the text are scattered over the volumes in the most bewildering manner. This material defect is remedied, we trust, in our publication; and it is scarcely necessary to point out the advantage of finding every information respecting the dress or armour of a particular reign contained within the few pages allotted to it.
The bulk of all the best works on ancient costume or armour, and their consequent expense, have been formidable obstacles to the artist, and must surely render a pocket volume, comprising every necessary reference and information, a desirable companion; and although we by no means pretend to infallibility, we trust that our jealousy of all questionable documents, and the rigid test to which we have subjected, and by which we have shaken the evidence of many hitherto undoubted, have preserved us from gross misrepresentations, at the same time that they have enabled us to correct some material errors, and explain several obscure passages in our more costly and voluminous precursors.
The following is a list of the works on general costume, or containing notices of British dress, which may be consulted with advantage by the artist, with our own, for a commentary.
Habitus Præcipuorum Populorum, tam Virorum quam F{{subst:a}}eminarum, singulari arte depicti. By John Weigel, cutter in wood. 1 vol. fol. Nuremberg, 1577.
Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium. By J. J. Boissard, 1581.
Habiti Antichi e Moderni di diverse Parti del Mondo. By Cæsar Vecellio. 8vo. Venice, 1590.
Sacri Romani Imperii Omatus, item Germanorum diversarumque Gentium Peculiares Vestitus; quibus accedunt Ecciesiasticorum Habitus Varii. By Caspar Rutz, 1588.
