that of inutility and undue contrast of colour. If the thing be dark,
and the stocking light, an effect of cleanliness is attained; but the
magpie appearance immediately prevails. The case is the same as that of
a white waistcoat and a black coat; too glaring, _trop prononce_. If
they are both of the same colour, then the tight and continuous
pantaloon is far more reasonable and becoming, and, for use, any thing
else is better--_experto crede_. The only exception in its favour that
we can make, is for the sportsman and the farmer; for him who joins on a
stout legging or a gaiter, whether of cloth or leather; or, if you wish
to do a bit of Jerry Hawthorn to some friend's Tom or Logic, here is
your garment _de rigueur_;--put on your leggings, your green coats, and
your white hat, and you are complete; but unless you wish to be mistaken
for your friend's butler, or a waiter from your club, do not venture on
the black _culotte_.

The trouser, then--the modern trouser--what are we to say of this? Why,
that it is the most useful, the most comfortable, the most economical,
and one of the least ugly garments ever invented by man. We almost
remember the day, dear reader, when as yet trousers were among the great
unborn; it was only the Duke, and those dashing fellows at his heels,
who imported the idea, we believe from Germany originally, though _they_
used it in the Peninsula. After the battle of Waterloo, no man of any
spirit at all ever wore any thing else for common use. It existed,
certainly, among our honest tars long previously to this epoch; but the
_fashion_ did not come from them; the rage originated with the
Peninsular troops, and was confirmed by the examples of the brilliant
staffs that accompanied the Allied sovereigns to this country in 1814.
It is true that the trouser did not assume its definite and rational
form, such as it now has, all at once; it went through a round of
vagaries indicative of a most diseased state of public taste. At one
time it was all _a la Cosaque_, and you might have made a greatcoat out
of a pair; at another, it was half up the leg, and more than two feet in
circumference; by degrees it got strapped down and cut away into a
sensible kind of shape; and now it has attained the _juste milieu_,
making a happy compromise between the tight symmetry of the pantaloon,
and the flaunting of the sailor's ducks. An immense step in the
improvement of this garment has been made by the introduction of