him for his folly, paid for his bold presumption with his life. There is another version of his death which says, that the invincible son of Thetis having visited the dead body of the Amazon with unnatural atrocities, the decent Thersites reproached him for his unmanly conduct, and was slain by him in rage at the well-merited rebuke. Shakspere, who did all things perfectly, makes of Thersites a bold and witty jester, who entertains a good measure of scorn for the valiant ignorance of Achilles. The wit of the latter, with that of his brother-chiefs, lies in their sinews; and their talk is of such a skim-milk complexion that we are ready to exclaim, with bold Thersites himself,-"I will see you hanged like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents; I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools."

As it has been with our poor friend Thersites, so has it been with our useful friends whose faculties are ever given to a consideration of the important matter "De Re Vestiaria." The poets, however, do not partake of the popular fallacy, and the builders of lofty rhyme are not unjust, as we shall see, to a race whose mission it is to take measures in order to save godlike man from looking ridiculous.

Shakspere, of course, has rendered this full justice to the tailor. In his illustrations we see our ancient friend variously depicted, as industrious, intelligent, honest, and full of courage, without vapouring. The tailor in King John is represented as the retailer of news, and the strong handicraftsman listens with respect to the budget of the weakly intelligencer.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The while his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news,
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet),
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent.

It is clear that nothing less than an invasion had driven this hard-working artisan from his shop-board to talk of politics and perils with his friend at the smithy. The German poet Heyne has something of a similar description of the tailor in prose. In his Reisebildern there is an admirably graphic account

of how the Elector John William fled from Düsseldorf, and left his ci-devant subjects to render allegiance to Murat, the grand and well-curled Duke of Berg; and how, of the proclamations posted in the night, the earliest readers in the grey morning were an old soldier and a valiant tailor, Killiam, the latter attired as loosely as his predecessor in King John, and with the same patriotic sentimentality in the heart which beat beneath his lightly-burthened ribs.

But to revert to "Sweet Will," how modestly dignified, assured, and selfpossessed is the tailor in Katherine and Petruchio. The wayward bridegroom had ridiculed the gown brought home by the "woman's tailor" for the wayward bride. He had laughed at the "masking stuff," sneered at the demicannon of a sleeve, and profanely pronounced its vandyking, if that term be here admissible, as

carv'd like an apple-tart, Here's snip and nip, and cut, and slish and slash, Like to a censer in a barber's shop.

To all which profanity against divine fashion, the tailor modestly remarks that he had made the gown as he had

been bidden,

orderly and well

According to the fashion and the time.

And when Petruchio, who is not half so much of a gentleman in this scene as Sartorius, calls the latter, "thimble," "flea,"

""skein of thread," "remnant," and flings at him a whole vocabulary of vituperation, the gentle schneider still simply asserts that the gown was made according to direction, and that the latter came from Grumio himself. Now Grumio, being a household servant, lies according to the manner of his vocation, and where he does not lie he equivocates most basely; and where he neither lies nor equivocates he bullies; and finally he falls into an argument which has not the logical conclusion of annihilating his adversary. The latter, with quiet triumph, produces Grumio's note containing the order, but it costs the valet no breath and as little hesitation to pronounce the note a liar too. But a worm will turn, and the tailor touched to the quick on a point of honour, brings his bold heart upon his lips and valiantly declares-"This is true that I say, an'

I had thee in place where thou should'st know it;" and thereupon Grumio falls into bravado and uncleanness, and the tailor is finally dismissed with scant courtesy, and the very poor security of Hortensio's promise to pay for what Petruchio owed. The breach of contract was flagrant, and the only honest man in the party was the tailor. So much for honesty; as for bravery, commend me to forcible Francis Feeble. He too was but a "woman's tailor," but what a heroic soul was in that transparent frame! He reminds me of Sir Charles Napier. When the latter hero was complimented by the Mayor of Portsmouth, he simply undertook to do his best, and counselled his worship not to expect too much. Sir Charles must have taken the idea of his speech from Francis Feeble, and what an honour is that for the entire profession, not of sailors, but of tailors. "Wilt thou make me," asks Falstaff, as many holes in an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?" "I will do my good will, Sir," answereth gallant Feeble, adding, with true conclusiveness, " you can have no more." Well might Sir John enthusiastically hail him as "courageous Feeble," and compare his valour to that of the wrathful dove and most magnanimous mouse, two animals gentle by nature, but, being worked upon, not void of spirit. Indeed Feeble is the only gallant man of the entire squad of famished recruits. Bullcalf offers "good master corporal Bardolph" a bribe of "four Harry tenshillings, in French crowns," to be let off. Not that Bullcalf is afraid! Not he, the knave; he simply does not care to go! He is not curious in things strategetic; he seeth no attraction in stricken fields; but he would fain be out of harm's way, because, in his own words: "because I am unwilling, and for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, Sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much." To no such craven tune runneth the song of stupendous Feeble! Mouldy urges affection for his old dame as ground of exemption from running the risk of getting decorated with a bloody coxcomb. No such Jeremiade is chaunted by Titanic Francis! By my troth!" gallantly swears that lionlike soul, "by my troth, I care not!"

66

Neither

So

He, the tailor, cares not! subterfuge, lie, or excuse, will he condescend to. Moreover, he is not only courageous, but Christian-like and philosophical, as for example: "A man can die but once; we owe God a death; I'll ne'er bear a base mind; an' it be my destiny, so; an' it be not, so; no man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next." This was not a man, to march with whom through Coventry a captain need to be ashamed. valiant and yet so modest; so conscious of peril, and yet so bold in the encountering of it; so clear in his logic, so profound in his philosophy, so loyal of heart, and so prepared in the latter to entertain any fate, whatever might be its aspect or the hour of its coming. Surely, if the Promp ter's book be correct, the exit of this tailor must be directed to be marked with music to the air of "A man's a man for a' that." Anything less appropriate would fail to do justice to the situation.

In Francis Feeble then, the spirit of the tailor is immortalised. Compared with him, Starveling, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, is simply tenderhearted. He is one of the actors in the play of Pyramus and Thisbe, and he is the most ready to second the motion that the sword of Pyramus should not be drawn, nor the lion be permitted to roar, lest the ladies, dear souls, should be affrighted. Starveling is more of the carpet knight than Feeble. The one is gallant in stricken fields, the other airs his gallantry in ladies' bower.

It was right that the race of Feebles should not expire. It was said of old that to be the sire of sons was no great achievement, but that he was a man indeed who was the father of daughters. Such, no doubt, was Feeble, one of whose spirited girls married a Sketon, and their eldest son it is, as I would fondly think, who figures so bravely among the followers of Perkin Warbeck, in John Ford's tragedy of that name. Sketon is the most daring of the company, and the blood of the Feebles suffers no disgrace in his person. Sketon, like the great Duke of Guise, is full of dashing hope, when all his fellows are sunk in dull despair.

While so august a personage as John de Water, Mayor of Cork, is thinking twice ere he acts once, Sketon thus boldly, and tailor-like, cuts out the habit of invasion and prepares the garb of victory, ""Tis but going to sea and leaping a-shore," saith he, "cut ten or twelve thousand unnecessary throats, fire seven or eight towns, take half a dozen cities, get him into the marketplace, crown him Richard the Fourth, and the business is finished!" Is not this a man whom Nature intended for a commander-in-chief? He is not only quick of resolution but of action, and yet, I dare be sworn, Sketon had read nothing of what Caius Cornelius Sallust says thereupon. And I beseech you to mark one thing more. You know that when the foolish Roman Emperor would not permit the statue of Brutus to be borne in the funeral procession of Britannicus, lest the people should think too much of that imperatoricide, the obstinate and vulgar rogues thought all the more upon him and his deeds, for the very reason that his statue did not figure among those of other heroes. So in the above heart-stirring speech of valiant Sketon, we miss something which reveals to us how chaste and chivalrous a soldier

was the grandson of Feeble. His views go to bold invasion, to the burning of towns and the sacking of cities, and to splendid victory built upon the cutting of throats which he nicely, and as it were apolegetically for the act, describes as 66 unnecessary throats." A taste of the quality of the roystering soldier is perhaps to be found in this speech, but you are entreated to remark that all the vengeance of the tailor is directed solely against his enemy, man. The women, it is evident, have nothing to fear at the hands of Sketon. He does not mention rudeness to them, just as the ancient legislator did not provide against parricide, simply because, judging from his own heart, he deemed the crime impossible. Sketon and Scipio deserve to go down to posterity hand in hand as respectors of timid beauty. There was a Persian victor, too, who would not look upon the faces of his fair captives lest he should be tempted to violate the principles of propriety. Sketon was bolder and not less virtuous. To my thinking he is the Bayard of tailors. It

would wrong him to compare him even with Joseph Andrews; and I will only add that if old Tilly at Magdeburg had been influenced by the virtue of Sketon, there might not have been less weeping for lost lovers, but there would have been more maidens left to sit down in cypress and mourn for them.

Sketon, foremost in fight, is first to hail the man whom he takes for his prince, when victory has induced the Cornish men of mettle to proclaim, at Bodnam, Richard "monarch of England and king of hearts." Jubilant in success, he does not complain when Fortune veils her face. Defeat and captivity are accepted with dignity when they are compelled upon him; and when swift death is to be the doom of himself and companions, he does not object to the philosophical disquisition of his old leader and fellow-sufferer, Perkin, that death by the sword whereby the "pain is past ere sensibly 'tis felt," is far preferable to being slowly slain at home by the doctors; for he says:

to tumble
From bed to bed, be massacred alive
By some physicians for a month or two,
In hope of freedom from a fever's torments,
Might stagger manhood.

And, accordingly, Sketon follows Warbeck to death without a remnant of fear; and I must add that Henry VII. showed little generosity when he remarked upon these executions, as he sat comfortably at home,

that public states,

As our particular bodies, taste most good
In health, when purged of corrupted blood.

Ford, the dramatic poet, offers indirect testimony to the morality of the English tailor, by his introduction of a French member of the fraternity, in "The Sun's Darling." The author calls his piece a moral masque, but Monsieur le Tailleur utters some very immoral matter in it, such, it may fairly be supposed, as Ford could not have put into the mouth of a kinsman of Starveling.

Massinger's tailors again show that they were as much the victims of their customers as their descendants are now; and the "Who suffers ?"-the facetious query of Mr. Pierce Egan's "Tom and Jerry,"-would have been quite as appropriate a way of asking

the name of

a

"Corinthian's" tailor two centuries ago. "I am bound t'ye, gentlemen," says the grateful builder of doublets and trunk-hose to his lordly customers. "You are deceived," is the comment of the Page, "they'll be bound to you, you must remember to trust them none." The scene here, it is true, is in Dijon, but Massinger, like Plautus, portrayed his country's manners in scenes and personages drawn from other climes. This is easily to be discerned in the former author's play of "The Old Law." The scene is laid in Epirus. A tailor waits upon the young Simonides, who has just joyfully inherited the paternal estate, but the youthful courtier despises the operative employed by his sire. "Thou mad'st my father's clothes," he says:

that I confess.

But what son and heir will have his father's tailor, Unless he have a mind to be well laugh'd at? Thou 'st been so used to wide long-side things, that when [doublet

I come to truss, I shall have the waist of my Lie on my buttocks; a sweet sight!

This is purely descriptive not of Epiriote but of old English costume. The former never changed; our fashions have constantly varied; and the very long-waisted doublet scorned by Simonides, who talks like the rakish heir of an old Cheapside drysalter, has descended from the saloon to the stables. It was once worn by lords, it is now carried by grooms.

But perhaps, on the question of fashions, the remark of the simpleminded tailor in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Fair Maid of the Inn," who is duped so consumedly by Ferabosco the mountebank, is very apt to the matter. He has travelled, and is willing even to go to the moon, in search of strange and exquisite new fashions. but, as he says, "All we can see or invent are but old ones with new names to 'em." The poets I have last mentioned exhibit quite as great a contempt for chronology as any of their harmonious fellows. Thus, Blacksnout the Roman blacksmith, in "The Faithful Friends," living when Titus Martius was King of Rome, tells Snipsnap the Latin tailor that he had not only been in battle, but had been shot "with a bullet as big as a penny loaf;" he adds, with much circumstance :

Snipsnap is the tailor of the poet's own period. He calls for drink with the airy freedom of a be-plumed gallant, pays magnanimously, as be-plumed gallants did not, cuts jokes like a courtjester, and boasts that he can "finish more suits in a year than any two lawyers in the town." Blacksnout's remark in reply, that "lawyers and tailors have their several hells," is rather complimentary than otherwise to the lastnamed gentle craft, for it places the tailor who exercises the time-honoured observance of "cabbage" on a level with the lawyer who purchases his luxuries through the process of partially stripping his clients. The "hell" here named is supposed to be the place wherein both lawyers and tailors put those shreds of which Lisauro speaks in the "Maid in the Mill:"

The shreds of what he steals from us, believe it, Make him a mighty man.

Ben Jonson alludes to this particular locality in "The Staple of News." Fashioner waiting past the appointed time, upon Pennyboy Junr. compensates for his dilatoriness by perpetrating a witticism, and the young gentleman remarks thereupon,——

that jest

Has gain'd thy pardon; thou had'st lived condemned

To thine own hell, else.

Fashioner was like Mr. Joy the_Cambridge tailor of an olden time. If that hilarious craftsman had promised a suit to be ready for a ball, and did not bring it home till the next morning at breakfast, his stereotyped phrase ever took the form of "sorrow endureth for a

night, but Joy cometh with the morning!" But, to return to the Hades of tailors. The reader will doubtless remember that Ralph, the doughty squire of Hudibras, had been originally of the following of the needle, and

An equal stock of wit and valour He had laid in, by birth a taylor. Ralph dated his ancestry from the immediate heir of Dido, from whom

descended cross-legg'd knights, Fam'd for their faith.

And then we are told, with rich Hudibrastic humour, that Ralph, the extailor, was like Æneas the pious, for-

This sturdy squire, he had, as well
As the bold Trojan knight, seen hell,-

which locality, as connected with the handicraftsman, is described as being the place where tailors deposit their perquisites.

We have digressed a little from Snipsnap, the English tailor, whom Beaumont and Fletcher have placed with other thoroughly English artisans in the piece already named, "The Faithful Friends." Snipsnap holds his profession to be above that of a soldier, but yet modestly excuses himself from fighting, on the score that, although a tailor, he is not a gentleman. Being provoked, however, he knocks down the rude offender, and has a thorough contempt for the constable-a contempt in the entertaining of which he is so well justified by the logical remark of Blacksnout

A constable's

An ass. I've been a constable myself.

The bravery of Snipsnap is a true bravery. He is conscious of the peril in which he stands as a soldier, and, ere going into action, bethinks him of old prophecies that he should be slain. But, when he pictures to himself the public scorn that ever follows cowardice, and that if he and his fellows be poltroons every wench in Rome will fling dirt at them as they pass by, saying "There are the soldiers durst not drawtheir blades," then is the heroic soul fired, and Snipsnap exclaims—

But they shall find we dare, and strike home too.
I am now resolv'd, and will be valiant ;
This bodkin quilts their skin as full of holes
As e'er was canvas doublet.

"Spoke like a bold man, Snip!" says Bellario, the old soldier. Aye, and like a discreet and thinking man. There is no foolhardiness and rash action in Snipsnap; but, like the greatest of heroes, he looks his peril calmly in the face, and then encounters it with a gallantry that is not to be resisted.

And it is to be observed that the tailors of the poets are as generous as they are brave. Witness Vertigo, in "The Maid in the Mill." The lords among whom he stands owe him money, and yet affect to have forgotten his name. One of them ventures indeed to hope that he has not come to press his claims; and what says this very pearl and quintessence of tailors?

Good faith, the least thought in my heart. Your love, gentlemen,

Your love's enough for me. Money! hang money! Let me preserve your love.

Incomparable Vertigo! What a trade might he drive in London upon these liberal terms! A waistcoat for a good opinion; a fashionable coat for esteem; and a full-dress suit to be paid for with the wearer's love in a promissory note made payable at sight!

Vertigo understands the dignity of his profession. Indeed he wears a double dignity, for he is a "woman's tailor" as well as "man's;" and, when he is about to measure Florimel, how bravely does he bid the lords "stand out o' th' light!" How gallantly does he promise the lady when he swears, or asserts rather (for the tailors of the poets never swear-that is, never swear profanely; they are like the nun in Chaucer, whose "prettiest oath was but by St. Eloy!")-when he asserts, then, that she has "the neatest body Otrante, the Spanish Count, in love in Spain, this day;" and, further, when with Florimel, remarks that happily his wardrobe, with the tailor's help, may fit her instantly, what self-dignity in the first line of the reply, and what philosophy in the second: If I fit her not, your wardrobe cannot ;

And if the fashion be not there, you mar her.

Ben Jonson does the trade full justice with regard to their possession of generosity. Thus, in "Every Man Out of his Humour," Fungoso not only flatters the tailor who constructed his garment, out of the money due for its fashioning, but he borrows some ready cash of him besides. Upon this hint did Sheridan often act, and thus posterity often suffers through the vices as through the weaknesses of our ancestors. But the philosophical spirit of the true artistic tailor has been as little neglected by rare Ben, "the canary-bird," as the same artist's generosity. The true philosophy of dress is to be found in a speech of Fashioner's in "The Staple of News," and which speech is in reply to the remark of young Pennyboy that the new clothes he has on makes him feel wittier than usual. "Believe it, sir," says Fashioner, That clothes do much upon the wit, as weather Does on the brain; and thence, Sir, comes your proverb,

The tailor makes the man. I speak by experience