sleeves trailing on the ground, the brocaded
silks set full and heavy over the enormous
hoops, the laces, and velvets, and slashes, and
feathers of our forefathers and foremothers. We
are a nation of quakers compared to them, and
the most fantastic thing we wear is moderate itself
compared to the vagaries rejoiced in by them.
We have a few extravagances about us yet, a
few wild beards, for instance, floating over the
shoulders, and moustaches run up into a dagger's
point, but the broad spade beard, and the two
little tufts worn by Richard II, the horned
moustaches and the vine-branch moustaches, the
peaked beard, the mouse-eaten beard, the T
beard, the stiletto, the swallow-tail, and the tile,
were all more outrageous than the most
outrageous things we do in that way. But we go
in a circle too, only a circle ever widening.
There were mannish young ladies in Queen
Elizabeth's time and Sir Roger de Coverley's—
"sir, or madam, as the case may be"—in coat,
waistcoat, hat, and rapier, and there are mannish
young ladies now, in vests, shirts, jackets, and
cropped hair; there were "petticoat breeches"
in the reign of the second Charles, and our
living youth disport themselves in pegtops;
hoops once again encase "the fair," as it was
the fashion to call them, and fashion still holds
men to chimney-pots and swallow-tails. We
have more sense of toilette fitness than when
the Duchess of Queensberry went to a Bath ball
in an apron, originally a barme-cloth, which Beau
Nash took from her and flung indignantly behind
the benches, but we still have our court costume
when we look like people at a masquerade, and
the Lord Chamberlain still writes unintelligible
directions about plain linen and fringed. But
patches have gone out, and a sow and her
litter are no longer to be seen as ornaments
in the hair; garters now are sober hidden
supports, not bands of golden stuff jewelled;
and gloves are simple and delicate, not a mass
of gold thread, seed pearls, and fine lace tops, as
in olden times. We still have stays; still hold
to small waists, impossible feet, and strangulated
hands; but on the whole we are very much
wiser than our ancestors in the way of
costume, and much more rational and simple.
Our men's dress is, perhaps, the ugliest thing
that was ever invented, but it is convenient; and
our women's is, on the whole, the best, if not
the most picturesque, which the ages have turned
out. They do not go about the streets in their
"night rails" as they used; they do not trail
behind them heart-breaking trains of cloth of
gold, velvet, and brocaded silk, as in the days of
bandekyns and farthingales; they wear gowns
with some shape in them, not sacques and trolloppees;
and sometimes cover their heads decently
with hats and bonnets that will stay on. They wear
their hair gracefully and naturally, and as a rule
they brush it at least once a day, and do not "keep
it" for nine weeks at a stretch; they do not wear
visage sleeves, and the men do not wear stags
and peaked doublets as Raleigh did; and trunk
hose stuffed with bran have gone out; and
Kevenhuller hats have gone out; and pomander
balls and clouded canes have gone out; and
swathes for infants have gone out; and
Macbeth is not played in a bag-wig, ruffles, and
court suit; and Hamlet has no diamond knee-
buckles, Hotspur no Ramilies wig. We no
longer exclaim with the poet who immortalised
himself by the single line:

   Without black velvet breeches, what is man?

Venus has not a hoop and flowers, nor Apollo a
pink satin jacket and a powdered wig; the maccaronis
have gone the way of all flesh; pouterpigeons
no longer walk about under the name of fashionable
women, with sugar-loaf bonnets and full
buffonts; the waist is pretty much where nature
made it—not over the hips nor under the arms;
and what ornamentation is used, is of a modest
and comparatively simple character. Fashion
has done us a good turn at last, and common
sense has taken hold of the tailor's shears, and
clipped away bravely at the cloth.

               THE OPERA AT ROME.

COACHMAN sits upon his chariot—upon the
box-seat of that vehicle—expectant, cracking
his whip loudly. I hear him, far away in remote
chamber of albergo, and descend in the light
raiment this century has selected for its
festivity; so, Avanti, through the night, coachman!
encouraging thy cattle with curious cries, and
striking fire from the flints below, making,
ventre à terre, for the musical temple
consecrated to Apollo, far-darting god!

And yet there is no such need for this furious
pricking of steeds. There is yet breathing time,
for all day long the little pink bills have been
calling to me importunately from their dead
walls and street corners that, the music "se
incomincera"—will commence itself—"a nove ore
pomerid." This last word, long after I became
aware that it stands for afternoon, associates,
itself mysteriously with pomegranates, or some
fruit of such succulent flavour, which most suitable
hour commends itself especially, as involving
no flying from the untasted banquet, no
cruel dereliction of the choice fruits of the
dessert, no indecent crowding of courses. And yet,
with a quaint oddity of contradiction, in a sober
quakerly manufacturing Rhenish town, I have
come forth on the steps of the theatre, after hearing
a good substantial opera full of musical fat and
lean, through and through, just as the town-hall
clock was striking nine! At that hour we are
hurrying to wait on Apollo, far-darting god.

Down through a vile miscellany of back alleys
—black-dark, lampless and tortuous Seven Dials
seventeen times over in helpless repetition—
pilot coachman takes his boat, heaving and
plunging through the trough of that paved sea.
Yonder at last, where are the string of
lighthouses or lamps, waits the port; and here, just
at our carriage windows, looms out great white-
cloaked Carmelite on horseback—fierce patrol—
savagely stopping further progress with flashing
sabre, and perhaps a few oaths. Reciprocal
oaths, too, from coachman, making his steeds
plunge amain; but it results, as it must inevitably