But theatrical costume is a subject for a whole volume, not for a chapter merely, and I can touch but the fringe of it. I have felt tempted to dwell upon the past, and endeavour to trace the evolution of the idea of accurate costume on the stage from the day, perhaps, when the celebrated Mrs. Mattocks of Covent Garden copied the attire of Rubens's second wife in Vandyck's picture, so as to appear appropriately as the niece of the Governor of Bruges, in _The Royal Merchant_, a play adapted from Beaumont and Fletcher. But, lacking the pen of the historian and the science of the psychologist, I have chosen the easier and more humble role of the gossip. Yet, perhaps, the elusive chatter of the actress's dressing-room may not be without its suggestive value, more vivid, possibly, than the utterings of the student, for its memories have the fragrance of yesterday. Before me as I write, secure under glass, together with its authentic pedigree, is the lace collar that Edmund Kean used to wear when he played Hamlet; yet it stirs no thrill in me because of Kean, as old Sir William Gower, in Pinero's _Trelawny of the Wells_, was moved at sight of the chain Kean wore as Richard, because in his youth he had seen the great actor. But the mere thought of the soft lawn collar and cuffs that H. B. Irving wore with his "inky cloak," gold-bordered and crimson-lined, and his famous father's silver-clasped belt, brings the latest and not the least accomplished of Hamlets vividly to my mind's eye. Each tone, gesture, action, falls naturally into a harmony of memory, because the costume was as appropriate as it was picturesquely charming--in fact, it was right, which proves the truth of Sir Henry Irving's doctrine, "You can take it that the right thing on the stage is at once the most effective and the most becoming." A wise doctrine, which may be applied with irrefutable truth to the art of costume on and off the boards--a doctrine which may obtain as guidance through the land of dress in all the centuries, under all circumstances, past and to come. THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. * * * * * +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber notes: | | | | P. 50. 'minever' changed to 'miniver' as in 'silk lined | | with miniver'. | | P. 148. 'a a long' changed to 'a long'. | | P. 227. 'Egytian' changed to 'Egyptian'. | | Various punctuation corrected. | | | | Note: The equals sign is used to surround =bold text=; | | underscores to surround _italic text_. | +------------------------------------------------------------+