The esteem of the ladies for their liveried servitors does not appear to have been in all cases reciprocal, if we may believe a circumstance which took place at Leicester House, the residence of the Prince of Wales, in 1743, when one of his Royal Highness’s coachmen, who used to drive the maids of honour, was so sick of them, that he left his son three hundred pounds upon condition that he never married a maid of honour!
There was laxity both of manners and dress as time went on; and as we were an ill-dressed, so were we an ill-washed people. In the latter half of the last century we were distinguished as the only people in Europe who sat down to dinner without “dressing” or washing of hands. Indeed we were for a long time “not at all particular.”
Fashions, cleanly or otherwise, often come by the clever exercise of wit. Thus the Russian confraternity made little fortunes through a well-timed joke perpetrated by Count Rostopchin. And the joke was cut after the following fashion. The Emperor Paul had an undisguised contempt for Russian princes, and loved to lower their dignity. He was one day surrounded by a glittering crowd of them, attired in gold lace and dirty shirts, when he carelessly asked his favourite Count Rostopchin, how it happened that he had never gained the slight distinction of being created a prince. “Well, your Majesty,” said the Count, “it arises entirely from the circumstance that my ancestors, who were originally Tartars, came to settle in Russia just as winter was setting in.” “And what of that?” asked Paul. “Why,” answered the Count, “whenever a Tartar chief appeared at court for the first time, the sovereign left it to his option either to be made a prince or to receive the gift of a pelisse. Now as it was hard mid-winter when my grandfather arrived at court, he had sense enough to prefer the pelisse to the princeship.” This satire gave the fashion to the Rostopchin cloaks, of which our grandfathers who travelled in Russia used to tell long stories, that were not half so good as Rostopchin’s brief wit.
Here was a fashion arising from a joke; but they have been as often “set” by very serious causes. Some two hundred and fifty years ago, the prevailing colour in all dresses was that shade of brown called the “couleur Isabelle,” and this was its origin. A short time after the siege of Ostend commenced in 1601, Isabella Eugenia, Gouvernante of the Netherlands, incensed at the obstinate bravery of the defenders, is said to have made a vow that she would not change her chemise till the town surrendered. It was a marvellously inconvenient vow, for the siege, according to the precise historians thereof, lasted three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; and her highness’s garment had wonderfully changed its colour before twelve months of the time had expired. The ladies and gentlemen of the court resolved to keep their mistress in countenance, and after a struggle between their loyalty and their cleanliness, they hit upon the compromising expedient of wearing dresses of the presumed colour finally attained by the garment which clung to the Imperial Archduchess by force of religious obstinacy—and something else.
Mrs. Sherwood offers us, in her posthumous ‘Life,’ a fair picture of the fashion and simplicity of the good old country rector in the last century, as regards the adorning of the outer man. Her father, the Rev. Dr. Butt, was Rector of Kidderminster; he is the hero of the story, which Mrs. Sherwood shall tell herself.
“My father was invited to dine at Lord Stamford’s, at his seat at Enville, not very distant from Kidderminster.
“It was the custom, when he was to go out, for some competent person to arrange his best cloth suit on a sofa in his study, his linen and stockings being in a wardrobe in the same room. On this day he was very much engaged in writing. However, thinking that he would be quite prepared when apprised that John and the horses were ready, he laid down his pen at an early hour, and dressed himself, laying his old black suit, neatly folded, as was his wont, on the sofa, from whence he had taken the best one; this being done, to make the best of his time, he sat down to write again, till admonished that the horses were waiting. ‘Bless me!’ he cried, ‘and I not dressed!’ and he hurried himself to put on again fresh linen and another pair of silk stockings, whilst, as his old coat and waistcoat, which lay where the new ones ought to have been, came most naturally to hand, they were put on, and a great coat over all concealed the mischief from John and my mother; and away he drove, reaching Enville but a little time before dinner. My father happened to know Lord Stamford’s butler, an old and valued servant; and as he stopped in the hall to take off his great coat, Mr. Johnson, having looked hard at his attire, said, ‘My dear Sir, you have a large hole in your elbow, and the white lining is visible.’ ‘Indeed!’ said my father; ‘how can that be?’—and, after some reflection, he made out the truth as it really had happened. ‘Well!’ said Mr. Johnson, not a little amazed with the story, ‘come to my room, and we will see what is to be done.’ So he took my father, who was in high glee at the joke, into his own precincts, and brushed him, and inked his elbow, and put him into better order than the case at first seemed possible (sic). When all was complete, he said, ‘Now, Sir, go into the drawing-room; set a good face on the matter; say not a word on the subject; and my life for it, not a lady or gentleman will find you out.’ My father promised to be vastly prudent; and as he was always equally at home in every company, on the principle of feeling that every man was his brother, he was not in the least disturbed by the consciousness of his old coat and inked elbow. Thus everything went on prosperously until dinner was nearly over. My dear father, having probably, as usual, found the means of putting everybody in good humour about him, he turned towards the butler, and said, ‘Johnson, it must not be lost!’ The good man frowned and shook his head, but all in vain. ‘It is much too good, Johnson,’ he added; ‘though you are ever so angry with me, I must tell it.’ And then out came the whole story, to the great delight of the whole noble party present, and to the lasting gratification of my father himself; for he never failed to be highly pleased whenever he told the story; and it was no small addition to the tale, to tell of the scolding he got, before he came away, from the honest butler, whose punctilio he had most barbarously wounded.”
Since the beginning of the present century, the laws of fashion have been more stringent, those of taste ever execrable. Taste, in its true sense, and as applied to costume, has never of late been
“The admiration
Of this short-coated population,—