No one could with decorum aspire to share the sublimities which it annexed to character, except those made of the "porcelain clay of the earth," dukes, princes, kings, and kaisars.

In The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender (1579), for instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach.

"He puts it on, and for decorum sake Can wear it e'en as gracefully as she."Cowper's Task.