But
here, as usual, fresh impediment arose Lord Bute's administration,
from causes unnecessary here to enter upon, was become so unpleasing
to the multitude, that anything confessedly Scotch awakened the embers
of discussion, and fed the flame of party. Mr. Garrick therefore put a
direct negative at once upon my appearance in 'Douglas;' 'Oroonoko'
was substituted in its place; for even to have performed the play of
'Douglas' would have been hazardous, and to have exhibited the
Highland dress upon the stage, imprudence in the extreme. Could I have
supposed, at that period," asks Mr. Jackson--his book bears date
1793--"that I should live to see the tartan plaid universally worn in
the politest circles, and its colours the predominating fashion among
all ranks of the people in the metropolis?" What with the
predisposition of the audience in favour of the conventional court
suit, and afterwards their prejudice against the Scotch, on account of
the '45 and Lord Bute, Garrick could hardly have assumed tartan in
"Macbeth." A picture by Dawes represents him in the battle-scenes of
the play as wearing a sort of Spanish dress--slashed trunks, a
breastplate, and a high-crowned hat!
Macbeth, indeed, was never "dressed" agreeably to the taste of
antiquarian critics, until the ornate revivals of the tragedy by Mr.
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