THE PRINCE AND THE FASHIONS. To THE EDITOR OF TICE
"SPECTATOR."
am much amused by your ingenious article on "The Prince and the Fashions," yet I read with some regret, though not surprise, your acquiescent sentence against colour in men's costume.
I can by no means see the force of your reasoning. I am old enough to remember a time when every gentleman excepting clergymen wore a coloured coat ; and I cannot but call to mind the lamentations which prevailed on the introduction of black. "Now,"
it was said by repining elderly ladies, "we shall see nothing but gloom and a great deal of shabbiness for the remainder of our days."
I have some sympathy with them still, I lament over the gloom which settled upon us somewhere about 1820, I believe and think it has lasted much too long. I am sick of rusty black, the shabbiest of all garbs. I well remember the bright, handsome, respectable blue coats which middle-aged doctors like Sir Aatley Cooper and the first Dr. Parry of Bath always wore, with their polished metal buttons. I cannot, of course, go back to Goldsmith's peach-coloured coat, or to the beautiful sky-blues, or rich clarets, or rubies that were known in the Grandison time. But even these, absurd as you may think them (and I by no means recommend peach blossom to the Laureate), gave a distinctive character to men, and took off from the insipid formality of our modern gentlemen's costume.
If economy is in question you must not recommend black velvet ; a specimen here and there would be noble and imposing, but it must be only a specimen.—I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
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