Towards the base of the writer's specimen the vertical bundles of fibres separate and form a loose mass, readily capable of holding extraneous matter, and anchoring the entire structure. The fibres at this end are all, or nearly all, more or less jagged, so much so that they feel rough to the touch. In this respect they differ from the smoother fibres of the Hyalonema, which do not hackle together or combine in any way, but are like a slightly twisted bundle of glass hairs.

The Euplectella was supposed, until lately, to be very rare; but now stories are told of its being frequently found and offered cheaply at Manilla. It is to be hoped that some naturalist on the spot will inquire into its mode of growth, and send us specimens, preserved, as far as possible, in their natural state. When covered with sarcode they might be less beautiful than in the artificially-prepared state in which they usually reach us, but many important particulars can only be ascertained by studying the sponge in that condition. When portions of clean Euplectella fibres are under the microscope they shine with a glassy lustre with reflected light, and exhibit the transparency of glass hairs when transmitted light is employed. Spicules, properly so called, do not seem to enter importantly in the construction of the frame-work-at least it would be scarcely correct to give that name to very long fibres which have thorny projections, or to other long fibres united by various silicious processes to similar fibres in their vicinity.

The high refractive power of the silicious threads gives rise to the opaque porcellanous aspect which the Euplectella exhibits when seen from a little distance. It is the most elegant of known sponges, and will be the delight of judicious collectors, even though a larger supply of specimens should reduce its price.

DRESS ACCORDING TO STATUTE.

BY FRANCIS W. ROWSELL,

Barrister-at-Law.

To all who desire to paint accurately on the mental retina a historical picture of the past, the study of the dress in which the byegone people clothed themselves, must be as interesting as the study of the buildings in which they lived, or of any other strictly personal thing belonging to them. Without a knowledge of the kind and quality of the clothes worn by our ancestors, any idea we may form of them as units in the everyday, working world, must necessarily be imperfect; we may read of men, of their sayings and doings, of their lives, and of the effect they had upon the lives of those who were coeval with them; but in the absence of means for bringing vividly before our minds the image of their persons, they will be to us as so many lay figures, entities, not persons, wanting those very essentials which alone enable the historian to create before the mind's eye of his readers a word-picture which shall truly and properly describe the men of the old order. For this reason, if for no other, the study of costume cannot fail to be deeply interesting to the historical student. Does not "the apparel oft proclaim the man?" and is not the garb of a people, especially in certain classes, a pretty sure indication of their style and character? But when it is found that, this reason set aside, the article of dress appears again and again in the statute-book as a subject not unworthy the consideration of the legislative wisdom of the country, one feels bound to inquire somewhat closely concerning it, placed as it is on the same level with great questions of finance, religion, trade, and war. As a matter of fact, the article of dress does appear constantly in the statute-book as a subject of legislation, and it is the purpose of the writer of this article to pursue somewhat closely an inquiry into the sartorial question which appears to have exercised our forefathers so severely. In doing so he will be guided solely by the light which the statute-book affords, assisted where that fails by those equally trustworthy records, written for the most part by contemporaneous authors, and now published anew to the world by the Master of the Rolls, after a sleep, in which their existence was endangered, for several centuries in the old libraries of our oldest colleges.

Long before the political economists of the day took notice of the clothes in which men dressed themselves, the clergy

had had the subject under their consideration, and had not ceased to inveigh against extravagance of apparel, not so much because it was wasteful, as because it was the child of personal vanity, and as such opposed to the simplicity of the Christian rule of life, and to the direct teaching of Him who compared Solomon in all his glory to the lily of the field, and found him wanting in beauty beside it. Again and again the monkish writers speak earnestly and heartily against the fops of their day, mentioning as a matter of the gravest importance that they wore tunics with deep sleeves, and mantles with long trains, like women; that the peaks of their shoes were of enormous length, stuffed with tow, and twisted into fantastic shapes; that their hair, divided in front, fell down upon their shoulders in ringlets, having also false curls added, to make them look more like women. "Effomenati" is the title by which the monks call them, and they do not hesitate to attribute to them vices of the most abominable kind. Some allowance should doubtless be made for Saxon monks, who wrote about Norman gallants, and later on, when this national distinction was done away, for the antipathy which the children of light might be supposed to have for the moth-like children of this world; but Norman monks also declaimed against Norman gallants, and the clerical anger, whether found in Norman or Saxon breast, was, beyond all question, genuine; though it sometimes went above the mark, and made itself ridiculous by the extravagant way in which it beat the air. That it was genuine is abundantly proved by many things, and notably by the sermons, poems, speeches, and exhortations of divers kinds, with which the clergy belaboured their flocks at the time the great pestilence, known as the Black Death, swept away more than half the population of England. On this occasion it was many times preached that the sinful wastefulness of men and women in respect of their dress was among the chief offences for which the wrath of God had come upon the land. Giving the go-bye to his wrath because of the bad drainage, the filthy condition of houses, the confined and unwholesome streets, and the other accessories of fever, the clergy fixed upon excess in apparel as being most displeasing to God. Against silk hoods and party-coloured coats, deep sleeves, and narrow waists; against garments which were indecently short, according to the censor's notions of decency; against pointed shoes and bushy beards, the voice of the clergy was loudly raised in notes of entreaty and warning. Women as well as men came in for their share of blame, and bold, unwomanly imitation of men's attire drew forth as eloquent denunciations as the unmanly practice of men who aped the dress of women.

The following passage from the "Eulogium Historiarum"an anonymous but trustworthy chronicle, not only testifies to the extravagance of dress in the year 1361, in spite of the warning given twelve years before by the Black Death, but mentions the names of some of the garments most affected by the dandies of the period, and gives a very fair description of the dresses commonly worn. The pious, if somewhat narrowminded, writer finishes his account by expressing a fear "lest the dire punishment of the Lord should follow such wickedness."

"In this and the preceding year the whole people of England went mad in the matter of ornamental dress; firstly, they wore large over-tunics, cut short at the loins; some of these were as long as to the heel, not open in front as becomes men, but distended in pleats about the arms, after the manner of women, so that they who see them from behind must think them to be women rather than men. This garment is called, and rightly, in the vulgar tongue, 'goun,' and well is it so called, for 'goun' is derived from 'gounyg,' which, properly speaking, is 'wounyg,' or 'open shame.' They have also little caps fastened under the chin, buttoned after the manner of women, and having at the top part, in the round, philacteries studded with gold, silver, and precious stones.

"They have also another silken garment, called a 'paltok,' which is rather suitable for a cleric than a layman; yet is it said in the book of Kings that Solomon in all his life never wore such a thing. They also have drawers in two parts, stiffened, which they fasten with braces to their 'paltoks,' and which are called 'harlots.' They have gold

and silver belts, enriched at great cost, the best being of the value of twenty marks; inferior ones, such as esquires and other freemen would wear, at the price of a hundred shillings, or five marks, or even twenty shillings, and all the while the buyers have not twenty pence in their purse."

The writer speaks of those who wear such things as being "idlers and vapourers rather than men, actors than knights, mummers than esquires. At court they are lions, but hares in the field; they are slow to give, swift to take; eager for trifles, but wearied by prayer!"

In the course of time the professors of a political economy, which saw in the impoverishment of the extravagant an injury to the nation at large, justifying its conclusion, perhaps, by the fact that much of the money spent in finery went out of the country, which received nothing valuable in return, and appealing to the experience which taught that an example of prodigality in the upper classes is sure to be followed more or less ruinously through all the minor classes in the community,

took notice of excess in apparel, and joined with the professors of religion in condemning those who enlarged the hem of their garments, and carried the price of a county in the clothing that was on their backs.

In the fifteenth year of Edward III., there was, as we learn from the "Brute Chronicle" (attributed to Douglas of Glastonbury), a great rage for dress, and the fashions of the same:"And in this tyme englisshe men so myche haunted and cleved to ye woodness and foly of ye straungers, yt yey ordeyned and chaunged hem every yeer diverse shappes and desgisynges of clothyng." This is only the record, simple and terse, of what had been taught and preached against for many years previously, and is the straw showing which way the wind blew when the statute, passed towards the end of Edward's reign was framed. By the thirty-seventh year of Edward III. the Parliament, or grand council, that governed the land, was ready to consider a project which should have the effect of checking the extravagance of the people in the matter of dress, and in that year accordingly, they agreed to a law which they fondly hoped would have that effect. They saw the money which fops spent-the money which might possibly be their own, to do as they liked with, or which it might be, was wrung "from the hard hands of peasants by indirection," going steadily out of the country, and they saw the youth and promise of the land "rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;" they saw no prospect of manufactories, worked by native industry, rising in the land, nor did the habit and custom of the age suggest a policy which would give birth to such manufactures. Perhaps, too, in an assembly composed of those who, for the most part, were fine birds without needing fine feathers to make them so, the fact of extravagance in plumage was so senseless, and withal so serious, observable as it was, not only in the upper, but in the inferior classes also, that ipso facto, they were resolved to put a legislative curb upon it. Accordingly we find an Act passed in 1363—the Act 37 Edward III., c. 8, to restrain "the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers people, against their estate and degree," which is the first of the series of sumptuary laws, if we except a law made in the eleventh year of Edward III., by which the use of fur was prohibited to all persons, except the King, the Royal family, and those who possessed £100 a year derived from land.

The passage already quoted from the "Eulogium Historiarum" throws some light on the circumstances under which the Act was passed. The following are the principal provisions of the statute, with its brief preamble:

"1. For the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers