striped,—others diapered throughout the whole contexture of the wool, with silk and gold⸺That linen did not begin to be in common use till towards the declension of the empire, when the Egyptians coming to settle amongst them, brought it into vogue.
⸺That persons of quality and fortune distinguished themselves by the fineness and whiteness of their clothes; which colour (next to purple, which was appropriated to the great offices) they most affected, and wore on their birthdays and public rejoicings.⸺That it appeared from the best historians of those times, that they frequently sent their clothes to the fuller, to be clean’d and whitened:⸺but that the inferior people, to avoid that expense, generally wore brown clothes, and of a something coarser texture,—till towards the beginning of Augustus’s reign, when the slave dressed like his master, and almost every distinction of habiliment was lost, but the Latus Clavus .
And what was the Latus Clavus? said my father.
Rubenius told him, that the point was still litigating amongst the learned:⸺That Egnatius , Sigonius , Bossius Ticinensis , Bayfius , Budæus , Salmasius , Lipsius , Lazius , Isaac Casaubon , and Joseph Scaliger , all differed from each other,—and he from them: That some took it to be the button,—some the coat itself,—others only the colour of it:—That the great Bayfius , in his Wardrobe of the Ancients, chap. 12—honestly said, he knew not what it was,—whether a tibula,—a stud,—a button,—a loop,—a buckle,—or clasps and keepers.⸻
⸺My father lost the horse, but not the saddle⸺They are hooks and eyes , said my father⸺and with hooks and eyes he ordered my breeches to be made.