as is amply verified by his splendid halle, but "de gustibus non est disputandum;" the fashion, gentle reader, accords not with these fastidious days; "tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." John Halle wore his party-coloured hose in an age, (let it be remembered,) when the porpoise, and the swan, did grace the festive board.

Let us now turn to the engraving of “ Dethe and the Galante," who was arrayed, as we see, in a similar pair of hose, or chausses. He thus confirms the propriety of this dress as to the age; but, as Gough does not say, that these were also party-coloured, I am induced to believe, that they were not so.

Although the girdle was used as a general carrier; and, although the many ancient illuminations extant negative the fact, as I have before observed, of the general existence of the pocket in the middle-ages, yet we may well presume, that instances of its use might arise; and, if so, would be probably met with amongst the lower ranks, to whom the use of the anelace, or whittle, at meals, would be necessary, and who yet might not be always in the habit of wearing the girdle. Such would, probably, (and, I believe, did,) wear these serviceable instruments in a small slit pocket of the hose. Thus Chaucer, when describing the Miller of Trompington, the Hero of the "Reve's Tale," makes the latter say:

"A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his hose."

At a later period pockets became more com

mon, as the girdle grew more into disuse; and thus does Butler, in his "Hudibras," say,

"He cross examin'd both our hose,
And plunder'd all we had to lose."

Subsequently to the wear of motley, or the party-coloured dress, by the higher ranks, it was made the suit of the fool. It is here necessary to explain, that it became the fashion, about the sixteenth century, for men of affluence to retain in their establishments some occasionally halfwitted, yet shrewd, human creature for the disport of themselves, and their guests, in the hours of social merriment. I could cite examples, but it would lead me into too great a digression.

Shakspeare, intimately acquainted, as he was, with the manners, and customs, of his time, repeatedly alludes to the fool, and his motley suit, and no where more clearly than in his Play of "As You Like It." In Act 2, Sc. 7, Jaques replies to the solicitous inquiries of the Duke in this beautiful speech:

"A fool, a fool!-I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool-a miserable world!-

As I do live by food, I met a fool;

Who laid him down, and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms-and yet a motley fool.

Good morrow, fool, quoth I: No, Sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, 'till heaven hath sent me fortune:
And then he drew a dial from his poke;

And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,

Says, very wisely, It is ten o'clock:

Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags :
'Tis but an hour ago, since it was nine;

And after one hour more, 'twill be eleven ;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe, and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot, and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission,

An hour by his dial.-O, noble fool!

A worthy fool! motley's the only wear!"

Thus have we seen, gentle reader, that motley, or party-coloured clothing, was, successively, the wear of the gentleman, and thenof the fool, and now (so manifold are the changes of this sublunary world) it is the garb―of the rogue, it being the humiliating dress of the convicted felon in the House of Correction. By my latchet,”* (say I,) "motley will never be gentleman's fashion again."

Reminded, as I am, by this word "latchet," that the shoes, the last, yet not the least important, part of the dress of John Halle, have long, and patiently, awaited my leisure hour, I must now e'en change the subject, and yield my attention to the anxious call, since

The Shoes,

humble, and trodden on, as they are, cannot yet be deemed as utterly unworthy of the attention of the solicitous inquirer into the history of the costume of man. It is now incumbent on me to impart, as usual, the etymology of Minshieu. • The favourite expletive of John Drakes, of Norwich. (See

p. 105.)

Shoe. Sax. Sceoe-Belg. Schoe-Goth. Teut. Schue à scu i. e. vitare, and we, i. e. dolor, quod pedes per calceos vitent dolores. This etymologist extends his inquiries to great length, but to extract the whole would fatigue the general reader; and the professed, and acute, indagator verborum has ever the means at hand amply to satiate his curiosity.

I cannot but consider the shoe-the guard, or covering, of the foot-as the genus,—and the sandal-the slipper-the sock-the buskin-and even the boot-as constituting the several species. In the invention of dress, the shoe, we may rationally suppose, was the last article, which engaged the attention of man. Solicitous to protect from heat and cold the most noble part-the head,-anxious to shield the body with clothing, he left, probably, his feet uncovered, and regarded them as in some measure protected by the upper garments; and we may thus instance the lower orders of the inhabitants of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They (even when provided with every other article of clothing) often dispense with the shoe, and stocking, and this not occasionally, but customarily-not from necessity, but choice.

Mankind, I doubt not, has been determined as to the covering of the feet by the influence of the clime. Man, in a savage state, and in warm regions, although he may have, more, or less, adopted the use of clothing, yet preserves his legs, and feet, bare. In the more civilized eastern states the sandal and the slipper have been called into use-in the temperate

zone the shoe has prevailed, and-in the northern latitudes, that article of dress has been enlarged into the high shoe, or boot.

Linnæus, in his "Lachesis Lapponica, or Tour in Lapland," bears ample testimony to its use thus in the northern climes, as do many other voyagers, and travellers.

The shoe and boot, in their early origin, it can hardly be doubted, were made of the untanned skins of beasts with the hair worn outwardly. Man, in the earliest ages, subsisted by hunting, before he turned his thoughts to pasturage, and the cultivation of grain. The skins of the animals, which he slaughtered, he, probably, transferred (when in a dried state) to his own body, and relieved the toils of the chase by thus converting a portion of them into a defensive covering to his own feet. Alexander Selkirk was, in the year 1709, discovered by the circum-navigator, Captain Cooke,* as the sole inhabitant of the Isle of Juan Fernandez, on which, four years before, he had been left by his ship. He was thus reduced to the state of a man in primæval times-times, when the art of making cloth was unknown, and before the earth was broken by the share of the ploughhe became a hunter-his clothes wore out, and -he then made himself clothes of the skins of the beasts of the field. It is said, that De Foe made these circumstances the basis of his most delightful "History of Robinson Crusoe ;"-a book, which imparts to fiction the irresistible

A previous navigator to the celebrated Captain Cook.

H H