indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many sections are of a debatable rubric, or even quite nondescript and unnameable; whereby the Book not only loses in accessibility, but too often distresses us like some mad banquet, wherein all Courses had been confounded, and fish and flesh, soup and solid, oyster-sauce,,lettuces, Rhine-wine and French mustard, were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, and the hungry Public invited to help itself. To bring what order we can out of this Chaos shall be part of our endeavour.

3

CHAPTER V.

THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.

'As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws,' observes our Professor, 'so could I write a Spirit of Clothes; thus, with an Esprit 'des Loix, properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an Esprit de Costumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating 'does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided 6 on by mysterious operations of the mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavours, an Architectural Idea will be found. 'lurking; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials 'whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to 'be built. Whether he flows gracefully out in folded mantles, 'based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid 'peaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starch ruffs, buck'ram stuffings and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into 'separate sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four 'limbs, will depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: 'whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, 'and Parisian or Anglo-Dandical. Again, what meaning lies in 'Colour! From the soberest drab to the high-flaming scarlet, 'spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold themselves in choice of Colour: 'if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent, so does the Colour 'betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nations as 'among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, though 'infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of 'the Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active 'Influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order ( are neither invisible nor illegible.

For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter'evening entertainment nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences,

'like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to me unin'structive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu himself but 'a clever infant spelling Letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic 'Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven?-Let 'any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear such and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why 'I am here, to wear and obey any thing-Much, therefore, if not the whole, of that same Spirit of Clothes I shall suppress, as 'hypothetical, ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, 'and Deductions drawn therefrom in quite another than that 'omniscient style, are my humbler and proper province.'

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdröckh has nevertheless contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness at the same time, in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers of some Library of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, 'at present the glory of British Literature? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it for their own behoof.

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do with Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, 'according to the Talmudists, he had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and 'terrestrial Devils,'-very needlessly, we think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into the Adam-Kadmon, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relation with the Nift and Muspel (Darkness and Light) of the antique North. it may be enough to say that its correctness of deduction, an

depth of Talmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist in Britain with something like astonishment.

But quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdröckh hastens from the Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole habitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (as the Nürnbergers give an Orbis Pictus) an Orbis Vestitus; or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is here that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say: Fall to! Here is Learning an irregular Treasury, if you will; but inexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons in twelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carry off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamides, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, as the name Gallia Braccata indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part too we must admit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled down quite pell-mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and thrown aside.

Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pietures of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised us. The first purpose of clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament. Miserable indeed,' says he, 'was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from 'under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to 'his loins, and hung round him like a matted cloak; the rest of 'his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the 'sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits; or, as the an'cient Caledonian, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his 'bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save 'the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession and de'fence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited 'thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly un'erring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once

'satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (Putz). 'Warmth he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for 'Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we 'find tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first 'spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries.

Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Se'rene Highness: nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom 'Maiden, worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou 'lovest, worshippest as a divine Presence, which, indeed, symboli'cally taken, she is has descended, like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal Anthropophagus! Out ' of the eater cometh forth meat; out of the strong cometh forth 'sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet in 'Time! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or 'beholds, is in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vi'tality. Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever'working Universe: it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed 'to-day (says one), it will be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove '(perhaps, alas, as a Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.

He who first shortened the labour of Copyists by device of Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering 'most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic 'world: he had invented the Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's 'pestel through the ceiling: what will the last do? Achieve the 'final undisputed prostration of Force under Thought, of Animal 'courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was in the old'world Grazier,--sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country 'till he got it bartered for corn or oil,-to take a piece of Lea'ther, and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or Pecus); put it in his pocket, and call it Pecunia, Money. 'Yet hereby did Barter grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, and all miracles have been out-miracled: for there are Rothschilds and English National Debts; and whoso has sixpence is Sovereign (to the length of sixpence) over 'all men; commands Cooks to feed him, Philosophers to teach