the bony system. They imitate equally well the form, and more exactly the colouring of nature than injected preparations; and they have been employed to perpetuate many transient phenomena of disease, of which no other court could have made so lively a record.

There is a species of wax-work, which, though it can hardly claim the honours of the fine arts, is adapted to af

ford much pleasure. I mean figures of wax, which may be modelled with the great truth of character.

Menage has noticed a work of this kind. In the year 1675, the Duke de Matne received a gilt cabinet, about the size of a moderate table. On the door was inscribed, The apartment of Wit.' The inside exhibited an alcove and a long gallery. In an arm-chair was seated the figure of the duke himself composed of wax, the resemblance the most perfect imaginable. On one side stood the Duke de la Rochefoucault, to whom he presented a paper of verses for his examination. Mr de Marcillac and Bossuet Bishop of Meaux, were standing near the armchair. In the alcove, Madame de Thianges and Madame de la Fayette sat retired reading a book. Boileau, the satirist stood at the door of the gallery, hindering seven or eight bad poets from entering. Near Boileau stood Racine who seemed to beckon to La Fontaine to come forward. All these figures were formed of wax; and this philosophical baby-house, interesting for the personages it imitated, might induce a wish in some philosophers to play once more with one.

There was lately an old canon at Cologne who made a collection of small wax models of characteristic figures, such as, personifications of misery, in a haggard old man with a scanty crust and a brown jug before him: or of avarice in a keen looking Jew miser counting his gold, which were done with such a spirit and reality that a Flemish painter a Hogarth or Wilkie, could hardly have worked up the feeling of the figure more impressively. All these were done with a truth and expression which I could not have imagined the wax capable of exhibiting, says the lively writer of an Autumn on the Rhine.' There is something very infantine in this taste; but I have preserved it long in life, and only lament that it is very rarely gratified by such close copiers of nature as was this old canon of Cologne.

PASQUIN AND MARFORIO.

All the world have heard of these statues; they have served as vehicles for the keenest satire in a land of the

the second the prose pasquinades published at Basle, 1544.
The rarity of this collection of satirical pieces is en-
tirely owing to the arts of suppression practised by the pa-
pal government. Sallengre, in his Literary Memoirs, has
given an account of this work; his own copy had formerly
belonged to Daniel Heinsius, who, in two verses, written
in his hand, describes its rarity and the price it cost

Roma meos fratres igni dedit, unica Phonix
Vivo, auriesque veneo centum Hensio.

'Rome gave my brothers to the flames, but I survive a soli tary Phoenix. Heinsius bought me for a hundred golden ducats.'

This collection contains a great number of pieces composed at different times, against the popes, cardinals, &e. They are not indeed materials for the historian, and they must be taken with grains of allowance; but Mr. Roscoe might have discovered in these epigrams and puns, that of his hero Leo X, and the more than infamous Lucretia of Alexander VI; even the corrupt Romans of the day were capable of expressing themselves with the utmost freedom. Of these three respectable personages we find several epitaphs. Of Alexander VI we have an apology for his conduct.

Vendit Alexander Claves, altaria, Christum,
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest.
'Alexander sells the keys, the altars, and Christ;
As he bought them first, he had a right to sell them?
On Lucretia :-

Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re
Thais; Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus!

Beneath this stone sleeps Lucretia by name, but by na ture Thais; the daughter, the wife, the daughter-in-law of Alexander!'

Leo X was a frequent butt for the arrows of Pasquin :

Sacra sub extrema, si forte requiritis, hora

Cur Leo non potuit sumere; vendiderat.

Do you ask why the Lion did not take the sacrament on his death-bed-How could he? He had sold it !

Ur

Many of these satirical touches depend on puns.
ban VII, one of the Barberini family, pillaged the pantheon
of brass to make cannon, on which occasion Pasquin was
made to say '-

Quod non fecerunt Barbari Romæ, fecit Barberini.'
On Clement VII, whose death was said to be occasion-

most uncontrolled despotism. The statue of Pasquin (from ed by the prescriptions of his Physician :
whence the word pasquinade) and that of Marforio are
placed in Rome in two different quarters. Marforio's is
an ancient statue that lies at its whole length: either Pa-
narium Jovum; or the river Rhine. That of Pasquin is
a marble statue, greatly mutilated, which stands at the
corner of the palace of the Ursinos supposed to be the fi-
gure of a gladiator. Whatever they may have been is
now of little consequence; to one or other of these statues,
during the concealment of the night are affixed those sa-
tires or lampoons which the authors wish should be dispers-
ed about Rome without any danger to themselves. When
Marforio is attacked, Pasquin comes to his succour and
when Pasquin is the sufferer he finds in Marforio a; con-
stant defender. Thus, by a thrust and a parry, the most
serious matters are disclosed; and the most illustrious
personages are attacked by their enemies, and defended
by their friends.

Curtius occidit Clementem, Curtius auro
Donandus, per quem publica paria salus.
'Dr Curtius has killed the pope by his remedies; he ought
to be paid as a man who deserves well of the state.
Another calls Dr Curtius, The Lamb of God who an-
nuls or takes away all worldly sins.'
The following, on Paul III, are singular conceptions :-
Papa Meduseum caput est, coma turba Nepotum :
Perseus cæde caput, Cæsaries periit.

Misson in his travels in Italy, gives the following account of the origin of the name of the statue of Pasguin :

A satirical tailor, who lived at Rome, and whose name was Pasquin, amused himself with severe raillery, liberally bestowed on those who passed by his shop; which in time became the lounge of the news-mongers. The tailor had precisely the talent to head a regiment of satirical wits, and had he had time to publish, he would have been the Peter Pindar of his day; but his genius seems to have been satisfied to rest cross-legged on his shop-board. When any lampoons or amusing bon-mots were current in Rome, they were usually called from his shop, pasquinades. After his death this statue of an ancient gladiator was found under the pavement of his shop. It was soon set up; and by universal consent was inscribed with his name; and they still attempt to raise him from the dead, and keep the caustic tailor alive, in the marble gladiator of wit. There is a very rare work, with this title : orum, Tomi Duo.' The first containing the verse, and

Pasquil

The pope is the head of Medusa; the horrid tresses are his nephews; Perseus, cut off the head, and then we shall be rid of these serpent-locks.'

Another is sarcastic

Ut canerent data multa olim sunt Vatibus æra: Ut taceam, quantum tu mihi, Paule, dabis? 'Heretofore money was given to poets that they might sing: how much will you give me, Paul, to be silent 25

The collection contains, among other classes, passages from the Scriptures which have been applied to the court of Rome; to different nations and persons; and one of Sortes Virgiliana per Pasquillum collectæ,'-passages from Virgil frequently happily applied and those who are curious in the history of those times, will find this portion interesting. The work itself not quite so rare as Da

It appears by a note in Mr. Roscoe's catalogue of his Li brary, that three of the sarcastic epigrams here cited, are given in the Life of Leo X. At this distance of time I cannot account for my own inadvertency. It has been, however, the occa sion of calling down from Mr Roscoe an admirable reflection, which I am desirous of preserving, as a canon of criticisin It is much safer, in general, to speak of the contents of books positively than negatively, as the latter requires that they should first be read. I regret that our elegant and nervous waiter should have considered a casual inadvertence as worth his attention

57

LITERATURE.

niel Heinseius imagined; the price might now reach from five to ten guineas.

Marforio is a statue of Mars, found in the Forum ;) which the people have corrupted into Mar forio. These statues are placed at opposite ends of the town, so that there is always sufficient time to make Marforio reply to the gibes and jeers of Pasquin, in walking from one to the other. I am obliged for the information to my friend Mr Duppa, the elegant biographer of Michael Angelo.

FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS.

The ladies in Japan gild their teeth, and those of the them red. The pearl of teeth must be dyed Indies paint black to be beautiful in Guzurat. In Greenland the woinen colour their faces with blue and yellow. However fresh the complexion of a Muscovite may be, she would think herself very ugly if she was not plastered over with paint. The Chinese must have their feet as diminutive as those of the she goats; and to render them thus, their In ancient Persia, an aquayouth is passed in tortures. line nose was often thought worthy of the crown; and if there was any conception between two princes, the people generally went by this criterion of majesty. In some countries, the mothers break the noses of their children; and in other press the head between two boards, that it may become square. The modern Persians have a strong aversion to red hair; the Turks, on the contrary, are warm admirers of it. The female Hottentot receives from the hand of her lover, not silk or wreaths of flowers, but warm guts and reeking tripe, to dress herself with enviable

Ornaments.

In China small round eyes are liked; and the girls are Continually plucking their eye-brows that they may be thin and long. The Turkish women dip a gold brush in the tincture of a black drug, which they pass over their eyebrows. It is too visible by day, but looks shining by night. They tinge their nails with a rose-colour: An African beauty must have small eyes, thick lips, a large flat nose, and a skin beautifully black. The Emperor of Monomotapa would not change his amiable negress for the most brilliant European beauty.

An ornament for the nose appears to us perfectly unnecessary. The Peruvians, however, think otherwise; and they hang on it a weighty ring, the thickness of which is proportioned by the rank of their husbands. The custom of boring it, as our ladies do their ears, is very common in several nations. Through the perforation are hung various materials; such as green crystal, gold stones, a single and sometimes a great number of gold rings. This is rather troublesome to them in blowing their noses; and the fact is, some have informed us, that the Indian ladies never perform this very useful operation.

The female head-dress is carried in some countries to singular extravagance. The Chinese fair carries on her head the figure of a certain bird. This bird is composed of copper, or of gold, according to the quality of the person: The wings spread out, fall over the front of the headdress, and conceal the temples. The tail, long and open, forms a beautiful tuft of feathers. The beak covers the top of the nose; the neck is fastened to the body of the artificial animal by a spring, that it may the more freely play, and tremble at the slightest motion.

The extravagance of the Myantses is far more ridiculous than the above. They carry on their heads a slight board, rather longer than a foot, and about six inches broad: with this they cover their hair, and seal it with wax. They cannot lie down, nor lean, without keeping the neck straight; and the country being very woody, it is not uncommon to find them with their head-dress entangled in the trees; whenever they comb their hair, they pass an hour by the fire in melting the wax; but this combing is only perform

ed once or twice a year.

The inhabitants of the land of Natal wear caps, or bonnets, from six to ten inches high composed of the fat of They then gradually anoint the head with a purer grease, which mixing with the hair, fastens the bonnets for their lives.

oxen.

MODERN PLATONISM.

Erasmus in his age of religious revolution expressed an alarm, which in some shape has been since realized. He strangely, yet acutely observes, that literature began to make a great and happy progress; but,' he adds, I fear two things, that the study of Hebrew will promote Judaism, and the study of philology will revive Paganism.' He

speaks to the same purpose in the Adages, c. 189 as
Blackwell in his curious Life of
Jortin observes, p. 90.
Homer, after showing that the ancient oracies were the
fountains of knowledge, and that the god of Delphi actual
acquaintance with the country, parentage, and fortunes of
ly was believed by the voraries, from the oracle's perfect
the suppliant, and many predictions having been verified;
that besides ail this, the oracles that have reached us dis-
cover a wide knowledge of every thing relating to Greece;
-he is at a loss to account for a knowledge that he thinks
has something divine in it: it was a knowledge to be found
nowhere in Greece but among the oracles. He would ac-
count for this phenomenon, by supposing there existed a
succession of learned men devoted to this purpose.
or turn converts to the ancients, and believe in the omniscience
says, ' Either we must admit the knowledge of the priests,
Yet to the astonishment of this writer, were he now living,
of Apollo, which in this age I know nobody in hazard of.
mus himself might have wondered.
he would have witnessed this incredible fact! Even Eras-

He

We discover the origin of modern platonism, as it may be
the fifteenth century, some time before the Turks had be-
come masters of Constantinople, a great number of philo-
distinguished among the Italians. About the middle of
ed by his genius, his erudition, and his fervent passion for
platonism. Mr Roscoe notices Pletho; His discourses
sophers flourished. Gemisthus Pletho was once distinguish-
had so powerful an effect upon Cosmo de Medici, who
was his constant auditor, that he established an academy
at Florence for the sole purpose of cultivating this new and
more elevated species of philosophy.' The learned Mar-
silio Ficino translated Plotinus, that great archimage of
that in his old age those whom his novel system had greatly
platonic mysticism. Such were Pletho's eminent abilities,
Pletho. The following account is written by George of
irritated, either feared or respected him. He had scarcely
Trebizond.
breathed his last when they began to abuse Plato and our

'Lately has arisen amongst us a second Mahomet: and
this second, if we do not take care, will exceed in greatness
A disciple and
the first, by the dreadful consequences of his wicked doc-
trine, as the first has exceeded Plato.
rival of this philosopher in philosophy, in eloquence, and in
science, he had fixed his residence in the Peloponnese.
His common name was Gemisthus, but he assumed that
of Pletho. Perhaps Gemisthus, to make us believe more
us to receive more readily his doctrine and his new law,
wished to change his name, according to the manner of the
easily that he was descended from heaven, and to engage
ancient patriarchs; of whom it is said, that at the time the
name was changed they were called to the greatest things.
He has written with no vulgar art, and with no common
elegance. He has given new rules for the conduct of life,
and for the regulation of human affairs; and at the same
time has vomited forth a great number of blasphemies
against the catholic religion. He was so zealous a pla-
tonist that he entertained no other sentiments than those
of Plato, concerning the nature of the gods, souls, sacri-
fices, &c. I have heard him myself, when we were to-
gether at Florence, say, that in a few years all men on the
and with one mind, a single and simple religion, at the first
face of the earth would embrace with one common consent,
instructions which should be given by a single preaching.
And when I asked him if it would be the religion of Jesus
Christ, or that of Mahomet? he aswered, "Neither one
nor the other; but a third, which will not greatly differ
dignation, that since that time I have always hated him:
from paganism." These words I heard with so much in-
I look upon him as a dangerous viper; and I cannot think
of him without abhorrence,'

8

The pious writer of this account is too violently agitated: he might perhaps, have bestowed a smile of pity or contempt; but the bigots and fanatics are not less insano than the impious themselves.

A cirIt was when Pletho died full of years and honours, that the malice of his enemies collected all its venom. cumstance that seems to prove that his abilities must have been great indeed to have kept such crowds silent and it is not improbable, this scheme of impiety was less impious than some people imagined. Not a few catholic writers lament that his book was burnt, and greatly regret the loss of Pletho's work; which, they say, was not meant to subvert the christian religion, but only to unfold the system of Plato and to collect what he and other philosophers had written on religion and politics.

The

Of his religious scheme, the reader may judge by this summary account, The general title of the volume ran thus: This book treats of the laws of the best form of government, and what all men must observe in their public and private stations, to live together in the most perfect, the most innocent, and the most happy manner.' whole was divided into three books. The titles of the chapters where paganism was openly inculcated, are reported by Gennadius, who condemned it to the flames, bu: who has not thought proper to enter into the manner of his arguments, &c. The impiety and the extravagance of this new legislator appeared above all, in the articles which concerned religion. He acknowledges a plurality of gods; some superior, whom he placed above the heavens; and the others inferior, on this side the heavens. The first existing from the remotest antiquity; the others younger, and of different ages. He gave a king to all these gods; and he called him ZEYE, or Jupiter, as they named pagans this power formerly. According to him, the stars had a soul; the demons were not malignant spirits; and the world was eternal. He established polygamy, and was even inclined to a community of women. All his work was filled with such reveries, and with not a few impieties, which my pious author will not venture to give.

What the intentions of Pletho were, it would be rash to determine. If the work was only an arrangement of paganism, or the platonic philosophy, it might have been an innocent, if not a curious volume. He was learned and humane, and had not passed his life entirely in the solitary recesses of his study.

To strain human curiosity to the utmost limits of human credibility, a modern Pletho has arisen in Mr Thomas Taylor, who, consonant to the platonic philosophy, at the present day religiously professes polytheim! At the close of the eighteenth century, be it recorded, were published many volumes, in which the author affects to avow himself a zealous Platonist, and asserts he can prove that the christian religion is a bastardized and barbarized Platonism!' The divinities of Plato are the divinities to be adored, and we are to be taught to call God Jupiter; the Virgin, Venus; and Christ, Cupid! And the Iliad of Homer allegorized, is converted into a Greek bible of the

ing, and perhaps more capriciously grotesque, though with infinitely less taste than the present generation. Were & philosopher and an artist, as well as an antiquary, to com pose such a work, much diversified entertainment, and soine curious investigation of the progress of the arts and taste, would doubtless be the result: the subject otherwise appears of trifling value; the very farthing pieces of history,

The origin of many fashions was in the endeavour to conceal some deformity of the inventor; hence the cushions, ruffs, hoops, and other monstrous devises. If a reigning beauty chanced to have an unequal hip, those who had very handsome hips, would load them with that faise rump which the other was compelled by the unkindness of nature to substitute. Patches were invented in England in the reign of Edward VI by a foreign lady, who in this manner ingeniously covered a wen on her neck. When the Spectator wrote, full-bottomed wigs were invented by a French barber, one Duviller, whose name they perpetu ated, for the purpose of concealing an elevation in the shoulder of the Dauphin. Charles VII of France introduced long coats to hide his ill-made legs. Shoes with very long points, full two feet in length, were invented by Henry Plantagenet Duke of Anjou, to conceal a large excrescence on one of his feet. When Francis I was oblig ed to wear his short hair, owing to a wound he received in Others his head, it became a prevailing fashion at court. on the contrary adapted fashions to set off their peculiar beauties, as Isabella of Bavaria, remarkable for her galan try, and the fairness of her complexion, introduced the fashion of leaving the shoulders and part of the neck uncovered.

Fashions have frequently originated from circumstances as silly as the following one. Isabella, daughter of Phup II, and wife of the Archduke Albert, vowed not to change her linen till Ostend was taken; this siege, unluckily for her comfort, lasted three years; and the supposed cul var of the archduchess's linen gave rise to a fashionable colour, hence called L'Isbeau, or the Isabella; a kind of whiust yellow-dingy. Or sometimes they originate in some temporary event; as after the battle of Steenkirk, where the allies wore large cravats, by which the French frequent' seized hold of them, a circumstance perpetuated on the me dals of Louis XIV, cravats were called Steenkirks; and after the battle of Ramillies, wigs received that denomination.

arcana of nature! Extraordinary as this literary lunacy may appear, we must observe, that it stands not singular in the annals of the history of the human mind. The FloThe court in all ages and in every country are the mo rentine academy which Cosmo founded, had, no doubt, dellers of fashions, so that all the ridicule, of which these some classical enthusiasts; but who, perhaps according to are so susceptible, must fall on them, and not upon their the political character of their country, were prudent and servile imitators the citizens. This complaint is made reserved. The platonic furor, however, appears to have even so far back as in 1586, by Jean des Caures, an old reached other countries. The following remarkable anecFrench moralist, who, in declaiming against the fashions dote has been given by St. Foix, in his Essais historiof his day, notices one, of the ladies carrying mirrors fired to their waists, which seemed to employ their eyes in perques sur Paris.' In the reign of Louis XII, a scnolar named Hemon de la Fosse, a native of Abbeville, by conpetual activity. From this mode will result, according to tinually reading and admiring the Greek and Latin writers, honest Des Caures, their eternal damnation. • A as (he became mad enough to persuade himself that it was imexclaims,) in what an age do we live; to see such depravi ty which we see, that induces them even to bring into possible that the religion of such great geniuses as Homer, Cicero, and Virgil was a false one. On the 25th of Auchurch these scandalous mirrors hanging about their waist! gust, 1503, being at church, he suddenly snatched the host Let all histories divine, human, and profane be consulted; from the hands of the priest, at the moment it was raised, never will it be found that these objects of vanity were ever exclaiming; what! always this folly! He was immethus brought into public by the most meretricious of the sex. diately seized and put in prison. In the hope that he It is true, at present none but the ladies of the court venture would abjure his extravagant errors, they delayed his pun-daughter, and every female servant, will wear them Set to wear them; but long it will not be before every citizen's

ishment; but no exhortation nor intreaties availed. He persisted in maintaining that Jupiter was the sovereign God of the universe, and that there was no other paradise than the Elsyian fields. He was burnt alive, after having first had his tongue pierced, and his hand cut off. Thus perished an ardent and learned youth, who ought only to have been condemned as a Bedlamite.

Dr More, the most rational of our modern Platonists, abounds, however, with the most extravagant reveries, and was inflated with egotism and enthusiasm, as much as any of his mystic predecessors. He conceived that he has an intercourse with the divinity itself! that he had been shot as a fiery dart into the world, and he hoped he had hit the mark. He carried his self-conceit to such extravagance, that he thought his urine smelt like violets, and his body in the spring season had a sweet odour; a perfection peculiar to himself. These visionaries indulge the most fanciful vanity.

ANECDOTES OF FASHION.

A volume on this subject might be made very curious and entertaining, for our ancestors were not less vacillat

in all times has been the rise and decline o fashion; and the absurd mimicry of the citizens, even of the low st clas ses, to their very ruin, in straining to rival the newest fashim, has mortified and galled the courtier.

On this subject old Camden, in his remains, relates & story of a trick played off on a citizen, which I give in the plainness of his own venerable style. Sir Paip Caithron, purged John Drakes, the shoemaker of Norwich, in be time of King Henry VIII, of the proud humour which people have to be of the gentleman's cut. This knight beaghd on a time as much fine French tawny cloth as should make him a gown, and sent it to the tailor's to b: male. Ja Drakes, a shoemaker of that town, comin: to this said t lor's, and seeing the knight's gown cloth aying there, ing it wel, caused the tailor to buy him as much of the same cloth and price to the same extent, and further bede him to make it of the same fashion, that the knight ma'd have his made of. Not long after, the knight coming (@ the tailor's to take the measure of his gown, perceiving the like cloth lying there, asked of the tailor whose it was! Quoth the tailor, it is John Drakes the shoemaker, we will have it made of the self-same fashion that yours is mak

of! "Well!" said the knight, in good time be it! I will have mine made as full of cuts as the shears can make it." "It shall be done!" said the tailor; whereupon, because the time drew near, he made haste to finish both their garments. John Drakes had no time to go to the taylor's till Christmas day, for serving his customers, when he hoped to have worn his gown; perceiving the same to be full of cuts, began to swear at the tailor, for the making his gown after that sort. "I have done nothing." quoth the tailor, "but that you bid me, for as Sir Philip Calthorp's garment is, even so have I made yours!" By my latchet!" quoth John Drakes, "I will never wear gentlemen's fashions again."'

Sometimes fashions are quite reversed in their use in one age from another. Bags, when first in fashion in France, were only worn en dishabille; in visits of ceremony, the hair was tied by a riband and floated over the shoulders, which is exactly reversed in the present fashion. In the year 1735 the men had no hats but a little chapeau de bras; in 1745 they wore a very small hat; in 1755 they wore an enormous one, as may be seen in Jeffrey's curious Collection of Habits in all Nations.' Old Puttenham, in his very rare work, The Arts of Poesie,' p. 239, on the present topic gives some curious information. 'Henry VIII caused his own head, and all his courtiers to be polled, and his beard to be cut short; before that time it was thought more decent, both for old men and young, to be all shaven, and wear long haire, either rounded or square. Now again at this time (Elizabeth's reign,) the young gentlemen of the court have taken up the long haire trayling on their shoulders, and think this more decent; for what respect would be glad to know.'

When the fair sex were accustomed to behold their lovers with beards, the sight of a shaved chin excited feelings of horror and aversion; as much indeed as, in this less heroic age, would a gallant whose luxurious beard should

'Stream like a meteor to the troubled air.'

When Louis VII, to obey the injunctions of his bishops, cropped his hair, and shaved his beard, Eleanor, his consort, found him, with this unusual appearance, very ridicu lous, and soon very contemptible. She revenged herself as she thought proper, and the poor shaved king obtained a divorce. She then married the Count of Anjou, afterwards our Henry II. She had for her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poitou and Guyenne, and this was the origin of those wars which for three hundred years ravaged France, and cost the French three millions of men. All which, probably, had never occurred, had Louis VII not been so rash as to crop his head and shave his beard, by which he became so disgustful in the eyes of our Queen Eleanor.

We cannot perhaps sympathize with the feelings of her majesty, though at Constantinople she might not have been considered quite unreasonable. There must be something more powerful in beards and mustachois than we are quite aware of; for when these were in fashion, with what enthusiasm were they not contemplated! When mustachois were in general use, an author, in his Elements of Education, published in 1640, thinks that hairy Excrement,' as Armado in Love's Labour Lost' calls it, contributed to make men valorous. He says, 'I have a favourable opinion of that young gentleman who is curious in fine mustachois. The time he employs in adjusting, dressing, and curling them, is no lost time; for the more he contemplates his mustachois, the more his mind will cherish, and be animated by masculine and courageous notions. The best reason that could be given for wearing: the longest and largest beard of any Englishman, was that of a worthy clergyman in Elizabeth's reign, that no act of his life might be unworthy of the gravity of his appearance.'

The grandfather of the Mrs Thomas, the Corinna of Cromwell, the literary friend of Pope, by her account, I was very nice in the mode of that age, his valet being some hours every morning in starching his beard, and curling his whiskers; during which time he was always rend to.

Tavlor, the water poet, humorously describes the great variety of beards in his time, which extract may be found in Grey's Hudibras, Vol. I, p. 300. The beard, savs Granger, dwindled gradually under the two Charles's, till it was reduced into whiskers, and became extinct in the reign of James II, as if its fatality had been connected with that of the house of Stuart.

The hair has in all ages been an endless topic of the

declamation of the moralist, and the favourite object of fashion. If the beau monde wore their hair luxuriant, or their wig enormous, the preachers, as in Charles the Second's reign, instantly were seen in the pulpit with their hair cut shorter, and their sermon longer, in consequence; respect was however paid by the world to the size of the wig, in spite of the hair-cutter in the pulpit. Our judges, and till lately our physicians, well knew its magical effect. In the reign of Charles II the hair dress of the ladies was very elaborate; it was not only curled and frizzed with the nicest art, but set off with certain artificial curls, then too emphatically known by the pathetic term of heart-breakers and love-locks. So late as William and Mary, lads, and even children wore wigs; and if they had not wigs, they curled their hair to resemble this fashionable ornament. Women then were the hair-dressers.

It is observed by the lively Vigneul de Marville, that there are flagrant follies in fashion which must be endured while they reign, and which never appear ridiculous till they are out of fashion. In the reign of Henry III of France, they could not exist without an abundant use of comfits. All the world, the grave and the gay, carried in their pocket a comfit-box as we do snuff-boxes. They used them even on the most solemn occasions: when the Duke of Guise was shot at Blois, he was found with his comfit-box in his hand. Fashions indeed have been carried to so extravagant a length as to have become a public offence, and to have required the interference of governShort and tight breeches were so much the rage in France, that Charles V was compelled to banish this disgusting mode by edicts which may be found in MezeAn Italian author of the fifteenth century supposes an Italian traveller of nice modesty would not pass through France, that he might not be offended by seeing men whose clothes rather exposed their nakedness than hid it. It is curious that the very same fashion was the complaint in the remoter period of our Chaucer, in his Parson's Tales.

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In the reign of our Elizabeth the reverse of all this took place; then the mode of enormous breeches was pushed to a most laughable excess. The beaus of that day stuffed out their breeches with rays, feathers, and other light matters, till they brought them out to a most enormous size. They resembled wool-sacks, and in a public spectacle, they were obliged to raise scaffolds for the seats o. those ponderous beaus. To accord with this fantastica. taste the ladies invented large hoop farthingales. Two lovers aside could surely never have taken one another by the hand. In a preceding reign the fashion ran on squaretoes; insomuch that a proclamation was issued that no person should wear shoes above six inches square at the toes! Then succeeded picked-pointed shoes! The nation was again, in the reign of Elizabeth, put under the roval authority. In that time,' says honest John Stowe, 'he was held the greatest gallant that had the deepes ruffe and longest rapier: the offence to the eve of the one and hurt unto the life of the subject that come by the other this caused her Majestie to make proclamation against them both, and to place selected grave citizens at every gate to but the ruffes, and break the rapier points of all passengers that exceeded a yeard in length of their rapiers, and a nayle of a yeard in depth of their ruffes.' These grave citizens,' at every gate cutting the ruffes and breaking the rapiers, must doubtless have encountered in their ludicrous employment some stubborn opposition; but this regulation was, in the spirit of that age, despotic and effectual. The late Emperor of Russia ordered the soldiers to stop every passenger who wore pantaloons, and with their hangers to cut off, upon the leg, the offending part of these superfluous breeches; so that a man's legs depended greatly on the adroitness and humanity of a Russ or a Cossack; however this war against pantaloons was very successful, and obtained a complete triumph in favour of the breeches in the course of the week.

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A shameful extravagance in dress has been a most venerable folly. In the reign of Richard II, their dress was sumptuous beyond belief. Sir John Arundel had a change of no less than 52 new suits of cloth of gold tissue. prelates indulged in all the ostentatious luxury of dress. Chaucer says, they had' chaunge of clothing everie daie. Brantome records of Elizabeth, Queen of Philip II, of Spain, that she never wore a gown twice; this was told him by her majesty's own tailleur, who from a poor man soon became as rich as any one he knew. Our own Elizabeth left no less than three thousand different habits in her ward