Another Plymouth portrait of very rich dress, that of Elizabeth Paddy, Mrs. John Wensley, faces this page. The dress in this is a golden-brown brocade under-petticoat and satin overdress. The stiff, busked stays are equal to Queen Elizabeth’s. Revers at the edge of overdress and on the virago sleeves are now of flame color, a Spanish pink, but were originally scarlet, I am sure. The narrow stomacher is a beaded galloon with bright spangles and bugles. On the hair there shows above the ears a curious ornament which resembles a band of this galloon. There are traces of a similar ornament in Madam Rawson’s portrait (here); and Madam Stoddard’s (here) has some ornament over the ears. This may have been a modification of a contemporary Dutch head-jewel. The pattern of the lace of Elizabeth Paddy’s whisk is most distinct; it was a good costly Flemish parchment lace like Mrs. Padishal’s. She carries a fan, and wears rings, a pearl necklace, and ear-rings. I may say here that I have never seen other jewels than these,—a few rings, and necklace and ear-rings of pearl. Other necklaces seem never to have been worn. Elizabeth Paddy Wensley. Elizabeth Paddy Wensley. We cannot always trust that all the jewels seen in these portraits were real, or that the sitter owned as many as represented. A bill is in existence where a painter charged ten shillings extra for bestowing a gold and pearl necklace upon his complaisant subject. In this case, however, the extra charge was to pay for the gold paint or gold-leaf used for gilding the painted necklace. In the amusing letters of Lady Sussex to Lord Verney are many relating to her portrait by Van Dyck. She consented to the painting very unwillingly, saying, “it is money ill bestowed.” She writes:— “Put Sr Vandyke in remembrance to do my pictuer well. I have seen sables with the clasp of them set with diamonds—if those I am pictured in were done so, I think it would look very well in the pictuer. If Sr Vandyke thinks it would do well I pray desier him to do all the clawes so. I do not mene the end of the tales but only the end of the other peces, they call them clawes I think.” This gives a glimpse of a richness of detail in dress even beyond our own day, and one which I commend to some New York dame of vast wealth, to have the claws of her sables set with diamonds. She writes later in two letters of some weeks’ difference in date:— “I am glad you have prefalede with Sr Vandyke to make my pictuer leaner, for truly it was too fat. If he made it farer it will bee to my credit. I am glad you have made Sr Vandyke mind my dress.” ...