Explanation: One may observe also, that the general fashion of one age has 30% been followed by one particular set of people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to another. 

Answer: These lines occur in “Sir Roger’s Ancestors” written by Richard Steele in Coverley Papers, a selection of essays from The Spectator. Here Sir Roger speaks of the force of dress” and how fashion or dress of one age influences the people of another generation and thereby survive from extinction.

Here Sir Roger makes an intelligent observation while commenting on the dress of his ancestors in the picture -gallery. Sir Roger says that fashion or dress changes from time to time, from age to age. Fashion of one age turns backdated or old fashioned in another age. But that does not mean that the previous or earlier fashion dies in itself or gets lost in the womb of extinction. Rather, these are always a group of people who have a fascination for the past, and believe in the “old is gold” maxim. They love to follow their ancestors. They take pride in their ancestry. It is true that not all people of a particular generation will follow the dress, fashion, or manners of their ancestors but there is at least “one particular set of people who would like to boast of their antiquities. In this way, the fashion of one age passes to another age from generation to generation. So, a particular fashion does of end with the end of age rather it continues through the succeeding ages.

Thus, says Sir Roger, the fashion of “vast jetting coat and small bonnet” which was the fashion of Henry the seventh’s time still survives in the yeoman of the guard. The same thing happened to the dresses of their ancestors as well.