Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/170

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164


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. FEB. 20. wie.


at Wickham Courb ; the progress of Queen Elizabeth to Blackfriars, 1601, at Sherborne ; and the portrait of Essex, c. 1594, at Woburn. Richly decorated specimens appear in portraits of Sir Jerome Bowes, 1583, at Charlton Park, nsar Malmesbury ; of Sir C. Hatton at Ditchley, c. 1580; of the Earl of Essex, 1594, penes Lord Verulam ; and of Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, 1594, penes H. Harris, Bedford Square, W. The slashed variety is exemplified by Hilliard's miniature of Si/C. Hatton, 1577, at South Kensington (Salting Bequest), and Lord Dillon's three- quarter portrait of Sir H. Lee, by M. Ghee- rardts, at Ditchley, c. 1595.

Something analogous, if not identical, would seem to be implied by the terms scalings, skabilonians, scavilones, &c. Note how, like the canions, they seem regularly associated with breeches of the trunk-hose type.

A MS. letter at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, dated 1570, censures Nicolls and Browne, " regents," for affecting " great galligaskins, and barrelled hooes stuffed with horse tayles, with skabilonians and knitt netherstocks."

1577. ' Eccl. Proc. of Bp. Barnes ' (Surtees), . " Great britches, gascoigne hose, scalings, and other like monstrous and vnsemely apparell."

1577. 'Art. Enq.' in J. Raine, 'Vestments,' &c. (1866), "Great bumbasted breches, slcalinges, or scabulonious[?]clokes or gownes after the laie fashion."*

1598. A list of stage dresses in the hand of Edward Alleyn, printed in W. W. Greg's

  • Henslowe Papers,' gives under the heading

of " frenchose " the following entries :

" Blew velvett emb d with gould paynes, blew sattin scalin."

" gould payns with black stript scalings of canish."

" red payns for a boy w* yelo scalins."

" silver payns lact w* carnation salins lact over w* silver."

A plate in Pluvinel's ' Manege Royal,' 1624, representing the habit a la Pluvinel, shows a pair of paned trunks (chausses a bandes), with canions (or scalings) attached.

Later about the middle of the seventeenth century we seem to have adopted the French form canons. But the word now applies to a variety of adjuncts to costume. The dictionaries of Richelet (1680) and

  • I have not been able to verify the original

text, but feel tempted to conjecture that' we have here an incorrect transcription, and that it should read : " ... .bumbasted breches, skalinges or scabulonions, clokes or gowns...."


Furetiere (1690) comprehensively define these newer canons.*

The terms now signify (1) A "boot hose top," i.e., a footless overstocking drawn up over the knee.

(2) The wide-spreading top of a long stocking, either drawn up and secured by "points" over the breeches, or allowed to droop loosely over the garter.

(3) A pendant, detachable frill or flounce (of lace, linen, silk, &c.) below the knee. (This I take to be the " port-cannons " alluded to by Butler.)

(4) A full, gathered trimming round the breeches' knees, somewhat like a stocking- top.

For descriptive allusions see the curious tract entitled ' Les Lois de la Galanterie Franoise ' (1644),| the ' Journal d'un Voyage a Paris ' (entry under April, 1658), Moliere's ' Precieuses Ridicules' (1659), ' L'Ecole des Maris ' (1666), &c. Illustrations of all of these are plentiful in contemporary prints and in the earlier fashion plates of the Mercure Galant. F. M. KELLY.


ENGLISH BOOKS REPRINTED ABROAD. Some interesting details as to the practice of reprinting English books abroad may be found in the Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1802 to consider the effect of the high duty on paper. Mr. Robert Faulder, "bookseller, stated that the high price of books printed in England had induced booksellers abroad to reprint editions of the English classics, instead of importing them, as formerly, from England ; and, having mentioned a press so to be set at work in Switzerland, he further instanced an application made to him by an agent from Paris for a copy of each edition of Thomson's ' Seasons,' with a view to re-


  • French literature is fairly rich in illuminating

references to the later forms of canons. By Furetiere 's time they were virtually a mere memory, except in a sense (clearly descended from the original type of canions) used, says Furetiere, by tailors to indicate " ....les deux tuyaux de chausses, ou Ton met les cuisses." Elsewhere (s.v. chausses) he expresses the same idea thus : " ... .les canons de chausses sont les deux costez par ou on passe les jambes."

t The passage relative to canons may be found quoted in Quicherat's treatise, or in Livet's ' Lexique ' (s.v.- canons), which has a number of other quotations from seventeenth-century writers re these articles.

J Also the quaint description of Mascarille's attire in Mile. Desjardins's ' Becit de la Farce des Precieuses ' (1659).