speaking of Laertes engaged in agricultural pur- | nience' sake. Walpole, in his pleasant anecdotes suits, describes

"On his hands mittens, lest they should grow red."

It is possible that these gloves, like those of the Greek archers, were fingerless, and intended solely for the protection of the hand, and not, as they afterwards became, for ornament also. With us, the etymology of the word, which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon phrase (glof) a cover for the hands, is a sufficient proof of the antiquity of their use in England, though Strutt supposes them to have found their way to us from the continent, and does not think they were known amongst us before the close of the tenth century; and in proof of their uncommonness even then, refers to a law of Ethelred II., in which five pairs of gloves make a considerable portion of the duty paid to that prince by a society of German merchants for the pro

tection of their trade.

But the gloves worn as part of the regal and pontifical dress were of a very different manufacture from those made use of simply as a defence from cold or in laborious occupations; and it is probable that " harvest gloves" were common, when embroidered ones were rare,

even at court.

In the thirteenth century they were adopted by the nobility, who wore them richly worked, and reaching to the elbows; but as they hid the rings, they were not popular with ladies, whose long hanging sleeves, while they served for mittens, and concealed the hands, could also reveal them when desired. And in all likelihood, hawking first rendered the glove a necessary adjunct of female dress. In the reign of Charles V. of France, these articles were worn with high tops, or wristbands, and were ornamented with embroidered dots of gold and sil

ver.

of painting, tells us that the prelate Kemp, Archbishop of York, and afterwards of Canterbury, wears thin yellow gloves, which are well represented.

before observed, accounts for many usages in The practice of investiture by gloves, as we connection with them, and was perhaps the origin of presenting them to sovereigns and great men on the occasion of their coronations and entrances into certain towns and cities. On Elizabeth's visit to Cambridge, in 1564, the secretary, Sir W. Cecyl, presented her, in the bridge gloves, edged and trimmed with two name of the University, with four pairs of Camlaces of fine gold. And at Oxford, in 1566, she received six very fine pairs. But the most magnificent of these presentation gloves on record in 1578, through their high chancellor-perwere those which the Cambridge men offered her fumed gloves (she had learned to relish no others since Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, on returning from his travels, had presented her with a pair of the odorous ones worn in Italy),

"Gloves as sweet as damask roses,'
17 *

garnished with embroidery and goldsmith's
work, and with some verses attached to them;
they were valued, says the chronicler, at sixty
shillings. Speaking of the verses reminds us
that on this very occasion the chancellor
suggested that it would be well to provide some
gloves, with a few verses on a paper joined to
them, to be presented to the Lord Chamberlain
and Lord Oxford; and added, that if Mr. Vice-
Chamberlain (Hatton) might have a pair (he
being a lover of all learned men), it should do
well to conciliate his good will.

On other occasions we find certain corporations offering gloves to this queen monarch in We have no means of discovering the her progresses; and sometimes their contents fashion of those, in which Mathew Paris tells added not a little to their value. Thus at Kingus Henry II. kept cold state in his tomb at ston-on-Thames, which she passed through on Fontevraud; perhaps they were white, like those her way from Richmond, Oct. 20, 1561, she which Chaucer describes in the Knight's tale-received a pair of gloves, cost 40 shillings, and a gift of £4 6s.

"Upon his hondes were his glovès white,”

or made of linen, like those of the Saxon priests in the 11th century. At any rate, the mention of them is interesting, as showing the antiquity of the custom which Misson alludes to in his description of funeral usages in England, of covering the hands of the corpse with gloves.

From a very early period, the clergy appear to have made use of gloves, in order to the more reverend approach to the altar, and the handling of the sacred elements; those worn as part of the pontifical dress were richly decorated with precious stones. The Catholic prelates continue to wear jewelled gloves, those of the Protestant church wear white ones; and clergymen ordinarily officiate in lavender or black ones. The black gloves of medical men and lawyers are likewise a relic of those times, when these articles were worn as distinguishing marks of certain functions, rather than for comfort or conve

The custom of presenting the sovereign with gloves, on the occasion of visiting the univer sities, is still continued; and at Trinity College, Cambridge, the judges, who are lodged in the royal apartments, are likewise given them.

of

The nobility in Elizabeth's time, like my Lord Burleigh, had their arms emblazoned on their gloves; and the description of many those presented by her attendants and courtiers to this royal lady, accounts for the value in which they were held, and the uncommonness of their use. In the catalogue of new year's gifts to her majesty in 1577-8, we find-" Item by the Lady Mary Gray, 2 peir of swete gloves, with fower dozen buttons of golde in every a sede pearle ;" and again, "By the Lady Mary Sidney, 1 peir of perfumed gloves, with twentyfour small buttons of golde, in every of them a diamond!"

* Shakspere.

In 1600, perfumed gloves appear to have poured in from the gentlemen, no less than 15 pairs being delivered to Mrs. Hide for the queen's use. But in spite of the gold and sede pearle lavished on most of them, her majesty appears to have retained a preference for those presented to her by the Earl of Oxford, which were ornamented with tufts of rose-coloured silk, and generally sat for her portrait in them. In fact, these articles accumulated so fast, as to originate a new functionary at court; and the famous Dr. Dee was nominated Keeper of Gloves. His account of the transaction is so quaint, that we cannot abstain from quoting it. The queen has paused in her approach to his house at Mortlake, and having espied him at his door, making reverent and dutiful obeisances to her he continues" her majesty with her hand beckoned me to come to her, and I came to her coach side; her majesty then very speedily pulled off her glove, and gave me her hand to kiss; and to be short, her majesty willed me the keeper of gloves to her court, and by some of the privy chamber to give her to wear when I am there."

In Shakspere's time they appear to have been greatly in request as love-gifts. The clown purchases for Mopsa, in the "Winter's Tale," certain ribands and gloves of the rogue Autolycus. And in "Love's Labour's Lost," the Princess inquires of Katherine—

"But what was sent to you from fair Dumain?"

"Kate. Madam, this glove."

"Prin. Did he not send you twain ?" "Kate. Yes, madam."

gymen at weddings; and in Arnold's Chronicle (1521), one of the articles into which inquiry was to be made, in the visitations and ordynaryes of chyrches, was, "whether the curate refuse to do the solemnysacyon of matrymony before he have gifte of money, hoses, or gloves?" And a writer in the " Encyclopædia Metropolitana " observes, that he remembers at the nuptials of two parties of distinguished rank, to have seen a pair, richly fringed, presented to the bishop who officiated.

Gloves bore the symbolism before referred to, when given as tokens of betrothal, just as rings and pictures have done since. And it is supposed that the custom of presenting them at weddings originated from the old usage at bridals, when the bride-boys, who amongst moderns had displaced the paranymphs of the Jews, were given gloves by the bride, as a compliment for their attention on her.

It is singular that the same observance should obtain at funerals, where gloves are still given away to the friends and followers of the deceased. As substitutes for the hand, do they embody the sentiment of the last act of friendship?

In Wales, in the towns and villages, at the Peak in Derbyshire, and formerly in Ireland, it was the custom to deck with white gloves, cut out of paper, the graves of young unmarried persons, or to hang them over the seat which they had occupied in church; and we remember, some years since, to have seen in the pretty church of Milton, near Sittingbourne, in Kent, a pair tarnished and soiled with time, hanging And by reference to the passage previously above the place some dear one had vacated. quoted, scented gloves were in request on these "In an 66 Argus" of 1790, under the head of occasions. Katherine de Medici of France is Dublin, July 31, it is recorded, "Yesterday said to have used, for fatal purposes, this pretty being St. James's Day, the votaries of St. James fashion, and with the same cruel subtlety that Churchyard attended in considerable crowds at converted a nosegay of fresh flowers into a the shrine of their departed friends, and paid death-draught for her son, to have made these their usual tribute of paper gloves and garlands graceful gifts the medium of her vengeance, by of flowers on their graves." And every visitor poisoning those who wore them. It was during to our minsters and abbey churches must have the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in 1556, that the frequently noticed the gauntlets mouldering by London Glovers' Company became incorpo- the rusted helmet above the effigies of buried rated, (they have their hall in Beech Lane); but knighthood-those of Edward the Black Prince the ordinary of the Glovers' Society of New-drop to dust beside his surcoat over his tomb in castle is dated January 20, 1436, and enjoined Canterbury Cathedral. them to go together in procession at the feast of Corpus Christi, in a livery, and play a play at their own charge.

The oldest relics of this craft extant, are the gloves given by Henry VIII. to Sir Anthony Denny; a pair presented to his son's wife by Queen Elizabeth; and those given by James I. to his son, Sir Edward Denny.

Gloves were formerly presented to the cler

In 1572, upon the occasion of the King of Navarre's marriage with the French king's sister, many of the principal Protestants were invited to

Paris under a solemn oath of safety, viz., the King of Navarre's mother, Admiral Coligni, and other

nobles.

The Queen Dowager of Navarre, a zealous Protestant, was poisoned by a pair of gloves before the marriage was solemnized.

This placing of gloves and gauntlets above the graves of those who wore them reminds us of the ceremony still used at military obsequies, when the empty gloves are laid upon the coffin; and this again of the Roman custom of bearing the casque and gauntlets in their ancient marches of ceremony.

One of the most interesting occasions on which gloves figure at present, is that of their presentation to the judges, when no capital convictions take place at the assizes.

Formerly judges were not allowed to appear on the bench with gloves on--a prohibition so singular, that except upon the supposition that bribes might be concealed in them, we know not how to account for it.

That the glove was in ancient days occasionally made a receptacle for money we have many

Ꮓ

proofs; but a recent circumstance which occurred | mained in its place, with a written challenge; in the presence of a friend, and shows us how and the Jacobites aver that it was thrown by the old customs are still mixed up and leavened Pretender himself, who they say witnessed the with modern practices, appears too germane to ceremony in the disguise of a woman. Sir W. our subject to be passed over. Scott has introduced the incident in his novel of Redgauntlet.

A falconer of a certain duke was throwing up his birds at the Devil's Dyke, Brighton, when our friend and a companion approached; the novelty of the proceeding interested them, and they inquired of the man what he would charge on the following day for a similar exhibition. The falconer informed them that he made no charge, but added that if the gentlemen chose to bring some friends with them he would fly the birds and send round the glove.

Formerly a local custom existed at rustic weddings, of collecting a little fund amongst | the visitors for the benefit of the bride and bridegroom, and these contributions were placed in a glove decorated with white ribbon, and laid on the table to receive them.

Money, called glove money, was customarily given to servants, and barristers on circuit; and justices of the peace, when called over in court by the judges, continue to give it to the officers of the court.

Clavell, the highwayman, who, upon receiving the King's pardon, wrote his "Recantation of | an Ill-led Life," makes it appear that the gloves formerly presented to the judges when no prisoner was capitally convicted were given, not as now, by the sheriffs, but by such prisoners as received pardon after condemnation :"Those pardoned men who taste their prince's loves (As married to new life) do give him gloves." Might not this gift be significant of their engaging to keep the laws in future, and in this case also stand for the hand itself, which, when a man gives on any agreement, intimates that he will not deceive, but stand to it?

It is in this sense that we must regard the custom of sending or dropping the glove as the signal of a challenge; people could not well shake hands upon such an arrangement, for palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss;" so the vacant glove, and in knightly times the gauntlet, expressed the challenge and its confirmation. The old custom (only in late years exploded) of the Royal Champion riding into Westminster Hall at the Coronation feast, is too well known to need repetition, save as it bears upon the subject of our paper.

Nicolls tells us, that at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, whilst her grace sat at dinner in the hall, Sir Edward Dimmocke, knight, in his championly oflice, came riding into the Hall in faire complete armour, mounted upon a beautiful courser richly trapped in cloth of gold, and in the midst there cast down his gauntlet with offer to fight with him in her quarrel that should deny her to be the righteous and lawful queen of the realm. At the coronation of George the Third, it is averred by more than one eye witness, that when the herald proclaimed the challenge, and the champion threw down his gage, the gauntlet disappeared, and a white glove re

Before the art of weaving them was known, gloves were sometimes made of velvet, tiffany, and satin, as well as of various kinds of leather; at present the skins generally made use of are chamois, kid, lamb, doe, dog, beaver, elk, and buff. Yeovil, in Somersetshire, is famous for their manufacture, as are Worcester and Woodstock; the latter for driving gloves. Of late years the silk gloves of Derby have been much in request, and manufactories of thread, cotton, worsted, and other woollen gloves, have sprung up; but for dress kid have always been most approved.

There was formerly a proverb, that for a glove to be well made, it must be the joint production of three nations; the leather must have been dressed in Spain, the glove cut in France, and sewn in England: but to the cost of English glovers as well as ladies, France has of late years so perfected the art that at present they are as superior in point of dressing and sewing as in cutting.*

In 1840 the leather gloves imported for home consumption amounted to 1,503,862 pairs, and yet our home trade supports a vast number of men, women, and children, who are employed in their manufacture, the cutting out, sewing, binding, setting on the buttons, lining, and trimming, in large manufactories-like that of Dent's at Worcester-affording as many dif ferent branches of occupation. An instrument for glove-making has been invented, which enables the sewer to effect the utmost accuracy in this process. It was the production of an Englishman, and has realised a handsome fortune for its proprietor, being most extensively used in Paris.

Of all the gloves which we have been gossiping about, white ones are those to which most interest attaches: in the purity of these the priest approached the altar, and the bride exchanged her vows with her betrothed: they lay upon the graves of the youthful, and were the offerings of wrongly accused innocence, or forgiven guilt; and they were also evidences of affection, and the gentle gage of faith.

White gloves were much worn by ladies in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, and long previously, for Shakspere, in " Love's Labour's Lost," alludes to them :

"By this white glove-how white the hand God knows ;"

an expression that reminds us that the luxury of wearing gloves soon induced a desire to make them subservient to the beauty of the hand: and they were medicated, and waxed, and made of various materials to insure whiteness to the

*The Parisians have lately manufactured and introduced ladies' gloves made of rat skin!

delicate member they covered. Dogskin gloves were much worn for this purpose, and Sir Kenelm Digby, who, curious in cosmetic effects, is said to have dieted his wife with vipers' broth, for the purpose of beautifying her complexion, in his treatise on natural antipathies, remarks, "We daily see dogs which have an aversion from glovers that make their ware of dog-skins." Henri III. of France indulged in gloves at night for the purpose of rendering his hands more fair, a practice which a modern poet (Lord Byron) is said to have been also addicted to; But Henri likewise had his face covered with a cloth dipped in essences to improve his complexion during the same period, though he painted over it in the day. According to Evelyn, who wrote a poem on the vanities of ladies' dress in the time of Charles the Second, it was customary to wear gloves of chicken-skin by night

"To keep their hands soft, plump, and white." There is a mystery about these chicken-skin gloves which we cannot solve; we can scarcely understand the term literally, though it is set down that Limerick is famous for the manufacture of a kind of ladies' gloves called chicken gloves. Do those delicate bipeds, redolent of spring and asparagus, do they really render their fine cuticula for such a purpose? Are there tanners who deal in such investures, and farm-yards prolific enough to find the raw

Perfumed gloves were still to be found on the counters of Exeter Change when Pepys, in the security of his Bramah-lock cypher, confided to the pages of his diary his purchases of them for the charming Knipp.

Talking of scented gloves reminds us of the celebrated "Gaunti de Frangipini," a perfume so called after the inventor, the last of the Roman house of Frangipini, a Maréchal of France in the reign of Louis XIII., and because it was in the first instance applied especially to gloves. In many old family receipt books we have found various directions for scenting them, proving that perfumes were as essential to these articles then as studds are now; and by the way, though precious stones and goldsmith's work no longer dazzle the beholder from observing the symmetry of the hand beneath this heaviness of ornament, we have seen these appendages at the wrist of a plain white glove, sparkling from one side of the Opera House to the other, while with less good taste, and infinitely more effemiLondon salesmen can tell us nothing of the nacy of affectation, the finger of a gentleman matter, and the Encyclopædiaists say no more has produced as brilliant an effect from the cirthan we have quoted, and thus for aught we cumstance of his wearing his ring outside his know to the contrary, those beautiful gloves, glove, a vanity which a certain celebrated leader with their peculiar dye and elegant texture, of fashion, before he learned to feel the manlipacked in walnut shells fastened with satin rib-ness of his own genius, is said to have indulged bon, may have originally covered the bosoms of in even when driving and riding in the park. innocent birds. We say may, conscious that it is better to plead ignorance than to affect a knowledge to lead others astray.

material?

Though the fashion of gloves from necessity can never suffer from such eccentric caprices as other articles of dress, we found them in the thirteenth century reaching to the elbow, while at present they come no further than the wrist; in our mother's time it was thought graceful to let them wrinkle on the arm; in our own the three-quarter gloves have buttoned tight upon it. Sometimes an attempt has been made to introduce again embroidery on them, and silk mittens but a few years back were worn in dress elegantly ornamented with patterns wrought in gold. We have also seen gloves from Spain, with a garniture of silver flowers and fringe, rich in its effect; but, for the appearance of the hand, commend us to the exquisitely fitting French kid glove, which from the time of De Grammont to our own, has always retained its superiority in this respect, and been a coveted article of English ladies' dress.

The value of gloves in former days perhaps gave rise to the daring exploit to win them |

At present the change of colours to suit the varying seasons is the principal alteration in gloves, and ladies' hands are as variously hued in these days as their hoods were in those of Addison; otherwise, except in the ornaments finishing them for dress, or the addition of velvet or fur tops for winter, the form of the glove is generally the same, the chief distinctions being in size, cut, and quality.

Dundee, in Scotland, is famous for gloves of a superior quality; and Nottingham and Leicester for the cotton ones so generally worn by children and the humbler class of women.

Until the year 1825 the importation of leather gloves and mitts was prohibited; but at that period a duty was laid upon them, and they are now allowed to enter.

Amongst the many benefits which the Exhibition will have conferred, it is not impossible that the superior work of the French artizans may have aroused the spirit of emulation and improvement amongst the English craftsmen and women engaged in this important branch of trade, and enable them at no distant date to compete in the manufacture of these articles with the far-famed Glovers of Paris.

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