public gardens of France, just able to toddle,
attired in the full uniform of a lancer or a
royal guard.  All boy-children ought to bless
the memory of Sir Walter Scott for bringing
the Highland dress into fashion, and deferring
the exchange to such wretched trowsers as
were made twenty years ago—button-over
trowsers of unmentionable misery.

My memory does not carry me back to the
days of the gorgeous and frightful footman-
like costumes immortalised by the brush of
Reynolds; but my godmother, a lively lady
eighty-eight years old last birthday, was
describing yesterday, to a newly-married
couple, the elegant appearance of her first
lover at a Lord Mayor's ball, in pink satin
breeches, a white satin waistcoat, with a
plum-coloured velvet coat.  Mr. Gunning,
Senior Esquire Bedel, in his amusing
Reminiscences of Cambridge, mentions that
during his undergraduateship a scarlet coat
was the favourite colour of undergraduate
noblemen when they visited London—boots
and leather breeches having been the usual
dinner costume of his cotemporaries.  He also
mentions that Captain Clapham, a Cambridge
blood, always wore a huge cocked hat in
an afternoon, which led Dr. Kidd to ask
the author one evening when the captain
happened to pass, who that very gentlemanly
looking fellow was?  We, who now
associate a large cocked hat with a parish
beadle or a heavy father in a light comedy,
can scarcely understand this really sincere
compliment.  Although the reign of boots
and leather breeches as a morning costume
passed away before my time, still there
were a large number of the House of
Commons, chiefly baronets, who adhered to that
uniform of the squire up to the passing of
the Reform Bill.  Old Mr. Byng, Sir Francis
Burdett, and Mr. Sheppard the member for
Frome, were among the last.  A member of
the once celebrated Lambton Hunt, who has
been looking over my shoulder, tells me that
when he was married, about forty years ago,
he and his bestman and the bride's brothers
all wore white leathers and top boots, white
waistcoats, and blue coats.  Forty years earlier
it was one of the rules of the Tarporley Hunt
that every member on his marriage should
present all the other members of the Hunt
with a pair of well-stitched leather breeches.
The only baronet who still repudiates
pantaloons is the evergreen Sir Tatton Sykes.
Long before railroads or even fast coaches
were invented, Sir Tatton used to start
on a journey of two hundred miles on his
thoroughbred hack, with no other baggage than
a valise containing a pair of satin breeches,
silk stockings, pumps, and a clean shirt for
evening use, strapped behind his saddle.

Trowsers came into fashion with the Hetman
Platoff and the Cossacks at the great rejoicings
after the peace.  They were made full
at the hips in the foreign effeminate style, and
of staring striped patterns.  It took more
than thirty years to teach tailors to make
comfortable trowsers.  Hessian boots for
a short time maintained a struggle with the
more economical trowser; but, as our streets
ceased to be dirty, and good legs are always
in the minority, they died out rapidly, and
are now only to be seen on a few ancient
tax-gatherers and county physicians.  After
puffed-out waists, ringlets, and other foreign
fashions had had their day, the Tom and
Jerry fever raged for a short time, during
which our dandies got themselves up in a
costume of the prize-fighting and burglar
fashion.  A green, Newmarket-cut coat, with
gilt buttons; a staring waistcoat; a blue, red,
or green cravat, and breeches and top-boots,
were to be seen on young men of family and
fortune at the most fashionable morning
resorts, their hair cut short, faces smoothly
shaved, and conversation borrowed from the
prize-ring and the taverns of thieves.  Then
a pea-green coat conferred distinction, and a
drunken ruffian squire was the hero of a
class.

The reign of flash slang was succeeded by
the reign of faddle.  Affectation was the
order of the day; waistcoats of many colours,
worn in tiers; fur, lace, embroidery, braid;
bright blue and brown coats, covered with
velvet; ringlets, and even rouge.  Yellow
pantaloons, under hessian boots decked with
brass spurs, were revived.  Hats were worn on
one side, set back on the head.  It was, in a
word, the age of swells, although the term
had not then been invented.

At the time when I, as a schoolboy in the
first form, began to wear gloves, to oil my hair,
and commenced changing from the grub to
the butterfly, there was a costume worn by a
fashionable four-in-hand club, which would,
in the present day, bring down screams from
the Adelphi or Haymarket gallery: then we
looked on it with intense admiration and
longing.  I was at Cheltenham for the holidays,
and saw the young Earl Crimpley, and his
inseparable companion Lord Maroon, lounge
down the High Street in coats of a light snuff
brown, call feu d'enfer, made with what were
called gigot, or leg-of-mutton sleeves, and
tails sharply pointed, so as to cover the least
possible portion of the person; gilt buttons,
and crimson velvet waistcoats set off the
blazing coats; and bright green trowsers, cut
tight at the knees, and bell-mouthed so as to
cover the feet, completed the suit.  Low-crowned
sugar-loaf hats, surmounted heads elaborately
curled, and an enormous stock of jewellery,
completed a picture which many thought
extravagant, but no one ridiculous.  It was
the fashion.

The next change I can remember was
what I may call the velvet mania.  Velvet
was laid wherever it was possible on dress-
coats, frock-coats, and great-coats.  Collars
of gigantic breadth, with piques, gave the
effect of a hump to all but crane-necked
men, while the whole inside was plastered