Note 413 — ACT I.

“To judge of the liberality of these notions of dress, we must advert to the days of Gresham and the consternation which a Phenomenon habited like a merchant here described would have excited among the flat round caps, and cloth stockings, upon Change, when those ‘original arguments or tokens of a citizen’s vocation were in fashion, not more for thrift and usefulness than for distinction and grace.’ The blank uniformity to which all professional distinctions in apparel have been long hastening is one instance of the Decay of Symbols among us, which, whether it has contributed or not to make us a more intellectual, has certainly made us a less imaginative people. Shakespeare knew the force of signs:—‘a malignant and a turban’d Turk.’ ‘This meal-cap miller,’ says the author of God’s Revenge against Murder, to express his indignation at the atrocious outrage committed by the miller Pierot upon the person of the fair Marieta.”—Charles Lamb.