CHAPTER XI.

TAILORS.

THUS, however, has our first Practical Inference from the Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects Dandies, been sufficiently drawn; and we come now to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teufelsdröckh himself, as expressed in the concluding page of his Volume; to whom therefore we willingly give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his own way:

'Upwards of a century,' says he, 'must elapse, and still the 'bleeding fight of Freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing 'in the van, and thrones be hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, ' and the Moloch of Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of 6 Justice his martyrs, before Tailors can be admitted to their true 'prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound of suffering Hu'manity be closed.

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'If aught in the history of the world's blindness could surprise us, here might we indeed pause and wonder. An idea has gone ( abroad, and fixed itself down into a wide-spreading rooted error, 'that Tailors are a distinct species in Physiology, not Men, but 'but fractional Parts of a Man. Call any one a Schneider (Cut. 'ter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, hoodwinked, and indeed 'delirious condition of Society, equivalent to defying his per'petual fellest enmity? The epithet Schneidermässig (Tailor-like) 'betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity: 'we introduce a Tailor's-Melancholy, more opprobrious than any 'Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine; and fable I know not 'what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I 'speak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather'Tailor), with his Schneider mit dem Panier? Why of Shak

6 speare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and elsewhere? Does it not 'stand on record that the English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a 'deputation of Eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a "Good 'morning, gentlemen both!" Did not the same virago boast that 'she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man 'could be injured: her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares? 'Thus everywhere is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted 'on as an indisputable fact.

question to any Physiologist, Seems it not at least presumaTailor has bones, and viscera,

'Nevertheless, need I put the 'whether it is disputable or not? 'ble, that, under his Clothes, the 'and other muscles than the sartorius? Which function of man'hood is the Tailor not conjectured to perform? Can he not 'arrest for debt? Is he not in most countries a tax-paying 'animal?

'To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful which convic'tion is mine. Nay, if the fruit of these long vigils, and almost 'preternatural Inquiries is not to perish utterly, the world will have approximated towards a higher Truth; and the doctrine, 'which Swift, with the keen forecast of genius, dimly anticipated, 'will stand revealed in clear light: that the Tailor is not only a 'Man, but something of a Creator or Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that "he snatched the Thunder from Heaven and the 'Sceptre from Kings:" but which is greater, I would ask, he that 'lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away from individual 6 cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor new-created into a Noble6 man, and clothed not only with. Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic Dominion,-is not the fair fabric of Society itself, with 'all its royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from naked'ness and dismemberment, we are organised into Polities, into 'nations, and a whole co-operating Mankind, the creation, as has 'here been often irrefragably evinced, of the Tailor alone?— 'What too are all Poets, and moral Teachers, but a species of 'Metaphorical Tailors? Touching which high Guild the great'est living Guild-brother has triumphantly asked us: "Nay, if 'thou wilt have it, who but the Poet first made Gods for men; 'brought them down to us; and raised us up to them ?"

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And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the hard basis of

'his Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth 'part of a man! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with 'the kindling eye of hope, and prophetic bodings of a nobler bet'ter time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed legs, wearing 'thy ancle-joints to horn; like some sacred Anchorite, or Catholic 'Fakir, doing penance, drawing down Heaven's richest blessings, 'for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of hope! Already streaks 'of blue peer through our clouds; the thick gloom of Ignorance 'is rolling asunder, and it will be day. Mankind will repay with 'interest their long-accumulated debt: the Anchorite that was 'scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an 'Integer only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the 'world will recognise that the Tailor is its Hierophant, and Hier'arch, or even its God.

'As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these 'Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich 'Cloth, which the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I 'thought within myself: How many other Unholies has your 'covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian Whinstone!

'Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, 'whereon stood written that such and such a one was "Breeches'Maker to his Majesty ;" and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair ' of Leather Breeches, and between the knees these memorable words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not this the martyr prison'speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet sighing towards ' deliverance; and prophetically appealing to a better day? A 'day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to 'man, and the Scissors become for ever venerable.

Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altoge'ther in vain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent as it were, and shed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that 'I first conceived this Work on Clothes: the greatest I can ever เ hope to do; which has already, after long retardations, occupied, ' and will yet occupy, so large a section of my Life; and of which 'the Primary and simpler Portion may here find its conclusion.'

CHAPTER XII.

FAREWELL.

So have we endeavoured, from the enormous, amorphous Plumpudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdröckh had kneaded for his fellow mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless enterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel of spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire? If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task which Destiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, he sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter ?.

Of Professor Teufelsdröckh it seems impossible to take leave without a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and disapproval. Who will not regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a rummaging among lumber-rooms; nay, too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests? Regret is unavoidable; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his mad humours British Criticism would essay in vain: enough for her if she can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of writing, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men! As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over Teufelsdröckh's German,

lost much of his own English purity? Even as the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl along with it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to become portion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: which habit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate.

Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shews himself, is there any reader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, there is that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almost attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man who had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not be and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who had manfully defied the 'TimePrince,' or Devil, to his face; nay, perhaps, Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places, at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack Scytheman, shall be welcome.

Still the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keen insight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to communicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the absurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who should satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it not conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much bountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone, Literature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with his characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all colours, against the canvass, to try whether it will paint Foam? With all his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdröckh desperation enough for this.

A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is that Teufelsdröckh is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a wish to proselytise. How often already have we paused,

ertain whether the basis of this so enigmatic nature were rea Stoicism and Despair, or Love and Hope only seared into the fire of these! Remarkable, moreover, is this saying of his :