been ignorant; and therewith the captain would fain have had the sale cancelled, but the Caliph of Cordova would not listen to such a proposition. Hanoch, the son of Moses, was even more fortunate than his sire, for he espoused a daughter of the House of Peliag. Hanoch displayed such liberality on the occurrence of this union, that for a long time the corporation of tailors, whom he especially benefited on this occasion, were accustomed to name one son in their respective families after so liberal a patron of the craft. The two Jewish households on that day were long celebrated at the hearths of those who made their dresses. The wedding feast was held at Zahara, near the city, and not less than seven hundred Israelites rode thither in costumes that would have dazzled the Incas. Ask a well-to-do Cordovese tailor as to the state of his vocation, and, if he has not now forgotten the once popular legend, he will answer, "It is almost as flourishing, Sir, as in the days of Hanoch, whom our predecessors cursed as a Jew, and blessed as a It was a neatly cut distinction, and fitted

customer." exactly.

Deformity of principle, as well as deformity of person, may sometimes be the mother of Fashion. Thus it is stated by an old French writer, that "the use of great purfles and slit coates was introduced by wanton women;" but he adds, with great unction, that the fashion of these lemans had been adopted by the princesses and ladies of England; and with them he trusts that it will long remain. The same author shows how a fair lady, by following the fashion thus lightly set, became the victim of Satan himself. It must be premised that the author's daughters had been very desirous of indulging in furred garments, and purfles, and slashed coats; and as the father saved himself from a long bill at the dressmaker's by telling the following story, I calculate upon the gratitude of all sires similarly beset, if the telling of it here, and by them to their respective young ladies,

should be followed by the desired consequences,-which I do not at all anticipate.

A certain knight having lost his wife, and not being at all sure as to the locality in which her spirit rested, applied to a devout hermit, who picked up a living by revealing that sort of secret. In our own days, the Rev. Mr. Godfrey professes to get at the same mystery by dint of table-turning. Well; the reverend gentleman's ancestor, the hermit, thought upon the question by going to sleep over it; and when he awoke, he informed the knight that he had been, in a vision, to the tribunal of souls, and that he had there learned all about the lady in question. He had seen St. Michael and Lucifer standing opposite each other, and between them a pair of scales, in one of which was placed the lady's soul, with its select assortment of good deeds; and in the other, all her evil actions. A fiend, with all her garments and jewellery in his possession, was looking on. The beam of the balance had not yet made a movement, when the impetuous St. Michael was about generously to claim the soul thus weighed. Thereupon Lucifer urbanely remarked, that he would take the liberty of informing his once-esteemed friend of a fact probably unknown to him. "This woman," said he, “had no less than ten gowns and as many coats; and you know as well as I do, my good Michael, that half the quantity would have sufficed for her requirements, and would not have been contrary to the law of God."

St. Michael looked rather offended at its being supposed that he knew anything about women and their gear, and suggested that too much intercourse with both had been the ruin of his ex-colleague.

"Fier comme un Archange!" was the commentary of the deboshed Lucifer, who, according to some old fathers, tempted Eve in very excellent French. However that may be, he added, "the value of one of this pretty wan

ton's superfluous gowns or coats would have clothed and kept forty poor men through a whole winter: and the mere waste cloth from them would have saved two or three from perishing. Touche-fille," he said, addressing the fiend who carried the finery, "throw those traps into the scale." The fiend obeyed, by casting them in where the lady's bad actions lay; and straightway down sank that scale, and upward flew the beam which bore the soul and its ounce of virtues. This was done with such a jerk that the soul itself fell into the outspread arms of Touche-fille, who made off with his prey, without waiting for further award. Lucifer looked. inquiringly at St. Michael; but the latter observed, that though his opponent's aide-de-camp had been somewhat too hasty, he would not dispute the case any further. "But what, may I ask, do you intend to do with her?

"She shall have a new dress daily, and fancy herself ugly in all."

"Umph!" said Michael, "you certainly are the most exquisite of torturers."

"And Michael, despite his modesty, does know what most vexes a woman!"

"Go to

;" whither, the last person addressed had not time to say. He was interrupted by Lucifer, who remarked:

-

"I have business upon earth. My affairs at home are well cared for in my absence by a regency."

And so they parted; and the moral of the tale is, that luxury in dress tends to lead to the Devil. And though it be lightly said, it is also truly said. Let us look through the book of patterns, wherein we may trace the varieties of costume, its fashion, and its follies, and see how what was irreproachable today becomes ridiculous tomorrow.

ADONIS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

PART I.

"L'habit est une partie intégrante de l'homme ; et détermine notre jugement.”—La Bruyère.

agit sur nos sens,

OUR ancestors, in early days, had what may be called early ways. They were in no respect superior to New Zealanders in a savage state. Civilization has however copied some of their customs, and old ladies who paint their cheeks and necks are not much further advanced than their ancestors, who coloured themselves all over, and that not out of vanity.

Strabo says that the people in the west of England shaved their chins, but cherished mustachios, wore black garments, and carried a stick. This description might serve for half the gentlemen who are to be seen in Regent Street and Rotten Row during the “ season." But I sup

pose one may take the liberty to doubt that the Cradocks of today really resemble so closely as the description would seem to warrant, their progenitors the Caradocs of other times, who "looked like furies," says Strabo, "but were in fact quiet and inoffensive people."

The early Welsh bards, we are told, dressed in sky-blue; the modern bards of the million are content to breakfast on it: the British astronomers wore green, which was not indicative of what the colour might have stood for,—a verdant knowledge of the science. When the Romans planted their conquering eagles on our soil, the old British chieftains resisted them and their fashions. Tacitus says that it was

the sons of the chieftains who first adopted the Roman mode; and no doubt the old gentlemen were disgusted when they beheld their unpatriotic young heirs wandering about without their bracca, and sporting the tunic before whose presence liberty and trousers had disappeared, but not for ever.

The Saxons brought in their own fashions, and some of these still prevail; the smock-frock, for instance, is the old Saxon tunic without the belt. Such a dress was never known in Ireland nor in Scotland: the Saxons kept for whole centuries to a fixed fashion, as may be seen in any illustrated work on costume. In this respect they were only less tenacious than the Persians, whose garments passed from father to son as long as they could hold together. It would be difficult, I fancy, to persuade any modern young AngloSaxon to draw on the scanc-beorg, or shank-coverers, of his respected and deceased "governor." It is only the mantles of our Peers that descend hereditarily upon the shoulders of succeeding generations; and some of these mantles look dingy enough to date their origin from the time when Henry III. established Tothill-fields Fair, in order to spite the Londoners. The latter, it will be remembered, were compelled to close their shops for an entire fortnight during the holding of the fair in Westminster; and the man on Tower Hill who wanted to furnish his outward or inward person with the smallest article, was compelled to resort for it to the neighbourhood of the Abbey, or to do without till the fair was raised.

The taste of the Anglo-Saxons was rather of a splendid character, but sometimes questionable. A lady with blue hair, for instance, could not have been half so pleasant to look at as a lady with blue eyes; though the custom of dyeing the hair blue was perhaps scarcely more objectionable than that of the young ladies and gentlemen of Gaul, who washed theirs in a chalky solution, in order to make it a more fiery red than it had been rendered by nature. I