garments. It was
forbidden to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to appear
with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. They supposed or pretended that
the deity whom they thus propitiated was LOVE: we aver that the
autocrat under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed--was
FASHION.

And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius? What is her
appearance? Whence does she arise? Did she alight from the skies,
while rejoicing stars sang Paeans at her birth? Was she born of the
Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of glory around her?
or did she spring from Ocean while Nereids revelled around, and
Mermaids strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft melodies
the while floating along the glistering waves, and echoing from the
Tritons' booming shells beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the
air; she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial as the ocean's
froth;--but she is none of these. She is--but we will lay aside our
own definition in order that the reader may have the advantage of that
of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.

"Quelqu'un qui voudrait un peu etudier d'ou part en premiere source ce
qu'on appelle LES MODES verrait, a notre honte, qu'un petit nombre de
gens, de la plus meprisable espece qui soit dans une ville, laquelle
renferme tout indifferemment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les
connaissions, nous n'aurions que le mepris qu'on a pour les gens sans
moeurs, ou la pitie qu'on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos
bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis a tous leurs caprices."

Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so "many do
shipwrack their credits," and make themselves "ridiculous apes, or at
best but like the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its
body."

"Clothes" writes a venerable historian, "are for necessity; warm
clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich
for magnificence. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too
various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the
wearer, if he takes pride therein.

"_He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs
at the rattling of his fetters._ For, indeed, clothes ought to be our
remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of
what's but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant's
feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute,
the Silkworm his stockings,