CHAPTER V.

THE WORLD IN CLOTHES.

'As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws,' observes our Professor, so could I write a Spirit of Clothes; thus, with an Esprit des Loix, 'properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an Esprit de Cos'tumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man pro'ceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory ' endeavours, an Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his 'Body and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and ' whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be built. Whe'ther he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, based on light sandals; tower-up in high headgear, from amid peaks, spangles ' and bell-girdles; swell-out in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings, and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs,-will depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-Dandiacal. Again, what meaning lies in Colour! From the soberest drab to the high-flaming scarlet, spiritual idiosyn'crasies unfold themselves in choice of Colour: if the Cut betoken 'Intellect and Talent, so does the Colour betoken Temper and 'Heart. In all which, among nations as among individuals, there ' is an incessant, indubitable, though infinitely complex working ' of Cause and Effect: every snip of the Scissors has been regu'lated and prescribed by ever-active Influences, which doubtless 'to Intelligences of a superior order are neither invisible nor illegible.

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'For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening entertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu himself but a clever 'infant spelling Letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic Book, 'the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven?-Let any 'Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear such and 'such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am here, to wear and obey anything!-Much, therefore, if not the 'whole, of that same Spirit of Clothes I shall suppress, as hypo'thetical, ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and 'Deductions drawn therefrom in quite another than that omni'scient style, are my humbler and proper province.'

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdröckh has nevertheless contrived to take-in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being indispensable, we shall here glance-over his First Part only in the most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness at the same time, in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers of some Library of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, at present the glory of British Literature?' If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it for their own behoof.

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical, cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do with 'Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according 'to the Talmudists, he had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial 'Devils,'-very needlessly, we think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound glances into the Adam-Kadmon, or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into relation with the Nif and Muspel (Darkness and Light) of the antique North, it may be enough to say, that its correctness of deduction, and depth of Talmudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not the worst Hebraist in Britain with something like astonishment.

But quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdröckh hastens from the Tower of Babel, to follow the dispersion of Mankind over the whole habitable and habilable globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelasgic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, he strives to give us in compressed shape (as the Nürnbergers give an Orbis Pictus) an Orbis Vestitus; or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times. It is here that to the Antiquarian, to the Historian, we can triumphantly say: Fall to! Here is learning an irregular Treasury, if you will; but inexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, which twelve wagons in twelve days, at the rate of three journeys a day, could not carry off. Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though breeches, as the name Gallia Braccata indicates, are the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets,

ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us,-even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For most part too we must admit that the Learning, heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled-down quite pell-mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the drossy parts smelted out and thrown aside.

us.

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Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes touching pictures of human life. Of this sort the following has surprised The first purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament. 'Miserable indeed,' says he, 'was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely 'from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down 'to his loins, and hung round him like a matted cloak; the rest ' of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild-fruits; or, as the 'ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession ' and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but De'coration (Putz). Warmth he found in the toils of the chase; or ' amid dried leaves, in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he must have Clothes. Nay, among • wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as ' indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilised. ' countries.

'Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness; nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divine Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,-has descended, like thyself, from that same hair'mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal Anthropophagus! Out of the 'eater cometh forth meat; out of the strong cometh forth sweet6 ness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet in Time! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is ' in continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe: it is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed today (says one), it will be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.

'He who first shortened the labour of Copyists by device of Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering

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'most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic 'world he had invented the Art of Printing. The first ground ' handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's 'pestle through the ceiling: what will the last do? Achieve the 'final undisputed prostration of Force under Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was in the old'world Grazier,—sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country 'till he got it bartered for corn or oil,-to take a piece of Leather, ' and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or Pecus); put it in his pocket, and call it Pecunia, Money. Yet 'hereby did Barter grow Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden ' and Paper, and all miracles have been out-miracled: for there are Rothschilds and English National Debts; and whoso has sixpence is Sovereign (to the length of sixpence) over all men; 'commands Cooks to feed him, Philosophers to teach him, Kings 'to mount guard over him,-to the length of sixpence.-Clothes too, which began in foolishest love of Ornament, what have they 'not become! Increased Security and pleasurable Heat soon 'followed but what of these? Shame, divine Shame (Schaam, Modesty), as yet a stranger to the Anthropophagous bosom, arose 'there mysteriously under Clothes; a mystic grove-encircled shrine 'for the Holy in man. Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, 'social polity; Clothes have made Men of us; they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us.

'But on the whole,' continues our eloquent Professor, Man ' is a Tool-using Animal (Handthierendes Thier). Weak in himself, ' and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattestsoled, of some half square-foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle ' out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! 'Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the Steer of the 'meadow tosses him aloft, like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can

use Tools, can devise Tools: with these the granite mountain 'melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron, as if 'it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire 'his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools; ' without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all.'

Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the stream of Oratory with a remark, that this Definition of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, of all that Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? Man is called a Laughing Animal: but do not the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it; and is the manliest man the greatest and often est laugher? Teufelsdröckh himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still less do we make of that other French Definition of the Cooking Animal; which, indeed, for rigorous

scientific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on it? Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander use, beyond stowing-up his whale-blubber, as a marmot, in the like case, might do? Or how would Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinocco Indians who, according to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on the branches of trees; and, for half the year, have no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being under water? But on the other hand, show us the human being, of any period or climate, without his Tools: those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or can have.

'Man is a Tool-using Animal,' concludes Teufelsdröckh in his abrupt way; ' of which truth Clothes are but one example and surely if we consider the interval between the first wooden Dibble 'fashioned by man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the 'British House of Commons, we shall note what progress he has 'made. He digs-up certain black stones from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, Transport me and this luggage at the rate of five-and-thirty miles an hour; and they do it: he collects, apparently by lot, six-hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous individuals, and says to them, Make this nation toil for us, bleed for ' us, hunger and sorrow and sin for us; and they do it.'

CHAPTER VI.

APRONS.

ONE of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the whole Volume is that on Aprons. What though stout old Gao, the Persian Blacksmith, whose Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because ' raised in revolt which proved successful, is still the royal stand'ard of that country;' what though John Knox's Daughter, 'who threatened Sovereign Majesty that she would catch her husband's 'head in her Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop ;' what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many other Apron worthies, figure here? An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible. What, for example, are we to make of such sentences as the following?

Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, 'to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched 'silk (as it were, the Emblem and beatified Ghost of an Apron), 'which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nürnberg Work