n in discussion is a nuisance. So I will proceed
at once to the real point at issue, the value of the late
eighteenth-century costume over that worn in the second quarter of the
seventeenth: the relative merits, that is, of the principles contained in
each. Now, as regards the eighteenth-century costume, Mr. Wentworth
Huyshe acknowledges that he has had no practical experience of it at all;
in fact, he makes a pathetic appeal to his friends to corroborate him in
his assertion, which I do not question for a moment, that he has never
been 'guilty of the eccentricity' of wearing himself the dress which he
proposes for general adoption by others. There is something so naive and
so amusing about this last passage in Mr. Huyshe's letter that I am
really in doubt whether I am not doing him a wrong in regarding him as
having any serious, or sincere, views on the question of a possible
reform in dress; still, as irrespective of any attitude of Mr. Huyshe's
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 m