Captain Cook's voyages, have some such Lower Houses; and look well in them for the same reason. The body issued from the hoop, as out of a sea of flounce and furbelow. It was the next thing to a nymph half hidden in water. The arm and fan reposed upon it, as upon a cloud or a moving sphere, the fair angel looking serene and superior above it. Thus much we would say in defence of the hoop, properly so called, when it was in its perfection, large and circular, and to be approached like a “hedge of divinity,” or the walls of Troy,—

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious petticoat; not for those mashed and minor shapes of the phenomenon, which degenerated into mere appendages, panniers, or side lumps, and reminded you of nothing but their deformity. But it was always a thing fantastic, and fit only for court and ceremony.

Mr. Planché justly cautions one generation against laughing at the fashions of another. He advises such ladies as would " scream at the dresses of the fourteenth or even eighteenth century, to look into a fashionable pocket-book or magazine for the year 1815 or 20, and then candidly compare notes. Appendages or inclosures are one thing; positive clinging disfigurements another. The ugliest female dress, in our opinion, without exception, was that which we conceive Mr. Planché to allude to, and which confounded all ages and shapes by girdling the gown under the armpits, and sticking a little pad at the back, almost between the shoulders! It reduced all figures to lumps of absurdity. No wellshaped woman, we may be sure, invented it. A history of the real origin of many fashions would be a curious document. We should find infirmity and unsightliness cheating youth and beauty into an imitation of them, and beaux and belles piquing themselves on resembling the worst points about their cunning elders.

As long as a man wears the modern coat, he has no right to despise any dress. What a thing it is, though so often taken for something "exquisite !" What a horse-collar for a collar! What snips at the collar and lapells! What a mechanical and ridiculous cut about the flaps! What buttons in front that are never meant to button, and yet are no ornament! And what an exquisitely absurd pair of buttons at the back! gravely regarded nevertheless, and thought as indispensably necessary to every well-conditioned coat, as other bits of metal or bone are to the bodies of savages whom we laugh at. There is absolutely not one iota of sense, grace, or even economy, in the modern coat. It is an article as costly as it is ugly, and as ugly as it is useless. In winter it is not enough, and in hot weather it is too much. It is the tailors'

remnant and cabbaging of the coats formerly in use, and deserves only to be chucked back to them as an imposition in the bill. It is the old or frock coat cut away in front and at the sides, mounted with a horse-collar, and left with a ridiculous tail. The waistcoat or vest, elongated, and with the addition of sleeves, might supersede it at once, and be quite sufficient in warm weather. A vest reaching to the mid-thigh is a graceful and reasonable habit, and with the addition of a scarf or sash, would make as handsome, or even brilliant a one, as anybody could desire. In wintertime, the same cloaks would do for it, as are used now; and there might be lighter cloaks for summer. But the coat, as it now exists, is a mere nuisance and expense, and disgraces every other part of the dress, except the neckcloth. Even the hat is too good for it; for a hat is good for something, though there is more chimney-top than beauty in it. furnishes shade to the eyes, and has not always an ill look, if well-proportioned. The coat is a sheer piece of mechanical ugliness. The frock-coat is another matter, except as to the collar, which, in its present rolled or bolstered shape, is always ugly. As to the great-coat, it makes a man look either like a man in a sack, or a shorn bear. It is cloth upon cloth, clumsiness made clumsier, sometimes thrice over,-cloth waistcoat, cloth coat, cloth great-coat,-a "three-piled hyperbole." It is only proper for travellers, coachmen, and others who require to have no drapery in the way. A cloak is the only handsome over-all.

It

The neck-cloth is worthy of the coat. What a heaping of monstrosity on monstrosity! The woollen horse collar is bad enough; yet, as if this were not sufficient, a linen one must be superadded. Men must look as if they were twice seized with symbols of apoplexy, the horse-collar to shorten the neck, and the linencollar to squeeze it. Some man with a desperately bad throat must have invented the neck-cloth, especially as it had a padding, or pudding in it, when it first came up. His neck could not have been fit to be seen. It must have been like a pole, or a withered stalk; or else he was some faded fat dandy, ashamed of his double chin. There can be no objection to people's looking as well as they can contrive, young or old; but it is a little too much to set a fashion, which besides being deformed, is injurious. The man was excusable, because he knew no better; but it is no wonder if painters, and poets, and young Germans, and other romantic personages, have attempted to throw off the nuisance, especially such as have lived in the south. The neck-cloth is ugly, is useless, is dangerous to some, and begets effeminate fear of colds with all. The English, in consequence of their living more in-doors than they used, fancy they have too many reasons for muffling themselves up,—not aware

that the more they do so, the more they subject themselves to what they dread; and that it is by a general sense of warmth in the person they are to be made comfortable and secure, and not by filling up every creek and cranny of their dress to the very chin.

But some may tell us they cannot feel that general warmth, without thus muffling themselves up. True, if they accustom themselves to it; but it is the custom itself which is in fault. They can have the warmth without it, if they please; just as well as they can without muffling up their eyes. "How can you go with your body naked?" said a not very wise person to an Indian. "How can you go with your face naked?" said the Indian. "I am used to it," replied the man. "Well, and I am used to the other," rejoined the Indian; "I am all face." Now it will not exactly do to be "all face," in a civilised country; the police would object;-Piccadilly is not Paradise. But then it is not necessary to be all muffle.

The ladies in the reign of Edward I. once took to wearing a cloth round their throats and ears, in a way which made a poet exclaim, "Par Dieu! I have often thought in my heart, when I have seen a lady so closely tied up, that her neck-cloth was nailed to her chin."

There is a figure of her in Mr. Planche's book, p. 115. Now this was the precise appearance of a neck-cloth some years back, when it was worn with a pad or stiffener, and the point of the chin reposed in it: nay, it is so at present,

with many.

The stock looks even more stiff and apoplectic, especially if there is a red face above it. When dandies faint, the neck-cloth is always the first thing loosed, as the stays are with a lady.

By the way, the dandies wear stays too! We have some regard for these gentlemen, because they have reckoned great names among them in times of old, and have some very clever and amiable ones now, and manly withal too. They may err, we grant, from an excess of sympathy with what is admired, as well as from mere folly or effeminacy. But whatever approximates a man's shape to a woman's is a deformity. We have seen some of them with hips, upon which they should have gone carrying pails, and cried "milk!" And who was it that clapped those monstrous protuberances upon the bosoms of our brave life-guards? No masculine dandy we may be sure. A man's breast should look as if it would take a hundred blows upon it, like a glorious anvil; and not be deformed with a frightened wadding; still less resemble the bosom that tenderness peculiarly encircles, and that is so beautiful because it is so different from his own.

XXXIV.-ENGLISH WOMEN VINDI

CATED.

SLENDER, complaining of the masquerade trick that had been put on him at the close of the comedy, says that he had "married Anne Page" and "she was a great lubberly boy." Far better were a surprise of the reverse order, which should betray itself in some tone of voice, or sentiment, or other unlooked for emanation of womanhood, while we were thinking ourhimself, or rather some ingenious cousin of his; selves quietly receiving the visit of lubberly and of some such pleasure we have had a taste, if not in the shape of any Viola, or Julia, or other such flattering palpability, yet in that of a fair invisible; for we recollect well our Indicator ing letter; but what if we have discovered friend "Old Boy," who sends us the followmeanwhile that "Old Boy" is no boy at all, nor man neither, but a pretty woman, and one that we think this a pretty occasion for unmasking; since in the hearts of the male sex, English women will find defenders enough; but few of themselves have the courage to come forward. Even our would-be "Old Boy" cannot do it but her to assume, it is no less becoming in us, we in disguise; which though a thing very well for think, on such an occasion, to take off, seeing pretty petulance in her letter, and that halfthat it gives the right touching effect to that laughing tone of ill-treatment, which somehow has such a feminine breath in it, and must double the wish to be on her side.

Wonderful is the effect produced in a letter by the tone in which we read it or suppose it written, and by the knowledge of its being male or female. The one before us would be a

good "defiance" to Old Crony, were its signature true; but to know that it is written by another sort of music. Cannot we see the face a woman, gives it a new interest, and quite glow, and the dimples playing with a frown; and hear the light, breathing voice bespeaking the question in its favour? Does it not make "Old Crony" himself glad to be "defied to the uttermost?"

To the Editor.

Dear old Friend with a new face,

Your correspondent "Old Crony," seems as deficient in temper as in judgment, in his brusque remarks upon the dress and gait of our fair countrywomen; nor can it be allowed him that he has chosen the best place to study the finest specimens of English women, either as regards refinement in dress or bearing. The women who most frequent bazaars and fashionable drapers' are generally the most vacant-minded and petty creatures in existence; who wander from one lounge to another, seeking to dispel the ennui which torments them, by any frivolous kill-time. I really loathe the sight of such places, and think

they have done much mischief among the idle and ignorant part of my countrywomen. But to return to the subject, I maintain, in opposition to "Old Crony," that in no other country can we see assembled together so much beauty and grace, good dressing and elegance of carriage, as in our fashionable promenades, our brilliant assemblies, and still more in those delightful home parties, where sprightliness and intelligence combine to give grace and fascination :-nothing parallel, I am sure, is to be found in the celebrated Longchamps, or the gardens of the Tuileries at Paris, or in the Graben at Vienna, or "under the Lindens" of Berlin, or in any of the numerous public gardens on the Continent, wherever I have been; and I call upon all my brother and sister tourists to bear testimony with me on this mighty question; and furthermore, like a good and faithful champion in the cause of the fair dames and damsels of Old England, I do defy "Old Crony" to the uttermost, more especially for his inhuman wish of screwing English faces on to French figures, which would be a fearful "dove-tailing" of lovely faces upon parchment skeletons; seeing, that the generality of French females are terribly deficient in that plumpness and roundness, which are usually considered desirable in womanhood.

I agree with you, dear Ci-devant Indicator, that French women are generally more respected, and are on more equal terms with the male sex than our countrywomen; but I must differ as to their reading more, or being better informed. It is true that in society they will bear their part well in general or political conversation; but when alone with a Frenchwoman, she would be grievously offended if you chose any other subject than her own personal attractions, and did not conclude by making a tender "declaration." These are the eternal themes by which alone you can please the young and the old, the ugly and the pretty; and of this truth many will assure you, besides your old friend, admirer, and correspondent,

P.S. In defending the dress of my countrywomen, I except the poorer and working orders. Every other nation has a peculiar and picturesque costume for theirs; ours is remarkable only for its sluttish, draggle-tailed appearance, at least in London in country-places the peasant's dress is comfortable, if not very piquant.

We Te suspect that in this as in most controversies, there is less real difference of opinion between the fair and unfair parties, than might be thought. Our fair correspondent gives up the bazaar and shop-hunting people, and those too, whose dresses are of the "poorer sort;" and betwixt these classes, or rather including them, are to be found, we conceive, all the dresses and the walks, to which Old Crony would find himself objecting. The residue might prove its claims to a participation in the general refinement of Europe, without giving up a certain colouring of manners, as natural to it as the colour to its sky. And as to what is 66 delightful " and "fascinating," do not all people make that for themselves, more or less,

out of the amount of their own sympathy and imagination? and does not each nation, as we said before, think the élite of its own charmers the most charming? No parties are so delightful to our fair correspondent, as those in her own country. Is not this precisely what would be said by a cordial Frenchwoman, of French parties; by an Italian, of Italian; and so on? Custom itself is a good thing, if it is an innocent one. We feel easy in it as in a form and mould to which we have grown; but when, in addition to this easiness, we think of all the feelings with which we have coloured it, all the pleasure we have given and received, all our joys, sorrows, friendships, loves, and religions, we may conceive how difficult it is to give up the smallest and most superficial forms in which they appear, or to learn how to admit the superiority of anything which is foreign to them.

Brusque attacks-sharp and loud outcriesmay sometimes be desirable in order to beget notice to a question; but undoubtedly, the way to persuade is to approve as much as one can ; to maintain, by loving means, a loving attention. If we do not, we run a chance, instead of mending the mistakes of other people, of having our own cast in our teeth. See for instance what Old Crony has done for himself and his fair Frenchwomen with our correspondent, who does not deny perhaps that the French "middle classes" walk better "generally" speaking, than the English—at least we find this no where surely stated or impliedbut she avails herself of his error in using the word "figures" instead of "carriage," to taunt him with the want of plumpness and womanhood in the composition of his favourites, and accuse the universal French feminity of being "parchment skeletons!" Here is the comparative French thinness, and want of red and white, made the very worst of, because its panegyrist made the worst of the appearance of the other parties. For as to his compliment to their handsome faces, this, it seems, is not enough in these intellectual days:

"Mind, mind alone, (bear witness earth and heaven!) The living fountain in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime!

There must be soul from head to footevidence of thorough gracefulness and understanding; otherwise the ladies will have none of his good word. Well: here is the principle admitted on both sides. Let those who wish to see it thoroughly in action, set lovingly about the task. The loving will soonest persuade, and soonest become perfect. Had old Crony, instead of expressing his “inhuman wish of screwing English faces on to French figures," observed, that the latter are better in spirit than in substance, and shown his anxiety to consult the feelings and enumerate the merits of his countrywomen, we suspect that nobody

would have been readier than his fair antagonist to do justice to what is attractive in her French sisterhood.

That there are, and have always been, numbers of beautiful women in France as well as in England, and beautiful in figure too, and plump withal, no Antigallican, the most pious that ever existed, could take upon him to deny; though the praise conveyed by their word embonpoint (in good case), which means "fleshy and fattish," (as the poet has it), would imply, that the beauty is not apt to be of that order. The country of Diana de Poitiers, of Agnes Sorel, and of all the charmers of the reigns of Valois and the Bourbons, is not likely to lose its reputation in a hurry for "bevies of bright dames." Charming they were, that is certain, whether plump or not; at least in the the eyes of the princes and wits that admired them; and French admiration must go for something, and have at least a geographical voice in the world, whatever Germany or Goethe himself may think of the matter. On the other hand, far are we from abusing all or any of the dear plump Germans who have had graceful and loving souls, whether fifteen, | like poor Margaret, or "fat, fair, and forty," like Madame Schroeder-Devrient. We have been in love with them time out of mind, in the novels of the good village pastor, the reverend and most amatory Augustus La Fontaine. The Peninsular and South American ladies, albeit beautiful walkers, and wellgrounded in shape, are understood not to abound in plump figures; yet who shall doubt the abundance of their fascinations, that has read what Cervantes and Camoens have said of them, and what is said of their eyes and gait by all enamoured travellers ? Is not Dorothea for ever sitting by the brook-side, beautiful, and bathing her feet, in the pages of the immortal Spaniard? And was not Inez de Castro taken out of the tomb, in order to have her very coffin crowned with a diadem; so triumphant was the memory of her love and beauty over death itself? Italian beauties are almost another word for Italian paintings, and for the muses of Ariosto and of song. And yet, admiring all these as we do, are we for that reason traitors to the beauties of our own country? or do we not rather the more admire the charmers that are nearest to us, and that perpetuate the train of living images of grace and affection which runs through the whole existence of any loving observer, like a frieze across the temple of a cheerful religion?

or sees plumpness enough in his friends. A Spaniard may reasonably wish his a little more red and white, if it be only for the sake of their health; and if a jovial table-loving Viennese desired, after all, a little less plumpness in his adorable for the same reason (and in himself too), we should not quarrel with his theory, however it might object to his practice.

The handsomest female we ever beheld was at Turin; she was a maid-servant crossing a square. The most ladylike-looking female in humble life was a French girl, the daughter of a small innkeeper. We heard one of her humble admirers speak of her as having the air d'une petite duchesse (of a little duchess). But the most charming face that ever furnished us with a vision for life, (and we have seen many) was one that suddenly turned round in a concertroom in England, an English girl's, radiant with truth and goodness. All expressions of that kind make us love them, and here was the height of material charmingness added. And we thought the figure equal to the face. We know not whether we could have loved it for ever, as some faces can be loved without being so perfect. Habit and loving-kindness, and the knowledge of the heart and soul, could alone determine that. But if not, it was the divinest imposition we ever met with.

XXXV. SUNDAY IN LONDON. No. I.

IT is astonishing what a deal of good stuff, of some sort or another, inherent or associated, there is in every possible thing that can be talked of; and how it will look forth out of the dullest windows of common-place, if sympathy do but knock at the door.

There is that house for instance, this very Sunday, No. 4, Ballycroft-row, in the Smithy; did you ever see such a house, so dull, so drearily insipid, so very rainy-bad-Sunday like? old, yet not so old as to be venerable; poor, yet not enough so to be pitied; the bricks black; the place no thoroughfare; no chance of a hackney-coach going by; the maid-servant has just left the window, yawning. But now, see who is turning the corner, and comes up the row. Some eminent man, perhaps? Not he. He is eminent for nothing, except, among his fellow-apprentices, for being the best hand among them at turning a button. But look how he eyes, all the way, the house we have been speaking of— see how he bounds up the steps-with what a

to the upper windows, he gives his humble yet impressive knock-and lo! now look at the maid-servant's face, as she darts her head out of the window, and instantly draws it back again, radiant with delight. It is Tom Hicks,