their ribald passages, enjoy abundant opportunities of gratifying their tastes elsewhere, and have no occasion to seek recourse to Elizabethan lampoons.

A long extract from Pleasant Quippes is given by Brydges in his Restituta, iii. 256-7. Prefixed to the Pleasant Historie of the West India, translated by T. Nicholas, 1578, 4to, are six English stanzas and twelve hexameters and pentameters in Latin, by S. Gosson. Some commendatory verses signed S. G[osson?] are prefixed to Drayton's Endimion and Phœbe (1594), 4to.

Gosson has also verses before Florio's Firste Frutes, 1578, and Kerton's Mirror of Man's Life, 1580. The latter consist of a Poem, entitled "Speculum Humanum," in six eleven-line

stanzas.

In the Registers of the Stationers' Company, it is entered to the publisher in the following terms:

"[xvijo Januarij, 1594-5.] Richard Jones. Entred for his copie . . . . a booke entituled A glasse for vayneglorious Women, conteyninge an envectyve againste the fantasticall devices in Womens apparell

vjd

The annexed representation of the original title-page is taken from that issued in 1841, which itself was a facsimile of a presentation copy of the edition of 1596, with Gosson's autograph inscription upon it.

A Pleasant Invective against the Fantastical Forreigne Toy esdayly used in Womens apparel.

HESE fashions fonde of countrey strange
Which English heads so much delight,
Through towne and countrie which do

And are imbrac'd of every wight,

So much I woonder still to see,

That nought so much amazeth me.

If they by painters cunning skill

Were prickt on walles to make them gaye;
If glasse in windowes they did fill,
Or trimd-up puppets, childrens play,

I would repute them antickes olde;
They should for me go uncontrolde.

If they on stage in stately sort
Might set to please the idle[r]s eie;

range,

10

If Maie-game mates1 for summer sport
By them in daunce disguisde might be,
They would not then deserve such blame,
Nor worke the wearers half the shame.

But when as men of lore and wit

And guiders of the weaker kinde,

Doe judge them for their mate[s] so fit,
That nothing more can please their mind,
I know not what to say to this;
But sure I know it is amisse.

And when sage parents breede in childe
The greedy lust of hellish toyes,
Whereby in manners they growe wilde,
And lose the blisse of lasting joyes,
I pittie much to see the case,

That we thus faile of better grace.

And when proud princoks,3 rascals bratte,
In fashion will be princes mate;

And

everye Gill that keepes a catte

In rayment will be like a state:

1 So ed. 1595. Ed. of 1596 reads matels.

2 Old eds. have or.

20

30

Coxcombs, upstart simpletons. So in Newe Custome,

1573:

"Perverse Doctrine. Thinkest thou I have no logique,
indeede thinkest thou soe?

Yes, princockes, that I have."

The word is not common. Mr. Halliwell (Archaic Dictionary, art. PRINCOCK) gives princox and princy-cock as other forms of the same expression.