another pull up the hill, unyielding; a few strides on a level; and there is the light in the window, the eye of the warm soul of the house, one's home. How particular, and yet how universal, is that word; and how surely does it deposit every one for himself in his own nest!

CHAPTER V.

Secret of some existing Fashions.

FASHIONS have a short life or a long one, according as it suits the makers to startle us with a variety, or save themselves observation of a defect. Hence fashions set by young or handsome people are fugitive, and such are, for the most part, those that bring custom to the milliner. If we keep watch on an older one, we shall generally trace it, unless of general convenience, to some pertinacity on the part of the aged. Even fashions, otherwise convenient, as the trousers that have so long taken place of small clothes, often perhaps owe their continuance to some general defect which they help to screen. The old are glad to retain them, and so be confounded with the young; and among the latter, there are more limbs perhaps to which loose clothing is acceptable, than tight. More legs and knees, we suspect, rejoice in those cloaks, than would be proud to acknowledge themselves in a shoe and stocking. The pertinacity of certain male fashions during the last twenty years, we think we can trace to a particular source. If it be objected, that the French partook of them, and that our modes have generally come from that country, we suspect that the old court in France had more to do with them, than Napoleon's, which was confessedly masculine and military. The old French in this country, and the old noblesse in the other, wore bibs and trousers, when the Emperor went in a plain stock and delighted to show his good leg. For this period, if for this only, we are of opinion, that whether the male fashions did or did not originate in France, other circumstances have conspired to retain them in both countries, for which the revolutionary government cannot account. Mr. Hazlitt informs us in his Life of Napoleon, that during the consulate, all the courtiers were watching the head of the state to know whether mankind were to wear their

own hair or powder; and that Bonaparte luckily settled the matter, by deciding in favor of nature and cleanliness. But here the revolutionary authority stopped; nor in this instance did it begin for it is understood, that it was the plain head of Dr. Franklin, when he was ambassador at Paris, that first amused, and afterwards interested, the giddy polls of his new acquaintances; who went and did likewise. Luckily, this was a fashion that suited all ages, and on that account it has survived. But the bibs, and the trousers, and the huge neckcloths, whence come they? How is it, at least, that they have been so long retained? Observe that polished old gentleman, who bows so well,* and is conversing with the most agreeable of physicians.† He made a great impression in his youth, and was naturally loath to give it up. On a sudden he finds his throat not so juvenile as he could wish it. Up goes his stock, and enlarges. He rests both his cheeks upon it, the chin settling comfortably upon a bend in the middle, as becomes its delicacy. By and bye, he thinks the cheeks themselves do not present as good an aspect as with so young a heart might in reason be expected; and forth issue the points of his shirt-collar, and give them an investment at once cherishing and spirited. Thirdly, he suspects his waist to have played him a trick of good living, and surpassed the bounds of youth and elegance before he was well aware of it. Therefore, to keep it seemingly, if not actually within limits, forth he sends a frill in the first instance, and a padded set of lapels afterwards. He happens to look on the hand that does all this, and discerns with a sigh that it is not quite the same hand to look at, which the women have been transported to kiss; though for that matter they will kiss it still, and be transported too. The wrist-band looks forth, and says, "Shall I help to cover it?" and it is allowed to do so, being a gentlemanly finish, and impossible to the mechanical. But finally the legs: they were amongst the hand. somest in the world; and how did they not dance! What conquests did they not achieve in the time of hoop-petticoats and toupees! And long afterwards, were not Apollo and Hercules found in them together, to the delight of the dowagers! And Sir William K.

*The late King.

shall the gods be treated with disrespect, when the heaviness of change comes upon them? No. Round comes the kindly trouserian veil (as Dyer of "The Fleece" would have had it); the legs retreat, like other conquerors, into retirement; and only the lustre of their glory remains, such as Bonaparte might have envied.

CHAPTER VI.

Rain out of a Clear Sky.

IN a work, De Varia Historia, written after the manner of Ælian, by Leonico Tomeo, an elegant scholar of the fifteenth century, we meet with the following pretty story :—When Phalantus led his colony out of Sparta into the south of Italy, he consulted the oracle of Apollo, and was informed that he should know the region he was to inhabit, by the fall of a plentiful shower out of a clear sky. Full of doubt and anxiety at this answer, and unable to meet with any one who could interpret it for him, he took his departure, arrived in Italy, but could succeed in occupying no region,-in capturing no city. This made him fall to considering the oracle more particularly; upon which he came to the conclusion, that he had undertaken a foolish project, and that the gods meant to tell him so; for that a sky should be clear, and yet the rain out of it plentiful, now seemed to him a manifest impossibility.

Tired out with the anxious thoughts arising from this conclusion, he laid his head on the lap of his wife, who had come with him, and took such a draught of sleep as the fatigue of sorrow is indulged with, like other toil. His wife loved him; and as he lay thus tenderly in her lap, she kept looking upon his face; till thinking of the disappointments he had met with, and the perils he had still to undergo, she began to weep bitterly, so that the tears fell plentifully upon him, and awoke hn. He looked up, and seeing those showers out of her eyes, hailed at last the oracle with joy, for his wife's name was Æthra, which signifies “a clear sky; " and thus he knew that he had arrived at the region where he was to settle. The next night he took Tarentum, which was the greatest city in those parts; and he and his pos terity reigned in that quarter of Italy, as you may see in Virgil.