d silk, trimmed
with fur;" neither, under these dingy skies, would I care to walk abroad
with Sir Philip Sidney in satin boots, or with Oliver Goldsmith in a
peach-coloured doublet: but still, for very comfort's sake, let us break
our bonds of cloth and buckram, and, in so far as adornment is
concerned, let us exchange this staid funeral monotony for the gallant
garb of our ancestors, the brave costumes of our Edwards and the bluff
King Hal.

Behold, too scornful friend, how my Tory rabies reaches to the wardrobe.
The modern dress of illuminated Europe has, in my humble opinion, gone
far to weaken the old empire of the Porte, to denationalize Egypt, to
degenerate the Jews, to mammonize once generous Greece, and carry
republican equality into the great prairies of America: it is the
undistinguishing, humiliating, unchivalrous livery of our cold
cosmopolites. But enough of this: pews and spires are to my Quixotism
not more unextinguishable foes, than coats, cravats, waistcoats, and
unnameables.

And now an honest word at parting, about such trivialities of
authorship. Why should a poor shepherd of the Landes for ever wear his
stilts? Or a tragic actor, like some mortified La Trapist, never be
allowed to laugh? Or Mr. Green be denied any other carriage than the
wicker car of his balloon? Even so, dear reader, pr'ythee suffer a
serious sort of author sometimes to take off his wig and spectacles, and
condescend to think of such minor matters as the toilet and its
still-recurring duties. And, if you _should_ find out the veritable name
of your weak confessing scribe, think not the less kindly of his graver
volumes; this one is his pastime, his holiday laugh, his purposely
truant, lawless, desultory recreance: impute not folly to the face of
cheerfulness; be charitable to such mixtures of alternate gayety and
soberness as in thine own mind, if thou searchest, thou shall find; let
me laugh with those that laugh, as well as sympathize with weepers; and
cavil not at those inconsistencies, which of a verity are man's right
attributes.

* * * * *

Ideas lie round about us, thick as daisies in a summer meadow. For my
own part, I know not what a walk, or a talk, or a peep into a book may
lead me to. Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the
casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had
given a protecting buckler for its head. Newton found out gravitation,
by r