Item, a pair of Milan* sleaves of white Sattin Item, 30 White Lamb Skins Item, 2 girdles 4 0 1 1 0 6 8 0 12 4 0 11 Item, 2 Ells of White ribbons for Tippets. Item, A Wedding ring of Gold Item, A Milan Bonnet dressed with agletts Item, A yard of White Sattin of Bruges 0 2 Sir John Nevile The marriage of my son-in-law Ro of Chete, Knight. J ger Rockley and my daughter Eliza beth Nevile, the 14th of January, in the 17th year of the reign of our Soveraigne Lord King Henry the VIIIth. First, for the expense of their Apparel, 22 y-of Russet Sattin, at 85 per yard Item, 2 Mantels of Skins for HIS gown Item, 2 yards & of black velvet for his gown Item, 9 yards of black Sattin for his jacket and Doublet, at 8s Item, 7 yards of Black Sattin for her Kirtle, at 8$ Item, 1 roll of Buckram * Milan. Hence our word Milaner, which has dropped into Milliner. Milan is still famous for its dressmakers and conturieres, who are second only to those of Paris. L. s. d. Item, A Bonnet of Black velvet 0 15 0 Item, A Frontlet for the same Bonnet 0 12 0 Item, FOR HER SMOCK Item, For a pair of perfumed Gloves Item, For a pair of other Gloves Item, For 22 yards of Tawney Camlet, at 2o 4d yer yard Item, 3 yards of Black Sattin for lining her Item, 2 yards of Black Velvet for her gown Item, 7 yards of yellow Sattin of Bruges, Item, For a pair of Hose. Item, For a pair of Shoes Sum -Beer and At each of these marriages, the expenses of feasting far exceeded those of the wardrobe or outfit. At the marriage of Elizabeth, who was the eldest daughter, they entertained the family friends for a whole week. The following are a few of the numerous items: ale, 67. 168. 8d.; two hogsheads of wine, 4/.; one ditto red wine, 21.; nine cranes, 17. 108.; twelve peacocks, 168.; three red deer, 10s.; twelve fallow deer (no price); seventy-two fat capons, 37. 12s.; thirty dozen of mallards and teal, 3l. 11s. 8d. ; two dozen of herons, 17. 4s. ; two oxen, 37. Turbot, pike, sturgeons, ling, salt and fresh salmon, eels, lampreys, oysters, and porpoises, figure among the fish. For the amusement of the night they had— "First a play; and straight after the play, a Mask; and when the Mask was done, then the Banquet, which was 110 dishes, and all of Meat; and then all the Gentlemen and Ladies did dance; and this continued from the Sunday to the Saturday afternoon." This sounds something like old English hospitality; but seven days of such feasting and revelry must surely have been very hard work! XVII. A CHAPTER ON HATS. "Géronte. Hippocrate dit cela? Sganarelle. Oui. Géronte. Dans quel chapitre, s'il vous plaît ? Sganarelle. Dans son chapitre .... des chapeaux." WE fear that it would be but labour lost to search the works of the sage of Cos for the chapter indicated in our motto; but we have no doubt that it will be a very prominent one in a treatise on physic and things in general, to be brought out by some zealous phrenologist about the year 2000. Does not every one know that the size of the hat shows the size of the head, and the size of the head the size of the brain, and the size of the brain the quantum of nous possessed by each individual? At present, indeed, the dictates of justice are strangely neglected in these matters. The phrenologists complain bitterly that the microcephali, or small-headed men, are often seen in possession of place and power: though a secretary of state, the cir cumference of whose head in inches may be 21-25, browbeating some poor clerk with a circumference of 23.5, is so monstrous a spectacle, that the cow lording it over the farmer, in the children's story-book of the World turned upside-down, is in comparison seemly and laudable. It is true that the natural tendency of a big head on dry land is exactly the reverse of what it is in the water; for while in the latter it has a tendency to sink its possessor, on the former it more frequently floats him up to the highest dignities in church and state. "But then,” cry the followers of Gall and Spurzheim, "observe the knavish arts of the promoted men of long heads! They fence themselves and their property around with such laws and devices, that the next generation obtain the benefit of their fathers' success, though their heads should be as peaked as a sugar-loaf; nay, the influence of an ancestral brain-pan is felt for centuries afterwards in regiments and frigates showered upon descendants, who would seem rather to belong to the Malay than the Caucasian variety of the human species." We trust that these things will not always be so, but that a day will once arrive when electors will not throw up their hats until they have seen the candidate's; when a coalheaver's hat will be known, not by the broadness of the brim, but by the narrowness of the interior; an opera-hat, not by its flexibility, but by the cavity destined to contain the organ of music; and a cardinal's, not by its colour, but its vast size. Until the commencement of this happy era, -until the return of Astræa,-the least that can be done by the microcephali in high places is to wear large hats stuffed if it is well to conceal the want of hip or calf, VOL. I. K surely it is even more important to hide the want of head. It would be but a sacrifice to public decency-a part of the homage paid by ignorance to knowledge. We have been naturally led into this train of reflection by the annexed table, which we take from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for April 1817, and which certainly vindicates the claim set up by our Scottish brethren to be a long-headed race. Yet, perhaps, the table should be taken with some discount; for, as Aristotle observes that it does not go against the grain to praise the Athenians at Athens, so it cannot go against the grain at Edinburgh to magnify the capacity of Caledonian hats. Comparative sizes of men's heads, as ascertained by actual measurement, upon an extensive scale, in retail hat-shops in London and Edinburgh. For these curious tables we are indebted to an army contractor, a gentleman of great observation and singular accuracy. |