Vile world that lifts them up to high degree,
    And treads us down in grovelling misery! 
    England affords these glorious vagabonds,
    That carried erst their fardels on their backs,
    Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets,
    Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits,
    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 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!”