in a short while, would find his
place quite filled up here, and no room for him; the very Napoleon, the
very Byron, in some seven years, has become obsolete, and were now a
foreigner to his Europe. Thus is the Law of Progress secured; and in
Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will
continue.

"Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts,
complicated chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other riding and
fighting gear have been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has
acquired somewhat of a sign-post character,--I shall here say nothing:
the civil and pacific classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough
for us.

"Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_ [a perhaps untranslatable article];
also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a man
walks, it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have a
whole chime of bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there; which, especially
in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of walking, has a grateful
effect. Observe too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch
intersections. The male world wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang
bobbing over the side (_schief_): their shoes are peaked in front,
also to the length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags; even
the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses: some also clap bells on the
peak. Further, according to my authority, the men have breeches without
seat (_ohne Gesass_): these they fasten peakwise to their shirts; and
the long round doublet must overlap them.

"Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and
before, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on
the other hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which
trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their
silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a
handbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of hem; the long
flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe,
wherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound
silver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent flames
(_Flammen_), that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their mother's
head-gear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace is comfort
forgotten. In winter weather you behold the whole fair creation (that
can afford it) in long mantles, with skirts wide below, and, for hem,
not one