' He bids the gallant
make his way directly into the middle aisle, 'where, in view of all,
you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with
the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must
(as twere in anger)
suddenly
snatch at the middle of the inside (if
it be taffata at the least) and so by that meanes your costly lining
is betrayd,' etc.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
Nares, referring to Shirley's _Six New Playes_, 1653, says that
'the Theatre of Black-Friars was, in Charles I.'s time at least
considered, as being of a higher order and more respectability
than any of those on the Bank-side.'
=1. 6. 33 Rise vp between the Acts.= See note 3. 5. 43.
=1. 6. 33, 4 let fall my cloake,
Publish a handsome man, and a rich suite.= The gallants of this
age were inordinately fond of displaying their dress, or 'publishing
their suits.' The play-house and 'Paul's Walk,' the nave of St.
Paul's Cathedral, were favorite places for accomplishing this. The
fourth chapter of Dekker's _Guls Horne-booke_ is entitled 'How a
Gallant should behaue himselfe in Powles walkes.
' He bids the gallant
make his way directly into the middle aisle, 'where, in view of all,
you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with
the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must
(as twere in anger)
suddenly
snatch at the middle of the inside (if
it be taffata at the least) and so by that meanes your costly lining
is betrayd,' etc.
A little later on (_Non-dram. Wks._ 2. 238) Dekker
speaks of 'Powles, a Tennis-court, or a Playhouse' as a suitable
place to 'publish your clothes.' Cf. also _Non-dram. Wks._ 4. 51.
Sir Thomas Overbury gives the following description of 'a
Phantastique:' 'He withers his clothes on a stage as a salesman is
forced to do his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if
you mark his rising, 'tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the
two candles, to know if his suit may pass for current.' Morley, p. 73.
Stephen Gosson (_School of Abuse_, p. 29) says that 'overlashing
in apparel is so common a fault, that the verye hyerlings of
some of our plaiers, which stand at reversion of vi^s by
the weeke, jet under gentlemens noses in sutes of silke.'