Saxon garment, may still be discovered in the waggoner's frock; of the trause, and perhaps of the petticoat, in the different trowsers that are worn by seamen. : These habits were again diversified by minute decorations and changes of fashion from an opinion that corpulence contributes to dignity, the doublet was puckered, stuffed, and distended around the body; the sleeves were swelled into large ruffs, and the breeches bolstered about the hips; but how are we to describe an artificial protuberance, gross and indecent in the age of Henry VIII. if we judge from his and the portraits of others, a familiar appurtenance to the dress of the sovereign, the knight, and the mechanic, at a future period retained in comedy as a favourite theme of licentious merriment! The doublet and breeches were sometimes slashed, and with the addition of a short cloak, to which a stiffened cap was peculiar, resembled the national dress of the Spaniards. The doublet is now transformed into a waistcoat, and the cloak or manile, to which the sleeves of the doublet were transferred, has been converted gradually into a modern coat; but the dress of the age was justly censured as inconvenient and clumsy. "Men servants,' to whom the fashions had descended with the clothes of their masters, have suche pleytes," says Fitzherberts, " upon theyr brestes, and ruffes uppon theyr sleves above theyr elbowes, that yf their mayster or theym selfe hadde never so greatte neede, they coulde not shoote one shote to hurte theyr enemyes till they had caste of theyr coats, or cut of theyr sleves." The dress of the peasantry was similiar, but more convenient, consisting generally of trunk hose and a doublet of coarse and durable fustian. The materials employed in dress were rich and expensive; cloth of gold, furs, silks, and velvet profusely embroidered. The habits of Henry VIII. and his queen, in their procession to the tower previous to their coronation, are described by Hall, an historian delighting in shows and spectacles. "His grace wared in his uppermost apparell a robe of crimsyn velvet, furred with armyns; his jacket or cote of raised gold; the placard embroidered with diamonds, rubies, emeraudes, greate pearles, and other riche stones! a greate baudeuke about his necke of large balasses. The quene was apparelled in white satyn embroidered, her haire hangyng down to her backe, of a very great length, bewteful and goodly to behold, and on her hedde a coronall, set with many riche orient stones." The attire of females was becoming and decent, similar in its fashion to their present dress, but less subject to change and caprice. The large and fantastic head-dresses of the former age were superseded by coifs and velvet bonnets, beneath which the matron gathered her locks into tuffs or tussocks; but the virgin's head was uncovered, and her hair braided and fastened with ribbons. Among gentlemen long hair was fashionable through Europe, till the Emperor Charles, during a voyage, devoted his locks for his health or safety; and in England, Henry, a tyrant even in taste, gave efficacy to the fashion by a peremptory order for his attendants and courtiers to poll their heads. The same įspirit induced him, probably by sumptuary laws, to regulate the dress of his subjects. Cloth of gold or tissue was reserved for the dukes and marquesses; if of a purple colour, for the royal family. Silks and velvets were restricted to commoners of wealth or distinction; but embroidery was interdicted from all beneath the degree of an earl. Cuffs for the sleeves, and bands and ruffs for the neck, were the invention of this period; but felt hats were of earlier origin; and where still coarser and cheaper than caps or bonnets. Pockets, a convenience known to the ancients, are perhaps the latest real improvement in dress; but instead of pockets, a loose pouch seems to have been sometimes suspended from the girdle. The Scottish was apparently the same with the English dress, the bonnet excepted, peculiar both in its colour and form. The masks and trains and superfluous finery of female apparel, had been uniformly prohibited; but fashion is superior to human laws, and we learn from the satirical invectives of poets, that the ladies still persisted in retaining their fancy and muzzling their faces. ECONOMY OF TIME. Queen Elizabeth set an example to her subjects, which it would be well bad they universally followed. Her Majesty, except when engaged by public or domestic affairs, and the exercises necessary for the preservation of her health and spirits, was always employed either in reading or writing, in translating from other authors, or in compositions of her own. WHERE ARE THEY. BY J. A. SHEA. Where are they, where are they, Where we lov'd and left them last? Tell us, from your home of hills, UNPUBLISHED POETRY BY JOHN KEATS. FROM A MS. "JOURNAL OF THE TWO HEMISPHERES." There is one person whom I am bound to mention with especial emphasis for the delight he made me experience in an acquaintance, which, I hope, I may be permitted to call a friendship. I had ceased to be astonished at the multitudes of fine minds and at the remarkable courtliness of manners, I had so often met with in these regions which we are taught by the caricaturists in travel-books and plays, to regard as demisavage, when a new wonder came upon me. I had been introduced to a gentleman by the name of Keats. He was mentioned to me as a merchant of Louisville, thriving and much respected; a resident there for many years, and by birth an Englishman. Mr. Keats called upon me. I was at his house. I have attended few parties in better taste. It is rare to find cordiality and unpretending elegance more at tractively blended than in the parties given by Mr. and Mrs. Keats. There was no ostentation of literature, no attempt at conversational parade about Mr. Keats; he was manly, but modest; and rather disclaimed the least pretension to any regard, excepting as a mere man of business, and a person deeply devoted to the best interests of his adopted country. It was not until sometime that I discovered, and that from a third person, that he was the brother of John Keats, the Poet of England; and when I conversed with him upon the subject, I found him ardently attached to the memory of the gifted but ill-starred enthusiast, of whose relationship the Mr. Keats of Louisville, both in taste and talent, seems entirely worthy. How fortunate it is that these new cities of our Western country, should have been favoured, among their earliest inhabitants, with persons of high endowments, and capable of giving the best tone to manners as well as to mind! I do not know when I have enjoyed a greater treat than I did one evening at the house of Mr. George Keats, when he indulged me with a glance at the private correspondence, including much of unpublished poetry of his distinguished brother. Nothing which has yet appeared from the pen of John Keats can give any idea of his genius, and the gentleness and the affectionate earnestness of his feelings, in the least comparable with the testimonials afforded by these manuscripts. Mr. George Keats was pleased with my plan of the Belles-Lettres Journal of the Two Hemispheres; he exerted himself strenuously to seek patrons for me; and he promised that he would still further promote my views, by enabling me to enrich my work with portions of the invalu able papers of which I speak. He has left me, in my Album, a very precious remembrancer, in an inscription of his own, conveying some of these same unpublished treasures of his brother's poetry. The first of them which I shall transcribe, cannot be read without emotion by any one who recollects that it was to the unkindness of the awarders of literary fame in England, that the untimely death of the author has been ascribed that he burst a blood-vessel on reading a savage attack on his Endymion' in the London Quarterly Review, and died at Rome of a decline produced in consequence. Even Byron, who had taken some prejudice against him; confessed, after the decease of poor Keats, that he had done him injustice, and added, "He is a loss to our literature; his fragment of Hyperion' seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Eschylus." But I must not forget the sonnet, here it is : Fame, like a wayward girl will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees, Who have not learnt to be content without her; Who think they scandal her who talk about her; Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar. Ye love-sick bards, repay her scorn for scorn, Mr. Keats copied for me another unpublished sonnet by his brother; which, in the letter containing it, is preceded by the following beautiful note : "The fifth Canto of Dante pleases me more and more; it is that one in which he meets with Paulo and Francesca. had passed many days in rather a low state of mind, and in the midst of them, I dreamt of being in that region of Hell. The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life. I floated about the whirling atmosphere as it is described, with a beautiful figure, to whose lips mine were joined, as it seemed, for an age; and in the midst of all this cold and darkness, I was warm ;- even flowery tree tops sprung up, and we rested on them, sometimes with the lightness of a cloud, till the wind blew us away again. I tried a Sonnet upon it. There are fourteen lines, but nothing, to what I felt in it. O! that I could dream it every night! As Hermes once took to his feathers light When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept, So, on a delphic reed my idle spright, So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft |