“The first time that I ever took notice of Oliver Cromwell,” says Sir Philip Warwick, “was in the beginning of the Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young gentleman, for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes. I came one morning into the house well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hatband; his stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side.” Altogether it is clear that Oliver was a trifle slovenly, and sometimes unsteady enough of hand to cut himself when shaving. About the year 1660-1, we find our old friend Mr. Pepys gradually soaring in the sky of fashion. He had been content with camlet, then he gets him a suit of cloth with broad skirts, and adds the unheard-of atrocity of rakish buckles to his shoes. Subsequently he enshrines his little person in silk; ultimately rises to the dignity of a velvet coat; and on a “Lord’s Day,” in February, he writes down that “this day I first began to go forth in my coate and sword, as the manner now among gentlemen is.” “Among gentlemen!” quotha; and his sire the tailor was yet alive, and his cousin Tom Pepys was an honest turner, and sold mousetraps! A velvet coat was not for every-day wear by a clerk in the Admiralty, and Pepys had his by him a full half-year before he had the heart to surprise the world and gratify himself by the wearing of it. Nor could Peers walk every day in velvet and embroidery in Coleman-street, seeing that the cost of a suit was not under £200. They were content to go occasionally like the King at the Council Board—in a plain common riding-suit and a velvet cap;—not half so fine as the livery of Pepys’s own boy, “which is very handsome, and I do think to keep the black and gold lace upon grey, being _the colour of my arms_, for ever.” The “colour of _his arms_!” This reminds me of the rejoinder of Russell, the porter at the old Piazza, who, on being asked if his coat-of-arms was the same as that of the Duke of Bedford, replied that as for their arms they might be pretty well alike, but that there was a deal of difference between their coats!