Pepys we have seen further explained that it was all black and white, the black cassock being close to the body. “The legs ruffled with black ribands like a pigeon’s leg, and I wish the King may keep it for it is a fine and handsome garment.” The news which came to the English court a month later that the king of France had put all his footmen and servants in this same dress as a livery made Pepys “mightie merry, it being an ingenious kind of affront, and yet makes me angry,” which is as curious a frame of mind as even curious Pepys could record. Planché doubts this act of the king of France; but in _The Character of a Trimmer_ the story is told _in extenso_—that the “vests were put on at first by the King to make Englishmen look unlike Frenchmen; but at the first laughing at it all ran back to the dress of French gentlemen.” The king had already taken out the white linings as “’tis like a magpie;” and was glad to quit it I do not doubt. Dr. Holmes—and the rest of us—have looked askance at the word “vest” as allied in usage to that unutterable contraction, pants. But here we find that vest is a more classic name than waistcoat for this dull garment—a garment with too little form or significance to be elegant or interesting or attractive. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. Though this dress was adopted by the whole court, and though it was an age of portrait painting,—and surely no more delicate flattery to the king’s taste could be given than to have one’s portrait painted in the king’s chosen vestments,—yet but one portrait remains which is stated to display this dress. This is the portrait of Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington—it is shown on this page. This was painted by the king’s own painter, Sir Peter Lely. I must say that I cannot find much resemblance to Pepys’s or Rugge’s description, unless the word “pinked” means cut out in an all-over pattern like Italian cut-work; then this inner vest might be of “cloth pinkt with a white taffeta under the coat.” The surcoat is of black lined with white. Of course the sash is present, but not in any way distinctive. It was a characteristic act in the Earl to be painted in this dress, for he was a courtier of courtiers, perhaps the most rigid follower of court rules in England. He was “by nature of a pleasant and agreeable humour,” but after a diplomatic journey on the continent he assumed an absurd formality of manner which was much ridiculed by his contemporaries. His letters show him to be exceeding nice in his phraseology; and he prided himself upon being the best-bred man in court. He was a trimmer, “the chief trickster of the court,” a member of the Cabal, the first _a_ in the word; and he was heartily hated as well as ridiculed. When a young man he received a cut on the nose in a skirmish in Ireland; he never let his prowess be forgotten, but ever after wore a black patch over the scar—it may be seen in his portrait.