Complete. From the “Holy State.”
CLOTHES are for necessity; warm clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificence. Now there may be a fault in their number, if too various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the wearer, if he take pride therein. We come, therefore, to some general directions.
It is chargeable vanity to be constantly clothed above one’s purse or place. I say constantly, for perchance sometimes it may be dispensed with. A great man, who himself was very plain in apparel, checked a gentleman for being overfine; who modestly answered, “Your lordship hath better clothes at home, and I have worse.” But, sure, no plea can be made when this luxury is grown to be ordinary. It was an arrogant act of Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, when King John had given his courtiers rich liveries, to ape the lion, gave his servants the like, wherewith the king was not a little offended. But what shall we say to the riot of our age, wherein (as peacocks are more gay than the eagle himself) subjects are grown braver than their sovereign?
’Tis beneath a wise man always to wear clothes beneath men of his rank. True, there is a state sometimes in decent plainness. When a wealthy lord at a great solemnity had the plainest apparel, “Oh!” said one, “if you had marked it well, his suit had the richest pockets.” Yet it argues no wisdom in clothes, always to stoop beneath his condition. When Antisthenes saw Socrates in a torn coat, he showed a hole thereof to the people. “And lo!” quoth he, “through this I see his pride.”
He shows a light gravity who loves to be an exception from a general fashion. For the received custom in the place where we live is the most competent judge of decency; from which we must not appeal to our own opinion. When the French courtiers, mourning for their king, Henry II., had worn cloth a whole year, all silks became so vile in every man’s eyes, that, if any were seen to wear them, he was presently accounted a mechanic or country fellow.
It is folly for one, Proteus-like, never to appear twice in one shape. Had some of our gallants been with the Israelites in the wilderness, when for forty years their clothes waxed not old, they would have been vexed, though their clothes were whole, to have been so long in one fashion. Yet here I must confess I understand not what is reported of Fulgentius, that he used the same garment winter and summer, and never altered his clothes, etiam in sacris peragendis.
He that is proud of the rustlings of his silks, like a madman, laughs at the rattling of his fetters. For, indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of what’s but borrowed? Should the ostrich snatch off the gallant’s feather, the beaver his hat, the goat his gloves, the sheep his suit, the silkworm his stockings, and neat his shoes (to strip him no further than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold condition. And yet it is more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly rags, than (as many are) of affected slovenness. The one is proud of a molehill, the other of a dunghill.
To conclude, sumptuary laws in this land to reduce apparel to a set standard of price and fashion, according to the several states of men, have long been wished, but are little to be hoped for. Some think private men’s superfluity is a necessary evil in a state; the floating of fashions affording a standing maintenance to many thousands which otherwise would be at a loss for a livelihood,—men maintaining more by their pride than by their charity.
