era wore long pointed shoes, the toes of which were connected with the knees by gold or silver chains, a long stocking of different colour on each leg, short trowsers, barely extending to the middle of the thigh, a coat, half of which was white and the other blue or some equally bright colour, and a silken hood or bonnet, fastened under the chin, embroidered with grotesque figures of animals, and occasionally decked with gold and precious stones. Lest, however, the reputations of our ancestors should suffer in the eyes of the present generation from the existence in their age of the absurdity here pictured, it is our duty and pleasure to assure all readers that such parodies on manhood were strictly confined to the populous cities, and that there is no probability of even a solitary specimen ever having desecrated the modest soil of the Fylde. During the greater portion of the succeeding cycle of a hundred years a species of cloth turban was much in favour amongst the male sex of the middle and upper classes, from one side of which a length of the same material hung down below the waist, and was either thrust between the girdle and the coat, or wrapped round the neck as a protection from cold. Faces were cleanly shaved, and hair cut as close to the scalp as possible; hitherto, from about the date of the first arrival of the Normans, the practice had been to allow the latter to grow long and to wear the beard. The hose were long and tight. The boots were either short, or reached half-way up the thighs, both kinds being long toed. Occasionally a single feather relieved the plainness of the turban-shaped cap. The ordinary dress of the gentlewomen was a full trained robe or gown, made high in the neck, and sometimes, with a fur or velvet turn-over collar, its folds at the short-waist being confined by means of a simple band and buckle. Coiffures were mostly heart-shaped, but in some rare instances horned. The sleeves of the above costume were, shortly after its institution, lengthened and widened to a ridiculous extent. Towards the end of the particular era of which we are writing trains were discontinued, and broad borders of fur substituted, whilst round tapering hats, two feet in height, with loose kerchiefs floating from the apex, came much into favour. The last few years of the fifteenth and the earliest ones of the sixteenth centuries were marked by great changes in the male attire; the Butlers, Cliftons, Carletons, Westbys, Allens, Molyneux, and many others of the gentry of the neighbourhood, figured at that period in fine shirts of long lawn, embroidered with silk round the collar and wristbands, a doublet with sleeves open at the elbows to allow the shirt to protrude, a stomacher, over which the doublet was laced; a long gown or cloak, with loose or hanging sleeves and broad turn-over collar of fur or velvet; long hose or stockings; broad-toed shoes for ordinary use, and high boots, reaching to the knees, for riding