meretricious, tastes introduced by Charles the
Second on his return from France. The history
of costume during the whole of the succeeding
century, whether in the case of men or women,
is simply a record of progressive degradation.
Heavy and cumbersome in the reigns of Anne
and of the first two Georges, though not without
a certain courtly grandeur, it became simply
tasteless, mean, and repulsive, under the sway
of the third George. The wig and the cocked-hat
are striking instances of the truth of what
we have remarked, that fashions are long-lived
in proportion to their stupidity and ugliness.
The wig, under various forms, lasted for at least
a hundred and thirty years, and was only
overthrown by the French revolution; the cocked-hat
survives even to this day among our generals
and admirals, and until recently among our
beadles, though we believe the latter
functionaries have now pretty generally discarded
it. But perhaps the lowest depths of paltry
shabbiness and fantastic deformity were reached
at various periods during the first thirty years
or so of the present century. When gentlemen
wore pantaloons tied at the ankles with ribbon,
shoes like dancing-pumps, waistcoats that were
too small, and dress-coats with collars that were
too large,—and when ladies walked about with
their waists under their armpits, and their hair
rolled up into a succession of little curls like
sausages,—there must assuredly have existed
every discouragement to the two sexes to fall
in love with one another.

Strange as it may seem, there can be no doubt
that vanity has much to do with these hideous
mistakes. The object with fashionable people
is not so much to cultivate a feeling for artistic
propriety and grace, as to call attention to what
they consider their own perfections of countenance
and person; and whatever is singular in
costume helps to do this. Hence, extravagance of
embellishment and wild irregularity of outline are
rather welcomed than discouraged; as the belles
of the time of Addison stuck little bits of black
plaister on their faces—not because the spots
were beautiful (for indeed their effect must have
been disgusting), but because they were a sort
of standing advertisement of the fair cheeks on
which they reposed. With the same object, the
Oriental damsel blackens the edges of her
eye-lids with "kohl," and stains her hands and feet
with "henna;" and on this account have women,
every now and then, taken an otherwise
unaccountable pleasure in dressing like men. Pepys,
in his Diary, under date June 11, 1665, says he
found the ladies of honour clad in riding-habits
that, but for the petticoat sweeping beneath,
were in no respect different from the masculine
garb—"which," says the garrulous observer,
"was an odd sight, and a sight that did not
please me." It was a fashion, however, that
came in again about 1780. The love of the
"sensational" is another cause of eccentricities
in costume; and the desire for incessant
change—a desire very naturally fostered by
tailors, dressmakers, and mercers, since it
"makes good for trade"—is yet another,
seeing that, inasmuch as there are more
ways of being wrong than of being right,
here is a far greater variety of ugliness than
of beauty.

We are at the present moment going through
a phase of extravagance which involves a great
deal of bad taste. But it is at the French court
that the tendency has found its most extreme
development. The fancy balls patronised by the
fair Eugénie are fanciful indeed. Ladies are found
doing the best they can to make themselves look
like beehives and trees—trees of which the fruit,
like those in the garden of Aladdin, are jewels.
Others issue out of imitation hives, in the winged
similitude of the little honey-makers; while some
try how near they can sail to the shores of
indecorum without positively suffering shipwreck.
"Salammbô," with her airy robe, her arms bare
to the shoulders, and her naked feet bound with
golden sandals, seems as yet to have borne away
the prize in this last respect. The Americans,
who are never satisfied unless they can
out-Herod Herod, appear to have been lately turning
their attention, notwithstanding the deadly
realities of civil war, to the grotesque triumphs
of the ball-room. If we may depend upon a
paragraph which has recently performed the
grand tour of the newspapers, they have hit
upon an idea that promises to whip all creation.
Some one has proposed to light up ladies with
gas—literally, to make them their own illuminations!
The gas is to be contained in an
elegant little tank or meter, made of gold, and
hidden among the seductive mysteries of the
back hair. From the upper surface of this
reservoir the jets would burst forth; and, the
lady being duly charged with the inflammable
vapour, would depart for the ball-room with the
gas only just alight. Previous to entering the
room, the husband, lover, or other gentleman
in attendance, would turn up the jets,
and the beauty would burst upon the assembled
company in the full blaze of her splendour,
surpassing even that princess in Ben Jonson,
who

     ——came in like starlight, hid with jewels
     That were the spoils of provinces.

The conception may have originated in the
custom prevalent among South American ladies
of impaliug live fire-flies on pins, and wearing
them about their evening dresses like burning
gems; but there is a certain savage poetry in
this practice, which the more northern
contrivance lacks. We have read a description in
some book of travels of the starry glitter of those
semi-Spanish belles, in the gauzy clouds of whose
light vestures the imprisoned insects hang
lambent and lucid; and of the slow fading of
the golden brightness as the life that feeds it
ebbs and sinks—"paling its ineffectual fire,"
not before the dawn of day, but before the darkness
of extinction. The gas-meter may not
produce so splendid an effect, and, as we have said,
the idea is less poetical—less fit for some proud,
fierce, handsome queen, some Cleopatra or
Semiramis; but at least it is free from cruelty, and