in which “sondry personages of greatest estate were to be represented in ancient princely attire, which is nowhere to be had but within the office of the roabes of the Tower.”  This request, it seems, had been granted before, and probably was again complied with on this occasion.  Indeed, at a much later date there was borrowing from the stores of the Tower for the decoration of the stage; as Pope writes: 

    Back fly the scenes and enter foot and horse: 
    Pageant on pageants in long order drawn,
    Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;
    The champion, too!  And to complete the jest,
    Old Edward’s armour beams on Cibber’s breast.

By way of reflecting the glories of the coronation of George II., “Henry VIII.,” with a grand spectacle of a coronation, had been presented at the theatres, the armour of one of the kings of England having been brought from the Tower for the due accoutrement of the champion.  And here we may note a curious gravitation of royal finery towards the theatre.  Downes, in his “Roscius Anglicanus,” describes Sir William Davenant’s play of “Love and Honour,” produced in 1662, as “richly cloathed, the king giving Mr. Betterton his coronation suit, in which he acted the part of Prince Alvaro; the Duke of York giving Mr. Harris his, who did Prince Prospero; and my lord of Oxford gave Mr. Joseph Price his, who did Lionel, the Duke of Parma’s son.”  Presently we find the famous Mrs. Barry acting Queen Elizabeth in the coronation robes of James II.’s queen, who had before presented the actress with her wedding suit.  Mrs. Barry is said to have given her audience a strong idea of Queen Elizabeth.  Mrs. Bellamy played Cleopatra in a silver tissue “birthday” dress that had belonged to the Princess of Wales; and a suit of straw-coloured satin, from the wardrobe of the same illustrious lady, was worn by the famous Mrs. Woffington, in her performance of Roxana.  The robes worn by Elliston, when he personated George IV., and represented the coronation of that monarch upon the stage of Drury Lane, were probably not the originals.  These became subsequently the property of Madame Tussaud, and long remained among the treasures of her waxwork exhibition in Baker Street.  A tradition prevails that Elliston’s robes were carried to America by Lucius Junius Booth, the actor, who long continued to assume them in his personation of Richard III., much to the astonishment of the more simple-minded of his audience, who naively inquired of each other whether the sovereigns of Great Britain were really wont to parade the streets of London in such attire?  Among other royal robes that have likewise descended to the stage, mention may also be made of the coronation dress of the late Queen Adelaide, of which Mrs. Mowatt, the American actress, became the ultimate possessor.

Many noblemen and fine gentlemen also favoured the actors with gifts of their cast clothes, and especially of those “birthday suits”—­Court dresses of great splendour, worn for the first time at the birthday levees, or drawing-rooms of the sovereign.  As Pope writes: