rresponding agricultural classes in the
country, were enjoying the fruits of their industry and attaining a
respectable position of their own. The houses and furniture belonging
to them struck a foreigner with astonishment and pleasure[48]; "The
neate cleanlinesse, the exquisite finenesse, the plesaunte and
delightfull furniture in every point for household wonderfully rejoyced
mee; their chambers and parlours, strawed over with sweet herbes,
refreshed mee; their nosegayes finelye intermingled wyth sondry sortes
of fragraunte floures in their bed-chambers and privie roomes, with
comfortable smell cheered me up and entierlye delighted all my senses."
The profusion of expenditure, and the love of show resulting from the
sudden increase of wealth, affected even the apprentices of the city.
The Lord Mayor and Common Council, in 1582, found it necessary to
direct apprentices; "to wear no hat with any silk in or about the
same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than
a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear
no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To
wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel
of gold, nor silver, nor silke in any part of his apparel."[49]

It was, however, at Elizabeth's court, and among the nobility, that the
tendencies of the time were most marked. The literature of this
era--never surpassed in brilliancy and power--was the work of poets and
dramatists. It was the outcome of a poetical and dramatic life. Even
the fiction which belongs to the period was colored by the same
fondness for dramatic incident and poetic treatment. The enthusiasm
which had animated the nobility in their martial life went with them to
the court of Elizabeth. There it showed itself in gallantry, in love of
show, and in a devotion to amusement and to self-cultivation which
internal peace had at length made possible. Men of whom any age might
be proud crowded the scene. Cecil and Walsingham among statesmen, Drake
among discoverers, Bacon and Hooker among thinkers, Raleigh and Sidney
at once among courtiers, soldiers, and scholars. The prevailing
extravagance and variety of dress was simply the outward sign of a love
of whatever was brilliant and new. The fashions of France, of Spain, of
Turkey, even of the Moors contributed to the wardrobe of the English
gallant. "And, as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a
world to see