after-times. In the ballad of George Barnwell, it is said of Milwood

"A handkerchief she had,

All wrought with silk and gold,

Which she, to stay her trickling tears,

Before her eyes did hold."

In the east these handkerchiefs are common, and it is still a favourite occupation of the Egyptian ladies to embroider them.

We are surprised now to find to what minute particulars legal enactments descended. "No husbandman, shepherd, or common labourer to any artificer, out of cities or boroughs (having no goods of their own above the value of £10), shall use or wear any cloth the broad yard whereof passeth 2s. 4d., or any hose above the price of 12d. the yard, upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks for three days."

It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a proclamation was issued that no man should "weare his shoes above sixe inches square at the toes." We have before seen that the attention of the grave and learned members of the Senate, the "Conscript Fathers" of England, was devoted to the due regulation of this interesting part of apparel, when the shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to be tied up to the waist ere the happy and privileged wearer could set his foot on the ground. Now, however, "a change came o'er the spirit of the" day, and it became the duty of those who exercised a paternal surveillance over the welfare of the community at large to legislate regarding the breadth of the shoe-toes, that they should not be above "sixe inches square."

"Great," was anciently the cry-"Great is Diana of

the Ephesians;" but how immeasurably greater and mightier has been, through that and all succeeding ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of flimsy gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations as by a shackle of iron, that shadowy, unsubstantial, ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting deity-FASHION! At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth. The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments; and the darkhued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.

And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming "men into monsters," and women likewise-if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever, have ever numberless and willing votaries. It was once the fashion for people who either were or fancied themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity of their passion by the fortitude with which they could bear those extremes of heat and cold from which unsophisticated nature would shrink. These "penitents of love," for so the fraternity—and a pretty numerous one it was-was called, would clothe themselves in the dog-days in the thickest mantles lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the winds howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the earth with a freezing mantle, they wore the thinnest and most fragile garments. It was forbidden to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to appear with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. They

supposed or pretended that the deity whom they thus propitiated was LOVE: we aver that the autocrat under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed-was FASHION.

And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius? What is her appearance? Whence does she arise? Did she alight from the skies, while rejoicing stars sang Pæans at her birth? Was she born of the Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of glory around her? or did she spring from Ocean while Nereids revelled around, and Mermaids strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft melodies the while floating along the glistering waves, and echoing from the Tritons' booming shells beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the air; she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial as the ocean's froth ;-but she is none of these. She is but we will lay aside our own definition in order that the reader may have the advantage of that of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.

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Quelqu'un qui voudrait un peu étudier d'où part en première source ce qu'on appelle LES Modes verrait, à notre honte, qu'un petit nombre de gens, de la plus méprisable espèce qui soit dans une ville, laquelle renferme tout indifféremment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les connaissions, nous n'aurions que le mépris qu'on a pour les gens sans meurs, ou la pitié qu'on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis à tous leurs caprices.'

Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so many do shipwrack their credits," and make themselves "ridiculous apes, or at best but

like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its body."

"Clothes" writes a venerable historian, "are for necessity; warm clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificience. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the wearer, if he takes pride therein.

"He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs at the rattling of his fetters. For indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of what's but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant's feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute, the Silkworm his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold condition. And yet 'tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of a molehill, the other of a dunghill."

But the worthy Fuller's ideal picture of suitable dress was the very antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth's day, when that rage for foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated the island, and our ancestors masked themselves

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in garish gaudery

To suit a fool's far-fetched livery.

A French hood join'd to neck Italian,

The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.

An Englishman in none, a fool in all,

Many in one, and one in several."

And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her English admirer: :- -"How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere."

A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious modes of his time: "These tender Parnels must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer. One furred through, another but faced; one for the workday, another for the holiday. One of this colour, another of that. One of cloth, another of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore dinner, another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat spends as much on apparel for him and his wife as his father would have kept a good house with.”

The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat unjustly we think, to satirize the fair sex

alone.

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Why do women array themselves in such fantastical dresses and quaint devices; with gold, with silver, with coronets, with pendants, bracelets, earrings, chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries, shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tassels, golden cloth, silver