h careful study. You come to believe you
could recognize the workmanship of the great cabinet-makers at sight. You
learn to shrink from misapplied ornament, you learn what gave rise to the
"veneering reign-of-terror," you bow at the name of Chippendale, and are
filled with wonder by the _cinque-cento_ extravagance of beauty. You find
yourself tracing the rise and fall of dynasties through the chaste beauty
or the over-ornamentation of their cabinet work. If all that Sir Henry
Irving knows on this subject could be crowded into a single volume, the
book would have at least one fault--'twould be of most unwieldy size.

Then holding you by the hand the Stage may next lead you through the
green and bosky places that the poets loved, and, having had your eyes
opened to natural beauties, lo! you go down another lane, and you are
learning about costumes, and suddenly you discover that "sumptuary laws"
once existed, confining the use of furs, velvets, laces, etc., to the
nobility. Fine woollens and linens, and gold and silver ornaments being
also reserved for the privileged orders. That the extravagant young maids
and beaux of the lower class who indulged in yellow starched-ruff, furred
mantle, or silver chain were made to pay a cruel price for their folly
in aping their betters. So it was well for me to make a note of the date
of the "sumptuary law," that I might not some day outrageously overdress
a character.

It is a delightful study, that of costume--to learn how to drape the
toga, how to hang the peplum; to understand the meaning of a bit of
ribbon in the hair, whether as arranged in the three-banded fillet of the
Grecian girl or as the snood of the Scottish lassie; to know enough of
the cestus and the law governing its wearing, not to humiliate yourself
in adopting it on improper occasions; to have at least a bowing
acquaintance with all foot-gear, from sandals down to an Oxford tie; to
be able to scatter your puffed, slashed, or hanging sleeves over the
centuries, with their correct accompanying, small-close, large-round, or
square-upstanding ruffs. Why the mere detail of girdles and hanging
pouches, from distant queens down to "Faust's" _Gretchen_, was a joy in
itself.

Then a girl who played pages, and other young boys, was naturally anxious
to know all about doublets, trunks, and hose, as well as Scottish
"philibeg and sporran." And wigs? I used to wonder if anyone could ever
learn all about wigs--and I'm wondering