CHAPTER I
APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS
“Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes
Which now would render men like upright apes
Was comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought”
—“New England’s Crisis,” BENJAMIN TOMPSON, 1675.
“I am neither Niggard nor Cynic to the due Bravery of the true Gentry.”
—“The simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713.
“Never was it happier in England than when an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth; and contented himself at home with his fine russet carsey hosen, and a warm slop; his coat, gown, and cloak of brown, blue or putre, with some pretty furnishings of velvet or fur, and a doublet of sad-tawnie or black velvet or comely silk, without such cuts and gawrish colours as are worn in these dayes by those who think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of jagges and changes of colours.”
—“Chronicles,” HOLINSHED, 1578.