Chapter VII: Part XVII (4)

The reader will be disappointed if he expects to find in "Cennino Cennini" a treatise on art. It is nothing more than a book of receipts--very minute and circumstantial as to most particulars, while here and there is a provoking omission; as, for instance, he speaks of a varnish, but omits to say of what materials composed. However curious much of the matter may be, the modern painter, who has to send to the nearest colour-maker for his tube colours, and French brushes, will think the greater part superfluous, and will smile to be told--"Take the tails of the minever, (for no other are good,) and these tails must be baked, and not raw." Nor will he trouble himself with Cennino's list of colours, though it would perhaps be better for him if he did enter a little into their chemical properties. Cennino mentions twenty-four pigments; but the best he considers to be but twelve. It is curious that among them are no browns. We have always been of the opinion that the old masters, for the most part, made their browns with blacks and reds and yellows, and gave them depth by glazing over with the same; and we are pretty much of Wilson's mind, who, when told of a new brown, said "I am sorry for it." Very many of our modern pictures are ruined by the violent contrasts of the asphaltum and similar browns with less obtrusive pigments. The very transparency is, in our eyes, an objection. Asphaltum, for instance, besides that it is a changeable and never thoroughly drying pigment, _is too transparent_ for depth. It was a mistake of Gainsborough when he said that with asphaltum he would make a Tartarus; the depth would be but a little way from the surface; depth is not always intensity of darkness, and never of colour. There is a style of flashy painting which entirely depends on these transparent browns; but it is nevertheless not a good style; it is flimsy, and the _depth_ aimed at is missed. The more simple the palette, the better will be the picture. We are taught by the practice as well as words of Titian, who said that "whoever would be a painter, should be well acquainted with three colours, and have a perfect command over them." There are some excellent observations on this subject in the translator's preface, who quotes from Sir Humphrey Davy on colours. "If red and yellow ochres, blacks and whites, were the colours most employed by Protogenes and Apelles, so are they likewise the colours most employed by Raffaelle and Titian in their best style. The St John and Venus in the tribune of the gallery at Florence offer striking examples of pictures, in which all the deeper tints are evidently produced by red and yellow ochres, and carbonaceous substances." Cennino's argument for the use of fine gold and good colours, will be read with more attention by the modern Germans, who have, it is said, for the purposes of their art joined the Catholic Church, than by our English artists, with whom it will but raise a smile, that the artist should be liberal in both, for that if his patron pays him not, our Lady will reward him for it in soul and body. If the practice of poor Cennino was in accordance with this recommendation, he must have been very pious in his resignation, for his reward was a prison in his old age. Cennino acquaints us how to make and prepare pannels, cloth-grounds, cements, and glues; and doubtless some of his recipes will be found practically useful. For temperas (vehicles) many recipes are given. There are two kinds of egg tempera deserving attention mentioned, and the practice of painting in the egg tempera, and afterwards glazing in oil-colour. The translator particularly recommends in a note this mode of painting, and quotes from Mr Field's Chromatography the following passage:--"Mr Clover has successfully employed the yolk of egg for sketching in body colours, in the manner and with the entire effect of oil, which sketches being varnished have retained their original purity of hue, more especially in the whites, and flexibility of texture, without a crack, after many years in a London atmosphere." The translator recommends it from her own practice and experience.

We have ourselves, in this Magazine, on a former occasion, spoken of a sort of distemper painting--though to give it that name is not very highly to recommend it. We have, nevertheless, found it very good, and admirably adapted for getting in a subject, as affording means of great rapidity of execution. We allude to the admixture of starch and oil--the less oil the more like distemper will it be; or, we should rather say, fresco, which it much more resembles; but oil may be used with it in any proportion. The starch should be made as for domestic use, with water saturated with borax, and the oil added by degrees, and the whole stirred up together while warm; and, in this medium, the colours should be ground as well as worked. It is curious that here, too, the borax is of use; for it not only enables the oil to mix with the water of the starch, but it gives the starch a consistence and toughness, which without it it never possesses. We have found colours retain their hue and purity remarkably well with this vehicle. The whole bears out equally, but without shining. The second painting may produce any desired richness. It is not unpleasant to paint upon a wet ground made with this vehicle, when the picture and ground will dry and harden together.

There is no colour concerning which we are more at a loss in looking at old pictures, than the blues. Three are mentioned by Cennino--indigo, a cobalt, and ultramarine. With regard to the sparing use of the latter, as the most expensive, some practical hints may be met with. We have often wondered with what blue their deep-toned cool greens were made, as in the landscapes of Gaspar Poussin. It was probably Cennino's _azzuro della magna_ (German blue or cobalt.) Prussian blue is of recent invention. We believe Mr Field considers it a good colour. It is made of so many hues that it is difficult to procure good, and it is said to be affected by iron. We have heard indigo complained of as a fugitive colour; Cennino mentions it for skies with a tempera of glue. He mentions, likewise, a green cobalt, or _azzuro della magna_. White lead, according to him, may be used with all temperas. He says it is the only white that can be used in pictures; the whites in the old pictures are very pure, so that we may be satisfied of its durability. Many artists have doubted if the white of the best painters was white lead, and many substitutes have been proposed. We may rest assured, by the authority of Cennino, that the fault is not in the lead, but in the vehicle, whenever it changes. There is a letter of Titian's, in which he laments the death of the maker of his white; it was made, therefore, we are to suppose, with particular care, as the principal pigment for light.

Orpiment, which was so much in use in Sir Joshua's time, the ill effects of which is visible in the President's "Holy Family" in our National Gallery, was no great favourite in the olden time. In the note upon this pigment, the translator takes occasion to speak of powdered glass, in reference to a remark of Dr Ure, that powdered glass is mixed with it, which renders it lighter. Mrs Merrifield infers from this, that it, powdered glass, is opaque. Undoubtedly it is so in its dry state, and probably with the glue tempera, which alone, according to Cennino, is its proper vehicle--but mixed with oil it is transparent--and mixed in much body with pigments, will give them great richness, and that degree of transparency, even to pigments rather opaque, which we observe in the substance of the pigments of the best time. China clay, and magnesia too, are opaque in their powdered and dry state, but mixed with the pigments, vary their power _ad libitum_, precisely by the transparency they afford. These two latter substances have likewise a corrective quality upon oils, and we are assured by Mr Coathupe, and have certainly found it to be so, that magnesia is a dryer. We have boiled magnesia and oil together, very thick and jelly-like, and leaving the pipkin exposed, have been surprised to find no skin upon the surface. Mrs Merrifield certainly errs in thinking glass, when mixed with oils, opaque. The blacks of Cennino are from a stone, and opaque; from vine tendrils, ("very black and transparent;") from skins of almonds and kernels of peaches, ("a perfect and fine black;") and lamp black, from the smoke of linseed oil. Mr Field observes, that all carbonaceous blacks mixed with white have a preserving influence upon colours, owing chemically to the bleaching power of carbon, and chromatically to the neutralizing and contrasting power of black with white. Leonardo da Vinci in his palette, the account of which is so unfortunately broken off for lack of paper, mentions the mixing every colour with black. Yet we have met with many painters who totally reject it, and fancy it makes their pictures black. This is very absurd, for black mixed with any other pigment ceases to be black; and an artist may paint very black pictures without the use of that pigment. What Titian recommends, one who would be a colourist need not reject. It seems there was of old much caution that iron should not touch the colours. Yet there is, we believe, much iron in ochres. Mr Coathupe has clearly shown, that even Naples yellow does not suffer from contact with iron, otherwise than by abrasion, by which the steel of the knife becomes itself a pigment, as on the hone. Modern science has much enlarged the colour list. There is thus the greater temptation offered to make endless varieties. It has been remarked in language, that the best writers have the most brief vocabulary--so it may be, that the best colourists will have the fewest colours. The rule has been verified in the old masters of the best time. Cennino Cennini, who always begins from the beginning, recommends drawing with the pen--his pen, for that also he tells you how to make, had no slit. O days of Perryian innovation! It was very well, a vast improvement, almost equal to that of adding the shirt to the ruffles, to invent one slit--we have them now with two and with three.

Very strict studies in anatomy were not much in vogue among the early painters. Our author recommends drawing from nature, and lays down his canon of proportions of the human body, which will be little heeded by our academies. The old Italian is not very complimentary to the sex. Mr Etty will open his eyes with alarm, to find he has been practising all his life in a wrong direction, when he reads "leave that of woman, for there are none perfectly proportioned." We are not quite certain, if some of Mr Etty's stay-spoiled figures are taken for examples, but that the opinion of the old Italian may be in some credit. We spoke in the commencement of this paper, of the "Gummi Fornis," which M. Merimee concluded to be copal. The translator, in a note, offers a conjecture, not without its probability, that it may have been sandarac, the "Vernice da Scrivere" of Cennino, and quotes Raffaello Borghini in his "Reposo." If you would have your varnish brilliant, use much sandarac--it makes certainly a very hard varnish--it is difficult to combine it with oil. We suppose it to have been one of the condemned novelties as a vehicle for painting, from its being included in the condemned list of trash, as only fit to polish boots, that moved the satirical pen of Boschini:--

"O de che strazze se fa cavedal!
D'ogio d'avezzo, mastice e sandraca,
E trementina (per no dir triaca)
Robe che ilusterave ogni stival."

MARCO BOSCHINI.

Much has been said of late of "Encaustic Painting." It must have been discontinued before the time of Giotto, as shown by the experiments of Lanzi--no wax has been found in pictures painted after the year 1360. We know that Sir Joshua Reynolds frequently used it, as have some painters since his day. We cannot suppose that, mixed with oil, it would ever give pigments their proper hardness.

Dryers are not mentioned by Cennino, excepting _verderame_ (verdigris,) and that as a mordant. How were the oils made to dry? Will the sun be sufficient? In the summers in Italy their mixed oils readily dry. But in Holland, as in England, for at least a great part of the year, they will not dry of themselves; and it is certain that the longer the pigments are subjected to the action of the oil, the greater is the change. White lead is by no means the best drying colour; and if lead, as a dryer, is so injurious as some will have it to be, to colours in general, why do we not find it so in white lead? Cennino recommends garlic pounded to a juice, and cleared, as a mordant. It is supposed that it gives a drying quality to oil. The practice of the old masters in drying their pictures in the sun--was it only to effect the drying? We believe exposure to the atmosphere is most beneficial to newly painted pictures. We have now a picture before us which was disagreeably oily, and yet did not well bear out. We laid it on the grass, face uppermost, where it lay for about ten days during heat and cold, day and night, dry weather and wet, and in some few burning days exposed to the sun; during these hot days, we had it frequently, plentifully washed with water, left on for the sun to take up. We have this day removed the picture to the easel. The "oily appearance" was gone, it was very dry, but pure, and clean, and bore out equally, but rather like distemper. It is a question worth considering, whether the atmosphere did not take up the impurities of the oil, which always come to the surface.

There is proof enough of this. A picture, unless it be painted with very little oil indeed, will become, in a few days after being painted, greasy--it will not take water on the surface--in fact, "secca teme acqua" will not bear water. If, in this state, the surface be lightly rubbed over with common sand and water, this greasiness will be removed, and the surface will not only be clean, but beautiful; this greasiness will, however, in a day or two come again. If the process of sanding be repeated, _until the greasiness does not_ come again, we conjecture that we have done for the picture what time, but a long time, might do--we have removed _all_ the impurity of the oil. We believe that pictures after that do not undergo further change, and if the paint be tolerably hard, may be varnished--and that they will become much sooner hard; for it is more than probable that this greasiness in the oil is the main cause of retarding the drying. We have followed this practice many years, and always with the same results. It is surprising how soon after painting you may sand--even coarse red sand will not remove paint, that is yet tacky--it much remedies the "colori olcesi." The translator lays much stress in the preface upon the importance of white grounds. In the olden time, it appears, that when they were not of gold, they were white; and Leonardo da Vinci thus lays down _his_ precept--"Sempre a quelli colori che vuoi che habino belleza preparerai primo il campo _candidissimo_, e questo dico de' colori che sono transparenti, perche a quelli che non sono transparenti non giova campo chiaro." And yet Leonardo is said to have painted occasionally on the canvass without any other priming than a coat of glue. His pictures so painted are said to be durable, and worthy his great name. We should have doubted if Titian did always paint on a white ground--and should fix upon the "Peter Martyr" as the subject of doubt. It is said to have been the practice of Correggio; if so, he did not always derive the benefit from the ground which white grounds are said to confer, for his painting is so generally solid, and the transparency so much the effect of his glazing, that there seems to be no reason why he should have given the preference. It is said the Flemish School used white grounds--probably Rubens did so generally, not all other painters. Teniers used a light drab, and, if we were to judge from some of his skies, painted upon it when that thinly coloured ground was wet. Unless a great body of colour be used, even in the most transparent painting, white grounds are apt to give a weakness and flimsiness. Gaspar Poussin, and perhaps generally, Nicolo, painted on red grounds; the former probably often upon a vermilion ground, though most commonly on one of a deeper tone; the advantage of this, in landscapes, such as his, is evident. There is no colour so good as red to set off greens; and in fact, to make tints appear green, that on another ground would not so be; and, moreover, a red ground, from its warmth, makes those greens appear cool, deep, and refreshing, which is so strong a characteristic in the colouring of that great Italian landscape painter, Gaspar Poussin.

The most important recipes of Cennino Cennini may be those which relate to fresco-painting; and as that is now likely to be nationally revived, this publication is well-timed. So much has been said and written of late upon this subject, that we think it best simply to refer to the text and notes. To those who mean to practise fresco, they may be important. Besides the value of the recipes of Cennino, there are incidentally some curious things not unworthy of notice. All persons must have been surprised in pictures of grave subjects, and we might especially mention those of Paul Veronese, that dogs are introduced as attendants on feasts, and we find them gnawing bones on very fine floors. But we find in Cennino Cennini that it was the practice to throw their bones under the table. Cennino recommends them to be gathered and selected for black pigments. We have heard it said that Murillo was partial to the pigments made from beef bones taken after dinner.

There is a practice, or we should say happily there was, in the days of these old painters, which did not tend very much to raise the profession. "Sometimes, in the course of your practice," says Cennino, "you will be obliged to paint flesh, especially faces of men and women." He recommends the painting them with egg tempera, with oil, and with _oil and liquid varnish_, "which is the most powerful of temperas." He proceeds to tell how the paint is to be removed. Chapter 162 is entirely devoted to the ladies, and offers a caution now happily unnecessary, but it is so quaintly given, that we quote it:--

"It sometimes happens that young ladies, especially those of Florence, endeavour to heighten their beauty by the application of colours and medicated waters to the skin. But as women who fear God do not make use of these things, and as I do not wish to render myself obnoxious to them, or to incur the displeasure of God and our Lady, I shall say no more on this subject. But I advise you, that if you desire to preserve your complexion for a long period, to wash yourself with water from the fountains, rivers, or wells; and I warn you, that if you use cosmetics, your face will soon become withered, your teeth black, and you will become old before the natural course of time, and be the ugliest object possible. This is quite sufficient to say on this subject."

A modern painter with whom we are acquainted, declares that he has _very often_ been called upon to paint "under the eyes" of certain "young men about town"--we presume of the Titmouse grade--that they might appear the more decently before the public and their employers.

If poor Cennino had entertained no other fears but the displeasure of the fair sex, he would have passed a happier old age. We know not that he condescended to paint faces, however, in his most abject condition. There was ever from the beginning a complaint of the little favour bestowed upon artists in general. Was the art considered a slavish practice? Grecia Capta taught it to the Romans, with whom, notwithstanding the force of some few high names, as of Fabius Pictor, it was at no time in very high repute.

The indefatigable Gaye says of the fluctuations incidental to the profession of arts--"While, on one hand, painters, sculptors, and military engineers flourish as ambassadors, magistrates, and correspondents with princes, others live overwhelmed with debt, and pleading for subsistence." A tax return of Jacopo de Domenico, painter, gives this sad account of himself--"Ever since 1400, have I gone on struggling, and eating the bread of others, until 1421; after which I returned to Florence, where I found myself plundered, and in debt, and totally destitute." The reader will be surprised at his remedy, and the modern Poor-law Commissioners, those "Indociles pauperiem pati," will deny the test of destitution, and feel a separating impulse; for he continues--"I took a wife, and went to Pisa, where I mended the roads about the gates, and staid four years." The tax returns afford curious documents. We have that of Massaccio:--"Declaration of the means of Tommaso di Giovanni, called Massaccio, and of his brother Giovanni, to the officers of the fisc, detailing their miserable means, inability, and liability--We live in the house of Andrea Macigni, for which we pay ten florins a-year." "The son of this Andrea bound himself apprentice in the studio of Nendi Bicci for two years, in 1458, aged seventeen, to have fifteen florins and a pair of shoes yearly."[8]

It was the custom of writers, in the time of Cennino, to neglect the precept of Horace. They did not rush "in medias res"--Cennino in particular. He not only begins with the beginning of every particular thing, or invention, or practice; but thinks it necessary to commence his work on the arts with a much earlier fact than the production of Leda's egg--even with the creation of the world--and immediately deduces the art of painting from the fall of Adam, who was from that event compelled to labor; hence invention--hence the art. His book is, however, written in a pious spirit; nor have we now-a-days any right, in good taste, to ridicule his mixing up with his reverence for the Creator, and the Virgin Mary, and all saints in general, and St Eustachius, and St Francis, St John the Baptist, St Anthony of Padua, "the reverence of Giotto of Taddeo, and of Agnolo the master of Cennino;" nor do we in the least doubt, nay, admire his happy zeal, when he says that he begins his book "for the utility, and good, and advantage of those who would attain perfection in the arts." We said that this is a beautiful volume; the few plates and illustrations are not the least of its charms: they are drawn on stone by the translator. We hail the republication of every old work on the arts; and although as yet we have not been so fortunate as to discover the vehicle of Titian or Correggio, we do not despair. In a former paper, if we mistake not, we mentioned a treatise of Rubens--"De Lumine et Colore"--said to have been, somewhat more than half a century ago, in the possession of a canon of Antwerp, a descendant of Rubens: surely it may be worth enquiring after. It is said to be in Latin, which, not being a living and moveable language, is the best form from which we could have a translation upon any subject relating to the arts.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: See TINGRY'S _Painter's and Varnisher's Guide_. 1803.]

[Footnote 6: Take two pounds two ounces and a half of borax, and one pound of acetate of lead, dissolve each in at least a pint of hot water, mix together the two solutions, and allow the precipitate to subside. Pour off the supernatant liquor as soon as it is clear, add some fresh water (rain water is preferable) to the precipitate, and agitate. Then pour the precipitate, whilst it is distributed throughout this last addition of water, upon a filter of white blotting paper, and when the water has passed through the filter, add more water. These fresh additions of water must be repeated three or four times, merely for the purpose of washing away all traces of the liquor which was retained by the first precipitate, and which was formed by the first admixture of the two solutions. The precipitate, when well washed, is to be placed in a Hessian crucible, and exposed to a red heat for half an hour. A clear glass will be formed; which must be reduced to a very fine powder.]

[Footnote 7: "As the very peculiar property which a saturated solution of borax possesses, of uniting so readily with oil in any proportions, has never yet been noticed by chemical writers, I experimented with its constituents, boracic acid and soda, separately, with a view to determine whether the results were to be attributed to the acid, to the alkaline base, or to the particular salt formed by their union.

"One hundred parts of borax may be said to consist of:--

Parts
Boracic Acid, 35.80
Soda, 16.85
Water, 47.35

Consequently, 24 fluid ounces of water, holding in solution 1 ounce (avoirdupois) of borax, will contain about 4.16 per cent of borax, or 0.702 per cent of soda only.

"I first tried the effect of a saturated aqueous solution of boracic acid with linseed oil. They would not unite. I then prepared some caustic soda by boiling a solution of carbonate of soda with quicklime, decanting the clear caustic liquor, evaporating in a silver crucible, re-dissolving in alcohol, and then distilling the spirit, and heating the residual pure soda to redness. Even in this state, soda contains 23 per cent of water, and only 77 per cent of _pure anhydrous soda_.

"Ten grains of this soda were dissolved in 1000 grains of distilled water. But as 10 grains of this soda contained only 7.7 grains of _anhydrous soda_, the 1000 grains of water would contain just 0.770 per cent of soda--a quantity that differs very little from that contained in the saturated aqueous solution of borax.

"Seven measures of the soda solution were added to four measures of linseed oil. This mixture differed so little in appearance, that it might have been mistaken by any casual observer as identical with that produced by a similar proportion of the solution of borax. It had, however, a more soapy odour; and a considerable separation of its constituent parts occurred almost immediately after agitation. This separation increased for many days. The lower liquid was of a foxy brown colour, and, after a week's repose, it amounted to 38 parts out of 59. The upper 21 parts were white and saponaceous. I tried other proportions of soda solutions with oil, but none resembled the results obtained from solutions of borax with oil.

"Fancying that solutions of the bi-carbonate of soda might be more analogous to those of the bi-borate of soda in their effects upon oil, than solutions of caustic soda, I tried many mixtures of solutions of the bi-carbonate with oil; but they were all dissimilar, in appearance, odour, and properties, from like mixtures prepared with the bi-borate of soda."--_Letter from C. Thornton Coathupe, Esq., on Vehicles for Pigments. Published in the Art Union of February_ 1832.]

[Footnote 8: We are greatly multiplying artists, by "the promise to the ear," and by our Art-Unions; whether we are like to have such returns to the Commissioners of the Income-tax as those we have quoted, as a consequence of our forced and hot-bed encouragement, remains to be seen. Lord Brougham objects to the railroad mania, on account of the beggary to be induced when the employment they give rise to is over. When the ferment of patronage shall again have settled down to a selection of a few favourites, may we not entertain somewhat similar fears?]

AESTHETICS OF DRESS.

No. IV.

MINOR MATTERS.

It is not to be supposed that a man is to be styled "dressed" when he has only got a proper coat on his back; something more than this is necessary ere he can claim a place in the _beau monde_, or can decently figure in a _bal pare_. There is no one, indeed, but your mere Hottentot, who considers himself the pink of fashion solely from the fact of throwing something, more or less becoming, over his shoulders; though, by the way, we once heard of a negro chief who, in a state of unclad majesty, clapped a gold-laced cocked-hat on his head, and then strutted about with an air of intense satisfaction at the result of his habilimentary effort. He was not a well-dressed man this chief, any more than our friend the Frenchman in the diligence; but we will tell you this aesthetic story, gentle reader.

It was our destiny once--as it has been, too, of many a son of perfidious Albion--to be journeying across the monotonous plains of Upper Burgundy, _en route_ for the gay capital. 'Twas a summer morn, and the breezy call of the incense-breathing lady, as Gray the poet calls her, came delightfully upon our heated forehead, as we pushed down the four-paned rattling window of that clumsy typefication of slowness, misnamed a diligence, to escape from the stifling atmosphere of the _rotonde_. Our fellow-travellers consisted of a couple of greasy, black-haired, sallow-faced cures, two farmers' wives with a puking child each, our own portly self, and the sixth passenger. Now, this sixth individual, who was in reality the eighth Christian immured in this quasi Black-hole, was one of those nondescript Parisian existences, to define whom is almost impossible to those who have never witnessed the animal. He might have been a _commis-voyageur_, or a clerk in the passport-office, or the keeper of a small cafe, or an _epicier_, but he did not look stupid enough for the last. Be this as it may, he was short rather than tall, lean rather than fat,--in a shabby brown surtout--smoked and took snuff--had been in Dauphine--thought the Germans a set of European Chinese--considered a national guard as the model of a good soldier--kept spitting out of the window from time to time--stretched his legs most inconveniently against ours--tied his head up at dark in a dirty bird's-eye blue cotton _mouchoir-de-poche_, and snored throughout the night. He told us that he had not washed or shaved himself since leaving Lyons, two days before; and in the morning, just as we were opening the window, Monsieur yawned, stretched, rubbed his eyes, spat and spoke--"Sacre nom de cochon! Conducteur! conducteur! vous m'avez donc oublie! il fallait me faire descendre la bas!--la bas! la! la! nom de Dieu!"--"Plait-il?" said the _conducteur_ as he came round to the door, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "qu'est ce que vous voulez, M'sieur?"--"Je vous avais dit qu'il fallait me faire descendre chez M. Dubois, et maintenant nous voila a----ou sommes-nous, par exemple?" "Imbecile! il y a encore trois bonnes lieues a la Pissotte!" and the angry _conducteur_, who had been roused from his sleep, and climbed over and round the lumbering vehicle to the back-door, now climbed round and over again to the _banquette_. The sixth passenger squeezed himself back into the corner, and resumed:--"M. Dubois ne m'attend pas: d'ailleurs je ne le connais pas: c'est egal; je me nicherai chez lui pour une huitaine de jours: j'y ferai de bonnes affaires." All this was of course as unintelligible to the other passengers as it would have been uninteresting if we had cared to listen to him:--"Puisqu'il peut y avoir des dames," he went on, "il faut faire ma toilette." So saying, he took off his pocket-handkerchief from his head, and wiped his face well with it, yawned a good deal, and spat incontinently; opened his coat, spread back and jerked down the lapels; shoved his fingers comb-fashion and comb-colour through his matted hair till it stood up _a la_ Bugaboo; and then looked round for admiration. "Ah! je l'avais oublie!" he exclaimed. Upon this he pulled out a large shabby green pocket-book from his coat; took off a greasy black stock, displaying a collarless shirt and neck, upon the tinge of which it would be needless to descant, and then extracting from the pocket-book two curvilinear pieces of dirty white paper, which had been folded more than once, and had an ink spot or two on their surface, applied them to his chin, holding their corners in his mouth, buckled on his stock again over them, adjusted these pseudo collars by aid of his watch-back, grinned a mile of approbation, and exclaimed, "Me voila propre!"

It is not enough to be _propre_ in one article of dress only: you must preserve a certain aesthetical _tournure_, or else set yourself down among the frampy multitude for ever. This must be our apology, dear reader, for thus detaining your attention, and for setting before you "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," which may tend, if properly applied, to the inappreciable beautification of your own valuable person. Descend we therefore from the head and trunk of man--a curious bathos--to his understandings and unmentionables; you know what we mean. And herein, as in duty bound, draw we a distinction. "We know how to call all the drawers by name," (if we may so take a liberty with friend William's prose;) and let us therefore premise that we shall notice the unmentionable trews, _femoralia_, or _periscelemata_--as the Greeks would probably have called them, only they wore them not, but like Highland laddies preferred their own hides--of the virile portion of the community only. As for those tantalizing appendages of the better portion of her Majesty's subjects, we leave them in their proper concealment. We could easily write a volume or two to show that the custom came on Ormus, or Ind, or Araby the Blest; but criticism would not be tolerated, and besides--

----"Levius fit patientia
Quidquid corrigere est nefas."
"On s accoutume a tout!"

Go, therefore, aesthetic reader, to Trajan's column at Rome, and amid the barbaric costumes which adorn it, you will find the prototype of the modern trouser. Or you need not travel so much out of your way. In the Townley Gallery there is the figure of Mithras with a fashionable pantaloon on his legs; and in the Louvre there are two or three disconsolate-looking barbaric captives, with their trousers flapping about their shins, and tied round their ankles: these are the originals of our modern what-d'ye-call'ems. As for the good old buckskins of our venerated grandsires and governors, they arose in Roman times. Field-marshal Julius Caesar wore something very near of kin to them under his military kilt, in that pretty little skirmish wherein he first had the honour of exchanging stones and darts with our British ancestors; and from those days down to the present time has this garment maintained its ground, and proved its utility, with undying pertinacity. Now, we do not approve of the barbaric trews: that tying of them round the ankles, though it kept out the cold, was decidedly a Sawney practice: it militated against the curves of the leg, and destroyed all firmness and dignity of gait. Far better was the fashion of the middle ages, when the trouser became a real pantaloon--_a pantalon_ collant, as modern artists call it, and when the full symmetry of the limb was displayed to the utmost advantage. This was, no doubt, the acme of perfection that the garment in question was capable of; and it is to be lamented that the mode has not kept its position in society more universally. For all purposes of ceremonial or ornamental dress, this form should still be rigidly adhered to. Utility and ornament here go hand in hand, or rather inside each other. No disguisement of natural form is attempted; and a man's appearance is judged of at its true value. The tight pantaloon is at once simple, useful, and beautiful. So far for its form. But there is an immense difficulty in the choice of its substance. If too elastic, the knee will soon make for itself one of those provoking pudding-bags that have tended, more than any thing else, to bring the fashion into disfavour. If too rigid and too frail, you know the catastrophe! We still remember the case of a fat friend of ours at a fancy-ball! British manufacturing ingenuity should bestir itself to invent a stuff fit for satisfactorily solving this vestimental problem of the greatest strain; and the pantaloon might then once more resume its paramount sway. To revert to the old buckskin: it is a perfectly respectable, useful, and satisfactory affair for the purposes to which it is now applied, and worn with a stout top-boot, and thrown over the side of a gallant horse, has no superior in the world. It is also a very good thing to put on if you are going to a new tailor's in town, especially if you can write Harkaway Hall as your address. The man will set you down for a real country-squire, and will give you tick for the next twenty years. But if you want to avoid having your pocket picked, don't wear buckskins as you go along Piccadilly; buckskins and tops, on foot, are so truly Arcadian in their appearance, that the swell mob cannot resist the temptation, and you are pretty sure to be victimized. As for the unmeaning black things worn with white silk stockings on court-days, and gloried in by all the beaux of the eighteenth century, they ought to be sent to the right-about as neither useful nor becoming. It may be all very well for Spanish matadors and Castilian dancers to wear them; but they were originally intended to have boots beneath them--so Charles I. wore them until he borrowed a foolish fashion from France--and from the very cut and nature of them, they should be worn so still, or abandoned altogether. We quarrel with them, not on the score of form so much as on that of inutility and undue contrast of colour. If the thing be dark, and the stocking light, an effect of cleanliness is attained; but the magpie appearance immediately prevails. The case is the same as that of a white waistcoat and a black coat; too glaring, _trop prononce_. If they are both of the same colour, then the tight and continuous pantaloon is far more reasonable and becoming, and, for use, any thing else is better--_experto crede_. The only exception in its favour that we can make, is for the sportsman and the farmer; for him who joins on a stout legging or a gaiter, whether of cloth or leather; or, if you wish to do a bit of Jerry Hawthorn to some friend's Tom or Logic, here is your garment _de rigueur_;--put on your leggings, your green coats, and your white hat, and you are complete; but unless you wish to be mistaken for your friend's butler, or a waiter from your club, do not venture on the black _culotte_.

The trouser, then--the modern trouser--what are we to say of this? Why, that it is the most useful, the most comfortable, the most economical, and one of the least ugly garments ever invented by man. We almost remember the day, dear reader, when as yet trousers were among the great unborn; it was only the Duke, and those dashing fellows at his heels, who imported the idea, we believe from Germany originally, though _they_ used it in the Peninsula. After the battle of Waterloo, no man of any spirit at all ever wore any thing else for common use. It existed, certainly, among our honest tars long previously to this epoch; but the _fashion_ did not come from them; the rage originated with the Peninsular troops, and was confirmed by the examples of the brilliant staffs that accompanied the Allied sovereigns to this country in 1814. It is true that the trouser did not assume its definite and rational form, such as it now has, all at once; it went through a round of vagaries indicative of a most diseased state of public taste. At one time it was all _a la Cosaque_, and you might have made a greatcoat out of a pair; at another, it was half up the leg, and more than two feet in circumference; by degrees it got strapped down and cut away into a sensible kind of shape; and now it has attained the _juste milieu_, making a happy compromise between the tight symmetry of the pantaloon, and the flaunting of the sailor's ducks. An immense step in the improvement of this garment has been made by the introduction of all that beautiful variety of plaids, and checked patterns, which are so commonly used; those in wool for winter wear are truly delightful; while for summer use, the trouser recommends itself to our untiring favour by the multiplicity of soft light substances which are every where employed. The trouser is to the pantaloon as the foraging cap is to the hat--good for all kinds of use, and likely to remain so for an indefinite period; good for all ranks and for all ages. One canon, however, should be laid down as to the cut:--no pockets should be tolerated on any account whatever: they make a man look like a Yankee. 'Tis the most slovenly custom on earth to keep your hands in your pockets--you deserve to have them sewed in if you indulge in it. And therefore, to avoid this disagreeable penalty, have your pockets sewed up.

The next step downwards in the scale of dress brings us to the basis, foundation, and understanding of mankind--we mean boots and shoes; and here, being approvers of both "men and women's concise recti," as old Joe used to say, we must give a word of advice to both sexes; and ye who groan under the torments of corns, ("bunions" is a nasty word, we always think of onions when we hear it,) attend to our dictum. If any thing imperatively demands that utility should be consulted before ornament in its construction, it is the covering of the foot; whoever goes hunting in a dancing-pump is a fool, and whoever dances in a shooting-shoe is a clodhopper. There can be no doubt that the human mind speedily adopted normal rules of design when first the idea of protecting the foot was started in the world--and, on the whole, less absurdity has been evidenced in the pedal integuments than in most other matters of dress. The old tragic buskin, and the comic sock, the military sandal, _caliga_, and boot, all did their duty excellently in ancient times: we have not a word of reproach for them--and their successors in the middle ages acquitted themselves of their duties in a tolerably satisfactory manner, though not without some curious flights of fancy. Thus the cross gartering of the Saxon buskin, boots, or gaiter, or whatever else it might have been, looks to us truly absurd and uncomfortable, judging from the caricatured figures of ancient MSS.; but the peaked and tied-up points of the 14th century, when the toe was fastened to the knee, strikes us as the _ne plus ultra_ of human folly. How Richard II.'s courtiers must have gone slopping and spirting about in the mud that befouled their streets as well as ours! What queer figures they must have cut on horseback in a rainy day, with the water running off from the pendulous tips of their shoes! Nevertheless, there was something good in the arrangement of the upper part of the shoe or half-boot of those times, and even of earlier days, as any one who reads the _Art-Union_, or who knows the history of British costume, can tell. It formed an appropriate termination to the tightly-dressed limb; and when not too much pointed, prolonged the natural shape of the foot into a gracefully-curving support. Shoes, in the present sense of the term, were not then worn: every thing was limited to the elastic half-boots: but for the huntsman or the horseman, not armed for the tented field, a sort of brown leather boot coming up to the knee was in common use. This had no falling tops, and was far removed from the ridiculous Spanish boot of after days. It was a plain and useful servant to the cavalier, and became him much better than the ponderous jack-boot of later times. It is to the Spaniards that we are indebted, if "indebted" be a suitable term, for the wide-topped falling boot of the sixteenth century; that inconvenient, no-service thing--good for the stage-players, fancy-ball men, and fellows like old Hudibras, who crammed a portable larder and wardrobe into its unfathomable recesses; but for the rough-riding horseman or the active hunter, a nuisance beyond all description. Boots such as these may look admirably well in pictures; for when delineated by a Vandyke, any thing would become graceful; but for actual practice, they would serve only to catch the rain, and to gall the legs of the wearer. Their descendant, the top-boot, has reformed itself wonderfully, and nearly all the inconvenience has been got rid of. Still, the brown colour of the top, which is no longer the inside of the boot turned down, as it was once, is an anomaly, and the boot itself ought to be merged in the plain single-coloured boot which is now much used on the Continent, though in England patronized only by the Meltonians. For positive use, the boot ought to come up fully to, or above, the knee, in order to stand the wear and pressure of the saddle; but for ornament, it may well be allowed to rise only partially up the leg, and to be, in short, the beautiful Hessian or Hungarian boot--far the most graceful covering ever put on the leg of a modern European. That such a truly elegant boot, so gentlemanlike, so dressy, and yet so thoroughly serviceable, should ever have gone out of fashion, is to us a melancholy, though not a needed, proof of the sheer caprice by which men's fancies are commonly swayed. We suspect, however, that if any cause more ostensible than mere accident can be alleged for this change, it is to be traced to some knock-knee'd or spindle-shanked fellow, who was ashamed to show his mis-shapen legs, and therefore concealed them in loose trousers. These boots, it is true, were not so well calculated for campaigning as the smaller ones which still bear the great man's name; and this may have had something to do with their disuse; nevertheless the change is to be lamented aesthetically, for the perfect union of utility and ornament was never so well exemplified as in the Hessian boot.

With all due respect to the dancing world, or to the world of dancing-masters, we beg leave to anathematize the light shoe or pump; it is an ugly, inconvenient, unsuitable thing, fit for a man with a white waistcoat, gold chain, knee-breeches, &c., but not for a gentleman. The true aesthetical article is either the elastic half-boot of the middle ages; fitting on to the pantaloon, or else the thin Wellington boot of the present day under the trousers. We do not care to see your ribbed and open-worked silk stockings; such display is not for the sterner sex; even in his highest moments of ornament, a man should always bear about him a trace of the useful. To illustrate what we mean--a man is not born to be a dancing-master, nor a tavern-waiter; a gentleman, more especially, is intended, from the moment he can run alone, to be ready for feats of gallantry and hardihood. He should dress accordingly; and, as a fundamental rule, the reason for which lies deeper than most people think, a gentleman should always be so attired as that, if occasion demands, he should be able to mount a horse on the instant and ride for his life. Now, your modern exquisite in pumps, or your old beau of the last century in high red-heeled shoes, could do nothing of the kind without much previous preparation; and we take it to be a sign of their degenerating manhood. Nine-tenths of the men who take pleasure in shoes and pumps, are but tailors on horseback; and the old fox-hunter, or the old dragoon, (good types both in their way of what a man should be,) love their boots next to their bottle. A slipper and a dressing-gown are excellent companions, agree well together, and never give their master a moment's uneasiness; hence their value; similarly, a stout high-low and a good leathern legging, buttoned well over the ankle beneath, and the knee above, will carry a man through heather or gorse, on foot or on horseback, and will prove "marvellous good wear;" they ought to be, as indeed they commonly are, dear friends to "whoever loves his country."

As for the ladies, truly we have little to say; they have always done pretty well in the matter of their feet. For them shoes are indispensably necessary, and, indeed, highly appropriate and becoming--so, too, are half-boots--and, fixed between these limits, the fair sex never have gone, nor, perhaps, can go, far astray. The nearer they keep to the form of nature in the clothing of their feet the better--it is a rule as true as the day, that a woman can seldom, if ever, artificially _improve_ her form. But there is one curious circumstance connected with ladies' shoes, which, it appears, our fair countrywomen are not competent judges of--at least we appeal to every man in England not beyond his grand climacteric, and with two eyes in his head, for the correctness of our views in what we are going to assert:--a lady's shoe, worn with crossing sandals, gently curving over the instep and round the ankle, is immeasurably superior to the plain, quaker-like, old-maid affair, worn with the old-fashioned tie or button. Did women but know how much these slender lines of riband add to their appearance, how well the contrast sets off the anatomical beauties of their feet, they would never put on a shoe without such an appendage. In the same way, the nicely fitted boot, displaying the exact form of the arching foot, and deliciously-contrasted in colour with the robe or stocking, gives a prestige to a lady's foot, which can only be compared to the effect produced by the Hessian boot upon their lords and masters. We have nothing to say against the prevailing fashion of ladies' _chaussures_ worn--even down to the clog and pattern, every thing is elegant, every thing is proportionably useful.

One hint let us give to all. The secret of a well-fitting shoe, or rather of a good-looking shoe--and it is upon this principle that all French shoemakers proceed, but all English cobblers do not--is, that it should be much longer than the foot itself--at least an inch or an inch and a half longer. And for these two reasons: first, that, since a squat, broad, dumpy foot is much uglier than a long thin one, therefore you may always diminish the _appearance_ of breadth, by adding to the _reality_ of length; and next, that when the shoe is long, the toes have plenty of room, and commonly 'tis here that "the shoe pinches." No one has corns on his heels or the sides of his feet, let his shoes or boots be as narrow as he can well bear them: it is upon those poor, pent up, imprisoned, distorted joints of the toes, that the rubs of the world come, and that the corning process goes on. If you would cure yourself, reader, of the most obdurate corn, or if you would guarantee your children from ever having any, let them, and do you yourself, wear French _chaussures_; or else have the boots, &c., made fitting well to the foot at the side, and with exactly one inch, at the least, to spare in length, when standing in them. We'll bet you a hundred to one on the result: and you may ask any _cordonnier_ in the Rue de Richelieu.