period, palling, inclines him to antique modes. A fellow-student once
told me that, after a long vacation spent in touch with modern life,
he had hammered at the little gate of Merton and felt of a sudden his
hat assume plumes and an expansive curl, the impress of a ruff about
his neck, the dangle of a cloak and a sword. I, too, have my Eliza-
bethan, my Caroline moments. I have gone to bed Georgian and awoken
Early Victorian. Even savagery has charmed me. And at such times I
have often wished I could find in my wardrobe suitable costumes. But
these modish regrets are sterile, after all, and comprimend. What
boots it to defy the conventions of our time? The dandy is the `child
of his age,' and his best work must be produced in accord with the
age's natural influence. The true dandy must always love contemporary
costume. In this age, as in all precedent ages, it is only the
tasteless who cavil, being impotent to win from it fair results. How
futile their voices are! The costume of the nineteenth century, as
shadowed for us first by Mr. Brummell, so quiet, so reasonable, and, I
say emphatically, so beautiful; free from folly or affectation, yet
susceptible to exquisite ordering; plastic, austere, economical, may
not be ignored. I spoke of the doom of swift rebellions, but I doubt
even if any soever gradual evolution will lead us astray from the
general precepts of Mr. Brummell's code. At every step in the progress
of democracy those precepts will be strengthened. Every day their
fashion is more secure, corroborate. They are acknowledged by the
world. The barbarous costumes that in bygone days were designed by
class-hatred, or hatred of race, are dying, very surely dying. The
costermonger with his pearl-emblazoned coat has been driven even from
that Variety Stage, whereon he sought a desperate sanctuary. The
clinquant corslet of the Swiss girl just survives at bals costume's. I
am told that the kilt is now confined entirely to certain of the
soldiery and to a small cult of Scotch Archai"cists. I have seen men