"Still to be neat, still to be drest,As you were going to a feast;Still to be powdered, still perfumed:Lady, it is to be presumed,Though art's hid causes are not found,All is not sweet, all is not sound.Give me a look, give me a face,That makes simplicity a grace;Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:Such sweet neglect more taketh me,Than all the adulteries of art;They strike mine eyes, but not mine heart."
"Still to be neat, still to be drest,As you were going to a feast;Still to be powdered, still perfumed:Lady, it is to be presumed,Though art's hid causes are not found,All is not sweet, all is not sound.Give me a look, give me a face,That makes simplicity a grace;Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:Such sweet neglect more taketh me,Than all the adulteries of art;They strike mine eyes, but not mine heart."
Ben Jonson,The Silent Woman.
The apeing by the tradespeople of the manners of the great is amusingly told in theLady's Magazinefor August, 1782, in the form of a letter to the editor, purporting to be from a respectable greengrocer, who signs himself "Artichoke Pulse." He says: "I wish to God you would write something smart against fashion. My family is almost ruined by the article of dress." It appeared that his son Tom had worked himself into a gentleman's family as footman, and from this circumstance his troubles began. "You can scarcely conceive, my dear Sir, what an alteration this acquaintance with the great family has made. Sally, my eldest daughter, talks of taste and the mode, aye faith, and the dresses too. I will give you a description of her going to see the new comedyof the 'East Indian' the other night, in company with her brothers and sisters, and a lord's footman, who presented them with orders for the two-shilling gallery.
LOUIS XVI., MARIE ANTOINETTE, AND THE DAUPHIN.Engraved by Augustin de St. Aubin.
LOUIS XVI., MARIE ANTOINETTE, AND THE DAUPHIN.Engraved by Augustin de St. Aubin.
"Dick Dusty, the hairdresser's apprentice, who lives in a court near us, was sent for at two o'clock, and two pound of Sangwine's eightpenny-halfpenny powder being procured, with a proper quantity of grease, the operation of the head was begun among the cabbages, lettuces, turnips, carrots, peas, and beans that surrounded us. Dick, who wasbut a novice at his business, cut and slashed away until he had left just as much hair as he could conveniently dress, and then, having worked the grease and the flour into a kind of paste, he plaistered over the head, using his hand as a trowel, until it was fairly encrusted so as to hide the colour of the hair, or to deceive the eye into a belief that the head was a pudding bag turned inside out!
"As it was summer, my daughters chose to go without caps, and an artificial bouquet was stuck in the front of those puddings. The gowns were silk; but being purchased at a pawnbroker's they were not properly cut for the fashionable hoop. Hoops, however, were to be wore, and even my wife resolved for once, to figure away in one of those oval pieces of nonsense."
"Perhaps in nature, there was never such a figure! Only fashion to yourself a greengrocer's wife issuing from her cellar in Drury Lane, with a monstrous hoop, exposing a pair of legs, the ankles as thick as the calf, and the calf as thick as the modern waist; her hair bepuddened, her cheeks bedaubed with red, her neck of a crimson hue, her arms bursting through a pair of white gloves, the contrast between the two skins being almost the very opposite to each other; a thick-flowered silk exposing the whole front of a quilted petticoat that once was white, and then you have the appearance of my wife! Her daughters made as ridiculous a figure, and Will, I do assure you, was not the least remarkable in the group."
This sally, recounting the woes of the hapless"Artichoke," provoked an indignant reply from a champion of the women, which duly appeared in the next number:—
"I think it high time, then, for every female to exert the little knowledge she may be possessed of in the scribbling line, when the wits, under the characters of Green Grocers, dare to insult us, and speak of our hoops, and other parts of our dress, as freely as they exercise their authority over the ostlers at a country inn.
"The favour, dear Madam, we wish of you, is to remonstrate with these smart gentlemen, and, with us, tell them they are incapable of correcting the foibles in the ladies' dresses, till they have established a criterion for their own. Did they adopt no other fashions than useful and becoming ones, they might have some solid reasons for reprehending us; but how is this to be done? Can they point out of what use are the high-crowned hats, their shoes tied with strings, the number of buttons lately added to their coats: of what real service that ponderosity of their watches and canes? We will even attend to the Green Grocer, if he can defend them, and no longer despise the opinions of those scrutators of our dress; but till then we must insist that the hoop (the battery at which most of their present artillery is played off against), when of a moderate size, is an addition to the appearance of a fine woman; it is a finishing grace to their persons, and gives them that dignity of appearance that every woman in a genteel line of life has a right to assume."
Although Kings have often vainly endeavouredto impose their will upon the people in the matter of apparel it has often happened that monarchs have set the prevailing fashion of the period. This is especially noticeable in the Cavaliers of Charles I., numbers of whom adopted the short, pointed beard and moustachios and long hair of their master, in striking contrast to the close cropped and shaven round heads of the Cromwellians. It was so with the Bonapartists of the Third Empire, when the "imperial" became the vogue.
A REIGNING MONARCH.
A REIGNING MONARCH.
At a still more recent period, the illustrious personage who is figured here, and who, be it known, appears herestrictly incognito(we would fain escape the dire consequences oflèse-majesté), has imposed his imperious will, not only upon his own countrymen, but upon the world at large, in the matter of the turned up moustachio.
"When you come to be trimed, they will aske you whether you will be cut to looke terrible to your enimie, or amiable to your freend, grime and sterne in countenance, or pleasant and demure,—how their mowchatowes must be preserved and laid out, from one cheke to another, yea, almost from one eare toanother, and turned up like two hornes towards the forehead" (Stubbes, "Anatomy of Abuses," 1583).
PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.
PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN.
The angle at which it is pointed provides an index as to character, and of the degree of pugnacity of the wearer. At an angle of, say, 45 degrees forward we may expect to see its owner enter a crowded omnibus with the point of his umbrella held at the same angle, or as a soldier makes ready to present arms.
In the dressing of the hair, as in costume generally, the lowest depth of the commonplace has been reached during the nineteenth century. It is, however, extremely dangerous to indulge in any kind of sweeping generalities with respect to our own epoch; we are either, from long habit and custom, prejudiced in favour of a particularrégime, or we are afflicted with that contempt which is born of a too great familiarity. The chignon, in its many developments, is within the memory of most of us; the odious Piccadilly fringe still endures with those persons who are either slaves to habit or who find that the curling and frizzing of the hair of the forehead destroys its capacity for growth. Dundreary and mutton-chop whiskers are even now to be found in out-of-the-way country places. Goldsmith, in one of his delightful essays, tells a story of a traveller who, on his way to Italy, found himself in a country where the inhabitants had each a large excrescence depending from the chin—a deformity which, as it was endemic and the people little used to strangers, it had been the custom, time immemorial, to look upon as the greatest beauty. Ladies grew toasts from the size of their chins, and no men were beaux whosefaces were not broadest at the bottom. It was Sunday; a country church was at hand, and our traveller was willing to perform the duties of the day. Upon his first appearance at the church door the eyes of all were fixed upon the stranger; but what was their amazement when they found that he actually wanted that emblem of beauty, a pursed chin! Stifled bursts of laughter, winks, and whispers circulated from visage to visage; the prismatic figure of the stranger's face was a fund of infinite gaiety. Our traveller could no longer patiently continue an object of deformity to point at. "Good folks," said he, "I perceive that I am a very ridiculous figure here, but I assure you I am reckoned no way deformed at home."
Lord Dundreary would have been impossible in any other epoch than the Victorian, although the Dundreary whisker is but a glorified development of earlier forms—
"A marchaunt was ther with a forked berd,In motteleye high on horse he sat."
"A marchaunt was ther with a forked berd,In motteleye high on horse he sat."
Canterbury Tales.
Dundreary, with his striped peg-tops, his eyeglass, and his drawl, exactly fitted his environment. His whiskers represent the very antithesis of the "Piccadilly fringe," also happily gone, or relegated to the coster fraternity, together with the bell-bottomed trouser with which it is in singular affinity.
The Piccadilly fringe was persistently condemned by artists, notably Mr. G. F. Watts, who pointed outthat it obscured and destroyed the beautiful way in which the hair springs from the forehead. Mr. Watts, however, was not the first to warn the ladies against the sin of cropping short and pulling out the hair of the forehead. If there should, peradventure, be any fair readers who are enamoured of the beauties of either the Piccadilly or other fringe, or who should be smitten with the insane desire to pop, paint, or powder the face, let them listen to the sound advice and good counsel which the Knight of La Tour Landry gave to his daughters, and to the terrible "ensaumples" which he held up to them for their consideration and avoidance:
"Alas!" he exclaims, "whi take women non hede of the gret love that God hathe yeve hem to make hem after hys figure? and whi popithe they, and paintithe, and pluckithe her visage otherwise than God hath ordeined hem?" Why indeed! There was once a lady who died and suffered great tortures in hell, the devil holding her "bi the tresses of the here of her hede, like as a lyon holdithe his praie...." and the same "develle putte and thruste in her browes, temples, and forehede hote brenninge alles and nedeles"; and why was she subjected to all this torment?Because she had "plucked her browes, front and forehed, to have awey the here, to make her selff the fayrer to the plesinge of the worlde."
It is a very far cry from the good Knight of La Tour Landry to the wicked Mr. Punch of Fleet Street, who satirises the variations in the form of the short side whisker still beloved of butlers and ostlers, and which, in the early days of the Volunteer movementof the beginning of the sixties, became identified with particular regiments or companies:—
"Hairdresser: South Middlesex or Keveens, sir? (Customer looks bewildered.) Why, sir, many corpses, sir, 'as a rekignised style of 'air, sir, accordin' to the Reg—— (Customer storms.) Not a wolunteer, sir?—Jus' so, sir. Thought not, sir; leastways I was a-wonderin' to myself d'rectly I see you, what corpse you could a belonged to, sir."
"'Who is there in the house?' said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were always represented by that particular article of their costume which came under his immediate superintendence. 'There's a wooden leg in number six; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.'"'Nothing more?' said the little man."'Stop a bit,' replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. 'Yes; there's a pair of Wellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o' lady's shoes in number five.'"'What sort of shoes?' hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr. Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of visitors."'Country make,' replied Sam."'Any maker's name?'"'Brown.'"'Where of?'"'Muggleton.'"'It is them!' exclaimed Wardle. 'By Heaven, we've found them.'"Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.
"'Who is there in the house?' said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were always represented by that particular article of their costume which came under his immediate superintendence. 'There's a wooden leg in number six; there's a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there's two pair of halves in the commercial; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.'
"'Nothing more?' said the little man.
"'Stop a bit,' replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. 'Yes; there's a pair of Wellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o' lady's shoes in number five.'
"'What sort of shoes?' hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr. Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of visitors.
"'Country make,' replied Sam.
"'Any maker's name?'
"'Brown.'
"'Where of?'
"'Muggleton.'
"'It is them!' exclaimed Wardle. 'By Heaven, we've found them.'"
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.
FLEMISH (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY). FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
FLEMISH (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY). FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
XBOOTS, SHOES, AND OTHER COVERINGS FOR THE FEET
The good St. Crispin, of blessed memory, cobbling shoes for the poor by the light of his candle and filling up the interval with preaching, is a figure which all shoemakers regard with reverence. How did Crispin become the tutelary saint of shoemakers? Well, it was in this wise. Crispin, travelling with his brother Crispinian, in company with St. Denis, to Soissons in France to propagate the Christian faith, towards the close of the third century, in order that he might not be a burden to others for his maintenance, exercised at night the trade of shoemaker, preaching the Gospel by day. The shoes were sold at a low price to the poor, an angel (so the legend recounts) miraculously furnishing the leather. Accordingto another version of the legend, the saintstolethe leather, so as to enable him to benefit the poor. Crispin's efforts, like those of so many other benefactors of their kind, were poorly rewarded. He was ordered to be beheaded, and suffered martyrdom in 287A.D., not, however, for his shoemaking, or for his thefts, but on account of his religious tenets. Some accounts state that he and his brother were flung into a cauldron of molten lead.
CLOG, OR PATTEN.FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
CLOG, OR PATTEN.FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
The brotherhood of the shoemakers has always included men of remarkable character and parts. Hans Sachs, born at Nuremburg in 1494, the most eminent German poet of his time; George Fox, first of Quakers, true follower of Crispin, dividing his time and energies between shoemaking and preaching; William Gifford, less remembered perhaps as a shoemaker than for his editorship of the famousQuarterly—these are a few only of the men "who have imparted a glory to the 'gentle craft,' as shoemaking has been called since the days of the illustrious Crispin," and invested it with distinction.[28]
The universal observance by Eastern nations of the custom of removing the shoes as a mark of reverence is in obedience to the command given to Moses from the burning bush at Horeb: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The Western practice of uncovering the reverse end of the human anatomy presents a curious and somewhat startling contrast.
Footgear began as a protection to thesolesof the feet, since it is the soles which necessarily demand some sort of protection until that time when the "rough places shall be made plain," although Nature provides her own protection to the soles of feet which are habitually bare, by thickening the skin. The skin of the habitually barefooted Irish lassie varies, we are told, from a quarter to half an inch in thickness, and even more.
The sandal, then, may be considered as the precursor of the shoe. Most of the early nations wore sandals. The Egyptians, however, were usually barefooted, with the exception of the priests, who wore shoes ofbyblus, and were not permitted to wear any other. The Greek sandal consisted of a strip of thickhide, tanned or untanned, for the sole, with a thinner piece, assuming some ornamental form, upon the instep, the whole connected or drawn together with straps drawn crosswise over the instep and round the ankle, or a cord or thong passing between the great toe and the first of the smaller toes.
Sandals were worn either with bare feet or with stockings or hose, in which case a division of the stocking would be necessary between the great and little toes. Some modern hygienic reformers have, indeed, recommended toed stockings for present use,i.e., stockings provided with a separate receptacle for each toe, like the fingers of a glove, to be worn even with the modern shoe or boot, on the ground of healthiness, and this would seem to be reasonable, since the objectionable condition of the skin between the toes, which no amount of cleanliness and care can wholly avert, is due to the inability of the perspiration to escape when the surfaces are in contact. "The interposition in the five-toed socks of a layer of woollen or other material between each toe absorbs the perspiration and rapidly effects a remarkable change. The skin between the toes becomes dry and wholesome, and the squeezed, crippled appearance of the toes greatly alters for the better."[29]
Both the Greeks and Romans wore buskins, which reached to about the middle of the calf. These were variously ornamented and laced, and were usually lined with the skins of the smaller animals, the heads and claws being allowed to fall over the top by way of ornament. Buskins have, as a matter of fact, beenworn at all periods; several examples are given, notably in the portraits by Vandyke, of Lords John and Bernard Stuart (p. 287).
ROMAN SANDALS.Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."
ROMAN SANDALS.Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."
The footgear of the Italian peasant of the present day may be considered as the most primitive form of sandal. It consists of a simple oblong piece of thick leather, perforated at the sides and ends to allow of straps being drawn through, crosswise over the instep and round the ankle, and half way up the leg, to the knee, either in circular bands or crosswise, the foot and leg being encased in a more or less loose stocking or hose, in many instances the whole of the leg being cross gartered.
SANDALS OF THE ITALIAN PEASANTRY.
SANDALS OF THE ITALIAN PEASANTRY.
The early Britons wore a shoe which was almost as simple in construction as the last mentioned. It consisted of a piece of raw cowhide, with a leather thong fastened at the heel, threaded along the upper edge, drawing the shoe like a purse over the foot. This form of shoe, however, was not confined to the early Britons,but was adopted by most primitive peoples at different periods; in fact, it is the first and readiest method of covering the feet which would occur to the primitive mind.
LORDS JOHN AND BERNARD STUART.Engraved by James Macardell.
LORDS JOHN AND BERNARD STUART.Engraved by James Macardell.
The Anglo-Saxon shoe was provided with long thongs of leather or other material attached to the shoe at the ankles and wound crosswise round the leg to the knee, or round the whole of the leg to the middle, always, however, with some form of hose. This fashion obtained, more or less, during the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period, and was common to most of the Northern nations.
During the reign of William the Conqueror, short boots reaching above the ankle, with a plain band round the tops, prevailed. Robert, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of the Conqueror, who died in 1134, was called "Curta Ocrea," or Short Boots, either from his setting the fashion or from retaining it when abandoned by the beaux of the day.
The usual footgear of the period, however, is the close shoe, made of cloth, velvet, leather, or other material, and terminating in a point. From this period for more than a century onward, shoes varied very little, except in the character of their ornamentation.
During the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., a kind of loose top-boot appeared. These boots resembled loose socks or galoches, drawn over the hose, sometimes reaching as high as the knee, and occasionally to the middle of the thigh, but more often half way up the leg only. They were worn in various forms by all classes, and by the common peopleduring a long period. They had no fastenings or lacings, but were allowed to fall at will, according to the stiffness or otherwise of the material of which they were made.
In the miniatures of the "Facta et Dicta Memorabilia" of Valerius Maximus, begun by Simon de Hesdin for Charles V. of France in 1375, and completed by Nicholas de Gonesse for Jean, Duc de Berry, in 1405, a number of figures have boots, made apparently of soft leather and coloured either red or white, reaching to the knee; in some instances the tops turned down, with long, pointed toes. This series of miniatures is extremely interesting as giving an insight into the domestic life of the fourteenth century, some of the interiors being especially so.
During the reign of the Plantagenets, footgear, like the rest of the costume of that period, was exceedingly sumptuous. The shoes were usually close-fitting, with pointed toes, and ornamented with the richest variety of patterning. The tops were of various materials, soft leather, silk, cloth, cloth-of-gold, &c. The soles were usually of thicker leather, but occasionally of wood, and even of cork. Upon the opening of the tomb of Henry VI. of Sicily, the dead monarch was discovered wearing shoes of which the uppers were of cloth-of-gold embroidered with pearls, and the soles of cork, covered with cloth-of-gold.
The reign of Richard II. was the period of abnormally long pointed toes, which occasionally reached the length of six inches and more, and assumed various shapes, the toes being stuffed with tow or other substance to keep them in shape.
This fashion of long pointed toes lasted during the three succeeding reigns. "Even boys wore doublets of silk, satin, and velvet; and almost all, especially in the Courts of Princes, had points at the toes of their shoes a quarter of an ell long and upwards, which they now calledpoulaines." Paradin describes the men as "wearing shoes with a point before, half a foot long: the richer and more eminent personages more than a foot, and Princestwo feet long, which was the most ridiculous thing that ever was seen; and when men became tired of these pointed shoes, they adopted others in their stead denominated duck-bills, having a bill or beak before, of four or five fingers in length."
The sumptuary laws regulating these matters have been referred to in the introduction to this work. The Act of 3 Edward IV. restricted the length of toe to two inches.
FRENCH. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. FRENCH. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
FRENCH. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. FRENCH. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Clogs and pattens were worn from the time of Richard II. onwards as a protection to the soles of the shoes, and were variously shaped. Randal Holme callspattanes"irons to be tied under the shoes to keep them outof the dirt." In an anonymous work called the "Eulogium," cited by Camden, it states: "Their shoes and pattens are snouted and piked, more than a finger long, crooking upwards, which they callcrackowes, resembling devils' claws, and fastened to the knees with chains of gold and silver."
CHILD'S SHOES, FRONT AND SIDE VIEW, GERMAN (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).MAN'S SHOE, GERMAN (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).
CHILD'S SHOES, FRONT AND SIDE VIEW, GERMAN (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).MAN'S SHOE, GERMAN (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).
This fashion of appending chains to the peaks of the shoes lasted intermittently for a considerable time. In a work on "Ancient Costume," by Major Hamilton Smith, a portrait of James I. of Scotland is mentioned, in which the peaks of the monarch's shoes are fastened by chains of gold to his girdle.
There is a manuscript in the Royal collection in which the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., is depicted as wearing a clog. This has been adoptedby Abbey in his famous picture of "Gloucester and the Lady Anne."
Clogs were of wood, thickened at the heel and ball of the foot for the purpose of raising it from the ground. Afterwards it was further raised by means of two pieces set at right angles to the foot, on precisely the same principle as the Japanese shoes of to-day. An illustration is given from the Cluny Museum (p. 282).
Another means of raising the foot was the "chopine," which was a kind of stilt; it was, in fact, the sole, elongated to an extravagant degree. Hamlet thus addresses the lady players: "What! my young lady and mistress! By'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine!"
Towards the close of the fifteenth century it became the fashion to bend the long toe over the shoe backwards. The two examples figured at the head of this chat are from the Cluny Museum, and are characteristic. Both have high heels, and resemble the shoes with which the Chinese ladies until quite recently tortured and mutilated their feet, for the purpose, it is said, of pleasing the distorted fancy of the men and to be qualified for marriage.[30]
SHOES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.Musée de Cluny.
SHOES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.Musée de Cluny.
A number of examples of shoes of the fifteenth,sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries are given from the interesting collection in the Musée de Cluny, and will serve, far better than any written description, to give an idea of the character of the footgear of these periods. The two child's shoes given onp. 291are of leather, and are typical of the shoe worn during the greater part of the fifteenth century. The side view shows the point turned upwards. The man's shoe is short-toed, richly worked in stamped leather. The ladies' shoes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries given onp. 293are of various materials, and for the most part richly embroidered; two of the three lower ones show the clog of leather which was fixed from the heel to the toe, the centre one of the three having a sharp pointed heel and a rounded sole, surely a most uncomfortable thing to wear. Sir Thomas Parkins ("Treatise on Wrestling," 1714) says: "For shame, let us leave off aiming at the outdoing our Maker in our true symmetry and proportion; let us likewise, for our own ease, secure treading and upright walking, as He designed we should, and shorten our heels."
CARVED WOODEN SHOE, FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
CARVED WOODEN SHOE, FRENCH (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
During the reign of the Tudors the character of the shoe suddenly changed from the long pointed toe to the broad-toed shoe, made either of various cloths, kid, or velvet, slashed and puffed with silk, an example of which will be seen in Holbein's picture of the"Two Ambassadors." The shoes of this period afford a minimum of protection to the feet, the whole of the instep being uncovered. It was again found necessary for legislation to step in—this time, however, to restrict theirbreadth, instead of the length of the toes, as heretofore.
Bulwer's "Pedigree of the English Gallant" says: "In the reign of Queen Mary, the people in general had laid aside the long points they formerly wore at the end of their shoes, and caused them to be made square at the toes, with so much addition to the breadth, that their feet exhibited a much more preposterous appearance than they had done in the former instance; therefore," says the author, "a proclamation was made, that no man should wear his shoes above six inches square at the toes." He then tells us that "picked shoes soon after came again in vogue, but they did not, I presume, continue any great time in use."
In the figure of the exquisite of 1670, after Mitelli (p. 129), the squareness of the toes is emphasised, the two corners even projecting from the flat edge. There are small bunches of ribbons at the toes, an abnormally large stiffened bow at the instep, and, by way of "piling Pelion upon Ossa," the bend of the stiffened bows is supplemented by smaller bows, representing the very acme of whimsical extravagance.
Usually these bows or ribbons were allowed to fall loose, in which case, however, they never reached such extravagant proportions as in the before-mentioned instance. A square-toed shoe of aDutch officer of the Guards, 1662, is given, having a loose bow, also a shoe of a musketeer with a small buckle on the instep and a large tongue or flap in front.
DUTCH OFFICER OF GUARDS, 1662.
DUTCH OFFICER OF GUARDS, 1662.
Buckles have been worn from quite an early period, an example of a circular buckle occurring on a brass of 1376. They formed the usual fastening of the shoe during the Commonwealth, and were worn until the close of the eighteenth century, when they fell into disuse. The buckle-makers of 1800, alarmed at their declining trade, petitioned the Prince of Wales to discard his new strings and adopt the buckle, but, although the Prince complied with the wishes of the petition, it was of no avail.
Buckles were often richly jewelled, and consequently very costly. Those worn by the Hon. John Spencer on the occasion of his marriage were said to be worth £30,000.
MOUSQUETAIRE, 1697.
MOUSQUETAIRE, 1697.
In the anonymous portrait of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. (p. 103), the shoes are of leather, slashed, showing the coloured stocking underneath, and otherwise ornamented, with the strap drawn over the instep, covered by a jewelled rosette, or "shoe-rose." These shoe-roses had a great vogue duringthe time of Elizabeth; they were usually of bunches of ribbons made to form a rose, and were occasionally ornamented with costly jewels.
"With two Provencal roses on my razed shoes."
"With two Provencal roses on my razed shoes."
Hamlet, Act III, sc. 2.
In "Hæc-Vir, or the Womanish Man," 1621, is described a fashionable man, who "takes a full survey of himself, from the highest sprig in his feather to the lowest spangle that shines in his shoe-string."
We now come to the period of high-topped boots, which continued with variations to the time of George II. In the portrait of Charles I. by Daniel Mytens in the National Portrait Gallery will be seen an example of the earlier form of top-boot. The tops fit close, and are turned down at the knee, and the edges again turned up half-way down the calf of the leg. A large flap with double edges protects the instep.
LOUIS XIII., 1611.
LOUIS XIII., 1611.
The form of top-boots was developed in various ways, until it reached an extravagant pitch in France in the reign of Louis XIV. The variations were mainly in the shape or adjustment of the tops, rather than in that portion of the boot which covered the foot. They were worn by the dandies with a profusion of costly lace. Several examples are given.
This was the period of the highest, or rather widest, development of the tops of the boots; so wide, indeed, did they become, that the gait of a man might be described as straddling rather than walking.
An example is given of a boot worn by the Comte de Soissons, 1628, which has a stiff rounded top like a basin, with a short hose worn over the hose proper, turned down below the knee and edged with rich lace.
A variation of the top-boot worn from the time of Elizabeth onwards is a kind of soft leather hose or buskin drawn up to the middle of the thigh, the edge folded over and slashed; these were worn during the slashed period, when everything was slashed—hat, sleeves, doublet, and tunic (p. 297).
COMTE DE SOISSONS, 1628.
COMTE DE SOISSONS, 1628.
The "Wellington" boot of the present day is practically identical with that worn by the illustrious soldier from whom it takes its name, and is a very slight variation of the form of riding boot which was in use at the beginning of the eighteenth century, except that it is of softer leather, allowing the boot to fall into folds at the ankle. The boot in the portrait of Napoleon by Isabey, in the Musée de Versailles, may be described as a sort of half Wellington, but the top-bootwhich is usually associated with Napoleon is cut away at its upper edge at the back, the front forming a kind of mask to the knee, a form of boot which, in fact, had been worn from the time of William III.
BRAVOES.Martin Schongauer.
BRAVOES.Martin Schongauer.
Cloth and woollen boots and shoes, as were worn in the Middle Ages, have been recommended formodernwear as being more healthy, and as allowing the natural perspiration of the foot to exhale, their sponsors affirming that "cloth and wool are perfectly suitable and safe for wet weather, as the wetting of the wool does not chill the feet, the heat of which promptly evaporates the moisture from the covering, which soon dries." It must, however, be admitted that with a cloth covering, the dirt and mud of a London winter would be a trial, and here, doubtless, we have a reason for the cobblestones of mediæval towns. Cobble-stones are clean,but must at once be ruled out of the question for London. Cobble-stones would indeed add a fresh horror to London life. But is it too much to expect the richest city in the world, with its thousands of unemployed, to keep its streets clean? Is there any reason why large cities should not be kept clean as well as small cities?
"Boots and shoes should be roomy, to prevent the toes from being squeezed together, and should be so made that the great toe is not pressed against its neighbours, but is encouraged to lie in a straight line drawn from the heel to the root of the great toe. The heel of the boot should be low and broad."[31]
The Greek ideal of the foot is the true one. The Greeks rightly regarded the foot as an undeveloped hand, and they endeavoured in their sculpture to impart that hand-like character to their feet. One has only to notice the flexible toes of new-born and young babies, in order to perceive the reasonableness of this position. The Greeks in their sculpture made a distinct division between the great toe and the rest of the toes, as between the thumb and the fingers of the hand—the three toes well forward in a bunch; the first the longest, the next a little shorter, and the third shorter still; the little toe by itself, raised up. Now compare with this any natural foot habituated to shoes or boots. The bunch of three toes is pressed back, and also sideways against the great toe, thus losing the division between them and the great toe, and destroyingthe true contour of the foot. The pads of all the toes are pressed sideways instead of being immediately under the nails, and the foot has entirely lost its original character, and has become grotesquely malformed by corns, bunions, and similar growths. The most beautiful natural foot, theonlybeautiful foot which we ever remember having seen, was a cast in Sir Edgar Boehm's studio of the foot of a black woman who had never worn shoes.
Of late there has been a disposition to return to the sandal as a covering or rather protection for children's feet (one fears that it will be long before grown-ups adopt the sandal, except perhaps at the seaside or in the country). The change is a healthy one from every point of view. Upon æsthetic grounds it is especially welcome. One walks along the street during the summer months, the mind perhaps preoccupied, and the eye suddenly lights upon the rosy feet of one of these little ones as they trip along the street. One involuntarily exclaims, "What a charming design! What a beautiful piece of ornament!" Of a truth, in place of the uninteresting product of the shoemaker, which we had become so inured and accustomed to, one is suddenly introduced to that masterpiece of the Great Designer, the human foot, and the foot, too, in its natural state, before it has become crippled and distorted by long confinement in a leather prison.