DRESS, considered merely as a covering for the body, and as a means of promoting warmth, needs no explanation. In the early ages, it was simple as the manners of the people who invented it. Leaves, feathers, and skins, formed the clothing of our first parents. As civilization gradually spread over the world, and as the invention and genius of man found means to change a raw hide into leather, the wool of sheep into cloth, the web of a worm into silk, flax and cotton into linen; to extract from herbs, flowers, woods, B minerals, and insects, dyes and colours that vie with the rainbow in richness and variety; mankind gave way to the caprices of vanity; they quitted the simple garments of their forefathers, and gradually gave themselves up to an almost incredible degree of luxury and extravagance in the adornment of their persons. So extensively, and so rapidly, did this passion for dress and finery of every kind, spread over the world, that edicts, laws, and ordinances, have been passed, from time to time, by many nations, to arrest the growing evil; an evil created by that desire for personal distinction which dwells, more or less, in every human breast, whether male or female, and which marks the untaught savage of the Sandwich Isles, as well as the enlightened and well-educated inhabitant of Britain. It may appear incredible, to those who have not dived into the mysteries of dress and fashion, to learn that revolutions have been caused at different times, and among different nations, from the determined resistance opposed to the various laws and decrees which have been directed against the too great love of dress and ornament; and so powerfully has this passion exhibited itself in the human mind, that blood has actually been shed to support it. In the history of China, we find that even that meek, quiet people were roused to fury, when their Tartar conquerors ordered their luxuriant tresses to be cut off; and so strenuously did they oppose the arbitrary decree, that, in more than one instance, the unfortunate Chinese preferred losing their heads to parting with their beloved ringlets. We are also told that the Tartars waged a long and bloody war with the Persians, and declared them to be infidels, because they would not clip their whiskers after the fashion of the former. Even so late as the eighteenth century, a very serious émeute took place in Madrid, on an attempt being made to banish the capa and sombrero; and, marvellous as it may seem, the obstinate resistance opposed to those who wished to change the fashion of these cherished articles of dress, caused the disgrace and flight of the prime minister. In our own country many laws and edicts have been made at different times to check, not only extravagance in dress itself, as regards the richness and splendour of its materials, and the ornaments that decorate it, but also to correct and regulate the shape of various parts of the apparel of both men and women. Several of our early kings waged war against the ridiculous and enormous length of piked shoes, and by enacting a law, restraining their points to a certain standard, hoped to correct the evil. But Fashion was not to be so ruled by the will of a monarch: angry at her wishes being disobeyed, she immediately put it into the heads of her followers to invent a mode equally absurd; the crakowes and poulaines disappeared, but were soon replaced by shoes of so extravagant a width, that another law was, ere long, found necessary to circumscribe their breadth. Queen Elizabeth, though herself so devoted a follower of fashion, and so passionately fond of dress, still made many laws respecting the attire of her subjects. She commanded the lower orders to wear on the Sabbath-day a cap of a peculiar shape; and, perhaps to restrain the love of foreign fashions which had long been so prevalent in England, she enacted that this |