such a thing more than the child unborn-that it must be a hat then which I took for a pan I've been abuying; and so I've had my warm foot in it, Lord bless us, ever since five o'clock this blessed morning!"

It is but fair to add that we happen to have an educated antipathy to the hat. At our school no hats were worn, and the cap was too small to be a substitute. Its only use is to astonish the old ladies in the street, who wonder how so small a thing can be kept on; and to this end it used to be rubbed into the back or side of the head, where it hung like a worsted wonder. It is after the fashion of Katharine's cap in the play. It seems as if "Moulded on a porringer:

Ill befall us, if we ever dislike anything about thee, old nurse of our childhood! How independent of the weather used we to feel in our friar's dress, our thick shoes, yellow worsted stock ings, and coarse long coat or gown! Our cap was oftener in our hand than on our head, let the weather be what it would. We felt a pride, as well as pleasure, when everybody else was hurrying through the streets, in receiving the full summer showers with uncovered poll, sleeking our glad hair like the feathers of a bird.

It must be said for hats in general that they are a very ancient part of dress, perhaps the most ancient; for a negro, who has nothing else upon him, sometimes finds it necessary to guard off the sun with a hat of leaves or straw. The Chinese, who carry their records farther back than any other people, are a hatted race, both narrow-brimmed and broad. We are apt to think of the Greeks as a bare-headed people, and they liked to be so; but they had hats for journeying in, such as may be seen on the statues of Mercury, who was the god of travellers. They

were large and flapped, and were sometimes fastened round under the chin like a lady's straw-bonnet. The Eastern nations generally wore turbans, and do still, with the exception of the Persians, who have exchanged them for large conical caps of felt. The Romans copied the Greeks in their dress, as in everything else, but the poorer orders wore a cap like their boasted Phrygian ancestors, resembling the one which the reader may now see about the streets upon the busts of Canova's Paris. The others would put their robes about their heads upon occasion,-a custom which probably gave rise to the hoods of the middle ages, and to the cloth head-dresses which we see in the portraits of Dante and Petrarch. From these were taken the draperies on the heads of our old Plantagenet kings, and of Chaucer. The velvet cap, which succeeded, appears also to have come from Italy, as in the portraits of Raphael and Titian, and it would probably have continued till the French times of Charles II. (for our ancestors, up to that period, were always great admirers of Italy), had not Philip II. of Spain come over to marry our Queen Mary. The extreme heats of Spain had forced the natives upon taking to that ingenious union of the hat and umbrella, still known by the name of the Spanish hat. We know not whether Philip himself wore it. His father, Charles V., who was at the top of the world, is represented as delighting in a little humble-looking cap. But we conceive it was either from Philip, or some gentleman in his train, that the hat and feather succeeded among us to the cap and jewels of Henry VIII. The ascendancy of Spain in these times carried it into other parts of Europe. The French, not requiring so much shade from the sun, and always playing with and altering their dress, like a child with his toy, first covered the brim with feathers, then gave them a pinch in front; then came pinches up at the side; and at last appeared the fierce and triple-daring cocked hat. This disappeared in our childhood, or only survived among the military, the old, and the reverend, who could

1

not willingly part with their habitual dignity. An old beau or so would also retain it, in memory of its victories when young. We remember its going away from the heads of the Foot Guards. The heavy dragoons retained it till very lately. It is now almost sunk into the mock-heroic, and confined, as we before observed, to beadles and coachmen, &c. The modern clerical beaver, agreeably to the deliberation with which our establishments depart from old custom, is a cocked hat with the hind flap let down, and only a slight pinch remaining in front. This is what is worn also by the judges, the lawyers being of clerical extraction. Still, however, the true cocked-hat lingers here and there with a solitary old gentleman; and wherever it appears in such company, begets a certain retrospective reverence. There was a something in its connexion with the high-bred drawing-room times of the seventeenth century-in the gallant though quaint ardour of its look, and in its being lifted up in salutations with that deliberate loftiness, the arm arching up in front, and slowly raising it by the front angle with finger and thumb-that could not easily die. We remember when our steward at school, remarkable for his inflexible air of precision and dignity, left off his cocked-hat for a round one, there was, undoubtedly, though we dared only half confess it to our minds, a sort of diminished majesty about him. His infinite self-possession began to look remotely finite. His crown-imperial was a little blighted. It was like divesting a column of its capital. But the native stateliness was there, informing the new hat. He

"Had not yet lost

All his original beaver; nor appear'd

Less than arch-steward ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscured."

The late Emperor Paul had conceived such a sense of the dignity of the cocked-hat, aggravated by its having given way to the round one of the French republicans, that he ordered all persons in his dominions never to dare be seen in public with round hats, upon pain of being knouted and sent to Siberia.

K

Hats, being the easiest part of the European dress to be taken off, are doffed among us out of reverence. The Orientals, on the same account, put off their slippers, instead of turbans ; which is the reason why the Jews still keep their heads covered during worship. The Spanish grandees have the privilege of wearing their hats in the royal presence, probably in commemoration of the free spirit in which the Cortes used to crown the sovereign; telling him (we suppose in their corporate capacity) that they were better men than he, but chose him of their own free will for their master. The grandees only claim to be as good men, unless their families are older. There is a wellknown story of a picture, in which the Virgin Mary is represented with a label coming out of her mouth, saying to a Spanish gentleman, who has politely taken off his hat, "Cousin, be covered." But the most interesting anecdote connected with a hat, belongs to the family of the De Courcys, Lord Kinsale. One of their ancestors, at an old period of our history, having overthrown a huge and insolent champion, who had challenged the whole court, was desired by the king to ask him some special favour. He requested that his descendants should have the privilege of keeping their heads covered in the royal presence ; and they do so to this day. The new lord, we believe, always comes to court on purpose to vindicate his right. We have heard, that on the last occasion, probably after a long interval, some of the courtiers thought it might as well have been dispensed with; which was a foolish as well as a jealous thing: for these exceptions only prove the royal rule. The Spanish grandees originally took their privilege, instead of receiving it; but when the spirit of it had gone, their covered heads were only so many intense recognitions of the king's dignity, which it was thought such a mighty thing to resemble. A Quaker's hat is a

more formidable thing than a grandee's.

TH

LADY'S MAID.*—SEAMEN ON SHORE.

HE sole business of a seaman on shore, who has to go to sea again, is to take as much pleasure as he can. The moment he sets his foot on dry ground, he turns his back on all salt-beef and other salt-water restrictions. His long absence, and the impossibility of getting land pleasures at sea, put him upon a sort of desperate appetite. He lands, like a conqueror taking possession. He has been debarred so long, that he is resolved to have that matter out with the inhabitants. They must render an account to him of their treasures, their women, their victualling-stores, their entertainments, their everything; and in return he will behave like a gentleman, and scatter his gold. And first of the common sailor. The moment the common sailor lands, he goes to see the watchmaker, or the old boy at the Ship.

Indicator. Excuse me, madam. His mistress, christened Elizabeth Monson, but more familiarly known by the appellation of Bet Monson, has been with him already. You remember the ballad"When black-eyed Susan came on board.”

Lady's Maid. I hope, sir, you are not going to be vulgar in your remarks.

* The great changes produced in people's fortunes by the nature of the times, have unfortunately rendered this title but too common to a great variety of females; many of whom will not at all come under our present description. The "Lady's Maid" in the text is heiress to the Honours and Mrs Slipslops of the last century.