redder by art. They often wash their hair in a water boiled with lime, and turn it backwards from the forehead to the crown of the head, and thence to their very necks, that their faces may be fully seen. Some of them shave their beards, others let them grow a little. Persons of quality shave their chins close, but their moustaches they let fall so low that they even cover their mouths". .. Their garments are very strange, for they wear partycoloured tunics (flowered with various colours in divisions) and hose which they call Bracæ.

| They likewise wear chequered sagas (cloaks). Those they wear in winter are thick, those in summer more slender. Upon their heads they wear helmets of brass with large appendages made for ostentation's sake to be admired by the beholders. . . . They have trumpets after the barbarian manner, which in sounding make a horrid noise. . . For swords they use a broad weapon called Spatha, which they hang across their right thigh by iron or brazen chains. Some gird themselves with belts of gold or silver."

In elucidation of the particular expression made use of by Diodorus in describing the variegated tissues of the Gauls, and which has been translated "flowered with various colours in divisions," we have the account of Pliny, who after telling us that both the Gauls and Britons excelled in the art of making and dyeing cloth, and enumerating several herbs used for dyeing purple, scarlet, and other colours, says that they spun their fine wool, so dyed, into yarn, which was woven chequer-wise so as to form small squares, some of one colour and some of another. Sometimes it was woven in stripes instead of chequers; and we cannot hesitate in believing that the tartan of the Highlanders (to this day • Strabo says the Britons are taller than the Gauls: their

hair not so yellow, and their bodies looser built.

b Cæsar tells us the Britons were long-haired, and shaved all the body except the head and the upper lip.

• Martial has a line "Like the old bracha of a needy Briton."-Epig. ix. 21. They appear on the legs of the Gaulish figures in many Roman sculptures to have been a sort of loose pantaloon, terminating at the ankle, where they were met by a high shoe or brogue. There can be little doubt that the Highland truis is a modification of this ancient trouser, if not the identical weed itself.

called "the garb of old Gaul") and the checked petticoats and aprons of the modern Welsh peasantry are the lineal descendants of this ancient and picturesque manufacture. With respect to their ornaments of gold, we may add, in addition to the classical authorities, the testimony of the Welsh bards. In the Welsh Triads, Cadwaladyr, son of Cadwallon ab Cadwan, the last who bore the title of King of Britain, is styled one of the three princes who wore the golden bands, being emblems of supreme authority, and which, according to Turner, were worn round the neck, arms, and knees.

Of the golden neck-chains, or torques (torch or dorch in Welsh), there are several existing specimens. One has been found in silver, and

several of brass. The bronze sword and small battle-axe, or celt, as it is called, of the ancient Britons, are to be found in many collections; and at Goodrich Court are two very large round bronze shields of the earlier period, and an oblong one of the Roman-British era. A smaller round shield, more recently found, is in the British Museum.

"THE people of Britain," says Strabo, “are generally ignorant of the art of cultivating gardens." By "the garden behind Cymbeline's palace" we should perhaps, therefore, in the spirit of minute antiquarianism, understand "a grove." But it is by no means clear that the Romans had not introduced their arts to an extent that might have made Cymbeline's palace bear some of the characteristics of a Roman villa. A highly-civilised people very quickly impart the external forms of their civilisation to those whom they have colonised. We do not therefore object, even in a prosaic view of the matter, that the garden, as our artist has represented it, has more of ornament than belongs to the Druidical grove. The houses of the inhabitants in general might retain in a great degree their primitive rudeness. When Julius Cæsar invaded Britain, the people of the southern coasts had already learned to build houses a little more substantial and convenient than those of the inland inhabitants. "The country," he remarks, " abounds in houses, which very much resemble those of Gaul." Now those of Gaul are thus described by Strabo:-"They build their houses of wood, in the form of a circle, with lofty tapering roofs." Lib. v. The foundations of some of the most substantial of these circular houses were of stone, of which there are still some remains in Cornwall, Anglesey, and other places. Strabo says, "The forests of the Britons are their cities; for, when they have enclosed a very large circuit with felled trees, they build within it houses for themselves and hovels for their cattle." Lib. iv. But Cymbeline

was one of the most wealthy and powerful of the ancient British kings. His capital was Camulodunum, supposed to be Maldon or Colchester. It was the first Roman colony in this island, and a place of great magnificence. We have not therefore to assume that ornament would be misplaced in it. Though the walls of Imogen's chamber, still subjecting the poetical to the exact, might by some be considered as proper to be of rude stone or wood, it may very fairly be supposed that it was decorated with the rich hangings and the other tasteful appendages described by Iachimo-the presents of the Roman emperors, with whom Cymbeline and his ancestors had been in amity, or procured from the Greek and Phoenician merchants, who were constantly in commercial intercourse with Britain. (See, for fuller information on this subject, The Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Isles, 'by S. R. Meyrick, LL.D., and Chas. Hamilton Smith, Esq.; fol. Lond. 1821.) But after all, a play such as 'Cymbeline,' is not to be viewed through the medium only of the literal and the probable. In its poetical aspect it essentially disregards the few facts respecting the condition of the Britons delivered down by the classic historians. Shakspere in this followed the practice of every writer of the romantic school. The costume (including scenery) had better want conformity with Strabo, than be out of harmony with Shakspere.

The "andirons" and "chimney-piece" belong to the age of Elizabeth. But Shakspere, when he commits what we call anachronisms, uses what is familiar to render in

telligible what would otherwise be obscure and remote.

1200