And as the French, we conquer'd once,
Now give us laws for pantaloons,
The length of breeches, and the gathers,925
Port-cannons, perriwigs, and feathers,[1]
Just so the proud, insulting lass
Array'd and dighted Hudibras.[2]
Meanwhile the other champions, yerst[3]
In hurry of the fight disperst,930
Arriv'd, when Trulla 'd won the day,
To share in th' honour and the prey,
And out of Hudibras his hide,
With vengeance to be satisfy'd;
Which now they were about to pour 935
Upon him in a wooden show'r:
But Trulla thrust herself between,
And striding o'er his back agen,
She brandish'd o'er her head his sword
And vow'd they should not break her word;940
Sh' had given him quarter, and her blood,
Or theirs, should make that quarter good.
For she was bound, by law of arms,
To see him safe from further harms.
In dungeon deep Crowdero cast 945
By Hudibras, as yet lay fast,
Where to the hard and ruthless stones,
His great heart made perpetual moans;
- ↑ We seem at no time to have been averse to the French fashions, but they were quite the rage after the Restoration. Pantaloons were then a kind of loose breeches, commonly made of silk, and puffed, which covered the legs, thighs, and part of the body. They are represented in some of Vandyke's pictures. Port-cannons were streamers of ribands which hung from the knees of the short breeches; they had grown to such excess in France, that Molière was thought to have done good service by laughing them out of fashion. Perriwigs were brought from France in the reign of Elizabeth, but were not much used till after the Restoration. At first they were of various colours, to suit the complexion, and of immense size in large flowing curls, as we see on monuments in Westminster Abbey and in old portraits. Lord Bolingbroke is said to be the first who tied them up in knots; which was esteemed so great an undress, that when his lordship first went to court in a wig of this fashion Queen Anne was offended, and said to those about her, "This man will come to me next court-day in his night-cap."
- ↑ Dighted, from the Anglo-Saxon dihtan, to dress, fit out.
- ↑ Yerst, or erst, means first.
