like Milton, is an exception to every law of development. It had, like
Milton, neither infancy nor adolescence, but sprang full armed, like
"Athene from the brain of Zeus," or perhaps, like Topsy in "Uncle
Tom's Cabin," it never was born, but just "growed"--and it grew--like
a mushroom (which indeed in form it somewhat resembles), in a night.
Or, to adopt yet another comparison, like the sun, which bursts in the
morning suddenly in its full refulgence, is obscured for a time by
clouds, to blaze again in unabated splendour, and in its turn is again
obscured, but only to reappear in glorious sunset.
The crinoletta, which followed, may be described as the twilight or
sweet afterglow--beautiful, tender as the blush on a maiden's cheek,
and almost as evanescent, but with none of the glory of the preceding
day.
[Illustration: QUEEN CHARLOTTE.
_After Gainsborough._]
In the charming passage from Fielding above quoted, Love, it will be
seen, figures as the presiding spirit. This is peculiarly appropriate
to the present subject, for, be it known, _Dan Cupid begat the
crinoline_. It is said to have been originally invented for the purpose
of concealing the illicit amours of a Princess of Spain; but singularly
enough, and in a sort of contradictory spirit, is first identified with
the august person of the "Maiden Queen."
The earlier portraits of Elizabeth exhibit her in a dress similar to
that of her sister and predecessor, and in an interesting portrait of
Catherine Parr at Glendon Hall, Northamptonshire, this Queen appears
in a richly embroidered petticoat widened at the base. A similar
petticoat or kirtle, widened a little at the hips, is shown in the
portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, with Darnley (p. 169). The hooped
petticoat or _vardingale_, however, appears only in the later portraits
of Elizabeth. In the famous print by William Rogers, of which a
reproduction is given, she is figured in the great ruff with which she
is most identified, the interminable stomacher, and the enormous wheel
farthingale, with, as Walpole observes, "a bushel of pearls bestrewed
over the entire figure"; she also wears a long light mantle edged with
lace, a portentous collar, also edged with lace, expanding like wings
on either side of the head. She carries the ball and sceptre in her
hands.
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH.
_From an engraving by William Rogers._]
The legend at the foot of the plate runs as follows:--
"The admired Empresse through the worlde applauded
For supreme virtues rarest imitation,
Whose Scepters rule fame's loud-voyc'd trumpet lawdeth
Into the eares of every forraigne nation.
Cannopey'd under powerfull angells winges
To her Immortall praise sweete Science singes."
The great wheel farthingale was worn by the nobility during the latter
half of the reign of Elizabeth, and during the whole of the succeeding
reign. The engraving by Renold Elstracke of James I. and his Queen,
Anne of Denmark, shows the latter in a farthingale, which in size and
general structure is identical with that worn by Elizabeth. It is,
however, box pleated round the top of the drum, the farthingale being
divided in front and discovering the kirtle underneath.
The following story is told by Bulwer in his "Pedigree of the English
Gallant": "When Sir Peter Wych was sent ambassador to the Grand Seignor
from James I., his lady accompanied him to Constantinople, and the
Sultaness having heard much of her, desired to see her; whereupon Lady
Wych, attended by her waiting women, all of them dressed in their great
vardingales, which was the Court-dress of the English ladies at that
time, waited upon her highness. The Sultaness received her visitor with
great respect, but, struck with the extraordinary extension of the hips
of the whole party, seriously inquired if that shape was peculiar to
the natural formation of English women, and Lady Wych was obliged to
explain the whole mystery of the dress, in order to convince her that
she and her companions were not really so deformed as they appeared to
be."
[Illustration: JAMES I. AND HIS QUEEN, ANNE OF DENMARK.
_From an engraving by R. Elstracke._]
In the reign of Charles I. the farthingale, although still worn by the
lower gentry and citizens' wives, is discarded by the upper classes,
and disappears entirely; and it is not until the latter part of the
reign of Queen Anne that it rises again, like the Phœnix from its
own ashes, but in another form, however, that of the enormous hoop,
which grew to such portentous proportions during the reigns of George
I. and II., the outstanding steel or whalebone foundation being
mainly at the bottom of the skirt instead of at the hips. Sir Roger
de Coverley thus expresses the difference between the earlier hooped
petticoats and those of the era of the _Spectator_: "You see, sir, my
great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that
the modern is gathered at the waist; my grandmother appears as if she
stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a
go-cart."
[Illustration: FESTAL DRESS, OTAHEITE.]
It is surprising to find in dress, as in ornamental design, the same
ideas, the same ornamental _motifs_, occurring to the people of
countries widely separate. There is a curious dress appropriated to the
young women of Otaheite who are appointed to make presents from persons
of rank to each other; one of these was deputed to present cloths to
Captain Cook on his last voyage. A representation of the dress is
given in the engraving, which is from Cook's Geography, 1801. The
proportions of the drum exceed even that of Queen Elizabeth; in general
shape, however, it is similar. It is decorated round the uppermost edge
with ornamental festoons of feathers, &c., and constitutes the complete
dress of the lady, with the exception of a sort of chemise which
appears underneath the breasts, and, presumably, covers the loins and a
portion of the lower limbs.
The hoop petticoat now approaches its highest meridian; its
re-appearance was duly announced by Addison, who, in No. 129 of the
_Spectator_, relates an adventure which happened in a little country
church in Cornwall: "As we were in the midst of service, a lady, who
is the chief woman of the place, and had passed the winter at London
with her husband, entered the congregation in a little head-dress and a
hooped petticoat. The people, who were wonderfully startled at such a
sight, all of them rose up. Some stared at the prodigious bottom, and
some at the little top, of this strange dress. In the meantime the lady
of the manor _filled the area of the church_ and walked up to the pew
with an unspeakable satisfaction, amid the whispers, conjectures, and
astonishments of the whole congregation."
Between 1740 and 1745 the hoops spread out at the sides extensively in
oblong fashion, resembling a donkey carrying its panniers. Indeed, the
simile of the donkey was a favourite one with the caricaturists. In
1860 _Punch_ adopts the idea, and issues a warning to ladies who would
ride in crinolines on donkeys, and gives a cut of a lady in an enormous
crinoline riding on a donkey, with nothing but the donkey's hind legs
seen below.
[Illustration: PORTRAITS OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, AND DARNLEY.
_From an engraving by R. Elstracke._]
A poetic description of ladies' dresses in 1773 directs:
"Make your petticoats short, that a hoop eight yards wide
May decently show how your garters are tied."
Indeed, the hoop of this period had attained to such enormous
proportions that, as Fairholt observes, the figure of a lady was
considerable; for they were now not only the better, but the larger,
half of creation, and half a dozen men might be accommodated in the
space occupied by a single lady.[16]
In a print entitled "The Review," of the latter part of the reign of
George II., the inconveniences of the hoop petticoat are exhibited in
a variety of ways, and various methods for their remedy are suggested.
One of the most ingenious is that of a coach with a moveable roof and
a frame with pulleys to drop the ladies in from the top, in order to
avoid the disarranging of their hoops which would necessarily attend
their entrance by the door.
Hoop petticoats disappeared early in the reign of George III., and the
genius of extravagance then turned its attention to the head-dress.
[Illustration: "DON'T BE AFRAID, MY DEAR."
_Engraved by Isidore-Stanilas Helman._]
In the expiring years of the fifties of the last century the crinoline
_proper_ appeared. There had been hints of it earlier, not to say
threats, in the bell-shaped skirts which obtained in about 1835, of
which the charming creature in the London promenade dress (p. 55)
provides an example.
The chief satirist of the crinoline is _Punch_, although, amongst
others, an amusing skit on the difficulties and dangers of the
crinoline appeared about 1870, with a number of coloured illustrations
by "Quiz," now very rare.
_Punch_ appears to have been particularly impressed by the "roomy"
character of the crinoline, as, in an amusing if somewhat laboured skit
in the early days of 1860, he unbosoms himself as follows:
"Among the million objections to the use of the wide petticoats not
the least well-founded is the fact that they are used for purposes of
shoplifting. This has many times been proved at the bar of the police
courts, and we wonder that more notice has not been attracted to it.
For ourselves, the fact is so impressed upon our mind, that when we
ever come in contact with a Crinoline which seems more than usually
wide, we immediately put down the wearer as a pick-pocket, and prepare
ourselves at once to see her taken up. Viewing Crinoline, indeed, as an
incentive to bad conduct, we forbid our wives and daughters to wear it
when out shopping, for fear that it may tempt them to commit some act
of theft. A wide petticoat is so convenient a hiding-place for stowing
away almost any amount of stolen goods, that we cannot be surprised
at finding it so used, and for the mere sake of keeping them from
roguery, the fewer women have it at their fingers' ends the better.
Some ladies have a monomania for thievery, and when they go on a day's
shopping can hardly keep their hands off what does not belong to them.
Having a commodious receptacle in reach, wherein they may deposit
whatever they may sack, they are naturally tempted to indulge in their
propensity, by the chances being lessened that they will be found out.
[Illustration: KING AND MRS. BADDELEY.]
"As an instance of how largely the large petticoats are used in acts
of petty larceny, we may mention a small fact which has come within
our knowledge, and which it may be to the interest of shopkeepers to
know. Concealed beneath the skirts of a fashionably dressed female
were, the other day, discovered by a vigilant detective the following
choice proofs of her propensity to plunder: viz., twenty-three shawls,
eleven dozen handkerchiefs, sixteen pairs of boots (fifteen of them
made up with the military heel), a case of eau-de-Cologne, a ditto
of black hair-dye, thirty pairs of stays, twenty-six chemises, five
dozen cambric handkerchiefs, and eleven ditto silk, nineteen muslin
collars, and four-and-forty crochet ones, a dressing case, five hair
brushes (three of them made with tortoiseshell and two with ivory
gilt backs), a pair of curling irons, eight bonnets without trimmings
and nine-and-twenty with them, a hundred rolls of ribbon, half a
hundredweight of worsted, ten dozen white kid gloves and twenty dozen
coloured ones, forty balls of cotton, nine-and-ninety skeins of silk,
a gridiron, two coal-scuttles, three packets of ham sandwiches,
twenty-five mince pies, half a leg of mutton, six boxes of French
plums, ten ditto of bonbons, nine pâtés de foie gras, a dozen cakes
of chocolate and nine of portable hare soup, a warming pan, five
bracelets, a brace of large brass birdcages, sixteen bowls of goldfish,
half a score of lapdogs, fourteen dozen lever watches, and an eight-day
kitchen clock.
"After this discovery, who will venture to deny that Crinoline with
shoplifters is comparable to charity, inasmuch as it may cover a
multitude of sins?"
A curious advertisement in the _Illustrated London News_ of October
10, 1863, announces that--"Ondina, or waved Jupons, do away with
the unsightly results of the ordinary hoops, and so perfect are the
wave-like bands that a lady may ascend a steep stair, lean against a
table, throw herself into an armchair, pass to a stall in the opera, or
occupy a fourth seat in a carriage without inconvenience to herself or
to others, or provoking rude remarks of the observers, thus modifying
in an important degree all those peculiarities tending to destroy the
modesty of English women, and lastly, it allows the dress to fall
into graceful folds. Price 21s. Illustrations free." With all these
advantages, who would not wear a crinoline?
In the new year of 1860 _Punch_ gives a cut ("Some good account at
last") of a skater in pot-hat and pegtops, encircled by the framework
of an enormous crinoline, cutting graceful figures upon the ice and
exclaiming, "Entirely my own idea, Harry--ease, elegance, and safety
combined--I call it the skater's friend." "Some good account at last"?
Unkind Mr. Punch! Must we, then, measure the value of everything in
this world by its bare utility? The crinoline will endure as a sweet
solace to senses tired by the ennui of this dull earth. The memory of
it will outlive the ages.
In the early seventies we find our old friend _Punch_ again upon the
warpath, and the Venus of Milo dons the crinoletta! This, however, is
only a repetition of his satire on the crinoline in his "Essence of
Parliament," May, 1860:--
"Lord Aberdeen's son, Lord Haddock, or some such name, made a supremely
ridiculous speech upon the impropriety of allowing money to any school
of Art in which the undraped she-model was studied from. His father,
who was called Athenian Aberdeen, and has so earnest a love for Greek
Art that he actually favoured Russia because she has a Greek Church,
ought to have cured his Haddock of such nonsense. Poor old Mr. Spooner,
naturally, took the same really indelicate view of the case. Sir George
Lewis expressed his lofty contempt for the Haddock, and Lord Palmerston
kippered him in a speech full of good fun. It is impossible that the
same country which contains Macdowell's Eve, and Bailey's Eve at the
Fountain, can hold Haddock and Spooner. Mr. Punch must avow that he
prefers keeping the diviner images, and somehow getting rid of the
coarser ones. Pam wanted to know whether the latter would like to stick
crinoline on the models, or would be content with African garb. The
other Wiscount observed, with more truth than politeness, 'Nude,
indeed! I knewed Addock was a Nass.'"
[Illustration: THE CRINOLETTA DISFIGURANS.
AN OLD PARASITE IN A NEW FORM.
_By Linley Sambourne ("Punch")._]
An illustration is appended to the article of a figure resembling
a fish in the act of adjusting a crinoline on the Venus de Medici.
The crinoline rests upon the shoulders of the statue like a huge
extinguisher.
As previously hinted, the crinoletta was only a faint echo of the
glories of its earlier prototype. It was a cylindrical contrivance,
made up of steels or whalebones, either covered with a series of
flounces, or worn underneath the dress like a big bustle. In fact, it
began as a bustle, and gradually extended its proportions, wagging and
swaying from side to side like the tail of a dragon, as the wearer
moved. One well remembers--shall we, indeed, ever forget?--these
singular "contraptions" displayed unblushingly in drapers' shops, and
even hanging in bundles at the doors.
"Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, 'They come.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Fairholt, "Costume in England."
VII
COLLARS
AND
CUFFS
"_Theodorus._ Have they not also houses to set their ruffes in, to
trim them and to trick them, as well as to starch them in?
"_Amphilogus._ Yea, marry have they, for either the same starching
houses do serve the turn, or else they have their other chambers
and secret closets to the same use, wherein they tricke up these
cartwheeles of the divels charet of pride, leading the direct way
to the dungeon of hell."
STUBBES, _Anatomy of Abuses_.
VII
COLLARS AND CUFFS
It is to be understood that the terms "collar" and "cuff" are here only
intended to refer to those of linen, lace, or similar material, which
are more or less separate from the rest of the costume. A "collar" is
simply a neck-band, and may be of any material; in the case of Gurth,
"born thrall of Cedric the Saxon," it was of iron, and was the symbol
of his servitude. The term "collar" is also applied to certain articles
of jewellery--
"The collar of some order, which our King
Hath newly founded, all for thee, my soul."
TENNYSON, _Last Tournament_.
Collars are of a comparatively modern origin, although some form of
covering for the neck has been employed from a very early period. The
Romans made use of chin-cloths for the protection of the neck and
throat, which were termed "focalia." These were worn by public orators,
who from professional considerations were fearful of taking cold, and
who, doubtless, contributed in no small degree to render the fashion
of chin-cloths general. Some, says a writer on Roman antiquities (the
Rev. Father Adam), made use of a handkerchief (sudarium) for this
purpose. This is probably the origin of the cravat, which is in many
countries called neck-handkerchief.
[Illustration: HENRIETTA, MARQUISE D'ENTRAGUES.
_Engraved by Wierix._]
The thorax, of otter's skin, worn by Charlemagne during the colder
months, has already been referred to in a previous chat.
The wimple, also, which was a development of the Roman chin-cloth, and
which was worn for such an extended period from the Norman Conquest
onwards, is noticed under head-coverings.
During the greater part of the period of York and Lancaster necks were
worn bare, the "camise" appearing at the V-shaped junction of the
bodice, the neck being ornamented with jewellery.
Shirt-bands were originally connected with neck-ruffs, and the ornament
adjoined to the wristband of the shirt was known by the denomination of
"ruffle," and was originally called the hand-ruff. In the inventory of
apparel belonging to Henry VIII. occurs the item, "4 shirts with bands
of silver and ruffles to the same, whereof one is perled with gold."
The ruff is said to have been first invented in the reign of Henry VI.
by a Spanish lady of quality, to hide a wen which grew upon her neck.
Its first appearance in England was about the time of the marriage of
Queen Mary with Philip of Spain, these personages being represented
upon the Great Seal of England in 1554 with small ruffs on the necks
and wrists. The ruff appears in none of the portraits by Holbein,
with the exception of one at Antwerp, which is dated 1543, the year
before the painter's death, and is, moreover, a doubtful work. In many
portraits by this master, however, the lawn or cambric shirt appears
at the neck with the edges ruffled, and often delicately embroidered.
In the well-known portrait of the Duchess of Milan belonging to the
Duke of Norfolk, and at present in the National Gallery, such a ruffle
appears at the neck and also at the wrists, the edges emphasised by a
narrow embroidered border in black silk. This black embroidering was
very generally employed during the reign of Henry VIII. It appears in
a number of Holbein's portraits, both at the wrists and at the neck,
and is quite probably due to Holbein's influence. There can be no
reasonable doubt that this great painter influenced the dress of his
time. The influence of his artistic personality would be considerable,
and it is known that he designed dresses for the ladies of the court,
several drawings for which are in the Basle Museum. In the inventory of
the apparel of Henry VIII. appears: "One payer of sleves, passed over
the arms with gold and silver, quilted with black silk, and ruffled at
the hand with strawberry leaves and flowers of gold, embroidered with
black silk."
Starching at this period had not reached England; ruffs, therefore,
must have been an expensive luxury, as the starched linen, imported
from Flanders, could not be worn after being washed.
In 1564, one Madame Dinghen, who, as her name suggests, hailed from
Flanders, set up as a clear starcher in London, and appears to have
made the trade of clear starching an extremely lucrative one. Her terms
were four or five pounds for teaching "the most curious wives"[17] to
starch, and one pound for the art of seething starch. The "curious
wives" subsequently made themselves ruffs of lawn; whereupon arose
the general scoffing by-word that they would shortly make their ruffs
of spider's web.
[Illustration: HENRY IV. OF FRANCE.
_From an engraving by Goltzius._]
A certain Richard Young, described as a justice, for a long time held
the monopoly of the manufacture of starch in this country. From the
Elizabethan State Papers we learn that in 1589 there was a prosecution
against an infringer of the patent, to wit, Charles Glead, a gentleman
of Kent, who declared to the Queen's messengers that he would make
starch in the face of any patent or warrant yet granted, unless set
down by Act of Parliament.
Setting-sticks, strutts, and poking-sticks were the tools used in the
process of starching; the first made of wood or bone, and the latter
of iron, which was heated in the fire. It was this heated tool which
produced that beautiful regularity characteristic of this article of
attire.
"They be made of yron or steele, and some of brass kept as bright as
silver, yea, and some of silver itselfe; and it is well if in processe
of time they grow not to be gold. The fashion whereafter they be made,
I cannot resemble to anything so well as to a squirt, or a squibbe,
which little children used, to squirt out water withall; and when
they come to starching and setting of their ruffes, then must this
instrument be heated in the fire, the better to stiffen the ruffe ...
and if you woulde know the name of this goodly toole, forsooth, the
devill hath given it to name a putter, or else a putting sticke, as I
heare say" (Stubbes, "Anatomy of Abuses").
Upon the introduction of these tools, together with starch, ruffs
rapidly increased in their proportions.
[Illustration: THE INFANTA ISABELLA CLARA EUGENIA.
_Engraved by Jan Muller._]
"They became," says Stow, "intolerably large," and were known in
London as the "French fashion," in Paris as the "English monster."
The greatest gallant was he who possessed the longest rapier and the
deepest ruff. It became necessary to apply one of the usual remedies
against these and other extravagances of dress--a proclamation, or
an Act of Parliament; in this instance a proclamation. Citizens were
compelled to reduce their rapiers to a yard in length and their ruffs
to "a nail of a yard" in depth.
The unfinished engraving of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia,
Archduchess of Austria,[18] will serve to give a very good idea of the
dimensions and general appearance of these articles of attire.
Thus friend Philip Stubbes:--"They have now newly found out a more
monstrous kind of ruff, of twelve, yea, sixteen lengths apiece, set
three or four times double, and it is of some, fitly called, 'three
steps and an half to the gallows.'"
The "divells cartwheele" attained its greatest circumference in 1582,
when that love of change, inherent in the feminine breast, or possibly
the grave and reverend appearance of the ruff, occasioned a revolt
amongst the younger women, who were disinclined to hide the beauties
of their swan-like necks and throats. The ruff was therefore opened in
front and elevated behind. This was the gorget or whisk, which was used
both plain and laced.
A curious advertisement appears in the _Mercurius Publicus_, of May 8,
1662:--
"A cambric whisk, with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad,
and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck and
strap hangers down before, was lost between New Palace and Whitehall.
Reward, twenty shillings."
These whisks appear to have had a special proclivity for getting lost.
Planché ("Cyclopedia of Costume") gives a similar advertisement:--
"'Lost, a tiffany whisk, with a great lace down and a little one up,
large flowers, with a rail for the head and peak' (_The Newes_, June
20, 1664)."
On account of the weight of the "whisk"--it was formed of a wire
framework covered with point lace--the "piccadilly" or stiffened collar
was devised.
Hone in his "Everyday Book" writes--