g _per se_? the concomitant effect and
consequence of her beauty? But, dear creatures! we are not going to
quarrel with them for what gives us so much unconscious pleasure, (we
do not mean milliners' bills, gentle reader;) we glory in living under
a petticoat government, and in essentially petticoatian times. All we
shall do is to give a word of advice; and in trying on their caps for
them, we will show them the _rationale_ of their bows and their lace,
if they will only have the patience to sit still for the experiment.

Before embarking on such an important project, allow us to say that we
are not going to quiz old Whang-Fong for his pig-tail and peacock
feathers, nor his Cannibalean majesty for his obstinate refusal to
wear a decent pair of inexpressibles; it is a stiff subject to meddle
with the dressing propensities of people that live "in many a place
that's underneath the world." For all we care, Abd el Kader and his
Arabs may stifle themselves up in their greasy blankets swarming with
ancestral vermin under a nearly tropical sun; and the good people of
Igloolik may bedeck themselves with the spoils of fish, flesh, and
fowl, to set the fashions of the Arctic circle. We are going to speak
merely of our home acquaintances and our European friends; if these
only would be reasonable in their dress, what a new thing it would be
in the world--_quel progres! quel evenement!_

The fundamental rule of dress we take to be the following--utility in
all cases, ornament when practicable. The first should ever precede,
and serve as the basis to the second; and it is the inversion of their
due positions that causes so many applications of the _utile_ and the
_dulce_ to end in sheer absurdity. The _usefulness_ of any article or
system of dress depends entirely upon climate, modified of course by
the occupation or pursuits of the wearer; the _beauty_ of it or the
suitableness of the ornament to the character of the vestment. We defy
all the editors of the _Recueils des Modes, Petits Courriers des
Dames, Belles Assemblees_, &c., with even the poet-laureates of Moses
and Son, Hyam and Co., with the whole host of Israelitish schneiders,
to find out a better aesthetic definition of the law of dress than
this. Who would have the effrontery to maintain that an Englishman,
the very type of the useful at Calcutta in his cotton jacket and
nankeens, would in the same habiliments be a suitably dressed man at
St Petersburg? and however much