Mr. Furnivall quotes a description of a costume of the period, from the manuscript of Orazio Busino’s “Anglipotrida.”  Busino was the chaplain of Piero Contarina, the Venetian ambassador to James I, in 1617.  The chaplain was one day stunned with grief over the death of the butler of the embassy; and as the Italians sleep away grief, the French sing, the Germans drink, and the English go to plays to be rid of it, the Venetians, by advice, sought consolation at the Fortune Theatre; and there a trick was played upon old Busino, by placing him among a bevy of young women, while the concealed ambassador and the secretary enjoyed the joke.  “These theatres,” says Busino, “are frequented by a number of respectable and handsome ladies, who come freely and seat themselves among the men without the slightest hesitation . . . .  Scarcely was I seated ere a very elegant dame, but in a mask, came and placed herself beside me . . . .  She asked me for my address both in French and English; and, on my turning a deaf ear, she determined to honor me by showing me some fine diamonds on her fingers, repeatedly taking off no fewer than three gloves, which were worn one over the other . . . .  This lady’s bodice was of yellow satin, richly embroidered, her petticoat—­[It is a trifle in human progress, perhaps scarcely worth noting, that the “round gown,” that is, an entire skirt, not open in front and parting to show the under petticoat, did not come into fashion till near the close of the eighteenth century.]—­of gold tissue with stripes, her robe of red velvet with a raised pile, lined with yellow muslin with broad stripes of pure gold.  She wore an apron of point lace of various patterns; her headtire was highly perfumed, and the collar of white satin beneath the delicately wrought ruff struck me as exceedingly pretty.”  It was quite in keeping with the manners of the day for a lady of rank to have lent herself to this hoax of the chaplain.

Van Meteren, a Netherlander, 1575, speaks also of the astonishing change or changeableness in English fashions, but says the women are well dressed and modest, and they go about the streets without any covering of mantle, hood, or veil; only the married women wear a hat in the street and in the house; the unmarried go without a hat; but ladies of distinction have lately learned to cover their faces with silken masks or vizards, and to wear feathers.  The English, he notes, change their fashions every year, and when they go abroad riding or traveling they don their best clothes, contrary to the practice of other nations.  Another foreigner, Jacob Rathgeb, 1592, says the English go dressed in exceeding fine clothes, and some will even wear velvet in the street, when they have not at home perhaps a piece of dry bread.  “The lords and pages of the royal court have a stately, noble air, but dress more after the French fashion, only they wear short cloaks and sometimes Spanish caps.”