Her Majesty's wish that the guests at the Fancy Ball
should appear in the costume of the reign of Edward the Third has occasioned a per- plexity to the Bishop of Exeter and some of his colleagues : the Reve- rend Fathers have expressed great reluctance to exhibit themselves in the garb of Popish Prelates ; and to the suggestion that they might go as Lollards, they have replied, "that would be worse, for the Lollards were Dissenters." Lord Lyndhurst fears that his appearance in the character of Chancellor to Edward the Third may give rise to bad jokes, by recalling the earnest prayer of the Commons to that Monarch, "that he would appoint no alien Chancellor." A sensation has been excited by a report that the Reverend Sydney Smith has consented to enact the part of Court Jester : Lord John Russell and the Bishop of London declare they will not go if he is to be allowed such a pre- text for cracking his jokes upon them in the very presence. But a worse dilemma than any of them is that in which the Ambassadors from the various American States have found themselves. The representative of the Union was annoyed simply because he had no means of knowing what was the costume of his country in the time of Edward the Third : but the Lord Chamberlain relieved his ap- prehension by pointing to the example of the Highland gentry, who are going "all plaided and plumed in their tartan array," although it is notorious that this Harlequin garb was not invented or borrowed by the savages of North Scotland till some centuries later. The Ame- rican bashfully replied, that although on this side of the Atlantic con- siderable credit was given to his countrymen for modest assurance, yet all the world knows that they fall far short of Highlanders in that re- spect: ultimately, however, he was persuaded to defy anachronism and appear as a North American &chem. The dubleties of the Mexican and South American Envoys have not admitted of so easy a solution : all antiquarian research has only corroborated their fears that the dress of their country at the period in question must have been a great deal too simple and airy for the present occasion. Sir Allan M`Nab, in whom the self-possession of the Yankee and Highlander may naturally be sup- posed to be combined, has set them a good example by resolving to go an the character of an Esquimaux.
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