a 
} 
° STAINED GLASS AT NORBURY MANOR HOUSE. 155 
sleeves, bound round the waist with a strap and buckle. A 
cap shaped like a turban, with a lappet hanging over one side ; 
these appendages being a great feature at the time, were often 
of great length ; and there is slightly more finish about the make 
of his boots. The reader will call to mind many existing 
examples of this style of dress in the portrait pictures of our 
great galleries, both public and private, the head-dresses being 
all more or less fantastical, some having long streamers hanging 
down to the feet. 
This absurd kind of dress will be especially remarked in 
the following month of May, where the head-dress is very 
peculiar, and evidently made of some richly-embroidered material. 
The dress, too, is much more extreme, consisting of a long 
petticoat, trimmed with fur round the bottom. Over this is 
worn a short frock, with fur round the neck and sleeves, and 
ornamented with jewels round the bottom. This article of dress 
eventually degenerated into the smock-frock still worn in rural 
districts, by persons engaged in agricultural pursuits, the one for 
high days and holidays being very much stitched on the breast, 
collar and shoulders. They are, however, not by any means so 
common as they were a few years ago, and it is quite certain 
they will soon be a thing of the past. A large bunch of some 
flowering shrub is carried, to indicate one of the most lovely 
characteristics of this month, and he carries also a_ hawk, 
indicative of a pastime much in vogue in those times. The idea 
intended to be conveyed is of a festive character, as this month 
was then a time of much rural mirth and gaiety ; and Spenser thus 
writes of May— 
‘* Then came fair May, the fairest maid on ground, 
Deck’d all with dainties of her season’s pride ; 
And throwing flowers out of her lap around : 
Lord ! how all creatures laugh’d when her they spied, 
And leap’d and danc’d as they had ravish’d been, 
And Cupid self about her fluttered all in green. 
We now come to the sixth and last of the series, June, 
_Yepresented in the attire of a husbandman engaged in some 
kind of field labour, but what is the precise kind it is not 
