yncrasies unfold
themselves in choice of Color: if the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent,
so does the Color betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nations
as among individuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, though
infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of the
Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences,
which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neither
invisible nor illegible.

"For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-Effect Philosophy of
Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening
entertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such
Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what
is your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a
hieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity,
in Heaven?--Let any Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear
such and such a Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am
_here_, to wear and obey anything!--Much, therefore, if not the whole,
of that same _Spirit of Clothes_ I shall suppress, as hypothetical,
ineffectual, and even impertinent: naked Facts, and Deductions drawn
therefrom in quite another than that omniscient style, are my humbler
and proper province."

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless
contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least,
the boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being
indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the
most cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by
omnivorous learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time,
in its results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the
Compilers of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even
Useless Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it
this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended
us to that joint-stock vehicle of publication, "at present the glory of
British Literature"? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it
for their own behoof.

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads
us into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical,
cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content
ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to