petticoat; the doublet was laced like the stays of a preg. nant woman, across a stomacher, and gown or mantel with wide sleeves descended over the doublet and petticoat down to the ankles. Commoners were satisfied, instead of a gown, with a frock or tunic shaped like a shirt, gathered at the middle, and fastened round the loins by a girdle, from which a short dagger was generally suspended. But the petticoat was rejected after the accession of Henry VIII, when the trowsers or light breeches, that displayed the minute symmetry of the limbs, was revived, and the length of the doublet and mantle diminished.

The fashions which the great have discarded, are often retained by the lower orders, and the form of the tunic, a saxon garment, may still be discovered in the waggoner's frock; of the trouse, and perhaps of the petticoat, in the different trowsers worn by smugglers and fishermen.

These habits were again diversified by minute decorations and changes of fashion from an opinion that corpulence contributes to dignity, the doublet was puckered, stuffed, and distended round the body; the sleeves were swelled into large ruffs; and the breeches bolstered about the hips; but how are we to describe an artificial protuberance, gross and indecent in this age, if we may judge from the portrait of Henry VIII and others, a familiar appendage to the dress of the sovereign, the knight and mechanic, at a future period retained in comedy as a favorite theme of licentious merriment? The doublet and breeches were sometimes slashed, and with the addition of a short cloak, to which a stiffened cap was peculiar, resembled the national dress of the Spaniards. The doublet is now transformed into a waistcoat, and the cloak or mantle, to which the sleeves of the doublet were transferred, has been converted gradually into a modern coat; but the dress of the age was justly censured as inconvenient

8

and clumsy. 'Men's servants,' to whom the fashions had descended with the clothes of their masters, 'have,' says Fitzherbert, ' such pleytes upon theyr breastes, and ruffles upon theyr sleeves, above theyr elbowes, that yf theyr mayster, or theymselfe, hadde never so greatte neede, they coulde not shoote one shote to hurte theyr ennemyes, till they had caste off theyr coats, or cut off theyr sleves.'

The dress of the peasantry was similar, but more convenient, consisting generally of trunk hose, and a doublet of coarse and durable fustian.

The materials employed in dress were rich and expensive; cloth of gold, furs, silks, and velvets profusely embroidered. The habits of Henry VIII and his queen, on their procession to the Tower previous to their coronation, are described by Hall, an historian delighting in shows and spectacles. His grace wared in his uppermost apparell a robe of crimsyn velvet, furred with armyns; his jacket or cote of raised gold; the placard embroidered with diamonds, rubies, emeraudes, greate pearles, and other riche stones; a greate banderike about his necke, of large bolasses. quene was apparelled in white satyn embroidered, her hair hanging down to her backe, of a very great lengthe, beweteful and goodly to behold, and on her hedde a coronall, set with many riche orient stones.'

The

The attire of females was becoming and decent, similar in its fashion to their present dress, but less subject to change and caprice. The large and fantastic headdresses of the former age were superseded by coifs and velvet bonnets, beneath which the matron gathered her locks into tuffs and tussocks; but the virgin's head was uncovered, and her hair braided and fastened with ribbons. Among gentlemen, long hair was fashionable. throughout Europe, till the Emperor Charles, during a voyage, devoted his locks for his health or safety and in England, Henry, a tyrant even in taste, gave efficacy

to the fashion by a peremptory order for his attendants and courtiers to poll their heads. The same spirit, probably, induced him, by sumptuary laws, to regulate the dress of his subjects. Cloth of gold or tissue was reserved for the Dukes and Marquesses; if of a purple color, for the royal family. Silks and velvets were restricted to commoners of wealth or distinction; but embroidery was interdicted from all beneath the degree of an Earl. Cuffs for the sleeves, and bands and ruffs for the neck, were the invention of this period; but felt hats* were of earlier origin, and were still coarser and cheaper than caps or bonnets. Pockets, a convenience known to the ancients, are perhaps, the latest real improvement in dress; but instead of pockets, a loose pouch seems to have been sometimes suspended from the girdle.

CRIMES, SUPERSTITIONS, CREDULITY.

Múrders and assassinations are frequent in Scottish history about this period, for the people were cruel, fierce, and ungovernable; and to judge from the desperate crimes of the nobility, their manners were neither more softened, nor their passions better controlled and regulated. But whatever be the crimes of a people, there is in human nature a reforming principle, that ultimately corrects and amends its degeneracy; and history furnishes repeated examples of nations passing from even a mean effeminacy, to an enthusiasm that regenerates every virtue. Such a change was effected in a partial degree by the reformation; which, recalling

* In 1571, it appears felt hats were not made in England, as a statute was then enacted, which ordered an English woollen cap to be worn in preference, by every person above the age of seven on pain of forfeiting three shillings and four-pence; ladies, lords, and gentlewomen excepted. This restriction, however, we are told, had very little effect.

its proselytes from the errors and abuses of the Romish superstition, taught them to renounce the dissipation and vices of the age, to assume the badge of superior sanctity and more rigid virtue, to suffer in adversity with patience, and to encounter persecution and death with fortitude. Sectaries, from the constant circumspection requisite in their conduct, contract an habitual and gloomy severity; and foreigners ever more observant than natives, discovered in the present period, symptoms of that puritanical spirit, which, at the distance of a century, was destined to give liberty to England, and law to kings.

The reformation might reflect discredit on recent miracles; but the period is still distinguished by excessive credulity. An Egyptian experiment, repeated by James IV exhibits the superstitious credulity of the Scots at this period: either to discover the primitive language of the human race, or to ascertain the first formation of speech, he enclosed two children, with a dumb attendant, in Inchkeith, an uninhabited Island of the Forth; and it was believed that the children, on arriving at maturity, communicated their ideas in pure Hebrew, the language of Paradise.

As another instance of credulity, we would mention the belief of a monstrous production of the human species, but the concurrence of grave historians attests and renders the fact indisputable. This monster was born in Scotland, and its appearance suggested the idea of twins fortuitously conjoined in the womb, united at the navel into a common trunk, and terminating below in the limbs of a male, but disparted above into two bodies; distinct and perfect in all their parts, each endued with separate members, and animated each by a separate intelligence. Their sensations were common when excited in the loins or inferior extremities; peculiar to one and unfelt by the other, when produced on the particular body of either. Their

perceptions were different, their mental affections unconnected, their wills independent; at times discordant, and again adjusted by mutual concession. They received, by the direction of James IV, such liberal education as the times afforded, attained in music to a considerable proficiency, and acquired a competent knowledge of various languages. Their death was miserable; at the age of twenty-eight, the one expired, and his body corrupting, tainted and putrified his living brother.*

* Examples of these monstrosities, as they are called, are nevertheless not so rare as might be supposed. The public curiosity of Paris was recently excited by the arrival of a bicephalous child, (Christina-Ritta), the destiny of which has been as unhappy as its birth was extraordinary. The Siamese boys, a short time ago imported, were no less objects of attraction with the Londoners. How many monsters, indeed, have passed unremarked, in consequence of the negligence of midwives, or of the ignorance of nurses, or of the repugnance of families to call attention to those mal-formed births, which an absurd prejudice urges them to bury in the most profound oblivion? In 1665, the Journal des Savans states, that there had been sent to Oxford, in 1664, a child, who had two heads, diametrically opposite, four perfect arms, a single abdomen, and two lower extremities. In 1724, the Journal de Trevou relates the history of a girl born at Domremy-la-Pucelle, who was equally double from the upper extremities to the navel, and who only presented, towards the left hip, something like the stump of a third thigh. This being lived for some time. Christina-Ritta was double from the head to the pelvis. The two vertebral columns were distinct to their lower extremity, that is, to the os coccygis. Before the pelvis it was simple. Thus there were two heads resting on two necks, the corresponding chests being so disposed, that the left arm belonging to the one (Ritta) naturally placed itself in the neck of the other (Christina), whose right arm placed itself in the same manner on the neck of its associate. The Siamese boys are perfect, being united, respectively at the ensiform cartilage of the sternum, by an intervening substance.