Page:Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets.djvu/242

222 shop nor the Merchants warehouse: Adams bill would haue beene taken then, sooner then a Knights bond now; yet was hee great in no bodies bookes for satten and veluets: the silkwormes had something else to do in those dayes, then to set vp loomes, and be free of the weauers: his breeches were not so much worth as K. Stephens, that cost but a poore noble: for Adams holyday hose and doublet were of no better stuffe then plaine fig-leaues, and Eues best gowne of the same peece: there went but a paire of sheeres betweene them. An Antiquary in this towne, has yet some of the powder of those leaues dryed to shew. Taylors then were none of the twelue Companies: their Hall, that now is larger then some Dorpes among the Netherlands, was then no bigger then a Dutch Butchers shop: they durst not strike downe their customers with large billes: Adam cared not an apple-paring for all their lousy hems. There was then neither the Spanish slop, nor the Skippers galligaskin: the Switzers blistred Cod-piece, nor the Danish sleeue sagging / down like a Welch wallet, the Italians close strosser, nor the French standing coller: your trebble-quadruple Dædalian ruffes, nor your stiffenecked rebatoes (that haue more arches for pride to row vnder, then can stand vnder fiue London Bridges) durst not then set themselues out in print: for the patent for starch could by no meanes be signd. Fashions then was counted a disease, and