"Quelqu'un qui voudrait un peu etudier d'ou part en premiere source ce qu'on appelle LES MODES verrait, a notre honte, qu'un petit nombre de gens, de la plus meprisable espece qui soit dans une ville, laquelle renferme tout indifferemment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les connaissions, nous n'aurions que le mepris qu'on a pour les gens sans moeurs, ou la pitie qu'on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis a tous leurs caprices." Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so "many do shipwrack their credits," and make themselves "ridiculous apes, or at best but like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its body." "Clothes" writes a venerable historian, "are for necessity; warm clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificence. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the wearer, if he takes pride therein. "_He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs at the rattling of his fetters._ For, indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of what's but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant's feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute, the Silkworm his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold condition. And yet 'tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of a molehill, the other of a dunghill." But the worthy Fuller's ideal picture of suitable dress was the very antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth's day, when that rage for foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated the island, and our ancestors masked themselves "------in garish gaudery To suit a fool's far-fetched livery. A French hood join'd to neck Italian, The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain. An Englishman in none, a fool in all, Many in one, and one in several." And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her English admirer:--"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere."