Dancing was carried on with great spirit till early morning, and the tardy winter sun had risen ere the last carriage drove away from one of the most successful balls of the nineteenth century.
Among the many important entertainments given by members of the English aristocracy in honour of the sixtieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria, was a Costume Ball at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, on July 2nd, 1897, when the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire received nearly all the members of the Royal Family, many distinguished guests from the Colonies, and members of the Corps Diplomatique. This historic mansion was built for the third Duke of Devonshire, and it was here that Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, held her Court. It contains a fine suite of reception rooms on the first floor; a gallery of pictures, in which the old masters are well represented; and extensive grounds in the rear, which on this occasion were decorated with thousands of Chinese lanterns and fairy lamps. The principal feature of the ball was a grand procession of the guests, headed by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the former personating Charles V. of Germany, and the latter attired with Oriental magnificence as Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, in a robe of silver tissue wrought with jewels. The mantle was of cloth of gold similarly treated, and the bodice was also studded with precious stones. The head-dress consisted of white ostrich plumes and a golden and jewelled crown, from which depended chains of pearls. H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, as Margaret of Valois, was surrounded by the ladies of her Court, their Royal Highnesses Princess Charles of Denmark, Princess Victoria of Wales, the Duchess of Fife, and the Duchess of York. The Princess of Wales wore a gown of white satin wrought with silver, and a train of cloth of gold lined with silver and superbly jewelled. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and Chevalier of Malta, wore a rich Elizabethan costume carried out in black and silver, and bearing the white cross of the Order on one shoulder. The Duke of York represented the Earl of Cumberland, one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers. Prince Charles of Denmark was a Danish student. The Duke of Connaught wore the uniform of a military commander during the reign of Elizabeth, and the Duchess looked charming as Queen Anne of Austria in a picturesque gown with puffed sleeves. The Eastern Queens were magnificently arrayed and blazing with jewels. Lady de Trafford was Semiramis, Empress of Assyria, in a dress copied from a vase in the British Museum. Princess Henry of Pless was Queen of Sheba, in a robe and train of shot purple and gold tissue, elaborately embroidered with turquoises and other stones, and wore an Assyrian jewelled head-dress, decorated with a diamond bird and aigrette. Another Queen of Sheba was Lady Cynthia Graham, and there were two Cleopatras—Lady de Grey and Mrs. Arthur Paget. The husband of the latter accompanied her as Mark Antony. Lady Elcho was a Byzantine Queen, Miss Muriel Wilson was Queen Vashti, and the Countess of Dudley, as Queen Esther, wore a dress of white crêpe, embroidered with gold and studded with amethysts, turquoises, and pearls.
The Elizabethan Court was represented by Lady Tweedmouth as Queen Elizabeth, in a gown copied from a picture in the National Portrait Gallery. Her canopy was carried by four yeomen in uniforms of crimson, black, and gold, copied from Holbein's picture of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," in the Hampton Court collection. Lord Tweedmouth was the Earl of Leicester, in slashed doublet and hose of ruby velvet and satin, enriched with gold embroidery. Lady Edmondstone, as Mary Queen of Scots, wore a dress of pale blue velvet, and tulle veil head-dress and ruff worked with pearls. She was attended by the Duchess of Hamilton, dressed in the character of Mary Hamilton, the Queen's favourite maid of honour. The Countess of Warwick, as Marie Antoinette, was beautifully dressed in a petticoat of rich white satin and a Court gown of English brocade, with a train of Royal blue velvet. The hair was powdered, and she was attended by four pages in white satin suits and three-cornered hats, bearing over her ladyship a canopy of blue velvet. This group included the Duchess of Sutherland, as Charlotte Corday in a gown of red crêpe de Chine, a muslin fichu and cap, trimmed with point d'Alençon lace, and dagger at waist. Lady Westmorland made a lovely Hebe, and Lady Angela Forbes, as the Queen of Naples, wore an Empire gown of ivory duchesse satin, embroidered with silver and diamonds, and a train of lilac velvet, edged with jewelled embroidery and lined with satin. The head-dress consisted of a small jewelled crown and two white feathers. Among many other notable costumes should be mentioned the Marchioness of Tweedale's, as the Empress Josephine, as she appears in the Coronation picture at the Louvre, Paris; the Marchioness of Londonderry, as the Empress Marie Thérèse, of Austria, and the Marchioness of Zetland's, as Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. of England; Viscountess Raincliffe, as the Empress Catherine II. of Russia, wore white satin, and her dress was an exact copy of the picture in the British Museum by Lambi. The Court gown of the Duchess of Portland, as Duchesse de Savoia, who headed the Venetian procession, was composed of white satin veiled, with lisse wrought with silver, partially covered by a silver cloth mantle, embroidered with pearls and diamonds, and diamonds and emeralds were introduced in the coiffure.
Chapter X
STAGE AND FLORAL COSTUME.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts."
Garrick was one of the first of our English actors to realize how much the success of a piece depended upon appropriate costume, and, on his taking the management of Drury Lane Theatre in 1747, at once turned his attention to this important branch of dramatic art. He refused to tolerate the absurdity of a heterogeneous mixture of the foreign and ancient modes, which had hitherto debased tragedies by representing, for instance, Greek soldiers in full-bottomed wigs, and the King of an Oriental Nation in trunk hose. The improvement, however, must have been very gradual, for Garrick is said to have played the part of Macbeth ten years later in a gold-laced suit of sky blue and scarlet; while Mrs. Yates as Lady Macbeth appeared in a hooped court petticoat of enormous dimensions, with tight-fitting pointed bodice and elbow sleeves, and her powdered hair dressed over a high cushion. Garrick's suits for the characters of King Lear and Hamlet also followed the fashions of the 18th century, though he played Richard III. in a fancy dress designed with some regard to correctness of detail. Even during the present century, an equally absurd anachronism may be recorded. The late Mr. Charles Mathews made his first appearance in public, at the Theatre Royal, Richmond, as Richmond in Richard III., wearing the helmet and jacket of a modern light horse soldier.
