Amhurst was among the "odd fellows" of the school. So was Leigh, who died at Gravelines, and whom the Roman Catholics proved to have died in their faith, by burying him within the church in that lively locality. Duncan Dee belongs rather to the bold than the odd fellows. He will ever be remembered as the intrepid defender of Sacheverel. Among the worthiest fellows was Wheatly, for ever famous for his immortal illustration of the Book of Common Prayer. Among the stout-hearted fellows was that paradoxical Dr. Byrom, of short-hand notoriety, who was loved for his wit and worth, and whose diary has lately been published by the Chetham Society. He was the son of a linendraper ; married for love; struggled for life at his leisure; earned a decent maintenance by teaching and practising the system of short-hand which he had invented; spent his last days in well-earned ease; and is famous for his epigrammatic epitaph on that irregular and chemical genius and jolly fellow, Dr. Byfield, who invented the sal volatile oleosum, and who was thus celebrated by Byrom over a flask at the Rainbow:

"Hic jacet Dr. Byfield, diu volatilis, tandem fixus!"

I may add, as being worthy to be classed among the clever fellows, Derham, whose ability was honoured by a sneer from Voltaire; and finally, among the audacious fellows was Zinzano, a conscientious clergyman, who thought to make Milton be forgotten by writing "an entirely new poem entitled 'Paradise Regained,'" which turned out to be a treatise on the art of gardening! But the pupil whose name conferred most glory (so it is alleged) upon the records of the school during the Georgian days, was Clive,-that young hero who began by climbing church-spouts, and ended so miserably after he had added a wide empire to our little kingdom. If the celebrated Cline, another "Merchant Tailor," killed more men in the practice of his profession, Clive, who was by no means contemptible as a

slayer of legions, added millions of living subjects to our imperial sway. The only pupil who has been "distinguished from the crowd by being remembered to his infamy," is Luke Milbourne, the antagonist of Dryden.

It has been said that Dr. South was a pupil of Merchant Tailors', but this is not the case. He was however appointed chaplain to the Company; and he showed how he appreciated the honour, by taking for the text of his inauguration sermon the words, "A remnant shall be saved!"

The greater portion of the men of whom the Merchant Tailors are proud, are men who made themselves, so to speak, and were not indebted in any way for fortune to their tailors. There was another class of men however, of whom the contrary may rather be said,―men who assumed the poor vocation of the beau, and found it a bankrupt calling. They have existed in all ages, and we will go back to those of old times. Seniores priores.

Chapters on Beaux.

THE BEAUX OF THE OLDEN TIME.

"Le Beau ne plaît qu'un jour, si le Beau n'est utile."-ST. LAMBERT.

DRESS, like all other things, has been amply used and abused in all ages; but there is this to be said for man, that he is the only animal born without being provided with a necessary costume. This shows that he is a migratory animal; and if he be not naturally covered so as to suit all climates and himself, he has reason given him to meet all exigencies, and it is only a pity that he exhibits so little taste in the application of it. His storehouse, or rough wardrobe, is in the vegetable and animal kingdom; and plants die that man may live, and animals are skinned that the lord of creation may be covered.

The passion for fine dressing commenced undoubtedly with the ladies. When the Tyrian Alcides was one night loitering by the sea-side, his arm encircling one of those nymphs whom demigods and boatswains' mates find in every port, and their eyes, when not looking into each other, were fixed on the shadowy splendour of the western star, his dog, a lank and hungry hound, came upon a shell, which he immediately began crunching. Thereupon there issued a liquid from the expiring fish within, so exquisite in colour that it attracted the eyes of the lady, who immediately de

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clared that never again should she know peace of mind until she had a dress of that self-same hue. She bade the hero never to appear in her presence again until the garment was procured; and poor Hercules, who appears to have had as much perplexity about ladies' petticoats as lions' hides, was sadly puzzled before he and an eminent firm succeeded in procuring a dye which produced a garment of the hue required, and would have made the fortune of the discoverers, had they not been accustomed to the same sort of extravagances which make bankrupts of London tradesmen. In spite of this, the Tyrian purple long held on Fashion's throne an undisputed sway; and no beau of old appeared in the world without a mantle of this colour hanging from his ivory shoulders. Agesilaus was one of this fashion-determining class; but unlike modern followers of the philosophy of the mode, he turned his ideas of dress to good account. For instance, when he was combating in Pontus against the barbarians, as the finely-clad and tender-hearted gentlemen there were called by their enemies, Agesilaus saw that they were most superbly attired, but that they also were very delicate of body. He accordingly gave orders that all the captains should be brought in naked, and be sold by the public crier; but that their garments should be sold separately. And this he did that the allies might know that they had to fight for rich spoils with a poor enemy, and so might rush to the attack with greater ardour. He had the picking of the spoil for his own wardrobe.

Alexander and his friends were probably the best-dressed men of all the Greeks at any period. Of one of these friends, Agnon, it is said he wore gold nails in both his slippers and sandals,-a piece of pride which was like that of the English farmer during the late war, who went to a market-dinner in a coat garnished with gold buttons. The vanity of the farmer was wounded at finding that they attracted no notice; and he clumsily tried to feed his pride

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and win observation by remarking, that "it certainly weer very warm work to wear goold buttons in the dog-days!" Alexander of course slept on a couch of gold. Ammon's son deserved no less a bed; but I can hardly credit the assertion that the sovereign's tent contained a hundred such beds, and that the tent itself was supported by fifty columns of gold. The beds however may not have been for one individual's use, and the tent was as vast as a barracks: the couches may therefore have been for the general officers. Five hundred Persians kept guard therein. These were the Melophores, the "apple-bearers," who carried a golden apple on the points of their lances, and who were the admiration of all the maid-servants of the district, attired as the Melophores were in uniforms of purple and yellow. These were surpassed by the thousand archers, in their mantles of flame-colour, violet, or celestial blue. These were irresistible; the ladies at least said So, if the enemy did not; but even they achieved fewer conquests (I allude less to the field than the bower) than the five hundred Macedonian Argyraspides, the corps of " silver bucklers," behind whose shields however beat hearts more easily reached by the feathered shafts of Dan Cupido than by the javelins of

the foe.

The purple-robed guard of Alexander was his chosen troop, his cent-garde, charged with watching over his personal safety, and seeing that he got safely to bed when his divinity was exceedingly drunk. They were terrible coxcombs, were these guards, and would condescend to the folly of flinging eggs at the passers-by, as though they knew no better than military gentlemen returning from Epsom, or a wrathful curate of the district of St. Barnabas pelting an anti-Puseyite. These men cared little whether Alexander were a god or not, but they had a firmly fixed idea that their tailor had a family claim upon Olympus. But what were these to Alcisthenes the Sybarite, who