It was the ordinary remark of the fashionable Doctor Graham (in the days of Horace Walpole), when consulted by a patient—"Sir, your disease is very extraordinary, but it is common enough." This paradoxical definition may be very well applied as interpreting the word "Fashion." The latter is doubtless an extraordinary thing commonly adopted. It will seem still further paradoxical to assert that what is "fashionable" is "vulgar"; but when it is recollected that "vulgar" implies something popularly observed (the word being derived from "volk," "people"), the paradox is no longer apparent. The Latin Fashion terms *vulgas* and *vulgaris*, like our own translations of them, are not intended to convey anything complimentary in them. The designation *vulga* was contemptuously flung at the ancient Germans by their Roman antagonists. The sons of Herman accepted the name, and the German "volk" soon became the fashionable or popular equivalent for "patriots."

In the term "mode" we have something of a similar meaning. It is derived from *mos*, a manner or custom. This word in its plural form, *mores*, signifies "morals," by which is meant manners, which, if not, ought to be, in fashion. As in Latin the difference of number alters the signification, so in French does the change of gender. "Le moral," of a woman, is, for instance, by no means the same thing as "sa morale." In deriving *mode* from *mos*, we follow the lexicographer Boiste. We may add, however, that another Latin word, "modus," is not altogether to be set aside as the original of "mode." It implies a due proportion, neither more nor less; a just measure or manner; and to be in the mode, according to this rendering of the original, is not to be extravagant, not to be in excess in anything. He who adopts this mode will find himself possessed of the most valuable of fashions—the true "factio nobilium;" although Livy had not the same application in his mind when he wrote the words just quoted.

The most ancient fashion with which we are acquainted is one which is just expiring. It commenced in Scythia, and is going out, after a long reign, in New Zealand. We allude to "tattooing." It is, or was, the offspring of some strange conceit on the part of the ladies. These latter were Scythians, who, holding in their power some Thracians of the same sex, amused themselves, says Clearchus, by tracing very ridiculous figures on their bodies, by means of needles. The poor Thracian ladies, when restored to freedom, exercised their ingenuity by concealing the absurd figures etched on their bodies, in a labyrinth of flourishes, circles, and most perplexing patterns. The design was immediately adopted as fashionable wear, and every Thracian lady appeared in public tattooed from the head to the loins. Since that period, the mode has been followed by various nations, and until very recently it was the characteristic of the New Zealand aristocracy. Of late years, however, the young chief's look with something of contempt on their seniors so distinguished; and very speedily a tattooed skin will be as rare a thing in the isles of the Southern Ocean as perukes and patches, clouded canes and farthingales, in the public promenades of England.

The fashions of the conqueror generally prevail over those of the conquered. Thus young British chieftains, despite the disgust of their sires, threw off their vesture of skins and put on the habits of their Roman victors. A consequence, only partially similar, followed the Norman invasion; the Norman cavaliers took from the Saxons their "smock-frocks," and with a change of material and an addition of ornament introduced the blouse. When not engaged in military duties, the same invaders doffed their iron head-pieces, and donned a wide-brimmed and easy covering of felt—this was nothing more than the modern "wide-awake." The *courre-chef* of the lounging Norman has been stiffened into the peculiar head-gear of the Society of Friends; but its chief glory consists in its having been in a modified shape and a scarlet hue patronized by the Church of Rome, and fixed upon the brows of her humble cardinals.

Some one has defined "fashion" as being "the tyrant of fops and females." The definer might have added that the artificers in fashion's service are often the victims of fashion's slaves. There is nothing so powerful, so absolute, so imperious, and so transitory, as this same fashion. Napoleon himself was jealous even of this so-called goddess; and he condescended to sneer at her votaries, by saying that nations are sheep-like, and ready to follow the first who sets a strange example. The simile is rickety, and is not entirely correct. We have never heard of any one who followed the fashion set and advocated by Asc'epiades, who tried to bring cheap locomotion into general favour, and who travelled about the world on a cow, living on her milk by the way.

The above is an example set, which has never been followed. We may cite on the other hand a fashion followed, the originating example for which no one has yet discovered. We allude to "smoking." Of course, at this word, the thoughts naturally revert to Sir Walter Raleigh and Virginian tobacco. There were pipes, however, in our old monasteries, and the monks smoked "colt's-foot" to keep the marsh air out of their stomachs. The fashion is probably of Eastern origin. That mention is not made thereof throughout the *Arabian Nights* is no proof to the contrary, for we believe that in that picturesque series the undeniably prevalent Eastern fashion of opium-eating is not even alluded to.

Fashion, in its sense of the way of doing a thing, is not confined to matters of dress alone. It extends itself to far sublimer subjects, rules our manner of life, gives opinions to those who have none of their own, and is sometimes powerful even in *articulo mortis*. As a sample of the last, it is only necessary to name the case of Father Sachot, the priest of St. Gervais. In the middle of the seventeenth century he was the fashionable confessor at death-beds. Happy was the moribund who could secure the pleasant presence of the not too exacting Father Sachot. On the other hand, the patients on whom he could not wait, and who were unable to receive absolution at his hands, were miserable, and obstinately refused to die with solemn aid from any other hand. Men "of quality"—as it was, and is, the bad fashion to call a certain class of persons, without reference to the question of good or evil quality—men of quality thought more of Father Sachot than of their heavenly Father.

A similar mistake possessed those who in our great grand-sires' days flung away their thousands upon a flower. The Egyptians worshipped onions, for the semi-reasonable cause that they symbolized a god. The tulip-fanciers had little regard, when contemplating their potted favourites, for either flowers themselves or the god at whose bidding they had risen into beauty. As La Bruyère remarks, they simply worshipped their tulip-bulbs, and would have adored carnations if carnations had been more in fashion.

As in flowers, so have we had a fashion in colours. The "couleur Isabelle" was a dirty buff. It was adopted in honourable memory of the condition of the linen of Isabelle, the gouvernante of Flanders, who refused to change any portion of her dress during the long protracted siege of Ostend. The "patches" on the cheeks of the belles of a century and a half ago were assumed in order to give consolation to a princess suffering from a natural eruption. There was more sense in the fashion of patches as adopted by the lightly-clad ladies of the Samoa Island. This "fashion of spots," as it is called, or *sangisengi*, consists in the raising of small blisters with a smouldering wick of native cloth, a material which will not blaze. When the blisters are healed, a natural patch is left, which is lighter than the original skin. This indelible spot is planted on the cheek, not for beauty's sake, but with something of the purpose which supplies our churches with painted windows; namely, in pious memory of deceased relatives, or in grateful acknowledgment of benefits received.

This religious fashion reminds us that the Scriptures contain no notice whatever of the vocation of a tailor. The meek members of the useful craft need not, however, be discouraged. Lydia of Thyatira followed the occupation of making up into garments the purple cloth for which the country named Lydia was famous; and Lydia stands enviably recorded as being among the first who joined Paul in prayer by the river side at Philippi. One would have supposed that the great apostle would have been selected by the fashioners of costume as their patron-saint. This, however, is not the case. The milliners and dressmakers before the Reformation did homage to a visionary "St Veronica," and the tailors in olden times put up their orisons to the united nine St Williams who stand upon the calendar of Rome.

The most pious of men, it may be observed, were not above some regard for fashion, even with reference to very small matters. Thus, in the days of Elizabeth and James no Puritan divine ever went to bed but with his head in a night-cap of black silk tipped with white. Under the same sovereigns, doctors of medicine and privy-councillors sank to sleep in night-caps wrought with gold silk. Similar head-gear was worn by our princes. At the marriage of Frederick Prince of Wales, the ill-conditioned son of the worse-conditioned George II., the royal bridegroom was splendid at night in his robe of gold tissue and a night-cap wrought with gold silk. Thus attired, he glided among the crowd of fashionable people who stood in the bed-room to greet the illustrious pair; and with this marriage went out the unseemly fashion of such public greetings.

We have before alluded to the long prevalence of some fashions. We are inclined to think that the excessive growth of the nails, as indications of rank (the wearers of them being necessarily above manual labour), a fashion not confined to China, but followed also in Upper Nubia, where the growth is encouraged by holding the nails over small fires of cedar wood; we are inclined, we say, to think that such fashion, if it does not date from the time of Adam, prevails in the localities named, only because of him. There is, at all events, a Rabbinical tradition which says, that before the fall, Adam and Eve had a transparent covering, a robe of light, of which remnants remain to mankind in the nails of the hands and feet. To encourage the growth of the nail was, probably, in its original sense, only to recover as much as possible of the robe of light which decked the forms of the parents of mankind. Did the old British astronomers wear green robes with any reference to the older legend in the East, that the original colour of the father and mother of men was a sea-green? That colour is said to have been sacred in the East long before the time in which the Prophet of Islam adopted it as the holy hue, which none might thenceforth wear save the members of his own family; and the fashion may have been adopted by the father of the faithful in remembrance of its traditional connection with the father of us all. The green, for dress, whether as assumed by British astronomer or prophet from Yemen, was in better taste than a mode of our Saxon ladies who, before the Norman invasion, thought they heightened their beauty by dying their hair blue! They seldom, however, changed the fashion of their garments according to the variation of the seasons. The summers then, as now, seldom came to maturity, and it was this fact which induced Boerhaave to prescribe the old Saxon custom as a good sanitary fashion. "In England," said Boerhaave, "a man should never lay aside his winter costume until Midsummer-day, and he should put it on again the day after." If this fashion, with some necessary modification, were adopted, one happy consequence would undoubtedly follow; phthisis would not be the fashionable, or rather national malady of England. Madame Cottin, in her Mathilde, says that modesty is the most seductive of garments. The assertion is one made in the fashion of the good ladies of the last century, who thought themselves moralists. They all err in their mode of giving a meretricious recommendation to modesty; and the too-joyous Irish bard was not much more silly employed, when he anathematized flannel and sought to give eclair to the ague.

Perhaps it was an abhorrence of the latter that brought into fashion the foot-races that in the last century used to be run on Sunday afternoons in Kensington Gardens by the "Maccarons." There was nothing, for a time, more decidedly in vogue than these profane sports. The mob looked on, applauded and despised the performers. Of all our sporting fashions it was perhaps the one most disgraceful to us. We may add while on this subject, that although cricket as a Sunday sport has gone out of fashion, it is still a game which may be legally played on the day named, provided that all the players be of the same parish. The intention, no doubt, was to prevent "matches" on the Sabbath. The regulation, as showing the fashion of the times, is worth mentioning.

Finally, reverting to "fashion" as simply in connection with dress, its past history reveals to us the counterfeit presentment of our ancestors; its present history, to be found in various contemporary authors, will convey a reflection of ourselves to those who will succeed us. It is a subject which unceasingly occupies the fool, and only passingly concerns the philosopher. Diogenes was not anything the more of a philosopher for living in a tub. He affected to fly the fashions of his day; but it has been truly remarked that while a fop is the slave of fashion, a philosopher surrenders himself to his tailor, whose duty lies in dressing him becomingly. He who entirely despises becomingness of attire, under an affected or imaginary contempt for fashion, is as weak of head and mistaken in employment as he who sets all duties below the pleasure of watching the fashions and adopting them. These perish with daily pershing time, and as the moralist of Dourdan sensibly remarks:—"La vertu seule, si peu à la mode, va au-delà des temps." (a. d-r-x.)