Page:A View of the State of Ireland - 1809.djvu/131

 Eudox. Yes surely but it is: for mens apparell is commonly made according to their conditions, and their conditions are oftentimes governed by their garments: for the person that is gowned, is by his gowne put in minde of gravitie, and also restrained from lightnes, by the very unaptnesse of his weed. Therefore it is written by Aristotle, that when Cyrus had overcome the Lydians that were a warlike nation, and devised to bring them to a more peaceable life, hee changed their apparell and musick, and, in stead of their short warlike coat, cloathed them in long garments like women, and, in stead of their warlike musick, appointed to them certaine lascivious layes, and loose jiggs, by which in short space their mindes were so mollified and abated, that they forgot their former fiercenesse, and became most tender and effeminate; whereby it appeareth, that there is not a little in the garment to the fashioning of the minde and conditions. But be these, which you have described, the fashions of the Irish weedes?

Iren. No: all these which I have rehearsed to you, be not Irish garments, but English; for the quilted leather iack is old English: for it was the proper weed of the horseman, as you may read in Chaucer, when he describeth Sir Thopas apparell and armour, as hee went to fight against the gyant, in his robe of shecklaton, which is that kind of guilded leather with which they use to imbroyder their Irish iackets.