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,

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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 nonarch: 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

head-dress should be made of wool, knit, thicked, and dressed in Britain. She also made a decree to limit the size of the ruffs and swords worn by her courtiers, to the standard she considered fitting for subjects to assume; and, fearful that so arbitrary a law might be in some way or other evaded by the votaries of fashion, she appointed officers, whose sole duty it was to break every man's sword exceeding the limited length, and clip all the ruffs whose size infringed upon her regal ordinance.

Although these arbitrary laws caused some slight troubles at first, among gallants who could not brook the shortening of their cherished weapons, still no serious consequences ensued, and on the whole the English have ever borne the attacks made upon their dress with becoming sang froid.

Elizabeth, too, busied herself in arranging the costume usually worn in the inns of court, and particularized the shapes and colours of the garments, and the embroideries she considered befitting so grave an assembly.

Under Elizabeth's successor, a serious debate took place in Parliament, concerning the enormous size of verdingales; and some years afterwards laws were passed to put a stop to patching and painting.

The Turks, despotic in every thing, will not allow the Grecian ladies the poor privilege of wearing petticoats of the length that fashion in their country has declared to be proper and fitting; they have officers whose duty it is to nibble off as much of the jupe as ventures to extend beyond the length fixed by their barbarous masters.

The Turks also have laws by which none but their