t vainly for something
interesting in the way of local colour, but can find nothing that even
suggests the ingerence of a "fardingale" into the local history of
Rudolph's reign. Instead of the gentler influence, I find only
descriptions of swashbucklers, lackeys and bottlewashers, "ruffling" it
in imitation of their masters. Here again we have indication of Italy's
refining influence, a new invention which came rapidly into vogue, and
unlike most of them, came to stay--the facciolette. What though the
roystering pseudo-gallant had no shirt to which he might attach a fine
collar, he must have his "facilet," as the chronicler spells it--in
short, a handkerchief. Then again the tooth-pick came in for serious
observation; it was considered an outward and visible sign of internal
creature comfort, and was worn behind the ear when not in action.
Tooth-pick practice is still going strong in Prague.

By way of attributing something good to Rudolph, I will make him
responsible for a garden, said to have been very beautiful, which
occupied some ground at the higher westward end of the "Stag's Moat."
Here was a pleasance, where gallants and fair ladies disported
themselves and watched the antics of wild animals. It was in this garden
that Schiller placed the little drama he describes in _Der Handschuh_.
Schiller gives the Spanish version of the story, where the gallant
smacks the lady's face with the glove he had retrieved for her from
among the lions, and then struts away for evermore. Romantic, but
ill-tempered, whereas the local version here is that the gallant married
the lady--perhaps she became insistent; anyway, a useful if commonplace
ending.

I gave you an instance of Rudolph's statecraft in that little matter of
the "Passauer," and am not inclined to give you any more. His doings and
those of his Habsburg successors brought so much suffering to Bohemia
and Prague that I would rather be excused from giving any account of
them. We have heard of Rudolph's brother Matthias, and how under him the
strain put upon the people of Bohemia grew too severe, and how the
Estates cut the Gordian Knot by throwing the King's lieutenants out of a
window on the Hrad[vs]any. They happened to fall soft, on a midden, and
got away unhurt. As a diplomatic action, this measure taken by the
Estates lacked finesse, but it had one advantage over the usual
diplomatic transactions in their devious course, that it was direct and
final in its effect,