ures, to give so extravagant a price for
what they buy."

From collars of lace and lawn, let us turn to collars of precious metal.

Antiquarians have unanimously rejected the fanciful legend adopted by
Dugdale concerning the SS collar, as well as many not less ingenious
interpretations of the mystic letters; and at the present time it is
almost unanimously settled that the SS collar is the old Lancastrian
badge, corresponding to the Yorkist collar of Roses and Suns, and that
the S is either the initial of the sentimental word 'Souvenez,' or, as
Mr. Beltz maintains, the initial letter of the sentimental motto,
'Souvenez-vous de moi.' In Mr. Foss's valuable work, 'The Judges of
England,' at the commencement of the seventh volume, the curious reader
may find an excellent summary of all that has been or can be said about
the origin of this piece of feudal livery, which, having at one time
been very generally assumed by all gentle and fairly prosperous
partisans of the House of Lancaster, has for many generations been the
distinctive badge of a few official persons. In the second year of Henry
IV. an ordinance forbade knights and Esquires to wear the collar, save
in the king's presence; and in the reign of Henry VIII., the privilege
of wearing the collar was taken away from simple esquires by the 'Acte
for Reformacyon of Excesse in Apparayle,' 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, which
ordained "That no man oneless he be a knight ... weare any color of
Gold, named a color of S." Gradually knights and non-official persons
relinquished the decoration; and in our own day the right to bear it is
restricted to the two Chief Justices, the Chief Baron, the
sergeant-trumpetor, and all the officers of the Heralds' College,
pursuivants excepted; "unless," adds Mr. Foss, "the Lord Mayor of London
is to be included, whose collar is somewhat similar, and is composed of
twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots; and measures sixty-four
inches."

CHAPTER XXIII.

BAGS AND GOWNS.

On the stages of the Caroline theatres the lawyer is found with a green
bag in his hand; the same is the case in the literature of Queen Anne's
reign; and until a comparatively recent date green bags were generally
carried in Westminster Hall and in provincial courts by the great body
of legal practitioners. From Wycherley's 'Plain Dealer,' it appears that
in the time of Charles II. angry clients were accustomed to revile their
lawyers as 'green bag-carriers.'