Much may also be gained by a lively display of a modern
fete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of a newspaper
entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or either of them,
with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years since;
and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antique or
of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates those of the last
generation.
Considering the disadvantages inseparable from this part of my subject,
I must be understood to have resolved to avoid them as much as possible,
by throwing the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions
of the actors;--those passions common to men in all stages of society,
and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under
the steel corselet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the
eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present
day. [Alas! that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, or
thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has himself
become since that period! The reader of fashion will please to fill up
the costume with an embroidered waistcoat of purple velvet or silk,
and a coat of whatever colour he pleases.
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