A friend of mine who has discovered that Shakspeare knew all about steam-engines, electric telegraphs, cotton-gins, the present rebellion, and gas-lights, assures me that dressing-gowns are distinctly alluded to in The Tempest:
'TRINCULO: O King Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee!
CALIBAN: Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.
Having thus proved its age, let us next prove that it is in its dotage, and is as much out of place in this nineteenth century as a monkey in a bed of tulips.
We find in the Egyptian temples paintings of priests dressed in these gowns: proof that they are antiquely heathenish. And as we always associate a man who wears one with Mr. Mantilini, this proves that they are foolish. Ergo, as they are old and foolish, they are in their dotage.
I have three several times, while wearing this gown, been mistaken for Madame Fling by people coming to the house. The first time I was shaving in my chamber: in bounced Miss X——, who believed, as it was rather late, that I had gone down-town. She threw up her hands, exclaiming:
'Good gracious, Fanny! do you shave?'
N.B.—Fanny is my wife's first name.
The second time I had brought the woodsaw and horse up from the cellar, and was exercising myself sawing up my winter's wood, in the summer-kitchen, according to Doctor Howl's advice, when the Irishman from the grocery entered, bearing a bundle. My back was to him, and only seeing the gay and flowery gown, he exclaimed, in an awfully audible whisper to the cook:
'Shure yer mistriss has the power in her arms, jist!'