cretion of their wives. Every piece of which this enormous head-dress was composed had a particular name, and these names were not less ridiculous than the things they denoted. Among which were the duchess, the solitaire, the cabbage, the mouse, the musqueteer, the crescent, the firmament, the tenth heaven, and others equally ludicrous. This fashion was, however, suddenly relinquished; the head-dress became extravagantly low; and to make amends, the women adopted high heels. This sudden change gave occasion to the following lines, by Chaulieu, which conclude with an epigram of considerable point:

"Paris cède à la mode et change ses parures, "Ce peuple imitateur et singe de la cour,

"A commencé depuis un jour "D'humilier, enfin, l'orgueil de ces coiffures: "Mainte courte beauté s'en plaint, gronde, et tempere,

* Et pour se rallonger, consultant les destins, "Apprend d'eux qu'on retrouve, en haussant ses patins,

"La taille que l'on perd en abaissant sa tête. "Voila le changement extrême

"Qui met en mouvement nos femmes de Paris: "Pour la coiffure des maris

"Elle est ici toujours la même."

This happy change in the head-dress was not of long duration. The women soon began again to erect magnificent edifices upon their heads. But, alas! the empire of fashion, like all other empires, is subject to violent revolutions; a single moment was sufficient to destroy

a head dress or demolish a bastile-and that moment arrived. Two English ladies effected a most astonishing revolution in the fashions, which cannot fail to form a distinguished feature in this history. These two ladies who had recently arrived at Paris, went to Versailles in June 1714, to see Louis XIV. at supper. They wore an extreme low head-dress, which was then as ridiculous as one two feet high would appear at present. No sooner had they entered than they produced such a sensation that a considerable noise took place. The King inquired the reason of this extraordinary bustle, and was informed that it was occasioned by the presence of two ladies, whose heads were dressed in a very singular style. When the King saw them, he observed to the duchess and other ladies who were supping with him, that if the women had any sense, they would relinquish their ridiculous head-dress and adopt the simple fashion of the two strangers. The wishes of a King are commands to his courtiers. The ladies were sensible that they should be obliged to submit: the sacrifice was painful to demolish such lofty head-dresses was little better than decapitation. There was no remedy; the fear of dis

pleasing the monarch overcame every other consideration, and the whole night was employed in destroying the edifice of three stories. The two uppermost were totally suppressed, and the third was cut down to one half. Thus ended the reign of high head-dresses, which had been relinquished and again adopted at various periods during 300 years, and which again appeared, some time afterwards, as we shall presently see, with increased extravagance.

I regret exceedingly that I am obliged to adduce an additional proof that women never drop one ridiculous fashion, without adopting another it is the duty of an historian to adhere to the truth. Vitam impendere vero was the motto of Rousseau, who, however, did not treat of subjects so important as that which now employs my pen. But to proceed.

High head-dresses having now disappeared in a single night, as if by enchantment, it became necessary that feminine caprice should fix on some new object. Hoops again came into fashion. It is true they were not called by their former appellation of vertugadins. What woman would have worn a fashion as old as the time of Francis J. She who could have proposed such a thing would have become an object of derision. But by a stroke of genius, the name of paniers was given to them, and all the women fell passionately in love with them. The circumstances which led to the revival of this extravagant costume were these:

The return of hoops was owing to the same two English ladies who have been already mentioned. Two days after the downfall of the towering head dress, they took a walk, in the evening, in the great alley of the Thuilleries. Their robes expanded by vast hoops of whalebone, excited the curiosity of the Parisians, naturally an inquistive race, but whose curiosity in this case was very pardonable, since the spectacle was then in view. They crowded round the two ladies to examine them, and the concourse increasing every moment, they had well nigh been squeezed to death. A bench saved them There was at that time. a yew hedge on either side of the alley, and seats were placed at intervals, near the hedge. It was behind one of these seats that the two ladies entrenched themselves, and there they could with less danger sustain the impetuous assaults of public curiosity. Nevertheless their situation became rather awkward. It is true they were protected both in the front and the rear; but they begin to be warmly attacked on the flanks, when a soldier found means to extricate them. He opened a passage through yew hedge, assisted the besieged through the breach, and conducted them to the orangery of the Thuilleries.

the

[To be continued.]

It

POLITENESS, like taste and grace, is something that pleases us, that we feel and love, with out being able precisely to define its nature. might even be styled, without impropriety, taste and grace in manners. In this point of view, an investigation into the nature of politeness would lead us into the metaphysics of taste; and the numerous observations which we are daily enabled to make in society, are capable of furnishing us with sufficient light to trace the connection of politeness with letters and the arts.

If, indeed, we observe that politeness in man. ners was always cotemporary with taste in the arts, that the ages of Pericles, of Augustus, and Louis XIV. were the most brilliant epochs of attic wit, Roman urbanity, and French politeness, it will be difficult to deny this analogy, the existence of which I suspect.

In the origin of societies men had little connection with each other; domestic cares occupied their lives, whose only ornaments were family virtues If accident brought them together, benevolence shone in its utmost purity, when it was not obscured by interest; a stranger was either a guest or an enemy, and never was man an indifferent object to his fellow. Their virtues were open, their manners rude, and their passions violent. Each had at that time his peculiar character, and bore strong marks of originality Similar, but not perfectly alike, all the individuals of the species were distinguished by remarkable differences; as the leaves of the oaks of the forest, though of the same texture and form, all vary from each other in the exact shape

and tint.

over it, and exercised a kind of dominion by ineans of that talent of seduction which is peculiar to them, and which Montesquieu calls "the art which little minds possess of governing great ones." Force was then obliged to yield to address; the question now no longer was how to vanquish and subdue, but how to attract by insinuating minners and to please, became a necessity. The constant collisions of society had worn off its asperities; a general tone of amenity and politeness began to distinguish the inhabitants of cities; rudeness became disgusting; it was confined to the peasantry, and received the contemptuous appellation of clownishness.

The influence of women was still stronger, in society than in business; it was only through their empire over society that they usurped political authority: grace subdued force. The ver satility of their imaginations, the delicacy of their impressions, the vivacity of their sentiments soon imparted a character of elegance to manners. They created taste, and gave publicity to the secrets of graces. That art of exciting interest without feeling any; of paying attention to all, and of engaging the attention of all even while thinking only of one; that delicacy in touching the weak side of a heart; that address in sparing every one's self-love, that dexterity in pleasing every one's taste, that universality in all the means of charming soon awakened tender sentiments. The arts were the offspring of the passions, which they tend to strengthen: sensibility animated genius; imagination formed enchanting chimeras, which were encouraged in every heart by the magic of poetry and music; all the passions were blended into one, and hence sprung that model of the beautiful, which created all virtues, all talents, and all graces. Influenced by the same charm, and, as it were, by one com

Social order soon extended itself like an immense net, one of the meshes of which cannot be shaken without affecting a great number of others. Women enter d more or less into society, they consequently assumed an influence

*The seclusion of women was a law of antiquity among all the Orientals. Among the

But

little communication with the other sex. the intrigues of the Seraglio and the revolutions caused by women in almost all the eastern courts, prove that the shutting them up is but a feeble obstacle to their influence. It was the jealousy of a plebein woman against her sister whose husband was consul, that caused the elevation of plebeians to the Consulate. From the invasion of Greece, by Xerxes, to the peace of Utrecht, it is impossible to mention, perhaps one single great political event in which the influence of women has not been exerted in two opposite ways.

mon source.

In society, where to please is every thing; gracefulness is the sublime in manners; but it can only be acquired by not being sought after; it is the natural fruit of a mind happily formed, or so improved by cultivation and experience of the world, that amiable habits have become perfectly natural.

In fact, grice is the unstudied expression of an amiable sentiment left totally uncontroled; it has its source in truth, its form in negligence, which betrays the truth; it s ws it, because it does not think any one is looking on: it is the chaste Diana surprized by Endymion. Grace shines in a word, in a gesture, in a look, in a smile, in an attitude, in every thing that strikes without intending to be remarked: the smallest degree of pr para ion destroys it; 'tis like the powder on flowers, which is removed by the most delicate touch, by the slightest breath of air. Such is grace in manners; such also is grace in style and in works of art. In al', it is a tender and easy sentiment, which is when unadorned the most adorned; 'tis that delicate art or that happy nature which have so eminen ly distingished Virgil and Racine among the poets, and Raphael and Corregio among the printers. As to manners, they are fugitive like their objects; it is impossible to fix models for them; a delicate and practised taste alone can seize them in society.

These observations give us occasion to correct a vulgar error which seems to attach the graces exclusively to voluptuousness. Wherever a tender and amiable sentiment is expressed with truth and negligence, there is also grace. A picture of Henry IV. besieging Paris, and represen'ing that excellen Prince sending bread to his rebellious subjects, reduced to such extremities as to eat the bones from charnel-houses, might be made a subject replete with grace. The painter would have only to infuse into that august head the celestial expression of supernatural benevolence, and as Raphael has done in the Transfiguration, to place a divine head upon a human body.

The aged Priam, demanding of Achilles the body of Hector, would likewise Le a graceful subject. That dignity of a great mud, which reigns over its misfortunes; that paternal tenderness which covers and absords the humiliation of the conquered; that resignation which has known every

features of the aged monarch a particular grace, the expression of which it belongs to genius to divine; for every air, the accent, and gesture, all the tones and inflections are in nature. The soul placed in a proper situation seems to create them; it is only necessary to feel them, and the artist who attempts to reproduce the scene, must try all the tones of nature, and select that which is ir unison with his own hear This can only be the effect of delicate sensibility. La Fontaine says:

"Et la grâce plus belle encore que la beauté." This expression is most strictly true; for if I may venture to say so, beauty is always but imaginary. A certain arrangement of features, a certain aspect of the physiognomy indicate a certain disposition of the soul. I anticipate good. humour, intelligence, sensibility. 'Tis moral beauty that we love, to this the heart flies with ardor; but yet it may all be feigned: Medea knew how to render herself beautiful. In grace it is impossible to be mistaken; it fulfils all the promises of beauty; I cannot be deceived, for I

have beheld the soul.

Taste is the delicate sentiment of what pleases the heart, and grace is the true and unstudied expression of an amiable sentiment. We have shewn the application of these principles to the fine arts: let us now endeavour to apply them to the analysis of manners. It would be very difficult to define politeness considered as an art; for the rapidity and multiplicity of circumstances afford no time for the calculations of reflections; there a wrong stroke of the crayon cannot be effaced; the effect is already produced. But, it is not nature that we have to imitate; 'tis our own impressions which it is our business to render; 'tis nature herself that we must carefully cultivate before hand.

Quintilian defined an orator to be "a good man, skilful in speaking." Thus, according to that great master, eloquence is only the expres sion of a noble and upright mind, which moves and captivates the hearts of the auditors by the beauty of its sentiments. We shall, in like manner, assert, that politeness† is only the expression of a good disposition, which, by its very goodness, pleases and attracts.

A delicate sentiment of what is due to one's self and to others, and an acute judgment, which at one view comprehends circumstances and their varieties, these are the basis of that art of

ተ "Politeness does not always produce benevolence, equity, complaisance, gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of them, and makes the man appear without what he ought to be within." La Bruyere.