that had originally been assumed. Of course much talk followed upon this, with great laughter and ridicule; caricatures of the spiritual peers and the opera-dancers abounded. In a drawing by Gillray, Miss Rose, with other danseuses, is depicted performing what is called "La Danse à l'Evêque;" the ladies have assumed, out of excessive regard for decorousness and the bishop's arguments, that apron of black silk which has long been thought peculiar to prelates. Another satirical illustration bore the title of "Ecclesiastical Scrutiny; or, The Durham Inquest on Duty." Bishops were represented as attending in the dressing department of the opera-house; one is seen to be measuring the dancers' skirts with a tailor's yard; another arranges their stockings in an ungraceful fashion; while a third inspects their corsets, decreeing some change in the form of those articles of attire. The Bishop of Durham was further portrayed in another broadsheet as armed with his pastoral staff, and sturdily contesting hand to hand with the Spirit of Evil arrayed in ballet costume. In short, this subject of the bishops and the ballet-girls occupied and amused the public very considerably, and doubtless proved profitable, as an advertisement of his ware, to the manager of the opera-house. Still the bishops kept a watchful eye upon the proceedings of the theatre. In 1805 there is record of a riot at the opera-house, " some reforming bishops having warned the managers that if the performances were not regularly brought to a close before twelve o'clock on Saturday evenings, prosecutions would be commenced." Accordingly, the performances were shortened by the omission of an act of the ballet of "Ossian," greatly to the dissatisfaction of the audience, who assaulted Mr. Kelly, the manager, commenced an attack upon the chandeliers, benches, musical instruments, &c., and indeed threatened to demolish the theatre. The curtain had fallen at half-past eleven, which the audience thought much too early. Of a certain prelate it was recorded that he frequently attended the Saturday-night performances at the opera-house, and that upon the approach of midnight he was wont to stand up in his box holding out his watch at arm's length, by way of intimating to the spectators that it was time for them to depart and for the theatre to close. Of course this bishop could hardly have avoided seeing the ballet; but for whatever distress he may have endured on that account, a sense of his efforts to benefit his species, including of course the opera-dancers, no doubt afforded him a sufficient measure of compensation. VOL. II. OF UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA CHAPTER XIV. CORRECT COSTUMES. THE question of dress has always been of the gravest importance to the theatrical profession. It was a charge brought against the actors of Elizabeth's time, that they walked about the town in gaudy and expensive attire. The author of "The Return from Parnassus," first published in 1606, but held to have been written at an earlier date, specially refers to the prosperity, and the consequent arrogance of the players. He is believed to have had in view Alleyn or even Shakespeare: Vile world that lifts them up to high degree, And pages to attend their masterships. But it is clear that these "glorious vagabonds" were regardful that their dress should be splendid merely. There was no thought then as to the costumes of the stage being appropriate to the characters represented, or in harmony with the periods dealt with by the dramatists. Nor did the spectators find fault with this arrangement. It did not disturb them in the least to find Brutus and Cassius, for instance, wearing much the same kind of clothes as Bacon and Raleigh. And in this way anachronisms of other kinds readily obtained pardon, if indeed they ever moved attention at all. Certainly the hero of an early Roman story should not have spoken of gunpowder, much less have produced a pistol from his belt; but his conduct in this wise became almost reasonable, seeing that he did not wear a toga, but doublet and hose-the dress indeed of a gallant of Elizabeth's time. It is only in quite recent times that the correctness of stage costumes has undergone systematic consideration, and been treated as a matter of real urgency, although occasional experiments in the direction of reform are to be found recorded in early accounts of the drama. Mr. Pepys describes his visit to the theatre in 1664, to see "Heraclius, or the Emperor of the East," Carlell's translation of Corneille, and notes, the garments like Romans very well at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtain, there was the finest scene of the emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different postures, in their Roman habits, above all that I ever saw at any of the 66 theatres.' But attempts to be accurate in this way were only of an intermittent kind; any enduring amendment can hardly be found until we approach a period that is within the recollection of living playgoers. Mr. Donne, lately the Examiner of Plays, writes in one of his essays on the drama: "We have seen The Rivals' performed in a sort of chance medley costume a century intervening between the respective attires of Sir Anthony and Captain Absolute;" and he adds, "we have seen the same comedy dressed with scrupulous attention to the date of the wigs and hoops; but we doubt whether in any essential respect that excellent play was a gainer by the increased care and expenditure of the manager." Sir Walter Scott had previously written: "We have seen 'Jane Shore' acted with Richard in the old English cloak, Lord Hastings in a full court dress, with his white rod like a Lord Chamberlain of the last reign, and Jane Shore and Alicia in stays and hoops. We have seen Miss Young act Zara, incased in whalebone, to an Osman dressed properly enough as a Turk, while Nerestan, a Christian knight, in the time of the Crusades, strutted in the white uniform of the old French guards!" Even as late as 1842 a writer in a critical journal, reviewing a performance of She Stoops to Conquer" at the Haymarket Theatre, reminds the representatives of Young Marlow and Hastings that the costumes they wear, |