CHARLES II.

303

With silver; diamond buckles too,

For garters, and as rich for shoe.

Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine,

With cambric sleevts rich Point tojoyn(For sho despises Colbertine);

Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac’d,

Or else she’ll think herself disgrac’d.

The same her night gown must adorn,

With two Point waistcoats for the morn ;

Of pocket monchoirs, nose to druin,

A dozen laced, a dozen plain;

Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff;

Four cushion-cloths are scarce enoughOf Point and Flanders,” 17 &c.

It is difficult now to ascertain what description of lace was thatstyled Colbertine. 18 It is constantly alluded to by the writers ofthe period. Handle Ilolme (1688) styles it, “ A kind of open lacewith a square grounding.” 19 Evelyn himself, in his “ Fop’s Dic-tionary” (16!)U), gives, “Colbertine, a lace resembling net-work ofthe fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the FrenchKing’s manufactures and the “ Ladies’ Dictionary,” 1004, repeatshis definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d’Alenqonbeing the lace that can be specially styled of “ the fabric ” ofColbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production. 20Swift talks of knowing

“ The difference betweenRich Flanders luce nnd Colbertecn.” 21

Congreve makes Lady Westport say— 22

“ Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colbertecn.”

And a traveller, in 1601, 23 speaking of Paris, writes:—“ You shallsee here the finer sort of people flaunting it in tawdry gauze orColbertine, a parcel of coarse staring ribbons; but ten of theirholyday habits shall not amount to what a citizen’s wife of Londonwears on her head every day.”

17 “Tyrannus, or the Mode,” 1661.

18 It is written Colberteen, Colbertain,Golbertain, Colbertine.

18 Colberteen, a lace resembling net-work, being of the manufacture of M.Colbert, a French statesman.

20 A writer, in “ Notes and Queries,”says: *■ I recollect this lace worn as aruffle fifty years ago. The ground was

square and coarse, it had a fine edge,with a round mesh, on which the patternwas woven. It was an inferior lace andin every-day wear.”

21 “Cadenus nnd Vanessa.” See alsoYoung, p. 111.

22 “Way of the World."

22 “Six Weeks in France,” 1691.