These customs, together with the superstitious observances of Hallow E’en, continued in full force during the seventeenth century, and fragments of them are now found in various parts of the world. It may be necessary to say a few words concerning the dress worn at the remote periods of which we have been speaking. The Saxon ladies wore a bodice and short petticoat, with a kind of mantle over the head and shoulders. Buskins, laced in front, were worn on the feet. The custom of combing the hair all back from the face, surmounted with a black coif and steeple hat, continued from the Norman conquest till near the seventeenth century. Queen Elizabeth was the first woman in England that wore silk stockings; embroidered gloves and perfumes were likewise first introduced into England from Italy, for her use. This magnanimous queen was extremely offended if any of the ladies of her court wore garments approaching to her own in magnificence. She had a new dress for every day in the year, and was much attracted by rich apparel in gentlemen. Sir Walter Raleigh had even his shoes embroidered with pearls, and the court dresses of her favorite Leicester were literally covered with jewels. Elizabeth enacted sumptuary laws, which defined with great precision what sort of bonnet might be worn by a gentlewoman, what by an esquire’s wife, what by a baron’s wife, &c. Aldermen’s wives were permitted by an express law to wear the royal color of scarlet. Every alderman who failed to supply his wife with a scarlet gown before the ensuing Christmas, was fined ten pounds; and every lady, who failed to appear in these dresses at Christmas and Easter, forfeited twenty shillings for every default. During Cromwell’s time, ornaments were thought sinful. Women wore their hair plain and smooth, and muffled their persons from head to foot, as if beauty were a gift to be ashamed of. This unnatural restraint produced a violent reaction in the time of Charles the Second. Ladies began to copy the elegant drapery of Vandyke’s pictures, which gradually degenerated into extreme immodesty. The emperor Paul of Russia made very minute regulations concerning the dress both of men and women; and his laws were so capricious that it required the most vigilant attention to comply with them. He once ordered a lady of his court to be imprisoned and kept on bread and water, because she had been guilty of wearing her hair rather lower in the neck than was consistent with his decrees.