" uses of this Vestment? How much has been con'cealed, how much has been defended in Aprons! Nay, 'rightly considered, what is your whole Military and 'Police Establishment, charged at uncalculated mil'lions, but a huge scarlet-coloured, iron-fastened Apron, 'wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding ' itself from some soil and stithy-sparks, in this Devil's'smithy (Teufels-schmiede) of a world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to me hitherto has been the Episcopal, or Cassock. Wherein consists the usefulness 'of this Apron? The Overseer (Episcopus) of Souls, I notice, has tucked in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done: what does he shadow forth thereby?' &c. &c. Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers to read such stuff as we shall now quote?

'I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by the 'Parisian Cooks, as a new vent, though a slight one, for Typography; therefore as an encouragement to modern Literature, and deserving of approval: nor is it without " satisfaction that I hear of a celebrated London Firm having in view to introduce the same fashion, with im'portant extensions, in England.'-We who are on the spot hear of no such thing; and indeed have reason to be thankful that hitherto there are other vents for our Literature, exuberant as it is.-Teufelsdröckh continues: 'If such supply of printed Paper should rise so far as to 'choke up the highways and public thoroughfares, new means must of necessity be had recourse to. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge to employ Fire as a destroying element, and not as a creating one. 'However, Heaven is omnipotent, and will find us an 'outlet. In the mean while, is it not beautiful to see five 'million quintals of Rags picked annually from the Lay

'stall; and annually, after being macerated, hot-pressed, * printed on, and sold,-returned thither; filling so many hungry mouths by the way? Thus is the Laystall, ' especially with its Rags, or Clothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-Motion, from which ' and to which the Social Activities (like vitreous and ' resinous Electricities) circulate, in larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy, stormtost Chaos of • Life, which they keep alive!'-Such passages fill us, who love the man, and partly esteem him, with a very mixed feeling.

Farther down we met with this: The Journalists ' are now the true Kings and Clergy: henceforth Histo‘rians, unless they are fools, must write not of Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped 'Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, ' according as this or the other Able Editor, or Combina'tion of Able Editors, gains the world's ear. Of the 'British Newspaper Press, perhaps the most important of ́ all, and wonderful enough in its secret constitution and ' procedure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, ‘in that language, under the title of Satan's Invisible 'World Displayed; which, however, by search in all 'the Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in procuring (vermöchte nicht aufzutreiben).'

Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but snore. Thus does Teufelsdröckh, wandering in regions where he had little business, confound the old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, spurious, imaginary Historian of the Brittische Journalistik; and so stumble on perhaps the most egregious blunder in Modern Literature !

CHAPTER VII.

MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL.

HAPPIER is our Professor, and more purely scientific and historic, when he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe, and down to the end of the Seventeenth Century; the true era of extravagance in Costume. It is here that the Antiquary and Student of Modes comes upon his richest harvest. Fantastic garbs, beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, succeed each other, like monster devouring monster in a Dream. The whole too in brief authentic strokes, and touched not seldom with that breath of genius which makes even old raiment alive. Indeed, so learned, precise, graphical, and every way interesting have we found these Chapters, that it may be thrown out as a pertinent question for parties concerned, Whether or not a good English Translation thereof might henceforth be profitably incorporated with Mr. Merrick's valuable Work On Ancient Armour? Take, by way of example, the following sketch; as authority for which Paulinus's Zeitkurzende Lust (11. 678) is, with seeming confidence, referred to:

'Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the 'Fifteenth Century, we might smile; as perhaps those 'bygone Germans, were they to rise again, and see our 'haberdashery, would cross themselves, and invoke the 'Virgin. But happily no bygone German, or man, rises

again; thus the Present is not needlessly trammelled 'with the Past; and only grows out of it, like a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled with its branches, but 'lie peaceably under ground. Nay it is very mournful, " yet not useless, to see and know, how the Greatest and 'Dearest, in a short while, would find his place quite filled ' up here, and no room for him; the very Napoleon, the very Byron, in some seven years, has become obsolete, ' and were now a foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the 'Law of Progress secured; and in Clothes, as in all 'other external things whatsoever, no fashion will con'tinue.

"Of the military classes in those old times, whose 'buff-belts, complicated chains and gorgets, huge churn' boots, and other riding and fighting gear have been be'painted in modern Romance, till the whole has acquired 'somewhat of a signpost character,-I shall here say 'nothing the civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough for us.

'Rich men, I find, have Teusinke' (a perhaps untranslateable article); ' also a silver girdle, whereat hang 'little bells; so that when a man walks it is with con'tinual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have a 'whole chime of bells (Glockenspiel) fastened there; ' which especially, in sudden whirls, and the other ac'cidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too 'how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersec'tions. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell-long, ' which hang bobbing over the side (schief): their shoes are peaked in front, also to the length of an ell, and 'laced on the side with tags; even the wooden shoes ' have their ell-long noses: some

also clap bells on the

'peak. Farther, according to my authority, the men 'have breeches without seat (ohne Gesäss): these they fasten peak wise to their shirts; and the long round ' doublet must overlap them.

'Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped ' out behind and before, so that back and breast are 'almost bare. Wives of quality, on the other hand, 'have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of a hem; the long flood of 'silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to 'shoe, wherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. 'The maidens have bound silver snoods about their hair, 'with gold spangles, and pendent flames (Flammen), 'that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their mother's headgear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace is 'comfort forgotten. In winter weather you behold the 'whole fair creation (that can afford it) in long mantles, ' with skirts wide below, and, for hem, not one but two 'sufficient handbroad welts: all ending atop in a thick 'well-starched Ruff, some twenty inches broad: these 'are their Ruff-mantles (Kragenmäntel).

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'As yet, among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not; but the men have doublets of fustian, under which 'lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted together with batter '(mit Teig zusammengekleistert), which create protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the art of Decoration; and as usual the stronger carries it.'

Our Professor, whether he have Humour himself or