better off in that respect than the Italians of the last century, who were accustomed to walk abroad without hats, and with parasols and fans; and we do not desire to see Kensington Gardens like that at Schesmedscher, near Bucharest, of the figures on which gay stage the correspondent of the Daily News' thus graphically speaks :

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"From three o'clock in the afternoon till an hour after sunset the place is crowded with boyards, boyardines, and the sons and daughters of the same, shopkeepers, peasants, gipsies, officers, and cadets, without any distinction of rank, but all dressed regardless of expense, and swaggering in thoroughly peacock pride. We have matter-of-fact people, practical people, go-ahead people, ingenious people, etc., but without exception this is the 'dressiest' people of Europe. To see the manner in which the young people fig themselves out here, one might imagine that millinery, hosiery, and tailors' goods were a profitable investment of capital. When one has been awhile in the East one generally ceases to wonder at varieties of costume; but the beau monde of Bucharest in holiday attire might well rouse the most nonchalant or phlegmatic into surprise and attention. Fashions of dress seldom remain long in one's memory. The man who this year enters the Park with a terribly broad-brimmed hat does not remember for a moment that twelve months previously he would have been miserable had he worn one with a brim more than an eighth of an inch wide. It needs engravings to call up really vivid recollections of what one's-self, as well as every one else, wore ten, twenty, or thirty years ago; and Bucharest recalls very vividly a certain class of engravings. Every one is familiar with those splendid works of art which represent his Majesty George III. reviewing the Middlesex Volunteers in Hyde Park, the Pump Room in Bath, Charing-cross at the period of the erection of Nelson's Column, or any other remarkable scene as it appeared in the days of that illustrious individual, Mr. Brummel. Your readers well

remember the broad-crowned Caroline hats, the short-waisted coats, the long-tailed surtouts, the "pumps" and Hessian boots, in which fashionables strutted at that period. All this, and more, is to be seen here. Young men walk about in sky-blue cutaway coats with brass buttons and shockingly short skirts, trousers almost as tight as the ancient pantaloons, and cream-coloured kid gloves. Others appear on promenade with coats whose tails descend to their heels, and others again in all the brilliancy of the latest Paris fashions. The contrast and mélange are curious and infinitely amusing, and the display of jewellery is immense. In short, in London I would take the proudest man in the place for a linendraper's shopman in his Sunday clothes. It is in the article of gloves however that most extravagance is displayed. White or cream-coloured is the colour de rigueur. Present yourself to a Wallachian lady to pay a visit, with your hands cased in anything more durable, and you excite as great a sensation as if you walked into a London drawing-room in top-boots. Nor must you go about the town on foot; a birtcha, or two-horse open hackney carriage or calèche, at two zwanzigers an hour, is indispensable. The vehicles are however generally very good and clean, and the drivers civil; disputes about fares are unknown.”

A portion of the above looks like a scene in a pantomime, and this induces me to offer a remnant or two of remark connected with stage costumes.

REMNANTS OF STAGE DRESSES.

"All these presentments

Are only mockeries, and wear false faces."

CHAPMAN'S 'BUSSY D'AMBOIS.'

THERE 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 Whitehead, the tailor-poet, used to say that the taste of the nation.

depended 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!" he was quite right to exclaim, on seeing an English recruiting sergeant advance, "and yet I know him not!" But Rosse might have said as much of Malcolm. It was Macklin who first put Macbeth and all the characters into national costume, when he played the chief character himself, in 1773; and all the thanks he got for it was in the remark that he looked like a drunken Scotch piper—which he did. But Macbeth in kilts is nearly as great an anomaly as when he is in the uniform of a brigadier-general; and even Mr. Charles Kean, though he exhibited the Thane short-petticoated, seemed glad to get into long clothes and propriety as soon as the Thane had grown into a king.

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Macklin was a comedian rather than a tragedian, and it is singular that it is to another comic actor we owe the correct dressing of Othello. It was in the latter character that Foote made his first appearance in London, at the Haymarket, in 1744. He was announced as a gentleman" whose Othello" will be new dressed, after the manner of his country." Mr. Wright would now play the character with about as much propriety and equal success, or the want of it. Foote is said to have looked very much like the black boy with the tea-kettle in Hogarth's 'Marriage à la Mode.' "Bring the tea-kettle and lamp!" was Quin's exclamation, when he saw Garrick enter, blacked as Othello. And we may note that, at this time, if a stagemanager were not acting in any piece represented during the evening, he was exempted from coming before the audience, whatever confusion might reign in the house. He was said to be not dressed. Austin never so much offended

Garrick as when he bought a cast-off dress, the exact counterpart of that worn by Garrick himself in Lothario, and in which Austin intended to accompany Roscius on the stage. It was assumed on purpose to annoy Garrick, who wanted Austin to increase the number of companions who should surround the gallant, gay Lothario; and Austin's method of obedience made Davy eager to excuse his humble friend's attendance.

A better illustration of stage costume is afforded us in the story of (I think, Bensley). He had to play Henry VI. in Richard the Third.' After the monarch's death in the early part of the play, he had to appear for a moment or two as his own ghost, in the fifth act. The spirits were at that time exhibited en buste, by a trap. Now our Henry was invited out to supper, and being anxious to get there early, and knowing that little more than his shoulders would be seen by the public, he retained his black velvet vest and bugles; but, discarding the lower part of his stage costume, he drew on a jaunty pair of new, tight, nankeen pantaloons, to be as far dressed for his supper company as he could. When he stood on the trap, he cautioned the men who turned the crank not to raise him as high as usual, and of course they promised to obey. But a wicked low comedian was at hand, whose love of mischief prevailed over his judgement, and he suddenly applied himself with such goodwill to the winch that he ran King Henry up right to a level with the stage; and moreover gave his majesty such a jerk, that he was forced to step from the trap on to the boards, to save himself from falling. The sight of the old Lancastrian monarch in a costume of two such different periods,-mediæval above, all nankeen and novelty below,was destructive of all decorum both before the stage and upon it. The audience emphatically "split their sides;" and as for the tyrant in the tent, he sat bolt upright, and burst into such an insane roar, that the real Richard could