e print. Over such a universal medley of
high and low, of hot, cold, moist and dry, is he here struggling (by
union of like with like, which is Method) to build a firm Bridge for
British travellers. Never perhaps since our first Bridge-builders, Sin
and Death, built that stupendous Arch from Hell-gate to the Earth, did
any Pontifex, or Pontiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor.
For in this Arch too, leading, as we humbly presume, far otherwards
than that grand primeval one, the materials are to be fished up from the
weltering deep, and down from the simmering air, here one mass, there
another, and cunningly cemented, while the elements boil beneath: nor is
there any supernatural force to do it with; but simply the Diligence
and feeble thinking Faculty of an English Editor, endeavoring to evolve
printed Creation out of a German printed and written Chaos, wherein, as
he shoots to and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why to
the far-distant Wherefore, his whole Faculty and Self are like to be
swallowed up.

Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, does the Editor,
dismissing all anger, see his otherwise robust health declining; some
fraction of his allotted natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little
but an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. What is the use of
health, or of life, if not to do some work therewith? And what work
nobler than transplanting foreign Thought into the barren domestic
soil; except indeed planting Thought of your own, which the fewest are
privileged to do? Wild as it looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we
ever reach its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming Eras, the
first dim rudiments and already-budding germs of a nobler Era, in
Universal History. Is not such a prize worth some striving? Forward with
us, courageous reader; be it towards failure, or towards success! The
latter thou sharest with us; the former also is not all our own.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I. GENESIS.

In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable whether
from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinized soever, much insight
is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the Beginning
remains always the most notable moment; so, with regard to any great
man, we rest not till, for our scientific profit or not, the whole
circumstances of his first appearance in this Planet, and what manner of
Public Entry he made, are with utmost completeness render