in the matter, the subject is in itself an interesting one, I think it is
worth continuing, particularly as I have myself worn this late eighteenth-
century dress many times, both in public and in private, and so may claim
to have a very positive right to speak on its comfort and suitability.
The particular form of the dress I wore was very similar to that given in
Mr. Godwin's handbook, from a print of Northcote's, and had a certain
elegance and grace about it which was very charming; still, I gave it up
for these reasons:--After a further consideration of the laws of dress I
saw that a doublet is a far simpler and easier garment than a coat and
waistcoat, and, if buttoned from the shoulder, far warmer also, and that
tails have no place in costume, except on some Darwinian theory of
heredity; from absolute experience in the matter I found that the
excessive tightness of knee-breeches is not really comfortable if one
wears them constantly; and, in fact, I satisfied myself that the dress is
not one founded on any real principles. The broad-brimmed hat and loose
cloak, which, as my object was not, of course, historical accuracy but
modern ease, I had always worn with the costume in question, I have still
retained, and find them most comfortable.

Well, although Mr. Huyshe has no real experience of the dress he
proposes, he gives us a drawing of it, which he labels, somewhat
prematurely, 'An ideal dress.' An ideal dress of course it is not;
'passably picturesque,' he says I may possibly think it; well, passably
picturesque it may be, but not beautiful, certainly, simply because it is
not founded on right principles, or, indeed, on any principles at all.
Picturesqueness one may get in a variety of ways; ugly things that are
strange, or unfamiliar to us, for instance, may be picturesque, such as a
late sixteenth-century costume, or a Georgian house. Ruins, again, may
be picturesque, but beautiful they never can be, because their lines are
meaningless. Beauty, in fact, is to be got only from the perfection of