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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REMNANTS OF STAGE DRESSES. " All these presentments Are only mockeries, and wear false faces." Chapman's ' Busby D'ambois.' These were few people who wore such a stage-look in the last century as a country squire in London. Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff speaks of one whom he had just seen in the Park. He was of a bulk and stature, we are told, larger than the ordinary ; " had a red coat, flung open to show a gay calamanco waistcoat; his periwig fell in a very considerable batch upon each shoulder; his arms naturally swung at an unreasonable distance from his sides, which, with the advantage of -a.cane that he brandished in a great variety of irregular motions, made it unsafe for any one to walk within several yards of him." If this was the public dress of a country gentleman, the town fops had their own costume for their own stage. There was the dapper gentleman, with his cane hanging to the fifth button. The smart fop rejoiced in red-heeled shoes and a hat hung, rather than cocked, upon one side of the head. The set of "a good periwig made into a twist" denoted the "fellow of mettle." The coffee-house politician was known by the moustache of snuff on his upper lip; and the lords of acres, as I have just remarked, by their glaring scarlet coats. The walks looked like a masquerade scene at a time of high carnival, and bad taste reigned undisturbed. Reformers however sought to amend it; and Paul "WTritehead, the tailor-poet, used to say that the taste of the nationdepended upon Garrick! Davy's own taste was very questionable in some respects, for he played Macbeth in the then costume of a general officer, with scarlet coat, gold lace, and a tail-wig. All the other actors were attired in similar dresses; and if Malcolm, on seeing Rosse at a distance, exclaimed, "My countryman...
