The person at the head of the table appears to be Lord Burghley; on either side of him is a judge, who may have been there as assessors. The next on the left side is Thomas Seckford, who held the office of Surveyor from 1580 to 1589. The one opposite may be Richard Kingsmill, Attorney from 1582 to 1589. The third on the left side may be George Goring, Receiver-General from 1583 to 1593. The opposite person with a book open may be William Tooke, Auditor 1551 to 1588. The three persons at the lower end of the table are clerks. At the left hand side next the end is the Usher with a rod. In 1578 Marmaduke Servant held this office. Opposite to him on the other side stands the Messenger, who in 1565 was Leonard Taylor. This picture was probably made about 1585.] To those who take the worthy Philip Stubbes quite seriously and literally, the Elizabethan age will appear more than commonly wicked and unscrupulous; to those who are ready to make allowance for the exaggerated indignation of the satirist, the narrowness of the Puritan, and the real and genuine craving after equity, justice, and honesty, it will become manifest that the age contained, like every other age, grave abuses, great injustices, and much small meanness and trickery. Laws were passed attempting to restrain the tricks of clothiers, tanners, shoemakers, and “brokers,” _i.e._ pawnbrokers and marine store-dealers. These laws failed, as all such laws must fail, because men who wish to cheat will cheat in spite of any laws that may be passed. In truth there is very little in Stubbes but does not belong to every town and every age. He laments the pride of the age. So does every satirist. Especially he laments Pride of Apparel. Take their hats for instance:— “Sometimes they use them sharp on the crowne, pearking up like a spere, or shafte of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yard above the crowne of their heades; some more, some lesse, as please the phantasies of their inconstant mindes. Othersome be flat and broad on the crowne, like the battlementes of a house. An other sort have round crownes, sometymes with one kinde of bande, sometymes with an other; now blacke, now white, now russet, now red, now grene, now yellowe, now this, nowe that, never content with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende....