roundly flow from one to the other as in a circle-and that continually and for ever."

The armlet or bracelet is also of equal antiquity; its adoption is referred to in the 24th chapter of Genesis. Both were in vogue with the Sabine women, and of a very massive kind : they were worn as tokens of valour by warriors, also among the Romans. Ear-rings, or, as they were formerly styled, pendants, are worn by most nations, and, in many instances, by both sexes. In the East Indies they are unusually large, and are generally of gold and jewels. The Sandwich Islanders push the fashion to its utmost extent; they enlarge the incision to such a degree, by the excessive weight of their ear-rings, that the ear is sometimes dragged down to the waist. Of headdresses, the earliest kind upon record seems to have been the tiara; the caul is also mentioned in Holy Writ, as having been in vogue in primitive times. It was usually made of network, of gold or silk, and enclosed all the hair. Some of the various items of a lady's wardrobe it will not be our venture to dilate upon: we may, however, just refer to the corsets or stays. Tradition insists that corsets were first invented by a brutal butcher of the thirteenth century, as a punishment for his wife. She was very loquacious, and finding nothing would cure her, he put a pair of stays on her, in order to take away her breath, and so prevent her, as he thought, from talking. This cruel punishment was inflicted by other heartless husbands, till at last there was scarcely a wife in all London who was not condemned to the like infliction. The punishment became so universal at last that the ladies in their defence made a fashion of it, and so it has continued to the present day. The fair sex of our own day seem economic in this respect, for, however prodigal they may be in other matters, they are for the least possible waist. Sommering enumerates a catalogue of ninety-six diseases resulting from this stringent habit among them: many of the most frightful maladies that flesh is heir to, cancer, asthma, and consumption, are among them. Such unnatural compression, moreover, seems to indicate a very limited scope for the play of the affections, for what room is

there for any heart at all? As if to atone for brevity of waist, the ladies now indulge in an amplitude of skirt. The merry dames of Elizabeth's court, in a wild spirit of fun, adopted the fashion of hideously-deforming farthingales to ridicule the enormous trunk-hose worn by gentlemen of that period, determined, if not successful in shaming away the absurdity altogether, at least to have a preposterous contrivance of their own. The idea was full of woman's wit. But, alas! they were caught in their own snare. Precious stones were profusely displayed on the bodices and skirts of brocade gowns, and vanity soon discovered that the stiff whalebone framework under the upper skirt, formed an excellent showcase for family jewels. The passion thus gratified, the farthingale at once became the darling of court costume, and in its original shape continued in feminine favour till the reign of Queen Anne, when it underwent the modification lately revived for us—the Hoop. In vain did the Spectator lash and ridicule by turns the "unnatural disguisement ;" in vain did grossest caricatures appear, and wits exhaust their invention in lampoons and current epigrams; in vain even the publication of a grave pamphlet, entitled The Enormous Abomination of the Hoop Petticoat, as the Fashion now is; the mode, for once immutable, stands on the page of folly an enduring monument of feminine persistency.

Encouraged by the prolonged and undisputed sway of the farthingale, the hoop maintained an absolute supremacy through the three succeeding reigns, though often undergoing changes which only served to make it more and more ridiculous. The most ludicrous of these alterations were the triangular-shaped hoops, which, according to the Spectator, gave a lady all the appearance of being in a go-cart: and the "pocket-hoops," which looked like nothing so much as panniers on the side of a donkey-we mean the quadruped. Quite a funny incident is related by Bulwer about the wife of an English ambassador to Constantinople, in the time of James I. The lady, attended by her serving-women, all attired in enormous farthingales, waited upon the sultana, who received them with every show

of respect and hospitality. Soon, however, the woman's curiosity got the better of her courtesy, and expressing her great surprise at the monstrous development of their hips, she asked if it were possible that such could be the shape peculiar to the women of England. The English lady, in reply, hastened to assure her that their forms in nowise differed from those of the women of other countries, and carefully demonstrated to her Highness the construction of their dress, which alone bestowed the appearance so puzzling to her. There could scarcely be a more wholesome satire upon the absurd fashion than is conveyed in the simple recital of this well-authenticated anecdote.

It will be readily understood that at the outset the English ladies had a plausible excuse for adopting this deformity; if they were betrayed into the permanent establishment of it by the very pardonable inducement of a gratified vanity, we may pity their weakness but can scarcely condemn; and in the proud reign of the hoops through a period of unsparing ridicule, we are quite forced to admire the unflinching tenacity with which they were adhered to, much as we may deplore the perverted taste which could at any time have consented to their introduction. But what excuse can be offered, what palliating circumstances advanced, to justify a revival of that abomination by the ladies of the nineteenth century-not betrayed into its adoption on the score of novelty, but deliberately dragging it out from the dusty past with all the accumulated ridicule of ages clinging to its skirts ? *

In the early ages of Christianity, gloves were a part of monastic costume, and, in later periods, formed a part of the episcopal habit. The glove was employed by princes as a token of investiture; and to deprive a person of his gloves was a mark of divesting him of his office. Throwing down a glove constituted a challenge, and the taking it up an acceptance.

Fans have become, in many countries, so necessary an appendage of the toilet with both sexes, that a word respecting

*New York Tribune.

them in this place seems demanded. The use of them was first discovered in the East, where the heat suggested their utility. In the Greek Church a fan is placed in the hands of the deacons in the ceremony of their ordination, in allusion to a part of their office in that church, which is to keep the flies off the priests during the celebration of the sacrament. In Japan, where neither men nor women wear hats, except as a protection against rain, a fan is to be seen in the hand or the girdle of every inhabitant. Visitors receive dainties offered them upon their fans: the beggar, imploring charity, holds out his fan for the alms his prayers may obtain. In England, this seemingly indispensable article was almost unknown till the age of Elizabeth. During the reign of Charles II. they became pretty generally used. At the present day they are in universal requisition. Hats and bonnets are of remote antiquity: it is difficult to say when they took their rise. Of boots and shoes-those coverings for the extremities-we do not feel in the humour to discourse, since everybody knows sufficient about them, by practical experience, nor are they subject to so many absurd changes and metamorphoses. Of perfumeries, also, little need be said; they were always, like flowers, artificial and real, favourites with the fair, as they ever should be, notwithstanding we learn that scents and odours are out of fashion. An old poet thus quaintly chants some good advice suited to all :

"Ye who would save your features florid,

Lithe limbs, bright eyes, unwrinkled forehead,
From age's devastation horrid,

In books, friends, music, polished leisure;
The mind, not sense,

Make the scle scale by which ye measure
Your opulence.

"This is the solace, this the science,
Life's purest, sweetest, best appliance,
That disappoints not man's reliance,
Whate'er his state;

But challenges, with calm defiance,
Time, fortune, fate."

We endorse the foregoing, and commend it to the ladies. Will they accept it as a little advice gratis? It is invidious to point out defects in beings so near perfection, and we cautiously refrain from such audacity, but that notorious punster, Punch, affirms, “there are several things which you never can by any account get a lady-be she young or old-to confess to.” Here are some of them :-"That she laces tight; that her shoes are too small for her; that she is ever tired at a ball; that she paints; that she is as old as she looks: that she has been more than five minutes dressing; that she has kept you waiting; that she blushed when a certain person's name was mentioned; that she ever says a thing she doesn't mean; that she is fond of scandal; that she can't keep a secret; that she-she of all persons in the world-is in love; that she doesn't want a new bonnet; that she can do with one single thing less when she is about to travel; that she hasn't the disposition of an angel, or the temper of a saint-or how else could she go through one half of what she does? that she doesn't know better than every one else what is best for her; that she is a flirt or a coquette; that she is ever in the wrong."

A curious correspondent in Notes and Queries observes that notwithstanding the mutations of fashion in England, some old habits are still retained with great tenacity. The Thames watermen rejoice in the dress of the age of Elizabeth, while the royal beef-eaters (buffetiers) wear that of private soldiers of the time of Henry VII., the blue-coat boy the costume of the reign of Edward VI., and the London charity-school girls the plain