Entewned in her voice full seemly, And French she spake full feteously, _After the Scole of Stratford at Bowe_: The _French of Paris_ was to her unknowe. A beau of the reign of Henry IV. has been made out, by the laborious Henry. They wore then long-pointed shoes to such an immoderate length, that they could not walk till they were fastened to their knees with chains. Luxury improving on this ridiculous mode, these chains the English beau of the fourteenth century had made of gold and silver; but the grotesque fashion did not finish here, for the tops of their shoes were carved in the manner of a church window. The ladies of that period were not less fantastical. The wild variety of dresses worn in the reign of Henry VIII. is alluded to in a print of a naked Englishman holding a piece of cloth hanging on his right arm, and a pair of shears in his left hand. It was invented by Andrew Borde, a learned wit of those days. The print bears the following inscription:-- I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind, what rayment I shall were; For now I will were this, and now I will were that, And now I will were what I cannot tell what. At a lower period, about the reign of Elizabeth, we are presented with a curious picture of a man of fashion by Puttenham, in his "Arte of Poetry," p. 250. This author was a travelled courtier, and has interspersed his curious work with many lively anecdotes of the times. This is his fantastical beau in the reign of Elizabeth. "May it not seeme enough for a courtier to know how to _weare a feather_ and _set his cappe_ aflaunt; his _chain en echarpe_; a straight _buskin, al Inglese_; a loose _à la Turquesque_; the cape _alla Spaniola_; the breech _à la Françoise_, and, by twentie maner of new-fashioned garments, to disguise his body and his face with as many countenances, whereof it seems there be many that make a very arte and studie, who can shewe himselfe most fine, I will not say most foolish or ridiculous." So that a beau of those times wore in the same dress a grotesque mixture of all the fashions in the world. About the same period the _ton_ ran in a different course in France. There, fashion consisted in an affected negligence of dress; for Montaigne honestly laments, in Book i. Cap. 25--"I have never yet been apt to imitate the _negligent garb_ which is yet observable among the _young men_ of our time; to wear my _cloak on one shoulder_, my _bonnet on one side_, and _one stocking_ in something _more disorder than the other_, meant to express a manly disdain of such exotic ornaments, and a contempt of art."