to change

And thou mayst surely cull
Songs new and sweet, and still more beautiful:
Sing _new_ ones, then, to which no memories cling--
_Most_ memories have their sting.

* * * * *

COSTUMES OF ALL NATIONS.--SECOND SERIES.

THE TOILETTE IN ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I

Ancient authors disagree in the accounts they give of the dress of the
first inhabitants of Britain. Some assert that, previously to the first
descent of the Romans, the people wore no clothing at all: other writers,
however (and, probably, with more truth), state that they clothed
themselves with the skins of wild animals; and as their mode of life
required activity and freedom of limb, loose skins over their bodies,
fastened, probably, with a thorn, would give them the needful warmth,
without in any degree restraining the liberty of action so necessary to the
hardy mountaineer.

Probably the dress of the women of those days did not differ much from that
of the men: but, after the second descent of the Romans, both sexes are
supposed to have followed the Roman costume: indeed, Tacitus expressly
asserts that they did adopt this change; though we may safely believe that
thousands of the natives spurned the Roman fashion in attire, not from any
dislike of its form or shape, but from the detestation they bore towards
their conquerors.

The beautiful and intrepid Queen Boadicea is the first British female whose
dress is recorded. Dio mentions that, when she led her army to the field of
battle, she wore "a various-colored tunic, flowing in long loose folds, and
over it a mantle, while her long hair floated over her neck and shoulders."
This warlike queen, therefore, notwithstanding her abhorrence of the
Romans, could not resist the graceful elegance of their costume, so
different from the rude clumsiness of the dress of her wild subjects; and,
though fighting valiantly against the invaders of her country, she
succumbed to the laws which Fashion had issued!--a forcible example of the
unlimited sway exercised by the flower-crowned goddess over the female
mind.

With the Saxon invasion came war and desolation, and the elegancies of life
were necessarily neglected. The invaders clothed themselves in a rude and
fantastic manner. It is not unlikely that the Britons may have adopted some
of their costume. From the Saxon females, we are told, came the invention
of dividing, curling, and turning the hair over the back