we pass along, such instances of change and progress as may form our best illustration. Our opening case is a slight, but by no means an unillustrative incident. It relates—
The late mitigation in court dress was not at all to my wife's mind.—Author, chap. i.
There could be no doubt that court dress was not originally intended to be laughed at. That is a consideration always to be kept in view. From the sublime to the ridiculous is said to be only a step. But with court dress it might have happened that, by a wrong turn or the wrong door, the interval of a step might have been reduced even to an inch of protecting deal. The thing, in fact, did happen, and not without consequences; for when the Right Honourable the Lord Vicomte Vrayshaum-Peenyong (the family came over with the Conqueror) had somehow got adrift during a grand reception, and instead of reaching the gracious presence of bis sovereign, had emerged upon a hilarious crowd behind, and been taken for a merry-andrew, and dealt with accordingly, there came at last a change to court dress. But still it was not without protracted opposition, sustained, as was urged for it, on the ground of principle, that an understanding was finally reached, that court dress should always be something in good taste.
My next illustration is of wider and more edifying import. It concerned a result by no means unex-
