We come upon another social trait, when we find the author lamenting that, however much it becometh a gentleman to be acquainted with hawking and hunting, yet that these pastimes are so abused by being followed to excess, that “gentlemen will almost do nothing else, or at the least can do that better than any other thing.” To the excess alluded to does the author trace the fact that “there are so many raw soldiers when time of war requireth their help. This is the cause of so many unlearned gentlemen, which, as some say, they understand not the inkhorn terms that are lately crept into our language. And no marvel it is, though they do not understand them, whereas in their own hawking and hunting terms they be ignorants as ‘Auvent’ and ‘Retrouvre,’ which they call ‘_Houent_’ and ‘_Retrires_.’” What better could be expected from men who had given up the practice of the long bow to take to the throwing of dice? But there was now as wild extravagance of dress as ignorance of uncommon things, in the class of foolish knights and gentlemen. This is alluded to in the chapter on dress, wherein it is said that “the sum of one hundred pounds is not to be accounted in these days to be bestowed of apparel for one gentleman, but in times past, a chamber gown was a garment which dwelt with an esquire of England twenty years”--and I believe that the knights were as frugal as the esquires. “Then flourished the laudable simplicity of England,” exclaims the author; “there were no conjurors and hot scholars, applying our minds to learne our new trifle in wearing our apparel.” Upon the point of fashions, the author writes with a feeling as if he despaired of his country. “The Englishman,” he observes, “changeth daily the fashion of his garment; sometimes he delighteth in many guards, welts and pinks, and pounces. Sometimes again, to the contrary, he weareth his garments as plain as a sack; yet faileth he not to change also that plainness if any other new fangle be invented. This is the vanity of his delight.” And this vanity was common to all men of high degree in his time--to those to whom “honor” was due, from men of less degree--and these were “dukes, earls, lords, and such like, of high estate,” as well as to those who were entitled to the “worship” of smaller men, and _these_ were “knights, esquires, and gentlemen.” There is here, I think, some confusion in the way such terms are applied; but I have not made the extract for the purpose of grounding a comment upon it, but because it illustrates one portion of my subject, and shows that while “your honor” was once the due phrase of respect to the peerage, “your worship” was the reverential one paid to knights, esquires, _and_ gentlemen. We still apply the terms, if not to the different degrees named above, yet quite as confusedly, or as thoughtlessly with respect to the point whether there be anything honorable or worshipful in the individual addressed. This, however, is