THE ANTiQUARIANT. 219 



their own clients, the play-writers themselves. True, 

 that in a comedy by Shakerley Marmyon, gent, per- 

 formed before the court at Whitehall, 9. Charles I., 

 (1633) one of the characters addresses his tailor 

 with something approaching deference to the artist's 

 taste, if not to his personal merit : — " I would have 

 you," says the mimic employer, after specifying the 

 kind of cloth he would wear, " would have you, 

 master tailor, determine about the form and the ac- 

 coutrements, for the fitting of the points and the 

 gaiters, and the roses, and the colours of them." 



Rawlings, chief engraver at the Mint, in the time of 

 Charles I., wrote the '^ Rebellion," a tragedy, acted 

 nine nights by the king's company of revels : in this 

 play a tailor appears as the hero, and a braggart hero 

 he was, if we may judge at least from his asking, 

 '^ in what reckoning: ought we tailors to be esteemed, 

 men that are the master workmen to correct nature?" 



But we stand in need of more than this, more than 

 the obsolete acknowledgings of Shakerley Marmyon 

 and Rawlings the engraver, to countervail the ribald 

 impertinence with which this harmless, and not only 

 so, but reputable and useful class of society, has 

 been assailed from Ben Jonson and Shakspeare 

 down to our ovyn day. In thus accusing Shakspeare, 

 I write, be it understood, spiritu sociali, with a tai- 

 lor's zeal for the honour of his craft, and let Mr. 



W impugn the motive if he can ; but who had 



thought that in a series so much needing pageantry 

 and the tailor's art as Shakspeare's historic dramas 

 to find, 2 part Henry IV., among Falstaff's recruits, 

 scum, as they are represented there, " Feeble, a 

 woman's tailor?" 



In "A Midsummer Night's Dream" he makes 

 sorry apology for the liberty, by admitting that the 

 shop-board could at least rank with, and supply 

 " brain struck heroes" to the stage : — 



Robert Starveling", the tailor. 



Here, Peter Quince ! 



Yoji must play Thisbe's mother. 



