We now arrive at the period of the dandiacal Pepys, who describes with great unction the various changes and details of his costume. On September 13, 1660, the Duke of Gloucester died of the small-pox "by the great negligence of the doctors." He was buried on the 21st at Westminster, and on the 22nd our chronicler "purchased a pair of short black stockings to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning." On April 23, 1661, the occasion of the King's going from the Tower to Whitehall, he rose with the lark, made himself as fine as he could, and put on his velvet coat, the first day that he put it on, "though made half a year ago." "_September 29th, 1661._--This day I put on my half cloth black stockings, and my new coate of the fashion, which pleases me well, and with my beaver I was (after office was done) ready to go to my Lord Mayor's feast, as we were all invited." The long laced coats, familiar during the latter part of the reign of the "Merry Monarch" and the succeeding reign, had already come into vogue. On May 11, 1662, Pepys repaired in the afternoon to Whitehall, and "walked in the parke," where he saw the King, "now out of mourning in a suit laced with gold and silver, which it was said was out of fashion." The costume of the masses during the Commonwealth and Restoration, was the well-known knee breeches and stockings, with doublet or jerkin. In a poem called "Wit Restored," _c._ 1658, is described the holiday dress of a countryman when courting:-- "And first chill put on my Zunday parell That's lac't about the Quarters; With a pair of buckram slopps, And a vlanting pair of garters. With a sword tide vast to my side, And my grandfather's dugen and dagger, And a peacock's veather in my capp, Then, oh, how I shall swagger!" About the year 1658 petticoat breeches crossed the silver streak from Versailles, and became the vogue at the Court of Charles II. Randal Holme, writing in 1659, describes the dress as follows:--"A short-waisted doublet and petticoat breeches, the lining being lower than the breeches and tied above the knees; the breeches are ornamented with ribands up to the pocket, and half their breadth upon the thigh; the waistband is set about with ribands, and the shirt hanging out over them." The petticoat breeches were not ridiculous in themselves--the modern Scotch kilt, which is an extremely picturesque and even reasonable costume, is made upon precisely the same principle; it was the absurd lace ruffles, which hung drooping below the knee, which were worn with the petticoats during the earlier period, and in which Charles II. is figured in Heath's Chronicle, 1662, which made the costume a banality. The figure of the exquisite of 1670 from Jacquemin wears the petticoat breeches, but without the ruffles or frills at the knees. It must be confessed, however, that the gentleman possesses a sufficiency of frill! [Illustration: AN EXQUISITE. _From Jacquemin._]