nations that the changes take place. In south-eastern lands there is a great tendency to fixedness; but France, Germany, and England are the great innovators in fashion amongst the Europeans-none more than England-for here the fashion pervades all but the poorest, whereas in France and Germany it is chiefly confined to the wealthier classes. It is a sign of liberty, this fashion, after all. Show us a strong electric current of fashion assimilating the dress and manners of a people without a sumptuary law, and you show us at the same time a free people, a people trained in the habit of self-criticism, cultivating the taste, and surely, if slowly, improving the habits and customs of society.

"Fashions are evidently improving, at least in the main. We may find worse and better alternately in the course of a few years, or even a century; but in the course of centuries the general improvement is still perceptible. Men have now thoroughly divested themselves of the rich and gaudy trappings of olden times. Silk, and satin, and velvet coats and breeches, are no longer in vogue; tawdry gilding and brocading are equally obsolete; ruffles and points, and buckles, and petticoat breeches decorated with ribands, are all out of date; and a man's dress is much less costly now than it was even a hundred years ago, when poor Oliver Goldsmith did not think it above the dignity of his rank in society to spend 401. upon a coat. Such folly is obsolete amongst men. Men have now abandoned the rich silks, and contented themselves with the homely black broad-cloth, without a decoration of red, blue, or yellow-or even gold buttons.

"There is a singular tendency in human nature to brand the class below us. Why should the servant-maids be branded and the mistresses not? The duchesses would brand marchionesses; the marchionesses the countesses; the countesses would brand the merchants' and tradesmen's wives, and perhaps they sometimes turn up their noses at seeing themselves surpassed. Now all this would be wrong. Why then should it not be wrong to brand the maid-servants? Leave them to the tribunal of public criticism-the common sense of their own class, which is a better guide than any rule that can be borrowed from the antique female costumes of France or Belgium. The exceptions

we suspect would be very few in number to the general rule of modesty in servants' dresses; and scarcely one in a city would be heard of who rustled up-stairs in silks and satins, even if permitted. We are therefore not disposed to indorse Mrs. Austin's opinion to the letter; for we think there is scarcely a maid-servant in England, in her senses, who would not refuse to wear a dress of the first class if presented to her, or if she could even afford to buy it. She would modestly say that she would prefer one more becoming. What each has in her power to buy, without incurring any privation of personal or domestic comfort, is for her suitable, if in good taste and calculated to set off her person to advantage; and we trust it will become less and less the fashion to impose any other distinctive garb than that which the moral sense of each class itself approves of. By these means alone can taste be cultivated and judgment exercised."

So far this writer. Certainly it ought to be a source of rejoicing to see the sense of beauty even in regard to dress extended thus to the mass of the nation. "All this world of women, says a French writer, "that we see on our public walks, one dazzling iris of a thousand colours, used formerly to be in mourning. These changes, which are thought futile, have an immense tendency. They are not merely simple material ameliorations, they indicate a progress of the people in externals towards a visible union. They attain by means of them to ideas, which they would not otherwise have, of taste, and beauty, and art, of self-respect and decorum.” I envy not the man who harshly judges even those poor innocents who make sacrifices to their appearance thus. Better to look on them with sweet indulgent eyes, and be content with the reflection of Pindar: " "If any beauty shall surpass others, let them remember that they dress limbs that are mortal, and that last of all they will clothe themselves with earth :" or, as Moore translates it,—

"Forget not that their limbs are mortal mould;

That earth, man's latest garb, that boasted frame must hold *."

in

But perhaps in these remarks we have been led into a digression. No, no, I hear for once a clear loud voice reply. How

* Nem. xi.

VOL. I.

F

ever, we must proceed to matters that will be felt to be of more interest even at the bower. We have seen in the way of a rapid glance how fruitful are common things in relation to beauty. It is but a slight and most inefficient sketch of the subject that has been made; as Cicero says, perhaps, "ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum." We have heard that, in contradistinction to the way of those that sigh for things extraordinary,—

"There is a softer winding-path through life,
And man may walk it with unruffled soul,
And drink its wayside waters till his heart
Is still'd with its o'erflowing happiness.
The chart by which to traverse it is writ
In the broad book of nature. 'Tis to have
Attentive and admiring faculties;
To go abroad exulting in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things;
To love the hue of waters, and the sheen
Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;
To thrill with the rich melody of birds,
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm;
To see a beauty in the stirring leaf,

And find calm thoughts beneath the whispering tree;

To see, and hear, and breathe the evidence
Of God's deep wisdom in the natural world!
It is to linger on 'the magic face

Of human beauty,' and from light and shade
Alike to draw a lesson; 'tis to know
The cadences of voices that are tuned
By majesty and purity of thought;
To gaze on woman's beauty as a star
Whose purity and distance make it fair;
And from the spell of music to awake,
And feel that it has purified the heart!
It is to love all beauty, like the light

Dear to the soul as sunshine to the eye*."

We must now go on to consider common or daily things in

* Willis.

relation to virtue, a theme in close connexion with our last; for

"The good is always beautiful,

The beautiful is good."

CHAPTER III.

THOUGH at the Lover's Seat we are not going to interfere with any doctor, or propose knowingly a wandering upon the ground of any grave instructor, whose irritable temperament might be excited at any show of pretension or intermeddling on the part of such insignificant persons as ourselves; yet I can easily conceive that at this point our little inquiry, if it could reach the ears of certain over-jealous critics, might be regarded with some suspicion, at least, if not offence: but as when lately considering common things in relation to beauty we said nothing derogatory of nature's extraordinary productions, or of the singular treasures resulting from human art-so now, in proceeding to reflect on them in relation to virtue, we must begin by declaring that we are guiltless of desiring to depreciate those high transcendental things that by a mysterious and inviolable law are connected with what is most ordinary-things which have been recommended to us all from our childhood, the very names of which in fact are household words in every part of Christendom, and which, no doubt, are the indispensable sources not only of all true common virtues, as they are undoubtedly of all happiness that will endure, but also of that very universality of mind which can consciously and philosophically appreciate the excellence of common things. We are here, as it were, shut in from the world's curious scrutiny, and, with only the birds to listen to us, engaged in hearing read, without any sinister view of interpretation, extracts from books that seem chiefly addressed to such uncritical and common persons as ourselves. We might therefore proceed without any apology, and dismiss all deprecacatory forms, but that there is a thought of our own which seems to have made it necessary to say thus much, if not to pro

pitiate others at least to satisfy ourselves; for there are moments, when feeling the mysterious alliance that exists between things that at first seem to have no connexion, feeling how wonderful and incalculable are the consequences of least things in the order of thought and language, a man will place his hand, like a Spaniard, on his jaws, and resolve to say nothing on any subject. And though in the end we shall find that common things in relation to virtue are no where more valued and promoted than where these highest things are rightly understood, yet, if we pursue the plan which we propose, we must in the beginning hear somewhat of the disagreeable facts and circumstances of life around us connected with these highest thingsfacts that give importance to an inquiry like the present, and which, in truth, need never have been thought of if they had not existed. But it cannot be a sound conclusion to resolve on suppressing our thoughts always and maintaining such an unnatural silence; and, if we are to speak out at all on the subject proposed, we are absolutely driven to express our opinion respecting these disagreeable facts by the extravagance that is in the world, which meets us every where, and which produces, we feel convinced, results the most deplorable. We must speak, therefore, of the consequences of neglecting common things in regard to virtue-involving an abuse of those high things and high principles which persons of our description value quite as much, perhaps, as those grave formal people who would defend them, without acknowledging the injurious effects that result from their misapplication, exaggeration, or perversion; and, in order to introduce our subject by noticing these evil effects, it is obvious that we must make a decided stand against them; which opposition on our part might in turn be perverted by others, as well as by our own minds perhaps, if we had not in the beginning protested and armed ourselves against any such interpretation. Our apology might be expressed in words partly borrowed from old Glanville, saying, "We hope we shall not deserve the frown of the ingenuous for our innocent intentions; our design being only to imitate the practice of bending a crooked stick as much the other way to straighten it. And if by this verge to the other extreme we can bring the opinionative, confident, and transcendental thinkers