telligences 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, Teufelsdroeckh 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 do with "Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom, according to
the Talmudists, he had before Eve, and who bore him, in that wedlock,
the whole progeny of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils,"--very
needlessly, we think. On this portion of the Work, with its profound
glances into the _Adam-Kadmon_, or Primeval Element, here strangely
brought into relation with the _Nifl_ and _Muspel_ (D