THE HIGH SHERIFF'S COSTUME.--Of late years, in Worcestershire, the High Sheriff has dressed as any other gentleman. In Berkshire and Oxfordshire the High Sheriff's costume is a court dress, and it was so till lately in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire; but as the present court dress was first introduced in the early part of the reign of George III, the bag-wig in the reign of George II, and as swords were worn by all the gentlemen as part of their usual evening dress, within the memory of Mrs. Hannah Shenton, of Stafford, who is now living at the advanced age of ninety-seven, it is manifest that the High Sheriff only appeared in the full dress of a gentleman of his time. And as a further proof that the costume of the High Sheriff was the full dress of the private gentleman of the period, there is a portrait of Francis Goddard, Esq., High Sheriff of Wiltshire, in the reign of King William III, now in the possession of Major Goddard, of the Wilts Militia, in which the High Sheriff is wearing a full-bottomed wig. JAVELIN MEN.--These, no doubt, were the vassals and retainers of the High Sheriff, who attended to protect and guard the Judges, the weapon they carried being the _partizan_, which is still carried by the yeomen of the guard, which was introduced in the reign of Henry VIII. Mr. Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary of Charles II's reign, in a letter published by him in a work called "Miscellanies on several Curious Subjects," says, from information obtained from his grandfather (_temp._ Henry VIII)--"Lords had their armouries to furnish some hundreds of men. The halls of Justices of the Peace were dreadful to behold: the screens were garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouths with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown-bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern calivers and petronels (in King Charles I's time turned to muskets and pistols). Then an esquire, when he rode to town, was attended by eight or ten men in blue coats with badges;" and it would seem that from the reign of King Charles II the javelin men have continued to be much the same as at present, as in the printed articles of agreement entered into in that reign by sixty-four Wiltshire gentlemen, who were liable to serve the office of High Sheriff, it is stipulated (_inter alia_) "That no one of the said persons, when he is made sheriff of the said county, have above thirty livery-men, nor under twenty, for his attendance at the assize. * * * And that when any of the said subscribers shall be made sheriffs of the said county, the livery shall be a plain cloth coat or cloke, edged and lined through with sarge, a black hat, and suitable javelin." This curious document, which was signed by one of his ancestors, still remains in possession of Major Goddard.