'These roses will show rare

would 'twere in fashion

That the garter might be seen too.' (i. 1.)

These roses, as may be seen from old paintings, were often of a most extravagant size. In 'The Devil is an Ass,' Fitzdottrel says that those worn by Pug 'were enough to hide a cloven foot.' And again, in the same, Satan thus apostrophises :

'Tissue gowns,

Garters and roses, fourscore pound a pair,

Embroider'd stockings, cut-work smocks and shirts.'

'But,' as Strutt naïvely remarks, perhaps as the Devil is the father of lies, he may have stretched a little beyond the truth.'

Gloves of leather, cheveril' (kid), silk, and worsted, of an excellent perfume,' embroidered with gold and silver, were worn, and gallants placed them in their hats as a favour from their mistresses. Shakspeare makes repeated reference to this in Henry the Fifth and other plays. They indulged in an excessive passion for jewellery, clogging their fingers with rings of gold, silver, and precious stones, and their wrists with bracelets. Gosson, in his School of Abuse,' complains that, 'if our gallantes of Englande might carry no more linkes on their chaynes nor ringes on their fingers then they have fought fieldes, their necks should not bee very often wreathed in golde, nor their handes embroidered with pretious stones.' (Arber's edition, p. 48.)

Shirts bordered with lace and curiously embroidered were worn by the nobility and gentry. They were made of 'Cambricke, Holland, Lawne, or els of the finest cloth that may bee got.' Stubbes rails at the wrought work expended on them; but the Puritans satisfied their conscience in this respect by substituting texts of Scripture for the usual embroidered patterns, to which custom reference is made in 'The Citye Match':

'Sir, she's a Puritan at her needle too :
She works religious petticoats; for flowers
She'll make church-histories. Her needle doth

So sanctify my cushionets: besides,

My smock sleeves have such holy embroideries

And are so learned, that I fear in time

All my apparell will be quoted by some pure instructor.'

Extravagant prices were paid for these embroidered articles. Three pounds a smock is the price mentioned in Marston's "Eastward Hoe'; but Stubbes states that while the meanest article cost but a crown or a noble, as much as five pounds and (which is horrible to heare') even ten pounds were sometimes

paid for indulgence in this nicenes in apparell.' In Stow Annales' we are told that up to about 1570 it was customary at baptism for godfathers and godmothers 'to give christening shirts, with little bands and cuffs, wrought either with silke or blew thread, the best of them for chief persons weare, edged with a small lace of black silke and gold, the highest prices of which for great mens children were seldome above a noble, and the common sort two, three, or foure, and five shillings apiece.' Collars of various kinds were worn equally extravagant and eccentric. In the comedy of George à Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield,' we find: She gave me a shirt-collar wrought over with no counterfeit stuff . . . it was better than gold. Right Coventry blue.' The dyes and woollen manufactures of Coventry were celebrated early in the sixteenth century, and 'as true as Coventry blue' became a proverb. In one of the Acts of Elizabeth, it was forbidden for any person under a knight to wear pinched shirts, or pinched partlets* of linen cloth, or plain shirts garnished with silk or gold or silver. Gradually, however, their use became so general that Stubbes complains of every one wearing alike, and that the bands and ruffs of their fathers were made of 'grosser cloth and baser stuffe than the worst of our shirtes are made of now-a-dayes.'

Strict sumptuary laws were passed in the reigns of Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth, regulating the wearing of fur by the nobility and gentry. It was worn as a general ornamentation of dress to mark the distinction of ranks and professions. In Mary's reign, the woollen manufacture being endangered by a too general use of foreign furs, the home industries were protected and a restriction placed upon the importation of skins. The wearing of sable was forbidden to all persons beneath the rank of an earl, the fur of black genet or luserne to all below the rank of knight, and no one under the receipt of 100 marks a year was allowed to wear any fur' whereof the like groweth not within the queenes dominions, except foynes, gray genet, calaber, budge, outlandish hare, or fox.' Sable then as now was of great value, and was considered the appropriate adornment of a grave and dignified personage, and hence the force of the passage in Hamlet' (iv. 7):

'For youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness.'

Rich sable-trimmed gowns were handed down as heirlooms,

*The loose collar of a doublet.

and

and frequent mention is made of such bequests in the 'Testamenta Vetusta' of Sir N. Harris Nicolas.

Lawyers, who dressed in 'rusty black,' were not allowed to wear any fur or skin except that of the fox and lamb, to which regulation Shakspeare refers in 'Measure for Measure' (iii. 2) :

'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.' The wearing of the fur of the ermine was chiefly confined to royalty, and its spotless purity and cleanliness was a fitting emblem of the honour and integrity of princes. The number of powderings or spots-small pieces of the black fur of other animals-permitted to be worn on the various furs were also strictly regulated according to the rank or position of the wearer. A gentleman's wife, she being a gentlewoman born, was allowed one powdering on her fur bonnet, and an esquire's wife two. On their dresses, a knight's wife could wear seven spots, a baroness thirteen, a viscountess eighteen, a countess twenty-four, and for ladies above that rank there was no limitation.

This extraordinary phase of social life, of which the portraits and reproductions in Queen Elizabeth' afford numerous examples, resulted, as we have shown, from many causes; but amongst them must not be forgotten the accumulation of wealth beyond the means for employment, and the mischievous attempts to restrain the development of trade. When money was hoarded owing to the mistaken economic idea that the wealth of a nation depended on the amount of gold in the country, there was no option but to allow it to accumulate or to find an outlet in the fashionable extravagance, indulgence, and follies of the age. To express how great that was we can only say with Stubbes, that, 'Weare I never so experte an Arithmetician, or Mathematician, I weare never capable of the halfe of them, the devill brocheth soe many new fashions every day.'

ART.

ART. VI.-1. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. With an Index to their Works. By Bernhard Berenson. London, 1894.

2. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. With an Index to their Works. By Bernhard Berenson. London, 1896. 3. Lorenzo Lotto, an Essay in constructive Art-Criticism. By Bernhard Berenson. London, 1895.

4. Antonio Allegri da Correggio: his Life, his Friends, and his Time. By Corrado Ricci, Director of the Royal Gallery, Parma. From the Italian, by Florence Simmonds. London, 1896.

THE

HE charge of insularity which was commonly brought against Englishmen in former days is now happily less frequently made. The spread of general culture and the increased facilities of travel have alike tended to dispel the prejudices which too long blinded our eyes to the claims of foreign scholars, and to the progress made by men of other nationalities in every branch of learning. Perhaps even more is due to the example of two or three distinguished individuals whose genial temper and wide sympathies have helped to break down the barriers that divide us from our neighbours across the seas. Such, for instance, was Sir Henry Layard, whose own knowledge of Italian painting and friendship with living connoisseurs were productive of important results in the literature of art. Such, above all, was the late Lord Leighton. man was ever more absolutely free from insularity than this accomplished master, whose personality lent lustre to his high office; whose knowledge of Greek and Italian, of French and German art, was displayed in the admirable discourses which he delivered to the Academy students; and who found himself as much at home among the most intellectual circles of Paris and Rome, as with the gondoliers of Venice and the contadini of the Apennines.

No

And yet, when all this has been said, it must be confessed that, as a nation, we are still very slow to recognise the achievements of foreign scholars or to profit by their discoveries. How else can we account for the singular fact, that a writer of Mr. Pater's distinction, a man so remarkable for his attainments and culture, should have remained a stranger to the writings of Morelli and his followers, and in his eloquent essay on Raphael should have absolutely ignored the results of their researches? The same lamentable blindness or apathy, the same reluctance to correct the errors of past generations, is evident in the official Catalogue of the National Gallery, where pictures are still

ascribed

ascribed to Sandro Botticelli and Giovanni Bellini, to Giorgione and to Raphael, although competent authorities have long ago recognised them to be the work of other hands.

Under these circumstances, it is the more gratifying to find how rapid has been the progress lately made in this country by the new and scientific method of art-criticism. The name of Signor Morelli, the founder of the new system, needs no introduction to our readers. It was in these pages that the important results of his investigations were first made known to Englishmen, and that, only five years ago, a worthy tribute was paid to the memory of the great patriot and critic who had just passed away. But some account of the work which his followers are doing may not be without interest to the large number of persons who devote their attention to the serious study of art.

The new science is still young, but it has already outlived the first stage of ridicule and opposition, and is every day giving some fresh proof of its vitality. Morelli is generally recognised as the Darwin of this new branch of evolutionary science, and the knowledge of his writings is held indispensable to the systematic study of Italian painting. In France and Germany, in Italy, and even in America, his followers are engaged in applying his methods to individual masters, and are working out his theories in a variety of different directions. On every side old mistakes are rectified and new facts collected, and a store of valuable information is being garnered up for future use. An excellent English translation of two volumes of Morelli's works has been published by Miss Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes, whose own knowledge of Italian art and personal acquaintance with the great critic fitted her in an especial manner for the task. The warm welcome which these books have received lead us to hope that they may be soon followed by the third and last volume, which was published after Morelli's death by his faithful friend Dr. Frizzoni, and is in many respects the most important of the series. Meanwhile the frequent contributions made by Dr. Richter, Mr. Claud Phillips, and other well-known writers, to periodical literature, have helped to correct many long-standing errors, and have brought the results of scientific criticism within the reach of general readers. In a small pamphlet on Italian Pictures at Hampton Court, written by Mary Logan and published by the Kyrle Society at the modest sum of twopence, we have not only an admirable account of the paintings in that rich collection, but a concise and useful summary of recent conclusions as to the authorship of many disputed pictures. But the most important works on the subject which have appeared during the

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