Then the teeth, eyes, chest, hair, hands, and ears. why not a little sacrifice, a little more liberality, to those important members-the feet. No such remuneration, however, as I have hinted at would be expected; five or six shillings generally would remunerate the maker of a pair of lasts, and the better the fit the greater satisfaction to all. We have now seen the fashions from the earliest period; many of the shoes from their form and material must have been comfortable; the broad shoe of Henry VIII., wood engraving p. 46, was one of that class, and the slashed specimens in p. 47 sufficiently show where the shoe pinched in 1577, and how relief was sought and obtained: even the very worst of all the fashions might have been made comparatively comfortable had due attention been paid to the form of the lasts. The poet Gay gives a caution on this matter, and if the value I attach to my lasts be their weight in silver, I am free to confess Gay's lines are worth their weight in gold. "Let firm well-hammered soles protect thy feet, T CHAPTER VI. THE POETRY OF THE FEET, ETC. HAT any form of boot or shoe should have interfered with the beauty of the human foot and its elastic tread, is much to be lamented. The sculptures of antiquity all show great symmetry and beauty of form, whether in the male or female foot: the plump, rounded, and truly natural shape of the feet of the Venus de Medicis has excited the admiration of every one who ever looked at that beautiful statue. Poets in all ages have been lavish in their praises of the "human foot divine," and a volume of extracts might be made on the poetry of the feet. The inspired Isaiah breaks forth - "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings." Kitto says, in his remarks on this passage, "When the person is very eminent for rank or holiness, the mention of the feet rather than any other part of the person denotes the respect or reverence of the speaker; and then, also, an epithet of praise or distinction is given to the feet, of which, as the most popular instance, the ' golden feet' of the Burmese monarch forming the title by which he is usually named by his subjects." Homer pays homage in the Iliad to Thetis, whom he calls "the silver-footed queen." Bathus, in the Tenth Idyllium of Theocritus, exclaims: "Charming Bombyce, you my numbers greet, While Paris in making choice of the many beautiful virgins brought before him, pays particular attention to their pedal attractions : "Their gait he marked as gracefully they moved, Ben Jonson describes a lover whose affection for his mistress was so great that he -"would adore the shoe, And slipper was left off, and kiss it too." and again "And where she went the flowers took thickest root, As she had sowed them with her odorous foot." Butler, too, has the same springing up of flowers in his "Hudibras": "Where'er you tread, your foot shall set The primrose and the violet." In an anonymous volume of poems printed in 1 1653, the writer being contemporary with Butler, we find the following beautiful sentiment: "How her feet tempt; how soft and light she treads, Look how that pretty modest columbine Creeping on earth we go along with thee; Shakspere, in "Troilus and Cressida," describes Diomede walking : "'T is he, I ken the manner of his gait; Again: "Shore's wife hath a pretty foot;" and his graphic description of a free-natured wo man -"nay, her foot speaks." Old Herrick, who seems to have had the finest perception of the delicate and charming, thus compliments Mrs. Susanna Southwood: "Her pretty feet, Like smiles, did creep It is the exquisite intimation of the lively character of the inward spirit, shown in the active movements of the feet, which Sir John Suckling has imitated in his ballad of the Wedding : "Her feet beneath her petticoat Very beautiful also is the following, from one of our old poets. The words are given entire, in Wilson's "Cheerful Ayres for three Voices." Who could do any harm to so beautiful a part of the human frame? "Doe not feare to put thy feet Think not newt, nor leech, nor toade, These pretty allusions to pretty feet might be multiplied to a great extent; they will, however, suffice to show the homage paid by all true poets to these useful and beautiful members. I come now to the more practical part of the |