"'Lost, a tiffany whisk, with a great lace down and a little one up, large flowers, with a rail for the head and peak' (_The Newes_, June 20, 1664)." On account of the weight of the "whisk"--it was formed of a wire framework covered with point lace--the "piccadilly" or stiffened collar was devised. Hone in his "Everyday Book" writes-- "The picadil was the round hem, or the piece set about the edge or skirt of a garment, whether at top or bottom; also a kind of stiff collar, made in fashion of a band, that went about the neck and round about the shoulders: hence the term 'wooden picadilloes' (meaning the pillory) in Hudibras. At the time that ruffs and picadils were much in fashion, there was a celebrated ordinary near St. James's, called Piccadilly, because, as some say, it was the outmost or skirt house, situate at the end of the town; but it more probably took its name from one Higgins, a tailor, who made a fortune by picadils, and built this with a few adjoining houses. The name has by a few been derived from a much frequented house for the sale of these articles; but this probably took its rise from the circumstance of Higgins having built houses there, which, however, were not for selling ruffs." Picardil is the diminutive of "picca," a pike or spear head, and was given to this article of attire from the resemblance of its stiffened edges to the points of spears. Philips ("World of Words," 1693) defines pickardil as the "hem about the skirt of a garment--the extremity or utmost end of everything." Whether the collar gave the name to the district or the district to the collar is a matter of some uncertainty; probably, however, the former. The thoroughfare which we now know as Piccadilly certainly did not exist at the time the picadil was first worn, and the district was then "the utmost end of everything"--that is, beyond the confines of the town. Piccadilly as a place, or thoroughfare, is mentioned in "The Rehearsal," by George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, produced in the winter of 1671:-- "His servants he into the country sent, And he himself to Piccadillé went." A pickadil is mentioned in the old comedy of "Northward Ho" as part of a woman's dress. On the visit of James I. to Cambridge in 1615, the Vice-Chancellor of the University thought fit to issue an order prohibiting "the fearful enormity and excess of apparel seen in all degrees, as, namely, _strange piccadilloes_, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe-roses, tufts, locks and tops of hair, unbeseeming that modesty and carriage of students in so renowned a university." The Church was still more fierce in its denunciation of these articles of attire. Hall, Bishop of Exeter, in a sermon, after having severely censured ruffs, farthingales, feathers, and paint, concludes with these words, which more than equal anything in Stubbes: "Hear this, ye popinjays of our time: hear this, ye plaster-faced Jezabels: God will one day wash them with fire and with brimstone."