PREFACE. It is now more than three years ago since the groundwork of the present volume was laid in the Art-Union, by the contribution to that journal of a series of "Notes on British Costume," expressly designed for the use of artists, and in which a knowledge of the peculiarities of dress in England was attempted to be given, principally by an appeal to the eye, through the aid of woodcuts, copied from authentic antique originals, without any attempt at modernisation or alteration. The materials for such a work were so scattered and voluminous, and the books so expensive which were devoted to this subject, that Mr. S. C. Hall, the editor of that journal, considered it would be a useful labour to bring together these notices and representations in a more popular form; and my original intention of compiling it in the form of a glossary was abandoned for that of a consecutive narrative, as it was adjudged to be most available for general purposes. The following pages contain all that was given in the "Notes" above named; but additional information has been added, which has nearly trebled the original amount, and many new and curious illustrations are for the first time given; several of the old ones cancelled and re-engraved; and the Glossary and its Cuts for the first time added. A knowledge of costume is in some degree inseparable from a right knowledge of history. We can scarcely read its events without in some degree picturing "in the mind's eye" the ap a |