'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 de'serving of approval: nor is it without satisfaction that I hear of 'a celebrated London Firm having in view to introduce the same 'fashion, with important 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 6 recourse to. In a world existing by Industry, we grudge to em'ploy fire as a destroying element, and not as a creating one. 'However, Heaven is omnipotent, and will find us an outlet. In 'the meanwhile, is it not beautiful to see five million quintals of 'Rags picked annually from the Laystall; 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 Elec'tricities) 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 meet with this: The Journalists are now 'the true Kings and Clergy: henceforth Historians, 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 6 Editor, or Combination 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 proce'dure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, in that lan'guage, 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 live. 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 (ii. 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, เ 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

6

'Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will continue.

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 bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has acquired somewhat of a sign-post 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 continual jingling. Some few, of 'musical turn, have a whole chime of bells (Glockenspiel) fastened 'there; which especially, in sudden whirls, and the other acci'dents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how fond 'they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. 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. Further, according to my authority, the men have 'breeches without seat (ohne Gesäss): these they fasten peakwise 'to their shirts; and the long round doublet must overlap 'them.

Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out he'hind 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 Cleo'patras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for 'steersman! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which เ waver round them by way of hem; the long flood of silver but'tons, 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 (Kragen'mäntel).

'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 not, manifests a certain feeling of the Ludicrous, a sly observance of it, which, could emotion of any kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we might call a real love. None of those bell-girdles, bushel-breeches, cornuted shoes or other the like phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers so many, escape him; more especially the mischances, or striking adventures, incident to the wearers of such, are noticed with due fidelity. Sir Walter Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in the mud under Queen Elizabeth's feet, appears to provoke little enthusiasm in him; he merely asks, Whether at that period the Maiden Queen 'was red'painted on the nose, and white-painted on the cheeks, as her 'tirewomen, when from spleen and wrinkles she would no longer 'look in any glass, were wont to serve her?' We can answer that Sir Walter knew well what he was doing, and had the Maiden Queen been stuffed parchment died in verdigris, would have done the same.

Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, that were not only slashed and galooned, but artificially swollen out on the broader parts of the body, by introduction of Bran,—our Professor fails not to comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of dry wheat-dust and stood there diminished to a spindle, his galoons and slashes dangling sorrowful and flabby round him. Whereupon the Professor publishes this reflection :

By what strange chances do we live in History! Erostra'tus by a torch; Milo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged