Punch (39.1860)

212

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[December 1, I860.

modern pegtops, and allotted them Bath post at sixpence a quire.
May we not learn something from that Prse-Raphaelite, that prae-riff-
raffaelite a?e ? They were fine fellows after all, those Early English
Heroes. Take Richard Cceor de Lion—I am influenced by no
private prejudice, but I ask any one—I ask Tom Sayers what his
opinion is of a man who could cut a sheep through at a single blow,
and made no more of cleaving a bar of iron in twain than my grand-
mother would of breaking a knitting needle ? There’s a man for you !
and haven’t we Mr. Oliver Goldsmith’s direct testimony that
Richard generously forgave the wretch who caused his death at
Chalus? There’S a hero for you, and where is his monument I should
like to know P

“ Just as I reach this point in my soliloquy, a sharp shrill sound
uncommonly like a railway whistle, strikes on my ear. What can
it be ? There it is again, louder and nearer, accompanied by the short
energetic puffs of a locomotive. 1 look inquiringly at my friends the
vergers who glance interrogatively at each other, and then we all run
out of Poet’s Corner together, and look down towards Parliament
Street, where a crowd of people have assembled. Lo! whose is this
giant form which stands out dark against, the London sky and makes
the Hansom cabs seem very pigmies ? Who is this mail-clad warrior
with haughty mien and outstretched arm, riding like a god above the
crowd ? Volumes of steam surround his charger’s head, and we seem
to hear the noble beast snorting as he prances by. We all stand still
and wonder. Street boys throw up their caps and cheer. Even the
cabmen for a brief moment forget their fares and pull up to have a look.
Can 1 be mistaken p Those handsome bronzed features—that steed of

mettle yielding to an iron sway. No! It is Richard of the Lion
Heart riding triumphant into Palace Yard.

* * * * * * ' *

“ By this time yon will doubtless perceive that I have been de-
scribing in my romantic style, the arrival of Marochetti’s equestrian
statue of the great Crusader which has just been set up at Westminster.
The wondrous snorts and steam emanated I admit not from the
warrior’s horse but from one of Bray’s traction engines which dragged
the statue to the spot. Now was not this a sight to see! The twelfth
and nineteenth centuries thus linked together. To see Cceur de
Lion preceded by a locomotive! Bravo, Marochetti ! Bravo,
James Watt ! Science and Art go hand in hand. Slowly and majes-
tically they approach. A great scaffold has been prepared for hoisting
the Warrior King, and presently a stout mechanic leaps upon his
shoulder. Another is astride the horse’s head, and a dozen more are
at work below. For a few minutes the Liou heart has to submit to a
little indignity, and is bound with ropes and chains; at last the mass
begins to move; rises gently; swings in mid air; all! if I had designed
that noble aroup what would have been my feelings at that moment?
an unsteady hand, an unseen flaw—one slight defect in that ingenious
machinery, might have sent the whole seven tons of metal thundering
to the eart h, and the labour of years would have been lost. Dii avertite
casum! We hold our breaths while Richard sways to and fro. A
little pull that way towards the pedestal, and the danger is past.

“Unwind the ignoble hemp—strike off his chains—Richard’s
himself again. Yours faithfully,

“ Jack Easel.”

PUNCH’S BOOK OF BRITISH COSTUMES.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.—A SECOND SIGHT (WITHOUT CLAIR-
VOYANCE) AT THE LADIES OF THE 15th CENTURY.

ueerly quaint as were the
fashions in the first half of this
century, those which followed
them perhaps were even more
preposterous. This, although
of course it is distressing to
reflect upon, no doubt the
philosophic mind will be pre-
pared to hear. The highest
height of folly is not quickly
to be reached, any more than
is the lowest depth of base-
ness. The trite maxim that
“ nemo repent e fuit turpissi-
mus” is no less true in milli-
neries than it is in morals;
and when once an era of bad
taste begins, it is not in a
hurry that the worst may be
expected. Other parts of their
costume appear ridiculous
enough, but in looking at a
portrait of a lady of the period
which we have now to write
about, extending from the
reign of Edward the Fourth
to that of Richard the
Third, we cannot help first
smiling at the head-dress that
she wears, which, if not the
height of folly, certainly goes
far to reach it. Gigantic and
absurd as were the horned
and heart-shaped head-dresses
which we saw in our first look
at the ladies of this century,
they were not half so large and ludicrous as the high-crowned steeple-
caps, that came in fashion just before the death of Henry the Sixth.
These erections were constructed of cloth or other fabric, and were built
about as high as three of our men’s hats. They, however, had no
brims, and fitted closely to the head, gradually diminishing in width
towards the top. These sugarloafy structures (which the ladies very
likely regarded as “sweet things”) were worn at a slight angle in-
clining to the back, and were ornamented sometimes with a couple of
gauze flaps, which projected like the wings of a gigantic butterfly,
Either covering the cap or else fastened to its top, was a scarf or veil
of lawn that hung down to the heels, and for comfort’s sake in walking
was tucked under the arm. This scarf was somewhat similar to the
lirripipe or tippet, which still continued to be worn among the middle
classes ; who, as they could not afford to make themselves ridiculous

PROM A BFADTlFUr, WOOD-ENGRAVING OB' THE
TIME OF EDWARD THE FOURTH (VERY SCARCE.)

by wearing the high steeple-caps, did the best they could by coming
out in hoods made somewhat flattened to the head, aud at the sides
adorned with projections like apes’ ears. The monks of course objected
to these monkeyish appendages ; and one may fairly think that women
had more on their heads than in them when one finds them apeing the
appearance of an ape.

Tourists who in quest of finer weather than we have had in England
have taken a week’s scamper into Normandy this summer, may have
seen caps approaching to the size of these huge head-dresses ; and there
is little doubt, we think, that the fashiou was originally taken from the
French, for English ladies then were just as imitative creatures, it would
seem, as they are now. We have ample proof indeed that the mania
for these monstrosities raged with even greater fury in France than it
did here. Among other clinching evidence, Monstrelet relates a
highly edifying story of a “perambulating friar” by name Thomas
Conecte, who must have been the terror of the women of his time.
This perambulating preacher (who, for aught we know, may have
preached from a perambulator) started so determined a crusade against
high head-dresses in France that the ladies did not dare to wear them
in his presence.* Besides other brutalities, ‘ lie dyd excite ye smalle
boyes to pulle downe these monstrous headiflcies, so that \e maides 1
were forced to sheltere in some place of safetye, untyl their loveres or
their lacqueys did come to their assisttauce.” The sensitive mind
shrinks from picturing the scrimmages and scuffles that, took place,
and gallantry compels us to entertain a hope that the beadles now and
then had the whiphand of the boys. We however find that for a while
the holy father triumphed and made a bonfire of big head-dresses in
front of his alfresco pulpit. But, proceeds the chronicler:—

“ This reform lastedde not long; for like as snails when any one passeth by them
do drawe in their hornis, aud when daunger seems ouerdo put them forth againe.f so
these ladies, shortly after the preacher had quitted their conntrye, forgetful of his
doctrine aud abuse, begau to resume their former head-dresses, and wore them evea
higher than ever.”

It is difficult to decide whether the ladies of this era were great
church-goers or not, and whether if they were, they wore these steeple
caps lo signify the fact. If they did, it would have been but yet
another proof of the weakness of the sex.

“ A daw’s not reckoned a religious bird,

Because he keeps a cawing Irom a steeple

nor, we apprehend, could a lady well establish a character for
church-going, on the ground that she persisted in wearing st eeple-caps.
How they possibly contrived, in such Brobdinguaglike bonnets, to creep

* Addison, in the Spectator, speaks of the steeple head-dress as a “ Gothic build-
ing,” aud gives it as his opinion that the ladies would most probably have carried
it much higher but for the attacks of the friar Conecte. “ This holy man,” he says,

“ travelled from place to place to preach down these monstrous structures ; and
succeeded so well in it that, as the magicians sacrificed their books to the flames
upon the preaching of an apostle, many of tbe women threw down their head-
dresses in the middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of his
pulpit. He was so renowned that he had often a congregation of 20,000 people:
the men placing themselves on the one sioe of his pulpit, and the women ou the
other, that appeared like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouris.”

t It is not much of a compliment to compare ladies to snails ; but when they wore-
horned head-dresses, the simile was made so often that they must have grown quite
used to it. Endless was the playing by the punsters on these horns. One can
hardly read a line in the satires of the period without coming across such phrases as
“ they deem their horns a hornament,” or “ their horns they have exalted.”