[35]In the early times of the English History, dress had been frequently
restricted by the government.--Persons of a certain rank and fortune
were permitted to wear only cloathing of a certain kind. But these
restrictions and distinctions were gradually broken down, and people, as
they were able and willing, launched out into unlimited extravagance in
their dress. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and down from thence
to the time when the Quakers first appeared, were periods, particularly
noticed for prodigality in the use of apparel, there was nothing too
expensive or too preposterous to be worn. Our ancestors also, to use an
ancient quotation, "were never constant to one colour or fashion two
months to an end." We can have no idea by the present generation, of the
folly in such respects, of these early ages. But these follies were not
confined to the laiety. Affectation of parade, and gaudy cloathing, were
admitted among many of the clergy, who incurred the severest invectives
of the poets on that account. The ploughman, in Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales, is full upon this point. He gives us the following description of
a Priest
"That hye on horse wylleth to ride,
In glytter ande gold of great araye,
'I painted and pertred all in pryde,
No common Knyght may go so gaye;
Chaunge of clothyng every daye,
With golden gyrdles great and small,
As boysterous as is here at baye;
All suche falshed mote nede fell.
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