tus per vim mentis gratissimus error."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: For an account of one of the most notorious of the public
exhibitions of mesmeric clairvoyance, we refer the reader, who may feel
sufficiently interested in the matter, to the papers of Dr Forbes in the
_Lancet_, New Series, Vol. i. p. 581, and to the counter statement in
the _Zoist_, Vol. ii. No. 7.]

[Footnote 4: P. 316.]

AESTHETICS OF DRESS.

NO. II.

ABOUT A BONNET.

So then, having "put down" hats, we come to bonnets; this is the due
order of things--hats should be taken off before bonnets always; "common
politeness makes us stop and do it." And here, as the immortal Butler
found it necessary in olden times to lament the perils that environed a
man meddling with a hard subject, so we might well indulge in an
ejaculation at what may be our fate if we presume to take liberties with
the head-dress of the ladies. Actaeon, when he contemplated Diana
_simplicem munditiis_, paid a severe penalty in the transformation of
his own head; and so, perhaps, we may incur--but never mind; the task,
worthy of a Hercules, (for the hydra of female fashion is more than
hundred-headed,) must be gone through with, and the _scrivano umillimo_
must push his pen even under the pole of a lady's bonnet.

The best-dressed woman in the world was our great-great-great
progenitrix; we really cannot trace up the pedigree, but you all know
whom we mean--your common mother and ours: we have the highest authority
among our own poets for saying so. There can be no doubt that her
_coiffure_ was perfect. It is a law of nature--it was true then--it has
been true ever since--it is indisputable at the present day--the
expressive beauty of a woman lies in her face: whatever, therefore,
conceals the face is a disfigurement, and inherits the principle of the
ugly. Ye who would study the aesthetics of human habiliments, look at the
lovely lines of the female face; contemplate that fairest type of the
animated creation; observe the soft emotions of her gentle soul, now
shooting forth rays of tender light from between her long enclasping
eyelashes, now arching her rosy lips into the playful lineaments of
Cupid's mortal bow; or gaze upon the subdued and affectionate
contentment of the maternal countenance--remember, while you were yet
young, your mother's look of love, that look which was all-powerful to
master your fiercest passions in your wildest mood--who will say that
the f