that of their elders, and needed no specification. +But infants’ dress certainly was widely different, and full of historic +interest, as well as quaint prettiness; and there were certain details +of the dress of older children that were most curious and were wholly +unlike the contemporary garb of their elders; sometimes these details +were survivals of ancient modes for grown folk, sometimes their name +was a survival while their form had changed. + +For the dress of children of the early years of colonial life—the +seventeenth century—I have an unusual group of five portraits. One is +the little Padishal child, shown with her mother in the frontispiece, +one is Robert Gibbes (shown here). The third child is said to be John +Quincy—his picture is opposite this page. The two portraits of Margaret +and Henry Gibbes are owned in Virginia; but are too dimly photographed +for reproduction. The portrait of Robert Gibbes is owned by inheritance +by Miss Sarah B. Hager, of Kendal Green, Massachusetts. It is well +preserved, having hung for over a hundred years on the same wall in the +old house. He was four years old when this portrait was painted. It is +marked 1670. John Quincy’s portrait is marked also plainly as one and a +half years old, and with a date which is a bit dimmed; it is either +1670 or 1690. If it is 1690, the picture can be that of John Quincy, +though he would scarcely be as large as is the portrayed figure. If the +date is 1670, it cannot be John Quincy, for he was born in 1689. The +picture has the same checker-board floor as the three other Gibbes +portraits, four rows of squares wide; and the child’s toes are set at +the same row as are the toes of the shoes in the picture of Robert +Gibbes. + +The portraits of Henry and Margaret Gibbes are also marked plainly +1670. There was a fourth Gibbes child, who would have been just the age +of the subject of the Quincy portrait; and it is natural that there +should be a suspicion that this fourth portrait is of the fourth Gibbes +child, not of John Quincy. + + +John Quincy. John Quincy. + +Margaret Gibbes was born in 1663. Henry Gibbes was born in 1667. He +became a Congregational minister. His daughter married Nathaniel +Appleton, and through Nathaniel, John, Dr. John S., and John, the +portrait, with that of Margaret, came to the present owner, General +John W. S. Appleton, of Charlestown, West Virginia. + +The dress of these five children is of the same rich materials that +would be worn by their mothers. The Padishal child wears black velvet +like her mother’s gown; but her frock is brightened with scarlet points +of color. The linings of the velvet hanging sleeves, the ribbon knots +of the white virago-sleeve, the shoe-tip, the curious cap-tassel, are +of bright scarlet. We have noted the dominance of scarlet in old +English costumes. It was evidently the only color favored for children. +The lace cap, the rich lace stomacher, the lace-edged apron, all are of +Flemish lace. Margaret Gibbes wears a frock of similar shape, and +equally rich and dark in color; it is a heavy brocade of blue and red, +with a bit of yellow. Her fine apron, stomacher, and full sleeves are +rich in needlework. Robert Gibbes’s “coat,” as a boy’s dress at that +age then was called, is a striking costume. The inmost sleeves are of +white lawn, over them are sleeves made of strips of galloon of a +pattern in yellow, white, scarlet, and black, with a rolled cuff of red +velvet. There is a similar roll around the hem of the coat. Still +further sleeves are hanging sleeves of velvet trimmed with the galloon. + +It will be noted that his hanging sleeve is cut square and trimmed +squarely across the end. It is similar to the sleeves worn at the same +time by citizens of London in their formal “liveryman’s” dress, which +had bands like pockets, that sometimes really were pockets. + +His plain, white, hemstitched band would indicate that he was a boy, +did not the swing of his petticoats plainly serve to show it, as do +also his brothers’ “coats.” That child knew well what it was to tread +and trip on those hated petticoats as he went upstairs. I know how he +begged for breeches. The apron of John Quincy varies slightly in shape +from that of the other boy, but the general dress is like, save his +pretty, gay, scarlet hood, worn over a white lace cap. One unique +detail of these Gibbes portraits, and the Quincy portrait, is the +shoes. In all four, the shoes are of buff leather, with absolutely +square toes, with a thick, scarlet sole to which the buff-leather upper +seems tacked with a row either of long, thick, white stitches or of +heavy metal-headed nails; these white dots are very ornamental. One +pair of the shoes has great scarlet roses on the instep. The square toe +was distinctly a Cavalier fashion. It is in Miss Campion’s portrait, +facing this page, and in the print of the Prince of Orange here, and is +found in many portraits of the day. But these American shoes are in the +minor details entirely unlike any English shoes I have seen in any +collection elsewhere, and are most interesting. They were doubtless +English in make. + +The portrait of John Quincy resembles much in its dress that of Oliver +Cromwell when two years old, the picture now at Chequers Court. +Cromwell’s linen collar is rounded, and a curious ornament is worn in +front, as a little girl would wear a locket. The whole throat and a +little of the upper neck is bare. Dark hair, slightly curled, comes out +from the close cap in front of the ears. This picture of Cromwell +distinctly resembles his mother’s portrait. + + +Miss Campion, 1667. Miss Campion, 1667. + +The quaint tassel or rosette or feather on the cap of the Padishal +child was a fashion of the day. It is seen in many Dutch portraits of +children. In a curious old satirical print of Oliver Cromwell preaching +are the figures of two little children drawn standing by their mother’s +side. One child’s back is turned for our sight, and shows us what might +well be the back of the gown of the Padishal child. The cap has the +same ornament on the crown, and the hanging sleeves—of similar +form—have, at intervals of a few inches apart from shoulder to heel, an +outside embellishment of knots of ribbon. There is also a band or strip +of embroidery or passementerie up the back of the gown from skirt-hem +to lace collar, with a row of buttons on the strip. This proves that +the dress was fastened in the back, as the stiff, unbroken, white +stomacher also indicates. The other child is evidently a boy. His gown +is long and fur-edged. His cap is round like a Scotch bonnet, and has +also a tuft or rosette at the crown. On either side hang long strings +or ribbon bands reaching from the cap edge to the knee. + +These portraits of these little American children display nothing of +that God-given attribute which we call genius, but they do possess a +certain welcome trait, which is truthfulness; a hard attention to +detail, which confers on them a quality of exactness of likeness of +which we are very sensible. We have for comparison a series of +portraits of the same dates, but of English children, the children of +the royal and court families. I give here a part of the portrait group +of the family of the Duke of Buckingham; namely, the Duchess of +Buckingham and her two children, an infant son and a daughter, Mary. +She was a wonderful child, known in the court as “Pretty Moll,” having +the beauty of her father, the “handsomest-bodied” man in court, his +vivacity, his vigor, and his love of dancing, all of which made him the +prime favorite both of James and his son, Charles. + +A letter exists written by the duchess to her husband while he was gone +to Spain with his thirty suits of richly embroidered garments of which +I have written in my first chapter. The duchess writes of “Pretty +Moll,” who was not a year old:— + + +“She is very well, I thank God; and when she is set to her feet and +held by her sleeves she will not go softly but stamp, and set one foot +before another very fast, and I think she will run before she can go. +She loves dancing extremely; and when the Saraband is played, she will +get her thumb and finger together offering to snap; and then when “Tom +Duff” is sung, she will shake her apron; and when she hears the tune of +the clapping dance my Lady Frances Herbert taught the Prince, she will +clap both her hands together, and on her breast, and she can tell the +tunes as well as any of us can; and as they change tunes she will +change her dancing. I would you were here but to see her, for you would +take much delight in her now she is so full of pretty play and tricks. +Everybody says she grows each day more like you.” + + +Can you not see the engaging little creature, clapping her hands and +trying to step out in a dance? No imaginary description could equal in +charm this bit of real life, this word-picture painted in bright and +living colors by a mother’s love. I give another merry picture of her +childhood and widowhood in a later chapter. Many portraits of “Pretty +Moll” were painted by Van Dyck, more than of any woman in England save +the queen. One shows her in the few months that she was the child-wife +of the eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. She is in the centre of the +great family group. She was married thrice; her favorite choice of +character in which to be painted was Saint Agnes, who died rather than +be married at all. + + +Infant’s Cap. Infant’s Cap. + +Both mother and child in this picture wear a lace cap of unusual shape, +rather broader where turned over at the ear than at the top. It is seen +on a few other portraits of that date, and seems to have come to +England with the queen of James I. It disappeared before the graceful +modes of hair-dressing introduced by Queen Henrietta Maria. + +The genius of Van Dyck has preserved for us a wonderful portraiture of +children of this period, the children of King Charles I. The earliest +group shows the king and queen with two children; one a baby in arms +with long clothes and close cap—this might have been painted yesterday. +The little prince standing at his father’s knee is in a dark green +frock, much like John Quincy’s, and apparently no richer. A painting at +Windsor shows king and queen with the two princes, Charles and James; +another, also at Windsor, gives the mother with the two sons. One at +Turin gives the two princes with their sister. At Windsor, and in +_replica_ at Berlin, is the famous masterpiece with the five children, +dated 1637. + + +Eleanor Foster. 1755. Eleanor Foster. 1755. + +This exquisite group shows Charles, the Prince of Wales (aged seven), +with his arm on the head of a great dog; he is in the full garb of a +grown man, a Cavalier. His suit is red satin; the shoes are white, with +red roses. Mary, demure as in all her portraits, is aged six; she wears +virago-sleeves made like those of Margaret Gibbes, with hanging sleeves +over them, a lace stomacher, and cap, with tufts of scarlet, and hair +curled lightly on the forehead, and pulled out at the side in ringlets, +like that of her mother, Henrietta Maria. The Duke of York, aged two, +wears a red dress spotted with yellow, with sleeves precisely like +those of Robert Gibbes; white lace-edged apron, stomacher, and cap; his +hair is in curls. The Princess Elizabeth was aged about two; she is in +blue. Her cap is of wrought and tucked lawn, and she wears either a +pearl ear-ring or a pearl pendant at the corner of the cap just at the +ear, and a string of pearls around her neck. She has a gentle, serious +face, one with a premonitory tinge of sadness. She was the favorite +daughter of the king, and wrote the inexpressibly touching account of +his last days in prison. She was but thirteen, and he said to her the +day before his execution, “Sweetheart, you will forget all this.” “Not +while I live,” she answered, with many tears, and promised to write it +down. She lived but a short time, for she was broken-hearted; she was +found dead, with her head lying on the religious book she had been +reading—in which attitude she is carved on her tomb. The baby is +Princess Anne, a fat little thing not a year old; she is naked, save +for a close cap and a little drapery. She died when three and a half +years old; died with these words on her lips, “Lighten Thou mine eyes, +O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of Death.” It was not Puritan +children only at that time who were filled with deep religious thought, +and gave expression to that thought even in infancy; children of the +Church of England and of the Roman Catholic Church were all widely +imbued with religious feeling, and Biblical words were the familiar +speech of the day, of both young and old. It rouses in me strange +emotions when I gaze at this portrait and remember all that came into +the lives of these royal children. They had been happier had they been +born, like the little Gibbes children, in America, and of untitled +parents. + + +[Illustration: William, Prince of Orange.] + +At Amsterdam may be seen the portrait of Princess Mary painted with her +cousin, William of Orange, who became her child-husband. She had the +happiest life of any of the five—if she ever could be happy after her +father’s tragic death. In this later portrait she is a little older and +sadder and stiffer. Her waist is more pinched, her shoulders narrower, +her face more demure. His likeness is here given. The only marked +difference in the dress of these children from the dress of the Gibbes +children is in the lace; the royal family wear laces with deeply +pointed edges, the point known as a Vandyke. The American children wear +straight-edged laces, as was the general manner of laces of that day. +An old print of the Duke of York when about seven years old is given +(here). He carries in his hand a quaint racket. + +The costume worn by these children is like that of plebeian English +children of the same date. A manuscript drawing of a child of the +people in the reign of Charles I shows a precisely similar dress, save +that the child is in leading-strings held by the mother; and in the +belt to which the leading-strings are attached is thrust a “muckinder” +or handkerchief. + +These leading-strings are seldom used now, but they were for centuries +a factor in a child’s progress. They were a favorite gift to children; +and might be a simple flat strip of strong stuff, or might be richly +worked like the leading-strings which Mary, Queen of Scots embroidered +for her little baby, James. These are three bands of Spanish pink satin +ribbon, each about four or five feet long and over an inch wide. The +three are sewed with minute over-and-over stitches into a flat band +about four inches wide, and are embroidered with initials, emblems of +the crown, a verse of a psalm, and a charming flower and grape design. +The gold has tarnished into brown, and the flower colors are fled; but +it is still a beautiful piece of work, speaking with no uncertain voice +of a tender, loving mother and a womanly queen. There were +crewel-worked leading-strings in America. One is prettily lined with +strips of handsome brocade that had been the mother’s wedding +petticoat; it is not an ill rival of the princely leading-strings. + +Another little English girl, who was not a princess, but who lived in +the years when ran and played our little American children, was Miss +Campion, who “minded her horn-book”—minded it so well that she has been +duly honored as the only English child ever painted with horn-book in +hand. Her petticoat and stomacher, her apron, and cap and hanging +sleeves and square-toed shoes are just like Margaret Gibbes’s—bought in +the same London shops, very likely. + +Not only did all these little English and American children dress +alike, but so did French children, and so did Spanish children—only +little Spanish girls had to wear hoops. Hoops were invented in Spain; +and proud was the Spanish queen of them. + +Velasquez, contemporary with Van Dyck, painted the Infanta Maria +Theresa; the portrait is now in the Prado at Madrid. She carries a +handkerchief as big as a tablecloth; but above her enormous hoop +appears not only the familiar virago-sleeve, but the straight whisk or +collar, just like that of English children and dames. This child and +the Princess Marguerite, by Velasquez, have the hair parted on one side +with the top lock turned aside and tied with a knot of ribbon precisely +as we tie our little daughters’ hair to-day; and as the bride of +Charles II wore her hair when he married her. French children had not +assumed hoops. I have an old French portrait before me of a little +demoiselle, aged five, in a scarlet cloth gown with edgings of a narrow +gray gimp or silver lace. All the sleeves, the slashes, the long, +hanging sleeves are thus edged. She wears a long, narrow, white lawn +apron, and her stiff bodice has a stomacher of lawn. There is a +straight white collar tied with tiny bows in front and white cuffs; a +scarlet close cap edged with silver lace completes an exquisite +costume, which is in shape like that of Margaret Gibbes. The garments +of all these children, royal and subject, are too long, of course, for +comfort in walking; too stiff, likewise, for comfort in wearing; too +richly laced to be suitable for everyday wear; too costly, save for +folk of wealth; yet nevertheless so quaint, so becoming, so handsome, +so rich, that we reluctantly turn away from them. + +The dress of all young children in families of estate was cumbersome to +a degree. There exists to-day a warrant for the purchase of clothing of +Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, when she was a sportive, wilful, +naughty little child of four. She wore such unwieldy and ugly guise as +this: kirtles of tawny damask and black satin; gowns of green and +crimson striped velvet edged with purple tinsel, which must have been +hideous. All were lined with heavy black buckram. Indeed, the inner +portions, the linings of old-time garments, even of royalty, were far +from elegant. I have seen garments worn by grown princesses of the +eighteenth century, whereof the rich brocade bodies were lined with +common, heavy fabric, usually a stiff linen; and the sewing was done +with thread as coarse as shoe-thread, often homespun. This, too, when +the sleeve and neck-ruffles would be of needlework so exquisite that it +could not be rivalled in execution to-day. + +Many of the older portraits of children show hanging sleeves. The rich +claret velvet dresses of the Van Cortlandt twins, aged four, had +hanging sleeves. This dress is given in my book, _Child Life in +Colonial Days_, as is that of Katherine Ten Broeck, another child of +Dutch birth living in New York, who also wore heavy hanging sleeves. + +The use of the word hanging sleeves in common speech and in literature +is most interesting. It had a figurative meaning; it symbolized youth +and innocence. This meaning was acquired, of course, from the wear for +centuries of hanging sleeves by little children, both boys and girls. +It had a second, a derivative signification, being constantly employed +as a figure of speech to indicate second childhood; it was used with a +wistful tender meaning as an emblem of the helplessness of feeble old +age. The following example shows such an employment of the term. + +In 1720, Judge Samuel Sewall, of Boston, then about seventy-five years +of age, wrote to another old gentleman, whose widowed sister he desired +to marry, in these words:— + + +“I remember when I was going from school at Newbury to have sometime +met your sisters Martha and Mary in Hanging Sleeves, coming home from +their school in Chandlers Lane, and have had the pleasure of speaking +to them. And I could find it in my heart now to speak to Mrs. Martha +again, now I myself am reduced to Hanging Sleeves.” + + +William Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, in one of his engaging and +sprightly letters written in 1732, pictures the time of the patriarchs +when “a man was reckoned at Years of Discretion at 100; Boys went into +Breeches at about 40; Girles continued in Hanging Sleeves till 50, and +plaid with their Babys till Threescore.” + +When Benjamin Franklin was seven years old, he wrote a poem which was +sent to his uncle, a bright old Quaker. This uncle responded in clever +lines which begin thus:— + + +“’Tis time for me to throw aside my pen +When Hanging-Sleeves read, write and rhyme like men. +This forward Spring foretells a plenteous crop +For if the bud bear grain, what will the top?” + + +A curious use of the long hanging sleeve was as a pocket; that is, it +would seem curious to us were it not for our acquaintance with the +capacity of the sleeves of our unwelcome friend, Ah Sing. The pocketing +sleeve of the time of Henry III still exists in the heraldic charge +known as the manche, borne by the Hastings and Norton family. This is +also called maunch, émanche, and mancheron. The word “manchette,” an +ornamented cuff, retains the meaning of the word, as does manacle; all +are from _manus_. + +Hanging sleeves had a time of short popularity for grown folk while +Anne Boleyn was queen of England; for the little finger of her left +hand had a double tip, and the long, graceful sleeves effectually +concealed the deformity. + +In my book entitled _Child Life in Colonial Days_ I have given over +thirty portraits of American children. These show the changes of +fashions, the wear of children at various periods and ages. Childish +dress ever reflected the dress of their elders, and often closely +imitated it. Two very charming costumes are worn by two little children +of the province of South Carolina. The little girl is but two years +old. She is Ellinor Cordes, and was painted about 1740. She is a lovely +little child of French features and French daintiness of dress, albeit +a bright yellow brocaded satin would seem rather gorgeous attire for a +girl of her years. The boy is her kinsman, Daniel Ravenel, and was then +about five years old. He wore what might be termed a frock with +spreading petticoats, which touched the ground; there is a decided +boyishness in the tight-fitting, trim waistcoat with its silver buttons +and lace, and the befrogged coat with broad cuffs and wrist ruffles, +and turned-over revers, and narrow linen inner collar. It is an +exceptionally pleasing boy’s dress, for a little boy. + +A somewhat similar but more feminine coat is worn by Thomas Aston +Coffin; it opens in front over a white satin petticoat, and it has a +low-cut neck and sleeves shortened to the elbow, and worn over full +white undersleeves. Other portraits by Copley show the same dress of +white satin, which boys wore till six years of age. + + +Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick and Daughter. Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick and +Daughter. + +Copley’s portrait of his own children is given on a later page. This +family group always startles all who have seen it only in photographs; +for its colors are so unexpected, so frankly crude and vivid. The +individuals are all charming. The oldest child, the daughter, +Elizabeth, stands in the foreground in a delightful white frock of +striped gauze. This is worn over a pink slip, and the pink tints show +in the thinner folds of whiteness; a fine piece of texture-painting. +The gauze sash is tied in a vast knot, and lies out in a train; this is +a more vivid pink, inclining to the tint of the old-rose damask +furniture-covering. She wears a pretty little net and muslin cap with a +cap-pin like a tiny rose. This single figure is not excelled, I think, +by any child’s portrait in foreign galleries, nor is it often equalled. +Nor can the exquisite expression of childish love and confidence seen +on the face of the boy, John Singleton Copley, Junior, who later became +Lord Lyndhurst, find a rival in painting. It is an unspeakably touching +portrait to all who have seen upturned close to their own eyes the +trusting and loving face of a beautiful son as he clung with strong +boyish arms and affection to his mother’s neck. + + +Infant Child of Francis Hopkinson Infant Child of Francis Hopkinson, +“the Signer.” Painted by Francis Hopkinson. + +This little American boy, who became Lord Chancellor of England, wears +a nankeen suit with a lilac-tinted sash. It is his beaver hat with gold +hatband and blue feather that lies on the ground at the feet of the +grandfather, Richard Clarke. The baby, held by the grandfather, wears a +coral and bells on a lilac sash-ribbon; such a coral as we see in many +portraits of infants. Another child in white-embroidered robe and dark +yellow sash completes this beautiful family picture. Its great fault to +me is the blue of Mrs. Copley’s gown, which is as vivid as a peacock’s +breast. This painting is deemed Copley’s masterpiece; but an equal +interest is that it is such an absolute and open expression of Copley’s +lovable character and upright life. In it we can read his affectionate +nature, his love of his sweet wife, his happy home-relations, and his +pride in his beautiful children. + +There is ample proof, not only in the inventories which chance to be +preserved, but in portraits of the times, that children’s dress in the +eighteenth century was often costly. Of course the children of wealthy +parents only would have their portraits painted; but their dress was as +rich as the dress of the children of the nobility in England at the +same time. You can see this in the colored reproduction of the +portraits of Hon. James Bowdoin and his sister, Augusta, afterwards +Lady Temple. That they were good likenesses is proved by the fact that +the faces are strongly like those of the same persons in more mature +years. You find little Augusta changed but slightly in matronhood in +the fine pastel by Copley. In this portrait of the two Bowdoin +children, the entire dress is given. Seldom are the shoes shown. These +are interesting, for the boy’s square-toed black shoes with buckles are +wholly unlike his sister’s blue morocco slippers with turned-up peaks +and gilt ornaments from toe to instep, making a foot-gear much like +certain Turkish slippers seen to-day. Her hair has the bedizenment of +beads and feathers, which were worn by young girls for as many years as +their mothers wore the same. The young lad’s dress is precisely like +his father’s. There is much charm in these straight little figures. +They have the aristocratic bearing which is a family trait of all of +that kin. I should not deem Lady Temple ever a beauty, though she was +called so by Manasseh Cutler, a minister who completely yielded to her +charms when she was a grandmother and forty-four. This portrait of +brother and sister is, I believe, by Blackburn. The dress is similar +and the date the same as the portrait of the Misses Royall (one of whom +became Lady Pepperell), which is by Blackburn. + + +Mary Seton, 1763. Mary Seton, 1763. + +The portrait of a charming little American child is shown here. This +child, in feature, figure, and attitude, and even in the companionship +of the kitten, is a curious replica of a famous English portrait of +“Miss Trimmer.” + +I have written at length in Chapter IV of a grandmother in the Hall +family and of the Hall family connection. Let me tell of another +grandmother, Madam Lydia Coleman, the daughter of the old Indian +fighter, Captain Joshua Scottow. She, like Madam Symonds and Madam +Stoddard, had had several husbands—Colonel Benjamin Gibbs, +Attorney-General Anthony Checkley, and William Coleman. The Hall +children were her grandchildren; and came to Boston for schooling at +one time. Many letters exist of Hon. Hugh Hall to and from his +grandmother, Madam Coleman. She writes thus.— + + +“As for Richard since I told him I would write to his Father he is more +orderly, &; he is very hungry, and has grown so much yt all his Clothes +is too Little for him. He loves his book and his play too. I hired him +to get a Chapter of ye Proverbs &; give him a penny every Sabbath day, +&; promised him 5 shillings when he can say them all by heart. I would +do my duty by his soul as well as his body.... He has grown a good boy +and minds his School and Lattin and Dancing. He is a brisk Child &; +grows very Cute and wont wear his new silk coat yt was made for him. He +wont wear it every day so yt I don’t know what to do with it. It wont +make him a jackitt. I would have him a good husbander but he is but a +child. For shoes, gloves, hankers &; stockins, they ask very deare, 8 +shillings for a paire &; Richard takes no care of them. Richard wears +out nigh 12 paire of shoes a year. He brought 12 hankers with him and +they have all been lost long ago; and I have bought him 3 or 4 more at +a time. His way is to tie knottys at one end &; beat ye Boys with them +and then to lose them &; he cares not a bit what I will say to him.” + + +Madam Coleman, after this handful, was given charge of his sister +Sarah. When Missy arrived from the Barbadoes, she was eight years old. +She brought with her a maid. The grandmother wrote back cheerfully to +the parents that the child was well and brisk, as indeed she was. All +the very young gentlemen and young ladies of Boston Brahmin blood paid +her visits, and she gave a feast at a child’s dancing-party with the +sweetmeats left over from her sea-store. Her stay in her grandmother’s +household was surprisingly brief. She left unbidden with her maid, and +went to a Mr. Binning’s to board; she sent home word to the Barbadoes +that her grandmother made her drink water with her meals. Her brother +wrote to Madam Coleman:— + + +“We were all persuaded of your tender and hearty affection to my Sister +when we recommended her to your parental care. We are sorry to hear of +her Independence in removing from under the Benign Influences of your +Wing &; am surprised she dare do it without our leave or consent or +that Mr. Binning receive her at his house before he knew how we were +affected to it. We shall now desire Mr. Binning to resign her with her +waiting maid to you and in our Letter to him have strictly ordered her +to Return to your House.” + + +But no brother could control this spirited young damsel. Three months +later a letter from Madam Coleman read thus:— + + +“Sally wont go to school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great +many other things she don’t need. I tell her fine things are cheaper in +Barbadoes. She is well and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do +with her as long as her father is alive.” + + +Hugh Hall wrote in return, saying his daughter ought to have one room +to sleep in, and her maid another, that it was not befitting children +of their station to drink water, they should have wine and beer. We +cannot wonder that they dressed like their elders since they were +treated like their elders in other respects. + +The dress of very young girls was often extraordinarily rich. We find +this order sent to London in 1739, for finery for Mary Cabell, daughter +of Dr. William Cabell of Virginia, when she was but thirteen years +old:— + + +“1 Prayer Book (almost every such inventory had this item). +1 Red Silk Petticoat. +1 Very good broad Silver laced hat and hat-band. +1 Pair Stays 17 inches round the waist. +2 Pair fine Shoes. +12 Pair fine Stockings. +1 Hoop Petticoat. +1 Pair Ear rings. +1 Pair Clasps. +3 Pair Silver Buttons set with Stones. +1 Suit of Headclothes. +4 Fine Handkerchiefs and Ruffles suitable. +A Very handsome Knot and Girdle. +A Fine Cloak and Short Apron.” + + + + +The Bowdoin Children. The Bowdoin Children. Lady Temple and Governor +James Bowdoin in Childhood. + +I never read such a list as this without picturing the delight of +little Mary Cabell when she opened the box containing all these pretty +garments. + +The order given by Colonel John Lewis for his young ward of eleven +years old—another Virginia child—reads thus:— + + +“A cap, ruffle, and tucker, the lace 5s. per yard. +1 pair White Stays. +8 pair White kid gloves. +2 pair Colour’d kid gloves. +2 pair worsted hose. +3 pair thread hose. +1 pair silk shoes laced. +1 pair morocco shoes. +4 pair plain Spanish shoes. +2 pair calf shoes. +1 Mask. +1 Fan. +1 Necklace. +1 Girdle and Buckle. +1 Piece fashionable Calico. +4 yards Ribbon for Knots. +1 Hoop Coat. +1 Hat. +1 1/2 Yard of Cambric. +A Mantua and Coat of Slite Lustring.” + + +Orders for purchases were regularly despatched to London agent by +George Washington after his marriage. In 1761 he orders a full list of +garments for both his stepchildren. “Miss Custis” was only six years +old. These are some of the items:— + + +“1 Coat made of Fashionable Silk. +A Fashionable Cap or fillet with Bib apron. +Ruffles and Tuckers, to be laced. +4 Fashionable Dresses made of Long Lawn. +2 Fine Cambrick Frocks. +A Satin Capuchin, hat, and neckatees. +A Persian Quilted Coat. +1 p. Pack Thread Stays. +4 p. Callimanco Shoes. +6 p. Leather Shoes. +2 p. Satin Shoes with flat ties. +6 p. Fine Cotton Stockings. +4 p. White Worsted Stockings. +12 p. Mitts. +6 p. White Kid Gloves. +1 p. Silver Shoe Buckles. +1 p. Neat Sleeve Buttons. +6 Handsome Egrettes Different Sorts. +6 Yards Ribbon for Egrettes. +12 Yards Coarse Green Callimanco.” + + +A Virginia gentleman, Colonel William Fleming, kept for several years a +close account of the money he spent for his little daughters, who were +young misses of ten and eleven in the year 1787. The most expensive +single items are bonnets, each at £;4 10s.; an umbrella, £;2 8s. Cloth +cloaks and saddles and bridles for riding were costly items. Tamboured +muslin was at that time 18s. a yard; durant, 3s. 6d.; lutestring, 12s.; +calico, 6s. 3d. Scarlet cloaks for each girl cost £;2 14s. each. Other +dress materials besides those named above were cambric, linen, cotton, +osnaburgs, negro cotton, book-muslin, ermin, nankeen, persian, Turkey +cotton, shalloon, and swanskin. There were many yards of taste and +ribbon, black lace, and edgings, and gauze—gauze—gauze. A curious item +several times appearing is a “paper bonnet,” not bonnet-paper, which +latter was a constant purchase on women’s lists. There were pen-knives, +“scanes of silk,” crooked combs, morocco shoes, “nitting pins,” +constant “sticks of pomatum,” fans, “chanes,” a shawl, a tamboured +coat, gloves, stockings, trunks, bands and clasps, tooth-brushes, silk +gloves, necklaces, “fingered gloves,” silk stockings, handkerchiefs, +china teacups and saucers and silver spoons. All these show a very +generous outfit. + +In the year 1770 a delightful, engaging little child came to Boston +from Nova Scotia to live for a time with her aunt, a Boston +gentlewoman, and to attend Boston schools. For the amusement of her +parents so far away, and for practice in penmanship, she kept during +the years 1771 and part of 1772 a diary. She was but ten years old when +she began, but her intelligence and originality make this diary a +valuable record of domestic life in Boston at that date. I have had the +pleasure of publishing her diary with notes under the title, _Diary of +Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl, in the Year 1771_. I lived so +much with her while transcribing her words that she seems almost like a +child of my own. Like other unusual children she died young—when but +nineteen. She was not so gifted and wonderful and rare a creature as +that star among children, Marjorie Fleming, yet she was in many ways +equally interesting; she was a frank, homely little flower of New +England life destined never to grow old or weary, or tired or sad, but +to live forever in eternal, happy childhood, through the magic living +words in the hundred pages of her time-stained diary. + +She was of what Dr. Holmes called Boston Brahmin blood, was related to +many of the wealthiest and best families of Boston and vicinity, and +knew the best society. Dress was to her a matter of distinct +importance, and her clothes were carefully fashionable. Her distress +over wearing “an old red Domino” was genuine. We have in her words many +references to her garments, and we find her dress very handsome. This +is what she wore at a child’s party:— + + +“I was dressed in my yellow coat, black bib &; apron, black feathers on +my head, my past comb &; all my past garnet, marquesett &; jet pins, +together with my silver plume—my loket, rings, black collar round my +neck, black mitts &; yards of blue ribbin (black &; blue is high tast), +striped tucker &; ruffels (not my best) &; my silk shoes completed my +dress.” + + +A few days later she writes:— + + +“I wore my black bib &; apron, my pompedore shoes, the cap my Aunt +Storer since presented me with (blue ribbins on it) &; a very handsome +locket in the shape of a hart she gave me, the past Pin my Hon’d Papa +presented me with in my cap. My new cloak &; bonnet, my pompedore +gloves, &;c. And I would tell you that _for the first time they all on +lik’d my dress very much_. My cloak &; bonnett are really very handsome +&; so they had need be. For they cost an amasing sight of money, not +quite £;45, tho’ Aunt Suky said that she suppos’d Aunt Deming would be +frighted out of her Wits at the money it cost. I have got _one_ +covering by the cost that is genteel &; I like it much myself.” + + +As this was in the times of depreciated values, £;45 was not so large a +sum to expend for a girl’s outdoor garments as at first sight appears. + +She gives a very exact account of her successions of head-gear, some +being borrowed finery. She apparently managed to rise entirely above +the hated “black hatt” and red domino, which she patronizingly said +would be “Decent for Common Occations.” She writes:— + + +“Last Thursday I purchased with my aunt Deming’s leave a very beautiful +white feather hat, that is the outside, which is a bit of white +hollowed with the feathers sew’d on in a most curious manner; white and +unsully’d as the falling snow. As I am, as we say, a Daughter of +Liberty I chuse to were as much of our own manufactory as pocible.... +My Aunt says if I behave myself very well indeed, not else, she will +give me a garland of flowers to orniment it, tho’ she has layd aside +the biziness of flower-making.” + + +The dress described and portrayed of these children all seems very +mature; but children were quickly grown up in colonial days. Cotton +Mather wrote, “New English youth are very sharp and early ripe in their +capacities.” They married early; though none of the “child-marriages” +of England disfigure the pages of our history. Sturdy Endicott would +not permit the marriage of his ward, Rebecca Cooper, an +“inheritrice,”—though Governor Winthrop wished her for his +nephew,—because the girl was but fifteen. I am surprised at this, for +marriages at fifteen were common enough. My far-away grandmother, Mary +Burnet, married William Browne, when she was fourteen; another +grandmother, Mary Philips, married her cousin at thirteen, and there is +every evidence that the match was arranged with little heed of the +girl’s wishes. It was the happiest of marriages. Boys became men by law +when sixteen. Winthrop named his son as executor of his will when the +boy was fourteen—but there were few boys like that boy. We find that +the Virginia tutor who taught in the Carter family just previous to the +war of the Revolution deemed a young lady of thirteen no longer a +child. + + +Miss Lydia Robinson, aged 12 Years Miss Lydia Robinson, aged 12 Years, +Daughter of Colonel James Robinson. Marked “Corné pinxt, Sept. 1805.” + + +“Miss Betsy Lee is about thirteen, a tall, slim, genteel girl. She is +very far from Miss Hale’s taciturnity, yet is by no means disagreeably +Forward. She dances extremely well, and is just beginning to play the +Spinet. She is dressed in a neat Shell Callico Gown, has very light +Hair done up with a Feather, and her whole carriage is Inoffensive, +Easy and Graceful.” + + +The christening of an infant was not only a sacrament of the church, +and thus of highest importance, but it was also of secular note. It was +a time of great rejoicing, of good wishes, of gift-making. In mediaeval +times, the child was arrayed by the priest in a white robe which had +been anointed with sacred oil, and called a chrismale, or a chrisom. If +the child died within a month, it was buried in this robe and called a +chrisom-child. The robe was also called a christening palm or pall. +When the custom of redressing the child in a robe at the altar had +passed away, the christening palm still was used and was thrown over +the child when it was brought out to receive visitors. This robe was +also termed a bearing-cloth, a christening sheet, and a cade-cloth. + +This fine coverlet of state, what we would now call a christening +blanket, was usually made of silk; often it was richly embroidered, +sometimes with a text of Scripture. It was generally lace-bordered, or +edged with a narrow, home-woven silk fringe. The christening-blanket of +Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony still is owned by a +descendant; it is whole of fabric and unfaded of dye. It is rich +crimson silk, soft of texture, like heavy sarcenet silk, and is +powdered at regular distances about six inches apart with conventional +sprays of flowers, embroidered chiefly in pink and yellow, in minute +silk cross-stitch. Another beautiful silk christening blanket was +quilted in an intricate flower pattern in almost imperceptible +stitches. Another of yellow satin has a design in white floss that +gives it the appearance of being trimmed with white silk lace. Best of +all was to embroider the cloth with designs and initials and emblems +and biblical references. A coat-of-arms or crest was very elegant. The +words, “God Bless the Babe,” were not left wholly to the pincushions +which every babe had given him or her, but appeared on the christening +blanket. A curious design shown me was called _The Tree of Knowledge_. +The figure of a child in cap, apron, bib, and hanging sleeves stands +pointing to a tree upon which grew books as though they were apples. +The open pages of each book-apple is printed with a title, as, _The New +England Primer, Lilly’s Grammar, Janeway’s Holy Children, The Prodigal +Daughter._ + +An inventory of the christening garments of a child in the seventeenth +century reads thus:— + + +“1. A lined white figured satin cap. +2. A lined white satin cap embroidered in sprays with gold coloured +silk. +3. A white satin palm embroidered in sprays of yellow silk to match. +This is 44 inches by 34 inches in size. +4. A palm of rich ‘still yellow’ silk lined with white satin. This is +54 inches by 48 inches in size. +5. A pair of deep cuffs of white satin, lace trimmed and embroidered. +6. A pair of linen mittens trimmed with narrow lace, the back of the +fingers outlined with yellow silk figures.” + + + + +Knitted Flaxen Mittens. Knitted Flaxen Mittens. + +The satin cuffs were for the wear of the older person who carried the +child. The infant was placed upon the larger palm or cloth, and the +smaller one thrown over him, over his petticoats. The inner cap was +very tight to the head. The outer was embroidered; often it turned back +in a band. + +There was a significance in the use of yellow; it is the altar color +for certain church festivals, and was proper for the pledging of the +child. + +All these formalities of christening in the Church of England were not +abandoned by the Separatists. New England children were just as +carefully christened and dressed for christening as any child in the +Church of England. In the reign of James I tiny shirts with little +bands or sleeves or cuffs wrought in silk or in coventry-blue thread +were added to the gift of spoons from the sponsors. I have one of these +little coventry-blue embroidered things with quaint little sleeves; too +faded, I regret, to reveal any pattern to the camera. + +The christening shirts and mittens given by the sponsors are said to be +a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the +neophytes when converted to Christianity. These “Christening Sets” are +preserved in many families. + +Of the dress of infants of colonial times we can judge from the +articles of clothing which have been preserved till this day. These are +of course the better garments worn by babies, not their everyday dress; +their simpler attire has not survived, but their christening robes, +their finer shirts and petticoats and caps remain. + + +Mrs. Elizabeth Lux Russell and Daughter. Mrs. Elizabeth Lux Russell and +Daughter. + +Linen formed the chilling substructure of their dress, thin linen, +low-necked, short-sleeved shirts; and linen remained the underwear of +infants until thirty years ago. I do not wonder that these little linen +shirts were worn for centuries. They are infinitely daintier than the +finest silk or woollen underwear that have succeeded them; they are +edged with narrowest thread lace, and hemstitched with tiny rows of +stitches or corded with tiny cords, and sometimes embroidered by hand +in minute designs. They were worn by all babies from the time of James +I, never varying one stitch in shape; but I fear this pretty garment of +which our infants were bereft a few years ago will never crowd out the +warm, present-day silk wear. This wholly infantile article of childish +dress had tiny little revers or collarettes or laps made to turn over +outside the robe or slip like a minute bib, and these laps were +beautifully oversewn where the corners joined the shirt, to prevent +tearing down at this seam. These tiny shirts were the dearest little +garments ever made or dreamed of. When a baby had on a fresh, corded +slip, low of neck, with short, puffed sleeve, and the tiny hemstitched +laps were turned down outside the neck of the slip, and the little +sleeves were caught up by fine strings of gold-clasped pink coral, the +baby’s dimpled shoulders and round head rose up out of the little +shirt-laps like some darling flower. + +I have seen an infant’s shirt and a cap embroidered on the laps with +the coat-of-arms of the Lux and Johnson families and the motto, “God +Bless the Babe;” these delicate garments, the work of fairies, were +worn in infancy by the Revolutionary soldier, Governor Johnson of +Virginia. + +In the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, are the baptismal shirt +and mittens of the Pilgrim father, William Bradford, second governor of +the Plymouth colony, who was born in 1590. They are shown here. All are +of firm, close-woven, homespun linen, but the little mittens have been +worn at the ends by the active friction of baby hands, and are patched +with red and yellow figured “chiney” or calico. A similar colored +material frills the sleeves and neck. This may have been part of their +ornamentation when first made, but it looks extraneous. + +The sleeves of this shirt are plaited or goffered in a way that seems +wholly lost; this is what I have already described—_pinching_. I have +seen the sleeve of a child’s dress thus pinched which had been worn by +a little girl aged three. The wrist-cuff measured about five inches +around, and was stoutly corded. Upon ripping the sleeve apart, it was +found that the strip of fine mull which was thus pinched into the +sleeve was two yards in length. The cuff flared slightly, else even +this length of sheer lawn could not have been confined at the wrist. In +the so-called “Museum,” gloomily scattered around the famous old South +Church edifice in Boston, are fine examples of this pinched work. + + +Christening Shirt and Mitts of Governor Bradford. Christening Shirt and +Mitts of Governor Bradford. + +Many of the finest existing specimens of old guipure, Flanders, and +needlepoint laces in England and America are preserved on the ancient +shirts, mitts, caps, and bearing-cloths of infants. Often there is a +little padded bib of guipure lace accompanied with tiny mittens like +these. + + +Flanders Lace Mitts. Flanders Lace Mitts. + +This pair was wrought and worn in the sixteenth century, and the +stitches and work are those of the Flanders point laces. I have seen +tiny mitts knitted of silk, of fine linen thread, also made of linen, +hem-stitched, or worked in drawn-work, or embroidered, and one pair of +mittens, and the cap that matched was of tatting-work done in the +finest of thread. No needlepoint could be more beautiful. Some are +shown on here. + +Mitts of yellow nankeen or silk, made with long wrists or arms, were +also worn by babies, and must have proved specially irritating to tiny +little hands and arms. These had the seams sewed over and over with +colored silks in a curiously intricate netted stitch. + +I have an infant’s cap with two squares of lace set in the crown, one +over each ear. The lace is of a curious design; a conventionalized vase +or urn on a standard. I recognize it as the lace and pattern known as +“pot-lace,” made for centuries at Antwerp, and worn there by old women +on their caps with a devotion to a single pattern that is unparalleled. +It was the “flower-pot” symbol of the Annunciation. The earliest +representation of the Angel Gabriel in the Annunciation showed him with +lilies in his hand; then these lilies were set in a vase. In years the +angel has disappeared and then the lilies, and the lily-pot only +remains. It is a whimsical fancy that this symbol of Romanism should +have been carefully transferred to adorn the pate of a child of the +Puritans. The place of the medallion, set over each ear, is so unusual +that I think it must have had some significance. I wonder whether they +were ever set thus in caps of heavy silk or linen to let the child hear +more readily, as he certainly would through the thin lace net. + +The word “beguine” meant a nun; and thus derivatively a nun’s close +cap. This was altered in spelling to biggin, and for a time a nun’s +plain linen cap was thus called. By Shakespere’s day biggin had become +wholly a term for a child’s cap. It was a plain phrase and a plain cap +of linen. Shakespere calls them “homely biggens.” + +I have seen it stated that the biggin was a night-cap. When Queen +Elizabeth lost her mother, Anne Boleyn, she was but three years old, a +neglected little creature. A lady of the court wrote that the child had +“no manner of linen, nor for-smocks, nor kerchiefs, nor rails, nor +body-stitches, nor handkerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor mufflers, nor +biggins.” + +In 1636 Mary Dudley, the daughter of Governor John Winthrop, had a +little baby. She did not live in Boston town, therefore her mother had +to purchase supplies for her; and many letters crossed, telling of +wants, and their relief. “Holland for biggins” was eagerly sought. At +that date all babies wore caps. I mean English and French, Dutch and +Spanish, all mothers deemed it unwise and almost improper for a young +baby ever to be seen bare-headed. With the imperfect heating and many +draughts in all the houses, this mode of dress may have been wholly +wise and indeed necessary. Every child’s head was covered, as the +pictures of children in this book show, until he or she was several +years old. The finest needlework and lace stitches were lavished on +these tiny infants’ caps, which were not, when thus adorned and +ornamented, called biggins. + + +Infant’s Adjustable Cap. Infant’s Adjustable Cap. + +A favorite trimming for night-caps and infants’ caps is a sort of +quilting in a leaf and vine pattern, done with a white cord inserted +between outer and inner pieces of linen—a cord stuffing, as it were. It +does not seem oversuited for caps to be worn in bed or by little +infants, as the stiff cords must prove a disagreeable cushion. This +work was done as early as the seventeenth century; but nearly all the +pieces preserved were made in the early years of the nineteenth century +in the revival of needlework then so universal. + +Often a velvet cap was worn outside the biggin or lace cap. + +I have never seen a woollen petticoat that was worn by an infant of +pre-Revolutionary days. I think infants had no woollen petticoats; +their shirts, petticoats, and gowns were of linen or some cotton stuff +like dimity. Warmth of clothing was given by tiny shawls pinned round +the shoulders, and heavier blankets and quilts and shawls in which baby +and petticoats were wholly enveloped. + +The baby dresses of olden times are either rather shapeless sacques +drawn in at the neck with narrow cotton ferret or linen bobbin, or +little straight-waisted gowns of state. All were exquisitely made by +hand, and usually of fine stuff. Many are trimmed with fine cording. + +It is astounding to note the infinite number of stitches put in +garments. An infant’s slips quilted with a single tiny backstitch in a +regular design of interlaced squares, stars, and rounds. By counting +the number of rounds and the stitches in each, and so on, it has been +found that there are 397,000 stitches in that dress. Think of the time +spent even by the quickest sewer over such a piece of work. + +Within a few years we have shortened the long clothes worn by youngest +infants; twenty-five years ago the handsome dress of an infant, such as +the christening-robe, was so long that when the child was held on the +arm of its standing nurse or mother, the edge of the robe barely +escaped touching the ground. Two hundred years ago, a baby’s dress was +much shorter. In the family group of Charles I and Henrietta Maria and +their children, in the Copley family picture, and in the picture of the +Cadwalader family, we find the little baby in scarce “three-quarters +length” of robe. With this exception it is astonishing to find how +little infants’ dress has changed during the two centuries. In 1889, at +the Stuart Exhibition, some of the infant dresses of Charles I were +shown. They had been preserved in the family of Sir Thomas Coventry, +Lord Keeper. And Charles II’s baby linen was on view in the New Gallery +in 1901. Both sets had the dainty little shirts, slips, bibs, mitts, +and all the babies’ dress of fifty years ago, and the changes since +then have been few. The “barrow-coat,” a square of flannel wrapped +around an infant’s body below the arms with the part below the feet +turned up and pinned, was part of the old swaddling-clothes; and within +ten years it has been largely abandoned for a flannel petticoat on a +band or waist. The bands, or binders, have always been the same as +to-day, and the bibs. The lace cuffs and lace mittens were left off +before the caps. The shirt is the most important change. + +Nowadays a little infant wears long clothes till three, four, or even +eight months old; then he is put in short dresses about as long as he +is. In colonial days when a boy was taken from his swaddling-clothes, +he was dressed in a short frock with petticoats and was “coated” or +sometimes “short-coated.” When he left off coats, he donned breeches. +In families of sentiment and affection, the “coating” of a boy was made +a little festival. So was also the assumption of breeches an important +event—as it really is, as we all know who have boys. + +One of the most charming of all grandmothers’ letters was written by a +doting English grandmother to her son. Lord Chief Justice North, +telling of the “leaving off of coats” of his motherless little son, +Francis Guilford, then six years old. The letter is dated October 10, +1679:— + + +“DEAR SON: +You cannot beleeve the great concerne that was in the whole family here +last Wednesday, it being the day that the taylor was to helpe to dress +little ffrank in his breeches in order to the making an everyday suit +by it. Never had any bride that was to be drest upon her weding night +more handes about her, some the legs, some the armes, the taylor +butt’ning, and others putting on the sword, and so many lookers on that +had I not a ffinger amongst I could not have seen him. When he was +quite drest he acted his part as well as any of them for he desired he +might goe downe to inquire for the little gentleman that was there the +day before in a black coat, and speak to the man to tell the gentleman +when he came from school that there was a gallant with very fine +clothes and a sword to have waited upon him and would come again upon +Sunday next. But this was not all, there was great contrivings while he +was dressing who should have the first salute; but he sayd if old Joan +had been here, she should, but he gave it to me to quiett them all. +They were very fitt, everything, and he looks taller and prettyer than +in his coats. Little Charles rejoyced as much as he did for he jumpt +all the while about him and took notice of everything. I went to Bury, +and bot everything for another suitt which will be finisht on Saturday +so the coats are to be quite left off on Sunday. I consider it is not +yett terme time and since you could not have the pleasure of the first +sight, I resolved you should have a full relation from + + “Yo’r most Aff’nate Mother + + “A. North. + +“When he was drest he asked Buckle whether muffs were out of fashion +because they had not sent him one.” + + +This affectionate letter, written to a great and busy statesman, the +Lord Keeper of the Seals, shows how pure and delightful domestic life +in England could be; it shows how beautiful it was after Puritanism +perfected the English home. + +In an old family letter dated 1780 I find this sentence:— + + +“Mary is most wise with her child, and hath no new-fangledness. She has +little David in what she wore herself, a pudding and pinner.” + + +For a time these words “pudding and pinner” were a puzzle; and long +after pinner was defined we could not even guess at a pudding. But now +I know two uses of the word “pudding” which are in no dictionary. One +is the stuffing of a man’s great neck-cloth in front, under the chin. +The other is a thick roll or cushion stuffed with wool or some soft +filling and furnished with strings. This pudding was tied round the +head of a little child while it was learning to walk. The head was thus +protected from serious bruises or injury. Nollekens noted with +satisfaction such a pudding on the head of an infant, and said: “That +is right. I always wore a pudding, and all children should.” I saw one +upon a child’s head last summer in a New England town; I asked the +mother what it was, and she answered, “A pudding-cap”; that it made +children soft (idiotic) to bump the head frequently. + +The word “pinner” has two meanings. The earlier use was precisely that +of pinafore, or pincurtle, or pincloth—a child’s apron. Thus we read in +the Harvard College records, of the expenses of the year 1677, of +“Linnen Cloth for Table Pinners,” which makes us suspect that Harvard +students of that day had to wear bibs at commons. + +All children wore aprons, which might be called pinners; these were +aprons with pinned-up bibs; or they might be tiers, which were sleeved +aprons covering the whole waist, sleeves, and skirt, an outer slip, +buttoned in the back. + +A severe and ancient moralist looked forth from her window in +Worcester, one day last spring, at a band of New England children +running to their morning school. She gazed over her glasses +reprovingly, and turned to me with bitterness: “There they go! _Such_ +mothers as they must have! Not a pinner nor a sleeved tier among ’em.” + +The sleeved tier occupied a singular place in childish opinion in my +youth; and I find the same feeling anent it had existed for many +generations. It was hated by all children, regarded as something to be +escaped from at the earliest possible date. You had to wear sleeved +tiers as you had to have the mumps. It was a thing to endure with what +childish patience and fortitude you could command for a short time; but +thoughtful, tender parents would not make you suffer it long. + +There were aprons, and aprons. Pinners and tiers were for use, but +there were elegant aprons for ornament. Did not Queen Anne wear one? +Even babies wore them. The little Padishal child has one richly laced. +I have seen a beautiful apron for a little child of three. It was edged +with a straight insertion of Venetian point like that pictured here. It +had been made in 1690. Tender affection for a beloved and beautiful +little child preserved it in one trunk in the same attic for sixty-five +years; and a beautiful sympathy for that mother’s long sorrow kept the +apron untouched by young lace-lovers. This lace has white horsehair +woven into the edge. + +We find George Washington ordering for his little stepdaughter (a +well-dressed child if ever there was one), when she was six years old, +“A fashionable cap or fillet with bib apron.” And a few years later he +orders, “Tuckers, Bibs, and Aprons if Fashionable.” Boys wore aprons as +long as they wore coats; aprons with stomachers or bibs of drawn-work +and lace, or of stiffly starched lawn; aprons just like those of their +sisters. It was hard to bear. Hoop-coat, masks, packthread stays—these +seem strange dress for growing girls. + +George Washington sent abroad for masks for his wife and his little +stepdaughter, “Miss Custis,” when the little girl was six years old; +and “children’s masks” are often named in bills of sale. Loo-masks were +small half-masks, and were also imported in all sizes. + +The face of Mrs. Madison, familiarly known as “Dolly Madison,” wife of +President James Madison, long retained the beauty of youth. Much of +this was surely due to a faithful mother, who, when little Dolly Payne +was sent to school, sewed a sun-bonnet on the child’s head every +morning, placed on her arms and hands long gloves, and made her wear a +mask to keep every ray of sunlight from her face. When masks were so +universally worn by women, it is not strange, after all, that children +wore them. + + +Rev. J.P. Dabney when a Child. Rev. J.P. Dabney when a Child. + +I read with horror an advertisement of John McQueen, a New York +stay-maker in 1767, that he has children’s packthread stays, children’s +bone stays, and “neat polished steel collars for young Misses so much +worn at the boarding schools in London.” Poor little “young Misses”! + +There were also “turned stays, jumps, gazzets, costrells and caushets” +(which were perhaps corsets) to make children appear straight. +Costrells and gazzets we know not to-day. Jumps were feeble stays. + + +“Now a shape in neat stays +Now a slattern in jumps.” + + + + +Robert Gibbes. Robert Gibbes. + +Jumps were allied to jimps, and perhaps to jupe; and I think jumper is +a cousin of a word. One pair of stays I have seen is labelled as having +been made for a boy of five. One of the worst instruments of torture I +ever beheld was a pair of child’s stays worn in 1760. They were made, +not of little strips of wood, but of a large piece of board, front and +back, tightly sewed into a buckram jacket and reënforced across at +right angles and diagonally over the hips (though really there were no +hip-places) with bars of whalebone and steel. The tin corsets I have +heard of would not have been half as ill to wear. It is true, too, that +needles were placed in the front of the stays, that the stay-wearer who +“poked her head” would be well pricked. The daughter of General +Nathanael Greene, the Revolutionary patriot, told her grandchildren +that she sat many hours every day in her girlhood, with her feet in +stocks and strapped to a backboard. A friend has a chair of ordinary +size, save that the seat is about four inches wide from the front edge +of seat to the back. And the back is well worn at certain points where +a heavy leather strap strapped up the young girl who was tortured in it +for six years of her life. The result of back board, stocks, steel +collar, wooden stays, is shown in such figures as have Dorothy Q. and +her sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth Storer, on page 98 of my _Child Life in +Colonial Days_, is an extreme example, straight-backed indeed, but +narrow-chested to match. + +Dr. Holmes wrote in jest, but he wrote in truth, too:— + + +“They braced My Aunt against a board + To make her straight and tall, + They laced her up, they starved her down, + To make her light and small. + They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, + They screwed it up with pins, + Oh, never mortal suffered more + In penance for her sins.” + + + + +Nankeen Breeches with Silver Buttons. Nankeen Breeches with Silver +Buttons. + +Nankeen was the favorite wear for boys, even before the Revolution. The +little figure of the boy who became Lord Lyndhurst, shown in the Copley +family portrait, is dressed in nankeen; he is the engaging, loving +child looking up in his mother’s face. Nankeen was worn summer and +winter by men, and women, and children. If it were deemed too thin and +too damp a wear for delicate children in extreme winters, then a yellow +color in wool was preferred for children’s dress. I have seen a little +pair of breeches of yellow flannel made precisely like these nankeen +breeches on this page. They were worn in 1768. Carlyle in his _Sartor +Resartus_ gives this account of the childhood of the professor and +philosopher of his book:— + + +“My first short clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, I should say, +my first short cloth; for the vesture was one and indivisible, reaching +from neck to ankle; a single body with four limbs; of which fashion how +little could I then divine the architectural, much less the moral +significance.” + + + + +Ralph Izard when a Little Boy. 1750. Ralph Izard when a Little Boy. +1750. + +It is a curious coincidence that a great philosopher of our own world +wore a precisely similar dress in his youth. Madam Mary Bradford writes +in a private letter, at the age of one hundred and three, of her life +in 1805 in the household of Rev. Joseph Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson +was then a little child of two years, and he and his brother William +till several years old were dressed wholly in yellow flannel, by night +and by day. When they put on trousers, which was at about the age of +seven, they wore complete home-made suits of nankeen. The picture +amuses me of the philosophical child, Ralph Waldo, walking soberly +around in ugly yellow flannel, contentedly sucking his thumb; for Mrs. +Bradford records that he was the hardest child to break of sucking his +thumb whom she ever had seen during her long life. I cannot help +wondering whether in their soul-to-soul talks Emerson ever told Carlyle +of the yellow woollen dress of his childhood, and thus gave him the +thought of the child’s dress for his philosopher. + +Fortunately for the children who were our grandparents. French fashions +were not absorbingly the rage in America until after some amelioration +of dress had come to French children. Mercier wrote at length at the +close of the eighteenth century of the abominable artificiality and +restraint in dress of French children; their great wigs, full-skirted +coats, immense ruffles, swords on thigh, and hat in hand. He contrasts +them disparagingly with English boys. The English boy was certainly +more robust, but I find no difference in dress. Wigs, swords, ruffles, +may be seen at that time both in English and American portraits. But an +amelioration of dress did come to both English and American boys +through the introduction of pantaloons, and a change to little girls’ +dress through the invention of pantalets, but the changes came first to +France, in spite of Mercier’s animadversions. These changes will be +left until the later pages of this book; for during nearly all the two +hundred years of which I write children’s dress varied little. It +followed the changes of the parent’s dress, and adopted some modes to a +degree but never to an extreme. + + +CHAPTER XI + +PERUKES AND PERIWIGS + + +_“As to a Periwigg, my best and Greatest Friend begun to find me with +Hair before I was Born, and has continued to do so ever since, and I +could not find it in my Heart to go to another.” +_ +—“Diary,” JUDGE SAMUEL SEWALL, 1718. + + +_A phrensy or a periwigmanee +That over-runs his pericranie._ + +—JOHN BYRON, 1730 (circa). + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PERUKES AND PERIWIGS + + +T + + +o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric +reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head, +and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks, +when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the +important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the +eighteenth century. + +In the great eagerness shown from earliest colonial days to acquire and +reproduce in the New World every change of mode in the Old, to purchase +rich dress, and to assume novel dress, no article was sought for more +speedily and more anxiously than the wig. It has proved an interesting +study to compare the introduction of wigs in England with the wear of +the same form of head-gear in America. Wigs were not in general use in +England when Plymouth and Boston were settled; though in Elizabeth’s +day a “peryuke” had been bought for the court fool. They were not in +universal wear till the close of the seventeenth century. + +The “Wig Mania” arose in France in the reign of Louis XV. In 1656 the +king had forty court perruquiers, who were termed and deemed artists, +and had their academy. The wigs they produced were superb. It is told +that one cost £;200, a sum equal in purchasing power to-day to $5000. +The French statesman and financier, Colbert, aghast at the vast sums +spent for foreign hair, endeavored to introduce a sort of cap to +supplant the wig, but fashions are not made that way. + + +Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall. Governor and Reverend Gurdon +Saltonstall. + +For information of English manners and customs in that day, I turn (and +never in vain) to those fascinating volumes, the _Verney Memoirs_. From +them I learn this of early wig-wearing by Englishmen; that Sir Ralph +Verney, though in straitened circumstances during his enforced +residence abroad, felt himself compelled to follow the French mode, +which at that period, 1646, had not reached England. That exemplary +gentleman paid twelve livres for a wig, when he was sadly short of +money for household necessaries. It was an elaborate wig, curled in +great rings, with two locks tied with black ribbon, and made without +any parting at the back. This wig was powdered. + +Sir Ralph wrote to his wife that a good hair-powder was very difficult +to get and costly, even in France. It was an appreciable addition to +the weight of the wig and to the expense, large quantities being used, +sometimes as much as two pounds at a time. It added not only to the +expense, but to the discomfort, inconvenience, and untidiness of +wig-wearing. + +Pomatum made of fat, and that sometimes rancid, was used to make the +powder stick; and noxious substances were introduced into the powder, +as a certain kind is mentioned which must not be used alone, for it +would produce headache. + +Charles II was the earliest king represented on the Great Seal wearing +a large periwig. Dr. Doran assures us that the king did not bring the +fashion to Whitehall. “He forbade,” we are told, “the members of the +Universities to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, or read their sermons. +The members did all three, and Charles soon found himself doing the +first two.” + + +Mayor Rip Van Dam. Mayor Rip Van Dam. + +Pepys’s _Diary_ contains much interesting information concerning the +wigs of this reign. On 2d of November, 1663, he writes: “I heard the +Duke say that he was going to wear a periwig, and says the King also +will, never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” It +was doubtless this change in the color of his Majesty’s hair that +induced him to assume the head-dress he had previously so strongly +condemned. + +The wig he adopted was very voluminous, richly curled, and black. He +was very dark. “Odds fish! but I’m an ugly black fellow!” he said of +himself when he looked at his portrait. Loyal colonists quickly +followed royal example and complexion. We have very good specimens of +this curly black wig in many American portraits. + +As might be expected, and as befitted one who delighted to be in +fashion, Pepys adopted this wig. He took time to consider the matter, +and had consultations with Mr. Jervas, his old barber, about the +affair. Referring to one of his visits to his hairdresser, Pepys says:— + + +“I did try two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to wear one, and +yet I have no stomach for it; but that the pains of keeping my hair +clean is great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but my mind was +almost altered from my first purpose, from the trouble which I foresee +in wearing them also.” + + +Weeks passed before he could make up his mind to wear a wig. Mrs. Pepys +was taken to the periwig-maker’s shop to see one, and expressed her +satisfaction with it. We read in April, 1665, of the wig being back at +Jervas’s under repair. Later, under date of September 3d, he writes:— + + +“Lord’s day. Up; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my +new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the +plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what +will be in fashion, after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for +nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it +had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.” + + +In 1670, only, five years after this entry of Pepys, we find Governor +Barefoot of New Hampshire wearing a periwig; and in 1675 the court of +Massachusetts, in view of the distresses of the Indian wars, denounced +the “manifest pride openly appearing amongst us in that long hair, like +women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own hair, or others’ +hair made into periwigs.” + + +Abraham De Peyster. Abraham De Peyster. + +In 1676 Wait Winthrop sent a wig (price £;3) to his brother in New +London. Mr. Sergeant had brought it from England for his own use; but +was willing to sell it to oblige a friend, who was, I am confident, +very devoted to wig-wearing. The largest wig that I recall upon any +colonist’s head is in the portrait of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop. He +is painted in armor; and a great wig never seems so absurd as when worn +with armor. Horace Walpole said, “Perukes of outrageous length flowing +over suits of armour compose wonderful habits.” An edge of Winthrop’s +own dark hair seems to show under the wig front. I do not know the +precise date of this portrait. It was, of course, painted in England. +He served in the Parliamentary army with General Monck; returned to New +England in 1663, and was commander of the New England forces. He spent +1693 to l697 in England as commissioner. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey +Kneller both were painting in England in those years, and both were +constant in painting men with armor and perukes. This portrait seems +like Kneller’s work. + + +Governor De Bienville. Governor De Bienville. + +Another portrait attired also in armor and peruke is of Sir Nathaniel +Johnson, who was appointed governor of South Carolina by the Lords +Proprietors in 1702. The portrait was painted in 1705. It is one of the +few of that date which show a faint mustache; he likewise wears a seal +ring with coat-of-arms on the little finger of his left hand, which was +unusual at that day. De Bienville, the governor of Louisiana, is +likewise in wig and armor. In 1682 Thomas Richbell died in Boston, +leaving a very rich and costly wardrobe. He had eight wigs. Of these, +three were small periwigs worth but a pound apiece. In New York, in +Virginia, in all the colonies, these wigs were worn, and were just as +large and costly, as elaborately curled, as heavily powdered, as at the +English and French courts. + +Archbishop Tillotson is usually regarded as the first amongst the +English clergy to adopt the wig. He said in one of his sermons:— + + +“I can remember since the wearing of hair below the ears was looked +upon as a sin of the first magnitude, and when ministers generally, +whatever their text was, did either find or make occasion to reprove +the great sin of long hair; and if they saw any one in the congregation +guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly +at him with great zeal.” + + +Dr. Tillotson died on November 24, 1694. + + +Daniel Waldo. Daniel Waldo. + +Long before that American preachers had felt it necessary to “let fly” +also; to denounce wig-wearing from their pulpits. The question could +not be settled, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John +Wilson, the zealous Boston minister, wore one, and John Cotton (see +here); while Rev. Mr. Noyes preached long and often against the +fashion. John Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the Indians, +found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties to +deliver many a blast against “prolix locks,”—“with boiling zeal,” as +Cotton Mather said,—and he labelled them a “luxurious feminine +protexity”; but lamented late in life that “the lust for wigs is become +insuperable.” He thought the horrors in King Philip’s War were a direct +punishment from God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly +against wigs, calling them “Horrid Bushes of Vanity,” and saying that +“such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature, and to express +Scripture,” and that “Monstrous Periwigs such as some of our church +members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye +Bottomless Pit.” + +Rev. George Weeks preached a sermon on impropriety in clothes. He said +in regard to wig-wearing:— + + +“We have no warrant in the word of God, that I know of, for our wearing +of Periwigs except it be in extraordinary cases. Elisha did not cover +his head with a Perriwigg altho’ it was bald. To see the greater part +of Men in some congregations wearing Perriwiggs is a matter of deep +lamentation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut off their +Hair or else not. If they had a necessity to cut off their Hair then we +have reason to take up a lamentation over the sin of our first Parents +which hath occasioned so many Persons in our Congregation to be sickly, +weakly, crazy Persons.” + + +Long “Ruffianly” or “Russianly” (I know not which word is right) hair +equally worried the parsons. President Chauncey of Harvard College +preached upon it, for the college undergraduates were vexingly addicted +to prolix locks. Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth’s sermon on the subject has +often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence +was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the general +court: that “the men wore long hair like women’s hair.” Still, the +Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were in small things, did riot +dare to force the becurled citizens of the little towns to cut their +long love-locks, though they bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in +1687, fined l0s. for a misdemeanor, but “in case he shall cutt off his +long har of his head into a sevill (civil?) frame, in the mean time +shall have abated 5s. of his fine.” John Eliot hated long, natural hair +as well as false hair. Rev. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very +unpleasant figure of speech, “The hair of them that professed religion +grew too long for him to swallow.” His own hair curled on his +shoulders, and would seem long to us to-day. + + +Reverend John Marsh. Reverend John Marsh. + +A climax of wig-hating was reached by one who has been styled “The Last +of the Puritans”—Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. Constant references in +his diary show how this hatred influenced his daily life. He despised +wigs so long and so deeply, he thought and talked and prayed upon them, +until they became to him of undue importance; they became godless +emblems of iniquity; an unutterable snare and peril. + +We find Sewall copying with evident approval a “scandalous bill” which +had been “posted” on the church in Plymouth in 1701. In this a few +lines ran:— + + + “Our churches are too genteel. +Parsons grow trim and trigg +With wealth, wine, and wigg, + And their crowns are covered with meal.” + + + + +John Adams in Youth. John Adams in Youth. + +Bitter must have been his efforts to reconcile to his conscience the +sight of wigs upon the heads of his parson friends, worn boldly in the +pulpit. He would refrain from attending a church where the parson wore +a wig; and his italicized praise of a dead friend was that he “was a +true New-English man and _abominated periwigs_.” A Boston wig-maker +died a drunkard, and Sewall took much melancholy satisfaction in +dilating upon it. + +Cotton Mather and Sewall had many pious differences and personal +jealousies. The parson was a handsome man (see his picture here), and +he was a harmlessly and naively vain man. He quickly adopted a “great +bush of vanity”—and a very personable appearance he makes in it. Soon +we find him inveighing at length in the pulpit against “those who +strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, those who were zealous against an +innocent fashion taken up and used by the best of men.” “’Tis supposed +he means wearing a Perriwigg,” writes Sewall after this sermon; “I +expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwiggs in Boston pulpit by +Mr. Mather.” + +Poor Sewall! his regard of wigs had a severe test when he wooed Madam +Winthrop late in life. She was a rich widow. He had courted her vainly +for a second wife. And now he “yearned for her deeply” for a third +wife, so he wrote. And ere she would consent or even discuss marriage +she stipulated two things: one, that he keep a coach; the other, that +he wear a periwig. When all the men of dignity and office in the colony +were bourgeoning out in great flowing perukes, she was naturally a bit +averse to an elderly lover in a skullcap or, as he often wore, a hood. +His love did not make him waver; he stoutly persisted in his refusal to +assume a periwig. + +His portrait in a velvet skullcap shows a fringe of white curling hair +with a few forehead locks. I fancy he was bald. Here is his entry with +regard to young Parson Willard’s wig, in the year 1701:— + + +“Having last night heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a +very full head of hair) and put on a wig, I went to him this morning. +When I told his mother what I came about, she called him. Whereupon I +inquired of him what extreme need had forced him to put off his own +hair and put on a wig? He answered, none at all; he said that his hair +was straight, and that it parted behind. + +“He seemed to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their +head, as off their face. I answered that boys grew to be men before +they had hair on their faces, and that half of mankind never have any +beards. I told him that God seems to have created our hair as a test, +to see whether we can bring our minds to be content at what he gives +us, or whether wewould be our own carvers and come back to him for +nothing more. We might dislike our skin or nails, as he disliked his +hair; but in our case no thanks are due to us that we cut them not off; +for pain and danger restrain us. Your duty, said I, is to teach men +self-denial. I told him, further, that it would be displeasing and +burdensome to good men for him to wear a wig, and they that care not +what men think of them, care not what God thinks of them. + +“I told him that he must remember that wigs were condemned by a meeting +of ministers at Northampton. I told him of the solemnity of the +covenant which he and I had lately entered into, which put upon me the +duty of discoursing to him. + +“He seemed to say that he would leave off his wig when his hair was +grown again. I spoke to his father of it a day or two afterwards and he +thanked me for reasoning with his son. + +“He told me his son had promised to leave off his wig when his hair was +grown to cover his ears. If the father had known of it, he would have +forbidden him to cut off his hair. His mother heard him talk of it, but +was afraid to forbid him for fear he should do it in spite of her, and +so be more faulty than if she had let him go his own way.” + + + + +Jonathan Edwards, 2nd. Jonathan Edwards, 2nd. + +Soon nearly every parson in England and every colony wore wigs. John +Wesley alone wore what seems to be his own white hair curled under +softly at the ends. Whitfield is in a portentous wig like the one on +Dr. Marsh (here). + +In the time of Queen Anne, wigs had multiplied vastly in variety as +they had increased in size. I have been asked the difference between a +peruke and a wig. Of course both, and the periwig, are simply wigs; but +the term “peruke” is in general applied to a formal, richly curled wig; +and the word “periwig” also conveys the distinction of a formal wig. Of +less dignity were riding-wigs, nightcap wigs, and bag-wigs. Bag-wigs +are said to have had their origin among French servants, who tied up +their hair in a black leather bag as a speedy way of dressing it, and +to keep it out of the way when at other and disordering duties. + + +Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry. + +In May, 1706, the English, led by Marlborough, gained a great victory +on the battle-field of Ramillies, and that gave the title to a new wig +described as “having a long, gradually diminishing, plaited tail, +called the ‘Ramillie-tail,’ which was tied with a great bow at the top +and a smaller one at the bottom.” The hair also bushed out at both +sides of the face. The Ramillies wig shown in Hogarth’s _Modern +Midnight Conversation_ hanging against the wall, is reproduced here. +This wig was not at first deemed full-dress. Queen Anne was deeply +offended because Lord Bolingbroke, summoned hurriedly to her, appeared +in a Ramillies wig instead of a full-bottomed peruke. The queen +remarked that she supposed next time Lord Bolingbroke would come in his +nightcap. It was the same offending nobleman who brought in the fashion +of the mean little tie-wigs. + +It is stated in Read’s _Weekly Journal_ of May 1, 1736, in an account +of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, that the officers of the Horse +and Foot Guards wore Ramillies periwigs when on parade, by his +Majesty’s order. We meet in the reign of George II other forms of wigs +and other titles; the most popular was the pigtail wig. The pigtail of +this was worn hanging down the back or tied up in a knot behind. This +pigtail wig, worn for so many years, is shown here. It was popular in +the army for sixty years, but in 1804 orders were given for the pigtail +to be reduced to seven inches in length, and finally, in 1808, to be +cut off wholly, to the deep mourning of disciplinarians who deemed a +soldier without a pigtail as hopeless as a Manx cat. + + +“King” Carter. Died 1732. “King” Carter. Died 1732. + +Bob-wigs, minor and major, came in during the reign of George II. The +bob-wig was held to be a direct imitation of the natural hair, though, +of course, it deceived no one; it was used chiefly by poorer folk. The +’prentice minor bob was close and short, the citizen’s bob major, or +Sunday buckle, had several rows of curls. All these came to America by +the hundreds—yes, by the thousands. Every profession and almost every +calling had its peculiar wig. The caricatures of the period represent +full-fledged lawyers with a towering frontlet and a long bag at the +back tied in the middle; while students of the university have a wig +flat on the top, to accommodate their stiff, square-cornered hats, and +a great bag like a lawyer’s wig at the back. + + +Judge Benjamin Lynde. Judge Benjamin Lynde. + +“When the law lays down its full-bottom’d periwig you will find less +wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of,” says the _Choleric Man_. +This lawyer’s wig is the only one which has not been changed or +abandoned. You may see it here, on the head of Judge Benjamin Lynde of +Salem. He died in 1745. Carlyle sneers:— + + +“Has not your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, +and a plush-gown—whereby all Mortals know that he is a JUDGE?” + + +In the reigns of Anne and William and Mary perukes grew so vast and +cumbersome that a wig was invented for travelling and for undress wear, +and was called the “Campaign wig.” It would not seem very simple since +it was made full and curled to the front, and had, so writes a +contemporary, Randle Holme, in his _Academy of Armory_, 1684, “knots +and bobs a-dildo on each side and a curled forehead.” + +A campaign wig from Holme’s drawing is shown here. + +There are constant references in old letters and in early literature in +America which alter much the dates assigned by English authorities on +costume: thus, knowing not of Randle Holme’s drawing, Sydney writes +that the name “campaign” was applied to a wig, the name and fashion of +which came to England from France in 1702. In the Letter-book of +William Byrd of Westover, Virginia, in a letter written in June, 1690, +to Perry and Lane, his English factors in London, he says, “I have by +Tonner sent my long Periwig which I desire you to get made into a +Campagne and send mee.” This was twelve years earlier than Sydney’s +date. Fitz-John Winthrop wrote to England in 1695 for “two wiggs one a +campane the other short.” The portrait of Fitz-John Winthrop shows a +prodigious imposing wig, but it has no “knots or bobs a-dildo on each +side,” though the forehead is curled; it is a fine example of a peruke. + +I cannot attempt even to name all the wigs, much less can I describe +them; Hawthorne gave “the tie,” the “Brigadier,” the “Major,” the +“Ramillies,” the grave “Full-bottom,” the giddy “Feather-top.” To these +and others already named in this chapter I can add the “Neck-lock,” the +“Allonge,” the “Lavant,” the “Vallancy,” the “Grecian fly wig,” the +“Beau-peruke,” the “Long-tail,” the “Fox-tail,” the “Cut-wig,” the +“Scratch,” the “Twist-wig.” + +Others named in 1753 in the _London Magazine_ were the “Royal bird,” +the “Rhinoceros,” the “Corded Wolf’s-paw,” “Count Saxe’s mode,” the +“She-dragon,” the “Jansenist,” the “Wild-boar’s-back,” the +“Snail-back,” the “Spinach-seed.” These titles were literal +translations of French wig-names. + +Another wig-name was the “Gregorian.” We read in _The Honest Ghost_, +1658, “Pulling a little down his Gregorian, which was displac’t a +little by his hastie taking off his beaver.” This wig was named from +the inventor, one Gregory, “the famous peruke-maker who is buryed at +St. Clements Danes Church.” In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_ perukes are +called Gregorians. + + +John Rutledge. John Rutledge. + +In the prologue to _Haut Ton_, written by George Colman, these wigs are +named:— + + +“The Tyburn scratch, thick Club and Temple tyes, +The Parson’s Feather-top, frizzed, broad and high. +The coachman’s Cauliflower, built tier on tier.” + + +There was also the “Minister’s bob,” “Curley roys,” “Airy levants,” and +“I—perukes.” The “Dalmahoy” was a bushy bob-wig. + +When Colonel John Carter died, he left to his brother Robert his cane, +sword, and periwig. I believe this to be the very Valiancy periwig +which, in all its snowy whiteness and air of extreme fashion, graces +the head of the handsome young fellow as he is shown here. Even the +portrait shares the fascination which the man is said to have had for +every woman. I have a copy of it now standing on my desk, where I can +glance at him as I write; and pleasant company have I found the gay +young Virginian—the best of company. It is good to have a companion so +handsome of feature, so personable of figure, so laughing, care free, +and debonair—isn’t it, King Robert? + + +Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs. Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, +and Pigtail Wigs. + +These snowy wigs at a later date were called Adonis wigs. + +The cost of a handsome wig would sometimes amount to thirty, forty, and +fifty guineas, though Swift grumbled at paying three guineas, and the +exceedingly correct Mr. Pepys bought wigs at two and three pounds. It +is not strange that they were often stolen. Gay, in his _Trivia_, thus +tells the manner of their disappearance:— + + +“Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn; + High on the shoulder, in a basket borne, + Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred, + Plucks off the curling honors of the head.” + + +In America wigs were deemed rich spoils for the sneak-thief. + +There was a vast trade in second-hand wigs. ’Tis said there was in +Rosemary Lane in London a constantly replenished “Wig lottery.” It was, +rather, a wig grab-bag. The wreck of gentility paid his last sixpence +for appearances, dipped a long arm into a hole in a cask, and fished +out his wig. It might be half-decent, or it might be fit only to polish +shoes—worse yet, it might have been used already for that purpose. The +lowest depths of everything were found in London. I doubt if we had any +Rosemary Lane wig lotteries in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston. + + +Rev. William Welsteed. Rev. William Welsteed. + +An answer to a query in a modern newspaper gives the word “caxon” as +descriptive of a dress-wig. It was in truth a term for a wig, but it +was a cant term, a slang phrase for the worst possible wig; thus +Charles Lamb Wrote:— + + +“He had two wigs both pedantic but of different omen. The one serene, +smiling, fresh-powdered, betokening a mild day. The other an old +discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon denoting frequent and bloody +execution.” + + +All these wigs, even the bob-wig, were openly artificial. The manner of +their make, their bindings, their fastening, as well as their material, +completely destroyed any illusion which could possibly have been +entertained as to their being a luxuriant crop of natural hair. + +No one was ashamed of wearing a wig. On the contrary, a person with any +sense of dignity was ashamed of being so unfashionable as to wear his +own hair. It was a glorious time for those to whom Nature had been +niggardly. A wig was as frankly extraneous as a hat. No attempt was +made to imitate the roots of the hairs, or the parting. The hair was +attached openly, and bound with a high-colored, narrow ribbon. Here is +an advertisement from the _Boston News Letter_ of August 14, 1729:— + + +“Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott, Barber, a light Flaxen Natural +Wigg parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a +Red Pink Color, the Caul is in rows of Red, Green and White Ribband.” + + +Another “peruke-maker” lost a Flaxen “Natural” wig bound with +peach-colored ribbon; while in 1755 Barber Coes, of Marblehead, lost +“feather-tops” bound with various ribbons. Some had three colors on one +wig—pink, green and purple. A goat’s-hair wig bound with red and +purple, with green ribbons striping the caul, must have been a pretty +and dignified thing on an old gentleman’s head. One of the most curious +materials for a wig was fine wire, of which Wortley Montague’s wig was +made. + + +Thomas Hopkinson. Thomas Hopkinson. + +We read in many histories of costume, among them Miss Hill’s recent +history of English dress, that Quakers did not wear wigs. This is +widely incorrect. Many Quakers wore most fashionably made wigs. William +Penn wrote from England to his steward, telling him to allow Deputy +Governor Lloyd to wear his (Penn’s) wigs. I suppose he wished his +deputy to cut a good figure. + +From the _New York Gazette_ of May 9, 1737, we learn of a thief’s +stealing “one gray Hair Wig, not the worse for wearing, one Pale Hair +Wig, not worn five times, marked V. S. E., one brown Natural wig, One +old wig of goat’s hair put in buckle.” Buckle meant to curl, and +derivatively a wig was in buckle when it was rolled for curling. +Roulettes or bilbouquettes for buckling a wig were little rollers of +pipe clay. The hair was twisted up in them, and papers bound over them +to fix them in place. The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they +could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated. The latter was not +favored; it damaged the wig. Moreover, a careless barber had often +roasted a forgotten wig which he had put in buckle and in an oven. + +The _New York Gazette_ of May 12, 1750, had this alluring +advertisement:— + + +“This is to acquaint the Public, that there is lately arrived from +London the Wonder of the World, _an Honest_ Barber and Peruke Maker, +who might have worked for the King, if his Majesty would have employed +him: It was not for the want of Money he came here, for he had enough +of that at Home, nor for the want of Business, that he advertises +himself, BUT to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, that _Such a Person +is now in Town_, living near _Rosemary Lane_ where Gentlemen and Ladies +may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full-Bottoms, +Majors, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramalies, Tacks, cut and bob Perukes: Also +Ladies Tatematongues and Towers after the Manner that is now wore at +Court. _By their Humble and Obedient Servant_, + +“JOHN STILL.” + + + + +Reverend Dr. Barnard. Reverend Dr. Barnard. + +“Perukes,” says Malcolm, in his _Manners and Customs_, “were an highly +important article in 1734.” Those of right gray human hair were four +guineas each; light grizzle ties, three guineas; and other colors in +proportion, to twenty-five shillings. Right gray human hair cue +perukes, from two guineas to fifteen shillings each, was the price of +dark ones; and right gray bob perukes, two guineas and a half to +fifteen shillings, the price of dark bobs. Those mixed with horsehair +were much lower. + +Prices were a bit higher in America. It was held that better wigs were +made in England than in America or France; so the letter-books and +agent’s-lists of American merchants are filled with orders for English +wigs. + +Imperative orders for the earliest and extremest new fashions stood +from year to year on the lists of fashionable London wig-makers; and +these constant orders came from Virginia gentlemen and Massachusetts +magistrates,—not a few, too, from the parsons,—scantly paid as they +were. The smaller bob-wigs and tie-wigs were precisely the same in both +countries, and I am sure were no later in assumption in America than +was necessitated by the weeks occupied in coming across seas. + +Throughout the seventeenth century all classes of men in American towns +wore wigs. Negro slaves flaunted white horsehair wigs, goat’s-hair +bob-wigs, natural wigs, all the plainer wigs, and all the more costly +sorts when these were half worn and secondhand. Soldiers wore wigs; and +in the _Massachusetts Gazette_ of the year 1774 a runaway negro is +described as wearing a curl of hair tied around his head to imitate a +scratch wig; with his woolly crown this dangling curl must have been +the height of absurdity. + +It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court +the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing, +before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is +curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I +have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman +(and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three +little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent +was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754. + +Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their +dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them +by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year +was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of +dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men +as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On +Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the +narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed +wigs ere sunset came. + +No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the +hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had +their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath. +Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were +removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place, +or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in +the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered, +all men did not wear wigs. A writer in the _London Magazine_ in 1745 +tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some +of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight +“all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people +wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland +linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds, +“It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.” +So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was +that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants, +bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false +pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports +were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of +dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a +wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner, +who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a +schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well +they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at +the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be +parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to +the surroundings of their day. In one thing they can be envied. Knowing +not of germs and microbes, dreaming not of antiseptics and fumigation, +they could be happy in blissful unconsciousness of menacing +environment—a blessing wholly denied to us. + + +Andrew Ellicott. Andrew Ellicott. + +When James Murray came from Scotland in 1735 he went up the Cape Fear +River in North Carolina to the struggling settlements of Brunswick. The +stock of wigs which he brought as one of the commodities of his trade +had absolutely no market. In 1751 he wrote thus to his London +wig-maker:— + + +“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless +of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig +since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near +out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.” + + +Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account +of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald +from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:— + + +“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was +pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed. +This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would +probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in +this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of +either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my +sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by +the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My +friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going +home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.” + + +Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the +wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem +Tory, wrote a few years later:— + + +“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our +clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had +not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think +my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly +resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the +gentlest in his motions.” + + +Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off +in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his +negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing. + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BEARD + + +_“Though yours be sorely lugged and torn +It does your Visage more adorn +Than if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and launder’d +And cut square by the Russian standard.”_ + +—“Hudibras,” SAMUEL BUTLER. + + +_“Now of beards there be such company +And fashions such a throng +That it is very hard to handle a beard +Tho’ it be never so long. + +“’Tis a pretty sight and a grave delight +That adorns both young and old +A well thatch’t face is a comely grace +And a shelter from the cold”_ + +—“Le Prince d’Amour,” 1660. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BEARD + + +M + + +en’s hair on their heads hath ever been at odds with that on their +face. If the head were well covered and the hair long, then the face +was smooth shaven. William the Conqueror had short hair and a beard, +then came a long-haired king, then a cropped one; Edward IV’s subjects +had long hair and closely cut beards. Henry VII fiercely forbade +beards. The great sovereign Henry VIII ordered short hair like the +French, and wore a beard. Through Elizabeth’s day and that of James the +beard continued. Not until great perukes overshadowed the whole face +did the beard disappear. It vanished for a century as if men were +beardless; but after men began to wear short hair in the early years of +the nineteenth century, bearded men appeared. A few German mystics who +had come to America full-bearded were stared at like the elephant, and +a sight of them was recorded in a diary as a great event. + +There is no doubt that, to the general reader, the ordinary thought of +the Puritan is with a beard, a face and figure much like the Hogarth +illustrations of Hudibras—one of the “Presbyterian true Blue,” “the +stubborn crew of Errant Saints,”—without the grotesquery of face and +feature, perhaps, but certainly with all the plainness and +gracelessness of dress and the commonplace beard. The wording of +Hudibras also figures the popular conception:— + + +“His tawny Beard was th’ equal Grace +Both of his Wisdom and his Face: + * * * * * +“His Doublet was of sturdy Buff +And tho’ not Sword, was Cudgel-Proof. +His Breeches were of rugged Woolen +And had been at the Siege of Bullen.” + + + + +Herbert Westphaling, Bishop of Hereford. Herbert Westphaling, Bishop of +Hereford. + +In truth this is well enough as far as it runs and for one suit of +clothing; but this was by no means a universal dress, nor was it a +universal beard. Indeed beards were fearfully and wonderfully varied. + +That humorous old rhymester, Taylor, the “Water Poet,” may be quoted at +length on the vanity thus:— + + +“And Some, to set their Love’s-Desire on Edge +Are cut and prun’d, like to a Quickset Hedge. +Some like a Spade, some like a Forke, some square, +Some round, some mow’d like stubble, some starke bare; +Some sharpe, Stilletto-fashion, Dagger-like, +That may with Whispering a Man’s Eyes unpike; +Some with the Hammer-cut, or Roman T. +Their Beards extravagant, reform’d must be. +Some with the Quadrate, some Triangle fashion; +Some circular, some ovall in translation; +Some Perpendicular in Longitude, +Some like a Thicket for their Crassitude, +That Heights, Depths, Breadths, Triform, Square, Ovall, Round +And Rules Geometrical in Beards are found.” + + +Taylor’s own beard was screw-shaped. I fancy he invented it. + +The Anglo-Saxon beard was parted, and this double form remained for a +long time. Sometimes there were two twists or two long forks. + +A curious pointed beard, a beard in two curls, is shown here, on James +Douglas, Earl of Morton. A still more strangely kept one, pointed in +the middle of the chin, and kept in two rolls which roll toward the +front, is upon the aged herald, here. + +Richard II had a mean beard,—two little tufts on the chin known as “the +mouse-eaten beard, here a tuft, there a tuft.” The round beard “like a +half a Holland cheese” is always seen in the depictions of Falstaff; “a +great round beard” we know he had. This was easily trimmed, but others +took so much time and attention that pasteboard boxes were made to tie +over them at night, that they might be unrumpled in the morning. + + +The Herald Vandum. The Herald Vandum. + +In the reign of Elizabeth and of James I a beard and whiskers or +mustache were universally worn. In the time of Charles I the general +effect of beard and mustache was triangular, with the mouth in the +centre, as in the portrait of Waller here. + +A beard of some form was certainly universal in 1620. Often it was the +orderly natural growth shown on Winthrop’s face; a smaller tuft on the +chin with a mustache also was much worn. Many ministers in America had +this chin-tuft. Among them were John Eliot and John Davenport. The +Stuarts wore a pointed beard, carefully trimmed, and a mustache; but +the natural beard seems to have disappeared with the ruff. Charles II +clung for a time to a mustache; his portrait by Mary Beale has one; but +with the great development of the periwig came a smooth face. This +continued until the nineteenth century brought a fashion of bearded men +again; a fashion which was so abhorred, so reviled, so openly warred +with that I know of the bequest of a large estate with the absolute and +irrevocable condition that the inheritor should never wear a beard of +any form. + +The hammer cut was of the reign of Charles I. It was T-shaped. In the +play, _The Queen of Corinth_, 1647, are the lines:— + + + “He strokes his beard +Which now he puts in the posture of a T, +The Roman T. Your T-beard is in fashion.” + + +The spade beard is shown here. It was called the “broad pendant,” and +was held to make a man look like a warrior. The sugar-loaf beard was +the natural form much worn by Puritans; by natural I mean not twisted +into any “strange antic forms.” The swallow-tail cut (about 1600) is +more unusual, but was occasionally seen. + + +“The stiletto-beard +It makes me afeard + It is so sharp beneath. +For he that doth place +A dagger in his face + What wears he in his sheath?” + + +An unusually fine stiletto beard is on the chin of John Endicott +(here). It was distinctly a soldier’s beard. Endicott was major-general +of the colonial forces and a severe disciplinarian. Shakespere, in +_Henry V_, speaks of “a beard of the General’s cut.” It was worn by the +Earl of Southampton (see here), and perhaps Endicott favored it on that +account. The pique-devant beard or “pick-a-devant beard, O Fine +Fashion,” was much worn. A good moderate example may be seen upon +Cousin Kilvert, with doublet and band, in the print here. An extreme +type was the beard of Robert Greene, the Elizabethan dramatist, “A +jolly long red peake like the spire of a steeple, which he wore +continually, whereat a man might hang a jewell; it was so sharp and +pendent.” + + +Scotch Beard. Scotch Beard. + +The word “peak” was constantly used for a beard, and also the words +“spike” and “spear.” A barber is represented in an old play as asking +whether his customer will “have his peak cut short and sharp; or +amiable like an inamorato, or broad pendant like a spade; to be +terrible like a warrior and a soldado; to have his appendices primed, +or his mustachios fostered to turn about his eares like ye branches of +a vine.” + +A broad square-cut beard spreading at the ends like an open fan is the +“cathedral beard” of Randle Holme, “so called because grave men of the +church did wear it.” It is often seen in portraits. One of these is +shown here. + + +Dr. William Slater. Cathedral Beard. Dr. William Slater. Cathedral +Beard. + +In the _Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas_, 1731, she writes of her +grandfather, a Turkey-merchant:— + + +“He was very nice in the Mode of his Age—his Valet being some hours +every morning in _Starching_ his _Beard_ and Curling his Whiskers +during which Time a Gentleman whom he maintained as Companion always +read to him upon some useful subject.” + + +So we may believe they really “starched” their beards, stiffened them +with some dressing. Taylor, the “Water Poet” (1640), says of beards:— + + +“Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine +Like to the Bristles of some Angry Swine.” + + + + +Dr. John Dee. 1600. Dr. John Dee. 1600. + +Dr. Dee’s extraordinary beard I can but regard as an affectation of +singularity, assumed doubtless to attract attention, and to be a sign +of unusual parts. Aubrey, his friend, calls him “a very handsome man; +of very fair, clear, sanguine complexion, with a long beard as white as +milke. He was tall and slender. He wore a gowne like an artist’s gowne; +with hanging sleeves and a slitt. A mighty good man he was.” The word +“artist” then meant artisan; and in this reference means a smock like a +workman’s. + +A name seen often in Winthrop’s letters is that of Sir Kenelm Digby. He +was an intimate correspondent of John Winthrop the second, and it would +not be strange if he did many errands for Winthrop in England besides +purchasing drugs. His portrait, and a lugubrious one it is, is one of +the few of his day which shows an untrimmed beard. Aubrey says of him +that after the death of his wife he wore “a long mourning cloak, a high +cornered hatt, his beard unshorn, look’t like a hermit; as signs of +sorrow for his beloved wife. He had something of the sweetness of his +mother’s face.” This sweetness is, however, not to be perceived in his +unattractive portrait. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES + + +_“Q. Why is a Wife like a Patten? A. Both are Clogs.”_ + +—Old Riddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES + + +W + + +hen this old pigskin trunk was new, the men who fought in the +Revolution were young. Here is the date, “1756,” and the initials in +brass-headed nails, “J.E.H.” It was a bride’s trunk, the trunk of +Elizabeth, who married John; and it was marked after the manner of +marking the belongings of married folk in her day. It is curious in +shape, spreading out wide at the top; for it was made to fit a special +place in an old coach. I have told the story of that ancient coach in +my _Old Narragansett_: the tale of the ignoble end of its days, the +account of its fall from transportation of this happy bride and +bridegroom, through years of stately use and formal dignity to more +years of happy desuetude as a children’s cubby-house; and finally its +ignominy as a roosting-place, and hiding-place, and laying-place, and +setting-place of misinformed and misguided hens. Under the coachman’s +seat, where the two-score dark-blue Staffordshire pie-plates were found +on the day of the annihilation of the coach, was the true resting-place +of this trunk. It was a hidden spot, for the trunk was small, and was +intended to hold only treasures. It holds them still, though they are +not the silver-plate, the round watches, the narrow laces, and the +precious camel’s-hair scarf. It now holds treasured relics of the olden +time; trifles, but not unconsidered ones; much esteemed trifles are +they, albeit not in form or shape or manner of being fit to rest in +parlor cabinets or on tables, but valued, nevertheless, valued for that +most intangible of qualities—association. + + +Iron and Leather Pattens. 1760. Iron and Leather Pattens. 1760. + + +Oak, Iron, and Leather Clogs. 1790. Oak, Iron, and Leather Clogs. 1790. + +Here is one little “antick.” It is an ample bag with the neat double +drawing-strings of our youth; a bag, nay, a pocket. It once hung by the +side of some one of my forbears, perhaps Elizabeth of the brass-nailed +initials. It was a much-esteemed pocket, though it is only of figured +cotton or chiney; but those stuffs were much sought after when this old +trunk was new. The pocket has served during recent years as a cover for +two articles of footwear which many “of the younger sort” to-day have +never seen—they are pattens. “Clumsy, ugly pattens” we find them +frequently stigmatized in the severe words of the early years of the +nineteenth century, but there is nothing ugly or clumsy about this +pair. The sole is of some black, polished wood—it is heavy enough for +ebony; the straps are of strong leather neatly stitched; the buckles +are polished brass, and brass nails fasten the leather to the wooden +soles. These soles are cut up high in a ridge to fit under the instep +of a high-heeled shoe; for it was a very little lady who wore these +pattens,—Elizabeth,—and her little feet always stood in the highest +heels. She was active, kindly, and bountiful. She lived to great age, +and she could and did walk many miles a day until the last year of her +life. She is recalled as wearing a great scarlet cloak with a black +silk quilted hood on cold winter days, when she visited her neighbors +with kindly words, and housewifely, homely gifts, conveyed in an ample +basket. The cloak was made precisely like the scarlet cloak shown here, +and had a like hood. She was brown-eyed, and her dark hair was never +gray even in extreme old age; nor was the hair of her granddaughter, +another Elizabeth, my grandmother. Trim and erect of figure, and +precise and neat of dress, wearing, on account of this neatness, +shorter petticoats, when walking, than was the mode of her day, and +also through this neatness clinging to the very last to these cleanly, +useful, quaint pattens. Her black hood, frilled white cap, short, +quilted petticoat, high-heeled shoes, and the shining ebony and brass +pattens, and over all the great, full scarlet cloak,—all these made her +an unusual and striking figure against the Wayland landscape, the snowy +fields and great sombre pine trees of Heard’s Island, as she trod +trimly, in short pattened steps that crackled the kittly-benders in the +shadowed roads, or sunk softly in the shallow mud of the sunny lanes on +a snow-melting day in late winter. Would I could paint the picture as I +see it! + +These pattens in the old trunk are prettier than most pattens which +have been preserved. In general, they are rather shabby things. I have +another pair—more commonplace, which chance to exist; they were not +saved purposely. They are pictured here. + + +English Clogs. English Clogs. + +There is a most ungallant old riddle, “Why is a wife like a patten?” +The answer reads, “Because both are clogs.” A very courteous bishop was +once asked this uncivil query, and he answered without a moment’s +hesitation, “Because both elevate the soul (sole).” Pattens may be +clogs, yet there is a difference. After much consultation of various +authorities, and much discussion in the columns of various querying +journals, I make this decision and definition. Pattens are thick, +wooden soles roughly shaped in the outline of the human foot (in the +shoemaker’s notion of that member), mounted on a round or oval ring of +iron, fixed by two or three pins to the sole, in such a way that when +the patten is worn the sole of the wearer’s foot is about two inches +above the ground. A heel-piece with buckles and straps, strings or +buttons and leather loops, and a strap over the toe, retain the patten +in place upon the foot when the wearer trips along. (See here.) Clogs +serve the same purpose, but are simply wooden soles tipped and shod +with iron. These also have heel-pieces and straps of various +materials—from the heavy serviceable leather shown in the clogs here +and here to the fine brocade clogs made and worn by two brides and +pictured here. Dainty brass tips and colored morocco straps made a +really refined pair of clogs. Poplar wood was deemed the best wood for +pattens and clogs. Sometimes the wooden sole was thin, and was cut at +the line under the instep in two pieces and hinged. These hinges were +held to facilitate walking. Children also wore clogs. (See here.) +Clogs, as worn by English and American folk, did not raise the wearer +as high above the mud and mire as did pattens, but I have seen Turkish +clogs that were ten inches high. Chopines were worn by Englishwomen to +make them look taller. Three are shown here. Lady Falkland was short +and stout, and wore them for years to increase her apparent height; so +she states in her memoirs. + +It is a curious philological study that, while the words “clogs” and +“pattens” for a time were constantly heard, the third name which has +survived till to-day is the oldest of all—“galoshes.” Under the many +spellings, galoe-shoes, goloshes, gallage, galoche, and gallosh, it has +come down to us from the Middle Ages. It is spelt galoches in _Piers +Plowman_. In a _Compotus_—or household account of the Countess of Derby +in 1388 are entries of botews (boots), souters (slippers), and “one +pair of galoches, 14 d.” Clogs, or galoches, were known in the days of +the Saxons, when they were termed “wife’s shoes.” + +A “galage” was a shoe “which has nothing on the feet but a latchet”; it +was simply a clog. In February, 1687, Judge Sewall notes, “Send my +mothers Shoes &; Golowshoes to carry to her.” In 1736 Peter Faneuil +sent to England for “Galoushoes” for his sister. Another foot-covering +for slippery, icy walking is named by Judge Sewall. He wrote on January +19, 1717, “Great rain and very Slippery; was fain to wear Frosts.” +These frosts were what had been called on horses, “frost nails,” or +calks. They were simply spiked soles to help the wearer to walk on ice. +A pair may be seen at the Deerfield Memorial Hall. Another pair is of +half-soles with sharp ridges of iron, set, one the length of the +half-sole, the other across it. + + +Chopines, Seventeenth Century. In the Ashmolean Museum. Chopines, +Seventeenth Century. In the Ashmolean Museum. + +For a time clogs seem to have been in constant use in America; frail +morocco slippers and thin prunella and callimanco shoes made them +necessary, as did also the unpaved streets. Heavy-soled shoes were +unknown for women’s wear. Women walked but short distances. In the +country they always rode. We find even Quaker women warned in 1720 not +to wear “Shoes of light Colours bound with Differing Colours, and heels +White or Red, with White bands, and fine Coloured Clogs and Strings, +and Scarlet and Purple Stockings and Petticoats made Short to expose +them”—a rather startling description of footwear. Again, in 1726, in +Burlington, New Jersey, Friends were asked to be “careful to avoid +wearing of Stript Shoos, or Red and White Heel’d Shoos, or Clogs, or +Shoos trimmed with Gawdy Colours.” + + +Brides’ Clogs of Brocade and Sole Leather. Brides’ Clogs of Brocade and +Sole Leather. + +Ann Warder, an English Quaker, was in Philadelphia, 1786 to 1789, and +kept an entertaining journal, from which I make this quotation:— + + +“Got B. Parker to go out shopping with me. On our way happened of Uncle +Head, to whom I complained bitterly of the dirty streets, declaring if +I could purchase a pair of pattens, the singularity I would not mind. +Uncle soon found me up an apartment, out of which I took a pair and +trotted along quite Comfortable, crossing some streets with the +greatest ease, which the idea of had troubled me. My little companion +was so pleased, that she wished some also, and kept them on her feet to +learn to walk in them most of the remainder of the day.” + + +Fairholt, in his book upon costume, says, “Pattens date their origin to +the reign of Anne.” Like many other dates and statements given by this +author, this is wholly wrong. In _Purchas’, his Pilgrimage_, 1613, is +this sentence, “Clogges or Pattens to keep them out of the dust they +may not burden themselves with,” showing that the name and thing was +the same then as to-day. + + +Clogs of “Pennsylvania Dutch.” Clogs of “Pennsylvania Dutch.” + +Charles Dibdin has a song entitled, _The Origin of the Patten_. Fair +Patty went out in the mud and the mire, and her thin shoes speedily +were wet. Then she became hoarse and could not sing, while her lover +longed for the sweet sound of her voice. + + +“My anvil glow’d, my hammer rang, +Till I had form’d from out the fire +To bear her feet above the mire, +A platform for my blue-eyed Patty. +Again was heard each tuneful close, +My fair one in the patten rose, + Which takes its name from blue-eyed Patty.” + + +This fanciful derivation of the word was not an original thought of +Dibdin. Gay wrote in his Trivia, 1715:— + + +“The patten now supports each frugal dame +That from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.” + + +In reality, patten is derived from the French word _patin_, which has a +varied meaning of the sole of a shoe or a skate. + +Pattens were noisy, awkward wear. A writer of the day of their +universality wrote, “Those ugly, noisy, ferruginous, ancle-twisting, +foot-cutting, clinking things called women’s pattens.” Notices were set +in church porches enjoining the removal of women’s pattens, which, of +course, should never have been worn into church during service-time. + + +Children’s Clogs. 1730. Children’s Clogs. 1730. + +It may have disappeared today, but four years ago, on the door of +Walpole St. Peters, near Wisbeck, England, hung a board which read, +“People who enter this church are requested to take off their pattens.” +A friend in Northamptonshire, England, writes me that pattens are still +seen on muddy days in remote English villages in that shire. + +Men wore pattens in early days. And men did and do wear clogs in +English mill-towns. + +There were also horse pattens or horse clogs which horses wore through +deep, muddy roads; I have an interesting photograph of a pair found in +Northampton. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES + + +_“By my Faith! Master Inkpen, thou hast put thy foot in it! Tis a +pretty subject and a strange one, and a vast one, but we’ll leave it +never a sole to stand on. The proverb hath ‘There’s naught like +leather,’ but my Lady answers ‘Save silk:’”_ + +—Old Play. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES + + +O + + +ne of the first sumptuary laws in New England declared that men of mean +estate should not walk abroad in immoderate great boots. It was a +natural prohibition where all extravagance in dress was reprehended and +restrained. The “great boots” which had been so vast in the reign of +James I seemed to be spreading still wider in the reign of Charles. I +have an old “Discourse” on leather dated 1629, which states fully the +condition of things. Its various headings read, “The general Use of +Leather;” “The general Abuse thereof;” “The good which may arise from +the Reformation;” “The several Statutes made in that behalf by our +ancient Kings;” and lastly a “Petition to the High Court of +Parliament.” It is all most informing; for instance, in the trades that +might want work were it not for leather are named not only “shoemakers, +cordwainers, curriers, etc.,” but many now obsolete. The list reads:— + + +“Book binders. +Budget makers. +Saddlers. +Trunk makers. +Upholsterers. +Belt makers. +Case makers. +Box makers. +Wool-card makers. +Cabinet makers. +Shuttle makers. +Bottle and Jack makers. +Hawks-hood makers. +Gridlers. +Scabbard-makers. +Glovers.” + + +Unwillingly the author added “those _upstart trades_—Coach Makers, and +Harness Makers for Coach Horses.” It was really feared, by this +sensible gentleman-writer—and many others—that if many carriages and +coaches were used, shoemakers would suffer because so few shoes would +be worn out. + +From the statutes which are rehearsed we learn that the footwear of the +day was “boots, shoes, buskins, startups, slippers, or pantofles.” +Stubbes said:— + + +“They have korked shooes puisnets pantoffles, some of black velvet, +some of white some of green, some of yellow, some of Spanish leather, +some of English leather stitched with Silke and embroidered with Gold +&; Silver all over the foot.” + + +A very interesting book has been published by the British Cordwainers’ +Guild, giving a succession of fine illustrations of the footwear of +different times and nations. Among them are some handsome English +slippers, shoes, jack-boots, etc. We have also in our museums, +historical collections, and private families many fine examples; but +the difficulty is in the assigning of correct dates. Family tradition +is absolutely wide of the truth—its fabulous dates are often a century +away from the proper year. + + +The Copley Family Picture. The Copley Family Picture. + + +Wedding Slippers and Brocade. 1712. Wedding Slippers and Brocade. 1712. + +Buskins to the knee were worn even by royalty; Queen Elizabeth’s still +exist. Buskins were in wear when the colonies were settled. Richard +Sawyer, of Windsor, Connecticut, had cloth buskins in 1648; and a +hundred years later runaway servants wore them. One redemptioner is +described as running off in “sliders and buskins.” American buskins +were a foot-covering consisting of a strong leather sole with cloth +uppers and leggins to the knees, which were fastened with lacings. +Startups were similar, but heavier. In Thynne’s _Debate between Pride +and Lowliness_, the dress of a countryman is described. It runs thus:— + + +“A payre of startups had he on his feete + That lased were up to the small of the legge. + Homelie they are, and easier than meete; + And in their soles full many a wooden pegge.” + + +Thomas Johnson of Wethersfield, Connecticut, died in 1840. He owned “1 +Perre of Startups.” + +Slippers were worn even in the fifteenth century. In the _Paston +Letters_, in a letter dated February 23, 1479, is this sentence, “In +the whych lettre was VIII d with the whych I shulde bye a peyr of +slyppers.” Even for those days eightpence must have been a small price +for slippers. In 1686, Judge Samuel Sewall wrote to a member of the +Hall family thanking him for “The Kind Loving Token—the East Indian +Slippers for my wife.” Other colonial letters refer to Oriental +slippers; and I am sure that Turkish slippers are worn by Lady Temple +in her childish portrait, painted in company with her brother. +Slip-shoes were evidently slippers—the word is used by Sewall; and +slap-shoes are named by Randle Holme. Pantofles were also slippers, +being apparently rather handsomer footwear than ordinary slippers or +slip-shoes. They are in general specified as embroidered. Evelyn tells +of the fine pantofles of the Pope embroidered with jewels on the +instep. + +So great was the use and abuse of leather that a petition was made to +Parliament in 1629 to attempt to restrict the making of great boots. +One sentence runs:— + + +“The wearing of Boots is not the Abuse; but the generality of wearing +and the manner of cutting Boots out with huge slovenly unmannerly +immoderate tops. What over lavish spending is there in Boots and Shoes. +To either of which is now added a French proud Superfluity of Leather. + +“For the general Walking in Boots it is a Pride taken up by the +Courtier and is descended to the Clown. The Merchant and Mechanic walk +in Boots. Many of our Clergy either in neat Boots or Shoes and +Galloshoes. University Scholars maintain the Fashion likewise. Some +Citizens out of a Scorn not to be Gentile go every day booted. +Attorneys, Lawyers, Clerks, Serving Men, All Sorts of Men delight in +this Wasteful Wantonness. + +“Wasteful I may well call it. One pair of boots eats up the leather of +six reasonable pair of men’s shoes.” + + + + +Jack-boots. Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia. Jack-boots. Owned by +Lord Fairfax of Virginia. + +Monstrous boots seem to have been the one frivolity in dress which the +Puritans could not give up. In the reign of Charles I boots were +superb. The tops were flaring, lined within with lace or embroidered or +fringed; thus when turned down they were richly ornamental. Fringes of +leather, silk, or cloth edged some boot-tops on the outside; the +leather itself was carved and gilded. The soldiers and officers of +Cromwell’s army sometimes gave up laces and fringes, but not the +boot-tops. The Earl of Essex, his general, had cloth fringes on his +boots. (See his portrait facing here; also the portrait of Lord Fairfax +here.) In the court of Charles II and Louis XIV of France the boot-tops +spread to absurd inconvenience. The toes of these boots were very +square, as were the toes of men’s and women’s shoes. Children’s shoes +were of similar form. The singular shoes worn by John Quincy and Robert +Gibbes are precisely right-angled. It was a sneer at the Puritans that +they wore pointed toes. The shoe-ties, roses, and buckles varied; but +the square toes lingered, though they were singularly inelegant. On the +feet of George I (see portrait here) the square-toed shoes are ugly +indeed. + +James I scornfully repelled shoe-roses when brought to him for his +wear; asking if they wished to “make a ruffle-footed dove” of him. But +soon he wore the largest rosettes in court. Peacham tells that some +cost as much as £;30 a pair, being then, of course, of rare lace. + + +Joshua Warner. Joshua Warner. + +_Friar Bacon’s Brazen Head Prophecie_, set into a “Plaie” or Rhyme, has +these verses (1604): + +“Then Handkerchers were wrought + With Names and true Love Knots; +And not a wench was taught + A false Stitch in her spots; +When Roses in the Gardaines grew +And not in Ribons on a Shoe. + +“_Now_ Sempsters few are taught + The true Stitch in their Spots; +And Names are sildome wrought + Within the true love knots; +And Ribon Roses takes such Place +That Garden Roses want their Grace.” + + +Shoes of buff leather, slashed, were the very height of the fashion in +the first years of the seventeenth century. They can be seen on the +feet of Will Sommers in his portrait. Through the slashes showed bright +the scarlet or green stockings of cloth or yarn. Bright-colored +shoe-strings gave additional gaudiness. Green shoe-strings, spangled, +gilded shoe-strings, shoes of “dry-neat-leather tied with red ribbons,” +“russet boots,” “white silken shoe strings,”—all were worn. + +Red heels appear about 1710. In Hogarth’s original paintings they are +seen. Women wore them extensively in America. + +The jack-boots of Stuart days seem absolutely imperishable. They are of +black, jacked leather like the leather bottles and black-jacks from +which Englishmen drank their ale. So closely are they alike that I do +not wonder a French traveller wrote home that Englishmen drank from +their boots. These jack-boots were as solid and unpliable as iron, +square-toed and clumsy of shape. A pair in perfect preservation which +belonged to Lord Fairfax in Virginia is portrayed here. Had all +colonial gentlemen worn jack-boots, the bootmakers and shoemakers would +have been ruined, for a pair would last a lifetime. + + +Shoe and Knee Buckles. Shoe and Knee Buckles. + +In 1767 we find William Cabell of Virginia paying these prices for his +finery:— + +£ s. d. 1 Pair single channelled boots with straps 1 2 1 +Pair Strong Buckskin Breeches 1 10 2 Pairs Fashionable Chain +Silver Spurs 2 10 1 Pair Silver Buttons 6 1 fine +Magazine Blue Cloth Housing laced 12 1 Strong Double +Bridle 4 6 6 Pair Men’s fine Silk Hose 4 4 Buttons +&; trimmings for a coat 5 2 + +New England dandies wore, as did Monsieur A-la-mode:— + + “A pair of smart pumps made up of grain’d leather, + So thin he can’t venture to tread on a feather.” + + +Buckles were made of pinchbeck, an alloy of four parts of copper and +one part of zinc, invented by Christopher Pinchbeck, a London +watchmaker of the eighteenth century. Buckles were also “plaited” and +double “plaited” with gold and silver (which was the general spelling +of plated). Plated buckles were cast in pinchbeck, with a pattern on +the surface. A silver coating was laid over this. These buckles were +set with marcasite, garnet, and paste jewels; sometimes they were of +gold with real diamonds. But much imitation jewellery was worn by all +people even of great wealth. Perhaps imitation is an incorrect word. +The old paste jewels made no assertion of being diamonds. Steel cut in +facets and combined with gold, made beautiful buckles. A number of rich +shoe and garter buckles, owned in Salem, are shown here. + +These old buckles were handsome, costly, dignified; they were becoming; +they were elegant. Nevertheless, the fashionable world tired of its +expensive and appropriate buckles; they suddenly were deemed +inconveniently large, and plain shoe-strings took their place. This +caused great commotion and ruin among the buckle-makers, who, with the +fatuity of other tradespeople—the wig-makers, the hair-powder makers—in +like calamitous changes of fashion, petitioned the Prince of Wales, in +1791, to do something to revive their vanishing trade. But it was like +placing King Canute against the advancing waves of the sea. + + +Wedding Slippers. Wedding Slippers. + +When the Revolutionists in France set about altering and simplifying +costume, they did away with shoe-buckles, and fastened their shoes with +plain strings. Minister Roland, one day in 1793, was about to present +himself to Louis XVI while he was wearing shoes with strings. The old +Master of Ceremonies, scandalized at having to introduce a person in +such a state of undress, looked despairingly at Dumouriez, who was +present. Dumouriez replied with an equally hopeless gesture, and the +words, “Hélas! oui, monsieur, tout est perdu.” + +President Jefferson, with his hateful French notions, made himself +especially obnoxious to conservative American folk by giving up +shoe-buckles. I read in the _New York Evening Post_ that when he +received the noisy bawling band of admirers who brought into the White +House the Mammoth Cheese (one of the most vulgar exhibitions ever seen +in this country), he was “dressed in his suit of customary black, with +shoes that laced tight round the ankle and closed with a neat leathern +string.” + +When shoe-strings were established and trousers were becoming popular, +there seemed to be a time of indecision as to the dress of the legs +below the short pantaloons and above the stringed shoes. That point of +indefiniteness was filled promptly with top-boots. First, black tops +appeared; then came tops of fancy leather, of which yellow was the +favorite. Gilt tassels swung pleasingly from the colored tops. Silken +tassels—home made—were worn. I have a letter from a young American +macaroni to his sweetheart in which he thanks her for her +“heart-filling boot-tossels”—which seems to me a very cleverly +flattering adjective. He adds: “Did those rosy fingers twist the silken +strands, and knot them with thought of the wearer? I wish you was +loveing enough to tye some threads of your golden hair into the +tossells, but I swear I cannot find never a one.” The conjunction of +two negatives in this manner was common usage a hundred years ago; +while “you was” may be found in the writings of our greatest authors of +that date. + +In one attribute, women’s footwear never varied in the two centuries of +this book’s recording. It was always thin-soled and of light material; +never adequate for much “walking abroad” or for any wet weather. In +fact, women have never worn heavy walking-boots until our own day. +Whether high-heeled or no-heeled they were always thin. + +The curious “needle-pointed” slippers which are pictured here were the +bridal slippers at the wedding of Cornelia de Peyster, who married +Oliver Teller in 1712. Several articles of her dress still exist; and +the background of the slippers is a breadth of the superb yellow and +silver brocade wedding gown worn at the same time. + +When we have the tiny pages of the few newspapers to turn to, we learn +a little of women’s shoes. There were advertisements in 1740 of +“mourning shoes,” “fine silk shoes,” “flowered russet shoes,” “white +callimanco shoes,” “black shammy shoes,” “girls’ flowered russet +shoes,” “shoes of black velvet, white damask, red morocco, and red +everlasting.” “Damask worsted shoes in red, blue, green, pink color and +white,” in 1751. There were satinet patterns for ladies’ shoes +embroidered with flowers in the vamp. The heels were “high, cross-cut, +common, court, and wurtemburgh.” Some shoes were white with russet +bands. “French fall” shoes were worn both by women and men for many +years. + + +Mrs. Abigail Bromfield Rogers. Mrs. Abigail Bromfield Rogers. + +Here is a pair of beautiful brocade wedding shoes. The heels are not +high. Another pair was made of the silken stuff of the beautiful sacque +worn by Mrs. Carroll. These have high heels running down to a very +small heel-base. In the works of Hogarth we may find many examples of +women’s shoes. In all the old shoes I have seen, made about the time of +the American Revolution, the maker’s name is within and this legend, +“Rips mended free.” Many heels were much higher and smaller than any +given in this book. + + +Mrs. Carroll’s Slippers. Mrs. Carroll’s Slippers. + +It is astonishing to read the advocacy and eulogy given by sensible +gentlemen to these extreme heels. Watson, the writer of the _Annals of +Philadelphia_, extolled their virtues—that they threw the weight of the +wearer on the ball of the foot and spread it out for a good support. He +deplores the flat feet of 1830. + +In 1790 heels disappeared; sandal-shapes were the mode. The quarters +were made low, and instead of a buckle was a tiny bow or a pleated +ribbon edging. In 1791 “the exact size” of the shoe of the Duchess of +York was published—a fashionable fad which our modern sensation hunters +have not bethought themselves of. It was 5 3/4 inches in length; the +breadth of sole, 1 3/4 inches. It was a colored print, and shows that +the lady’s shoe was of green silk spotted with gold stars, and bound +with scarlet silk. The sole is thicker at the back, forming a slight +uplift which was not strictly a heel. Of course, this was a tiny foot, +but we do not know the height of the duchess. + +I have seen the remains of a charming pair of court shoes worn in +France by a pretty Boston girl. These had been embroidered with paste +jewels, “diamonds”; while to my surprise the back seam of both shoes +was outlined with paste emeralds. I find that this was the mode of the +court of Marie Antoinette. The queen and her ladies wore these in real +jewels, and in affectation wore no jewels elsewhere. + +In Mrs. Gaskell’s _My Lady Ludlow_ we are told that my lady would not +sanction the mode of the beginning of the century which “made all the +fine ladies take to making shoes.” Mrs. Blundell, in one of her novels, +sets her heroine (about 1805) at shoe-making. The shoes of that day +were very thin of material, very simple of shape, were heelless, and in +many cases closely approached a sandal. A pair worn by my great-aunt at +that date is shown on this page. American women certainly had tiny +feet. This aunt was above the average height, but her shoes are no +larger than the number known to-day as “Ones”—a size about large enough +for a girl ten years old. + + +White Kid Slippers. 1815. White Kid Slippers. 1815. + +It was not long after English girls were making shoes that Yankee girls +were shaping and binding them in New England. I have seen several old +letters which gave rules for shaping and directions for sewing +party-shoes of thin light kid and silk. It is not probable that any +heavy materials were ever made up by women at home. Sandals also were +worn, and made by girls for their own wear from bits of morocco and +kid. + +In the early years of the century the thin, silk hose and low slippers +of the French fashions proved almost unendurable in our northern +winters. One wearer of the time writes, “Many a time have I walked +Broadway when the pavement sent almost a death chill to my heart.” The +Indians then furnished an article of dress which must have been +grateful indeed, pretty moccasins edged with fur, to be worn over the +thin slippers. + +An old lady recalled with precision that the first boots for women’s +wear came in fashion in 1828; they were laced at the side. Garters and +boots both had fringes at the top. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10115 *** |