"d'annees, le progrés que sans elles il n'auroit "peutetre fait en des siecles." * The second period, embracing the reigns of the last Tudors, and all the Stuart family, shows a great change in the expenditure of the rich. The downfall of the feudal system, and the emancipation of the body of the people †, the discoveries of Columbus and De Gama, the gradual rise of commerce in Italy and the Hanse towns, the revival of letters and the arts under the Medici §, the reformation in religion, and the invention of printing, — all concurred to work this alteration. Under Henry the Eighth the English seem to have become gradually more expensive in their dress, notwithstanding the complaint made * Sismondi Hist. des Français, tome vi. ch. 21. p. 126. "The wars of the rival roses (says Dr. Henry) had humbled or destroyed the nobles; their depression, and the disusage of slavery, produced a salutary alteration in the ranks of society." Book vi. ch. 7. Hume, vol. vi. p. 441. Voltaire, Essai sur les mœurs des nations, &c. c. 74. "Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps, Was modern luxury, of commerce born, And buried learning rose, redeem'd, to a new morn." of the decay of the country, and noticed by Mr. Hume. This appears by the absurd laws enacted against luxury in apparel +: an instance of the strictness with which these laws were sometimes attempted to be executed, is mentioned in the chronicle of the day. "As soon," says he, “as the Archbishop of York became "Chancellor, he directed commissions into all "shires to put the statute of apparel and the "statute of labourers into execution; and he "himself one day called a gentleman, named "Simon Fitzrichard, and took from him an "old jacket of crymosyn velvet, and diverse * Character of Henry VIII. † 37 Ed. III. caps. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. altered by 1 Hen. VIII. c. 14. and 24 Hen. VIII. c. 13. By an act worthy of that enlightened period, 1 & 2 P. & M. c. 2. "Whosoever shall wear silk in or upon his hat, bonnet, girdle, scabbard, hose, shoes, or spurleather, shall be three months imprisoned, and forfeit 10l. except mayors, aldermen, &c. If any person knowing his servant to offend, do not put him forth of his service within fourteen days, or do retain him again, he shall forfeit 100l." This sounds strangely in the ears of any one accustomed to contemplate the dress of the middle classes, and who remembers that Mr. Colqhoun, in 1815, in his work on the wealth of Great Britain, calculated the annual value of our silk manufactures at two millions, exclusive of the raw material.—These laws werę repealed in the first year of James I. c. 25. s. 45. "brooches, which extreme doing caused him 66 66 greatly to be hated; and, by his example, many cruel officers, for malice, evyl intreated “diverse of the kyngs subjectes; insomuch, that "one Shynnynge, mayre of Rochester, set a young man in the pillory for wearing a lynen "shert." 66 The head-dresses of ladies in the fifteenth century were so extravagant and expensive as to arouse ecclesiastical censure. A zealous Carmelite preached against them in Flanders, and very uncivilly excited the boys to destroy them. His endeavours for a short time caused them to dress in caps. "But this reform," says an old author, with some shrewdness, "lasted not long, for like as "snails, when any one passes by them, draw in "their horns, and, when all danger seems over, 66 put them forth again, so these ladies, shortly "after the preacher had quitted their country, 66 forgetful of his doctrine and abuse, began to "resume their former colossal head-dresses, "and wore them even higher than before." In order to give greater force to his exhortations, this worthy Friar, " at his sermons, divided the 66 women from the men by a cord; for he said, "he had observed some sly doings between "them while he was preaching."* During the reign of Elizabeth the taste for costly pageants was carried to a great height † ; and the queen, in her visits to her nobles, seems to have expected and encouraged this extravagance. In speaking of the time between 1485 and the accession of Edward VI. in 1547, Dr. Henry says, "the dress of the period was costly, and, "in its fashion, subject to fluctuation so costly, "that the wardrobes of the nobility in 50 years “had increased to twenty times their former "value, so changeable, that the capricious "inconstancy of the natural dress was quaintly Monstrelet's Chronicles, 8vo. vol. vi. ch. 54. p. 241. + Miss Aikin's amusing work has made these familiar to every reader. The sovereign herself was rather parsimonious, but seems to have acted up to the directions of the wily Florentine. "Un principe adunque non potendo usare questa virtu del liberale senza suo danno, in modo che la sia cognoscinta, deve, si egli e prudente, non si curare del nome di misero; perche con il tempo sara tenuto sempre piu liberale," &c. "Talmenteche viene a usare la liberalita a tutti quelli a chi non toglie, che sono infiniti," &c.—Il Principe, p. 76. Vide also Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 2 vols. 4to. by Mr. Nichols. Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth Castle. 66 represented by the figure of an Englishman "naked, in a musing posture, with shears in his ❝ hand, and cloth on his arm; perplexed amid "a multiplicity of fashions, and uncertain how to devise his garments." 66 During the peaceful rule of James I. †, luxury made gradual progress, and "reached, at length, "all men of property." + In Charles the First's reign "feasting was "carried to a height it never had attained "before, from whence it hardly declined after"wards, to the great damage and mischief of "the nation (saith Clarendon §) in their estates ❝ and manners." The civil wars caused a change in possessions, and interrupted for a time the expensive pleasures of the great; which seem, during the licentious reign of Charles the Second ||, to have * Vol. vi. page 661. 4to. "Of all wise men living (writes the cautious Clarendon) he was the most delighted with handsome persons and fine clothes.". History of the Rebellion, p. 14. Hume's James I. Appendix, p. 19. 's History of the Rebellion, book i. p. 122. || Burnet (1668) gives an amusing description of the irregularities of the day. "At this time (says the Bishop) the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading, |