-but he saw no reason why ordinary women should adopt the custom:

Howbeit they been of high estate,

The Queen they should nocht counterfeit.
Wherever they go it may be seen

How kirk and causay they soof [sweep] clean.

The images into the kirk

May think of their side taillis irk [annoyance];

For when the weather been maist fair,

The dust flies highest in the air,

And all their faces does begarie [smear].

Gif they could speak, they wald them warie [curse]. . . .
But I have maist into depite

Poor claggocks [draggletails] clad in raplock white,
Whilk has scant twa merks for their fees,

Will have twa ells beneath their knees.
Kittock that cleckit [hatched] was yestreen,
The morn, will counterfeit the queen:
And Moorland Meg, that milked the yowes,
Claggit with clay aboon the hows,
In barn nor byre she will not bide
Without her kirtle-tail be syde.
In burghs, wanton burgess wives,
Wha may have sydest tailis strives,
Weel borderèd with velvet fine,

But followand them it is ane pyne :
In summer, when the streetis dries,
They raise the dust aboon the skies.
Nane may gae near them at their ease,
Without they cover mouth and neeze.
I think maist pane after ane rain,

To see them tuckit up again;

Then, when they step furth through the street,

Their fauldings flaps about their feet;

They waste mair claith, within few years,

Nor wald clad fifty score of freirs.*

Curiously enough, we find Sir Richard Maitland, who Lindsay's works were collected in 1568.

died thirty-one years after Sir David Lyndsay, emulating his predecessor in his attacks upon the extravagance of his feminine contemporaries. One of his most successful efforts is his Satire on the Town Ladies of his time, from which the following stanzas are extracted:

Some wifis of the borrowstoun

Sae wonder vain are, and wantoun,

In warld they wait [wot] not what to weir:
On claithis they ware [spend] mony a croun;
And all for newfangleness of geir [attire].

And of fine silk his furril clokis,
With hingan sleeves, like geil pokis;
Nae preaching will gar them forbeir,
To weir all thing that sin provokis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.
Sometime they will beir up their gown,
To show their wilicoat [petticoat] hingan down;
And sometime baith they will upbeir,
To show their hose of black or brown;
And all for newfangleness of geir..

Their shoon of velvet, and their muilis!
In kirk they are not content of stuilis,
The sermon when they sit to heir,
But carries cusheons like vain fulis;
And all for newfangleness of geir.

CHAPTER II.

Raleigh

SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

Poetry mostly merged in drama-Wit and humour chiefly seen in prose-William Shakespeare- Love's Labour's Lost' Edward Spenser-Prosopopoia' - Sir John Haryngton-Epigrams- A Precise Tailor'-Sir Walter The Lie'-Epitaph-Nicholas Breton-Farewell to Town'-Michael Drayton-Nymphidia'William Drummond- Polemo - Middina'-Epigrams'The Old and Young Courtier'-The Humours' of the Time-Thomas Nash-Thomas Marston- What You Will' Ben Jonson-Epigrams-Thomas Heywood"The Nations'-Philip Massinger-The City Madam' James Shirley 'The Changes'-Elizabethan Comedy.'