' eight miscellaneous individuals, and says to them, Make this nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger and sorrow ' and sin for us; and they do it.'

CHAPTER VI.

APRONS.

ONE of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that on Aprons. What though stout old Gao, 5 the Persian Blacksmith, 'whose apron, now indeed hidden 'under jewels, because raised in revolt which proved suc'cessful, is still the royal standard of that country'; what though John Knox's Daughter, ' who threatened Sovereign 'Majesty that she would catch her husband's head in her 10 'Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop'; what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other Apron worthies, figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible. What, 15

for example, are we to make of such sentences as the following?

Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, 'to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the 'thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the Emblem and 20 'beatified Ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred 'housewife, sitting at Nürnberg Workboxes and Toyboxes, 'has gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, 'girt round him with thongs, wherein the Builder builds,

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and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling 25 'sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked 'Vulcans hammer and smelt in their smelt-furnace, — is

'there not range enough in the fashion and uses of this 'Vestment? How much has been concealed, how much 'has been defended in Aprons! Nay, rightly considered, 'what is your whole Military and Police Establishment, 5 'charged at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet'coloured, iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneasily enough); guarding itself from some soil and 'stithy-sparks, in this Devil's-smithy (Teufelsschmiede) of a ' world? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to me 10 'hitherto has been the 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 was done : what does he 'shadow forth thereby?' &c., &c.

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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 20 'Literature, and deserving 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 25 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 recourse to. In a world 30 existing by Industry, we grudge to employ fire as a de'stroying 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, pri 'and sold, returned thither; filling so many! 'mouths by the way? Thus is the Laystall, especia 'its Rags or Clothes-rubbish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of-motion, from which and to which the 5 'Social Activities (like vitreous and resinous Electricities) '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.

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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 Dynas'ties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs; but of Stamped Broad'sheet Dynasties, and quite new successive Names, ac- 15 'cording as this or the other Able 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 'procedure, a valuable descriptive History already exists, 20 in that language, 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. 25 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 30 Literature!

CHAPTER VII.

5

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 IO breath of genius which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so learned, precise, graphical, and everyway 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 15 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 Zeitkürzende Lust (ii. 678) is, with seeming confidence, referred to :

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'Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the 'Fifteenth Century, we might smile; as perhaps those 'bygone Germans, were they to rise again, and see our 'haberdashery, would cross themselves, and invoke the 'Virgin. But happily no bygone German, or man, rises 25 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 30 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 obsol'ete, and were now a foreigner to his Europe. Thus is 'the Law of Progress secured; and in Clothes, as in all 'other external things whatsoever, no fashion will 5 '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 some- 10 'what 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 15 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 accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how fond 20 '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- 25 '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, ågain, flit abroad in gowns scolloped 'out behind 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

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