This reminds me to note the royal conservatism of her gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra, who follows fashion at a dignified distance, lending her sweet personal enchantment to our view of her antedated coiffure, with its raised curls over her brow pointing slightly to the centre of the forehead. Royalty no longer seeks to lead fashions, nor, indeed, to follow them, the only exceptions to the rule of generality being the royal ladies of the houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and of Connaught, who all show a most delightful appreciation of, and a becoming sympathy with, every vagary of _La Mode_. Yet our supreme Royalty takes interest in the national aspect of the affairs of costume, and bestows much personal trouble in arousing loyalty towards Irish poplins, British-made silks, the tweed industries of Ireland and Scotland and Wales, and the lace manufactures of Devonshire and Bucks and Nottingham. The blouse and the teagown of to-day date their inception from the last century, but the beneficent law of evolution concedes them the grace of novelty, even while dogma tediously reiterates "There is nothing new under the sun." [Illustration: TWO COIFFURES.] [Illustration: EARLY VICTORIAN STYLES.] [Illustration: IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.] In costume the Victorian era was "Everything-arian," welcoming and discarding all shapes and styles of garments, and gathering in the fashions from every age, adopting with mild enthusiasm and moderated transport the most graceful and the most graceless, and impartially bestowing attention upon the slashed and puffed sleeves of the Tudors, the lace collar and wide ruff of the Stuarts, the Watteau dress, re-christened "Dolly Varden," the short waists of the Empire, the full coats and large revers of the Directoire, and the long plumes and brilliant buckles of the seventeenth century. An injustice to the word æsthetic was committed by the followers of a fashion which cried aloud for sad colours, sadder shapes, and the saddest untidiness; and amongst the ridiculous mistakes may be written down a polonaise dress looping up in unexpected places, flounced and furbelowed without bounds of reason, while extending itself from the waist over an immense bustle. There is satisfaction in remembering the reaction which took place after this in favour of the eelskin dress, setting as tightly as was convenient from neck to heel, when the woven jersey-bodice had a short spell of patronage, but, proving itself suavely unsympathetic in its treatment of any but the perfect figure, lapsed speedily into disuse. About 1882 the questionable charms of the bustle reasserted themselves, and the Watteau style of frock exercised some beneficial influence over the waist of its fair wearer.