twenty other similar objections the plain answer is, that the exertion of one-third part of the study and ingenuity exercised in the invention of conventional dresses to satisfy the painter's fancy would enable him to be perfectly correct and at the same time equally effective—often, indeed, more effective, from the mere necessity of introducing some hues and forms which otherwise had never entered into his imagination
The assertion so coolly hazarded by some writers, that chronological accuracy is unattainable in these matters will be refuted, we trust, by every page of this work ; its principal object being to prove the direct contrary, and establish the credence which may be given to the authorities therein consulted, and lighten the labours of the student by directing him at once to those cotemporary records and .monuments which may serve him as tests of the authenticity of later compilers.
Careless translation has done much to deceive, and the neglect of original and cotemporary authors for the more familiarly written and easily obtained works of their successors, has added to the confusion. It is extraordinary to observe the implicit confidence with which the most egregious mistakes have been copied by one writer after another, apparently without the propriety having once occurred to them of referring to the original authorities.
A want of methodical or strict chronological arrangement, has also contributed to the perplexity of the students ; and the works of the indefatigable Strutt have, from this latter defect, misled perhaps more than they have enlightened. To condense and sift the mass of materials he had collected, has been, perhaps, the most laborious portion of our task. Some of his plates contain the costume of two centuries jumbled together, and the references to them in
