the Meurt-de-Soifs. Army, who lets out body linen to poor gentlemen suffering from scarcity. A shirt may be hired of her for a week for the modest price of twopence, the wearer being required merely to leave his old one, by way of a security deposit. Nothing can be more delicate than, not the deposit, but the manner in which the request is made; and a shirt of La Mère Moskow might have been worn, without scruple, at Lord Q'Grady's by the Reverend Ozias Polyglot, or the better-endowed Reverend Obadiah Pringle.

She is an ex-vivandière of the Grand

But I shall have more to say hereafter touching Gallic influences incidentally; I will therefore turn from persons and places to things, and, hat in hand, discourse of what I hold.

HATS.

"Your bonnet to its right use."-SHAKSPEARE.

NEWTON observed this Shakspearian injunction by always taking off his hat when he pronounced the name of God. This was a right use. The grandmother of Guy Faux devoted one to a strange use when she bequeathed her best velvet hat to a nephew. I have often wondered if he went to church in it! The grandees of Spain treat their sacred sovereign with less respect than Newton showed for a sacred name. It is the privilege of the grandees of Spain that they may stand with their hats on in the presence of their sovereign. There is but one noble in England so privileged, -the head, so to speak, of the De Courcys, Earls of Kinsale.

It is just six centuries and a half since Philip of France sent over a knight to summon King John to answer for the murder of Prince Arthur, or abide by trial by combat. John had no relish to do either, but he looked round for a substitute willing to meet one of the alternatives. There was a gallant soldier in prison of the name of De Courcy. He had conquered Ulster for his master, Lackland, and had been rewarded with captivity because he had not done more. His fetters were struck off, and he was asked if he were willing to be champion for John in this bloody arbitrement. "No, not for him!" cried De Courcy, "but for my country, ay!" The adversaries met, yet did not come to an encounter; for the French knight, not liking the look of his gigantic foe, declined the combat, and so lost his honour. John and Philip, who were together present, directed De Courcy to give them

a taste of his quality. Whereupon the champion placed his helmet upon a post, and cleaving through the first into the second, his sword stuck so fast in the wood that none but himself could draw it out. "Never unveil thy bonnet, man, again, before king or subject," was the cheap privilege accorded him by the economical John; "but tell us why thou lookedst so fiercely round ere thou didst deal thy dainty stroke." Because, had I failed, I intended to slay all who had dared to mock me." "By the mass," said John, "thou art a pleasant companion, and therewith Heaven keep thee in good beavers !"

It was long the custom for the De Courcys to wear their hat, but for a moment, in presence of their respective kings, just for the purpose of asserting their privilege, and then to doff it, like other men. The head of the family, at one of George the Third's Drawing-rooms, thinking this not sufficient assertion of his right, continued wearing his court headpiece throughout the time he was in the "presence." The good old King at length extinguished this poor bit of pride, by bluntly remarking, "The gentleman has a right to be covered before me; but even King John could give him no right to be covered before ladies." The rebuke was most effectual; and De Courcy saw, to his horror, that the entire court, ladies, princesses, courtiers, and attendants, were wreathing a broad girdle of grins "all round his hat."

It is said that when Fox the Quaker had an interview with Charles the Second, the King observing that his "friend" kept on his beaver, immediately took off his own. "Put on thy hat, friend Charles," said the plain gentleman. "Not so, friend George," replied the King; "it is usual for only one man to be covered here." It was a neat retort, and may serve as a pendant to the remark of the peasant boy, whom Henri IV. had taken up behind him, and who pretended that he would take the lad where he might see the monarch. "How shall I know the King when he is

among so many nobles ?" said the rustic, as he rode en croupe behind the sovereign, of whose identity he was ignorant. You will know him," said Henri, "by his being the only person who will keep his hat on." At length the two arrived where the King's officers awaited him, and they all uncovered as he trotted up to them. "Now, good lad," said he, "which is the King?" "Well, exclaimed the boy, "it must be either you or I, for we have both got our hats on!"-An old-world story, I fear, but not mal trovato.

Hats have been of divers service in battle. The plumed hat of Henri IV. was the rallying point of his followers. In later times, the head-covering was put to good purpose by a 'cute Highlander. In the Peninsular war, one of the 93rd and a French infantry-man came upon one another in a wood. As their pieces were unloaded, they both rushed to the cover of a tree, in order to put their muskets in deadly order; but this done, neither was inclined to look out, lest the other should be beforehand with him, and let fly. At length the Highlander quietly put his feathered hat on the end of his piece, and held it a little beyond the tree, as though a head was in it, looking out. At the same moment the impatient Frenchman reconnoitered, saw his supposed advantage, and, from his rifle, sent a ball through his adversary's bonnet; thereupon the bonny Scot calmly advanced with his loaded piece, and took his enemy prisoner without difficulty.

I do not know if it ever occurred to any one that hats had something to do with the dissolution of the Long Parliament; but such is the fact. As soon as Cromwell had declared that assembly non-existent, he flung on his hat, and paced up and down the Parliament Chamber. The members, however, were piqued by such truly cavalier swagger, and would not budge an inch. Cromwell called in Major Harrison and the guard. The major saw how matters stood, and he felt at once that he could get the ex

deputies out much sooner by courtesy than carbines. Accordingly he approached the Speaker, and taking off his own hat with much ceremony, he bowed low, kissed the fallen official's hand, detaining it at the same time with such gentle violence that the deposed dignitary was constrained to follow whither the very polite but unwelcome republican chose to conduct him. The major led him out of the hall, we are told, "as a gentleman does a lady, the whole Parliament following." Thus a hat in hand helped to do what a hat on head failed to accomplish; and the Long Parliament resisting rudeness, yielded to gallantry, and was demolished for ever.

The close of the last national Parliament held in Scotland has something in connection with the hat. On the 22nd April, 1707, that illustrious but sometimes turbulent assembly adjourned never to meet again. There must have been some aching hearts under the old-fashioned dresses of many of the members; but there was no sorrow to be read on the brow of Seafield the Chancellor. He put on his hat as he pronounced, with brutal levity, the annihilation of the parliamentary body. Had he done it to hide confusion or to mark contempt, there might have been some excuse for him, but it was a mere formality; and he unfeelingly added thereto, words which were the cruel knell of the dying victim. 66 There," said he, "there is the end of an auld sang!" It was a song that, in its day, had been sung to some tune, despite some harshness and occasional discord; but, as the Chancellor remarked when he put on his hat, there was an end of it.

When Sir Edward Coke, in 1645, was trying Mrs. Turner, the physician's widow, as an accessory before the fact in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury (the poor woman had a penchant for poisoning people,-but we have all our little foibles), he observed that she wore a hat, and he bade her take it off. "A woman," said he, "may be covered in a