the tradesmen who " inspire" Le Follet. These
will have their day, as even the Great Louis
cravats had their day.

Way for the flowing Chancellor cravats of
Louis the Fifteenth's time!—they also must have
their day. And their day shall end at the peace
of Hanover, when the Duke of Choiseul shall
command the army of France to wear stiff stocks.
It was a sad day for French and for English soldiers
when these instruments of torture were invented.
Civilians soon broke through them; but only
to be bound up anew in the starched muslin of
Louis the Sixteenth's time. These barricades
about the windpipe were especially conspicuous
on a certain day when the National Assembly
met at Versailles; the stiff military stocks, or
elegant lace cravats of the nobility, contrasting
strongly (perhaps ominously) with the plain
white of the commoners' neckcloths.

The Revolution tore the cravat from men's
throats. How could men call loud enough for
blood, in the days of Terror, with the windpipe
shackled by starched muslin? The Sans-Culottes
must have their throats free, for the exercise of
their lungs; their enemies must have their
throats free, also, for the convenience of La
Guillotine. Thus, the Marats would have
done violence to the cravat; had not
Robespierre set his grim, green head, upon a
column of starched muslin, mathematically set
up. The cravat was saved; and Republican
generals, to make it doubly safe, wore two—a
small black one over a large white one. There
were generals, however (Pichegru, for instance),
who disdained the voluminous starched bands of
Paris. How the cravat grew round the chin,
till it threatened to burke the wearer, our
readers must remember from the thousands of
drawings of this wildly dressing time. Men carried
their political faith, in those days, round their
necks. The royalists distinguished themselves
by wearing green neckcloths. And we, in our
turn, imitated even the republicans. The first
gentleman in Europe passed his youth wrapped
about the neck like a fresh mummy. Brummel
must be approached with awe by the coming
historian of the neckcloth. Was the delicacy
with which he passed his thumb and forefinger
round the upper edge of his spotless muslin
ever equalled?

Let us treat this subject with the gravity it
deserves. We are told that in the year nine of
the Republic, the collar began to peep timidly
above the cravat. Democratic collar! which in
spite of Toryism in brass buttons and nankeens,
stoutly defending the cravat in all its integrity,
was destined to triumph at last in that
particularly demonstrative type of the species known
as "the all-rounder!"  But—not to anticipate
—throughout the Consulate, the cravat held its
own, and grew, till the man was almost second to
the neckcloth. The Empire brought back some
of the lace of royalty. The delicate work of
Alençon encompassed the throat of the hero of
Arcole on his coronation day. His senators
imitated him; and civilians began to strut about
with huge white knots, called choux. We are
assured that General Lasalle's cravat was thick
enough to turn a bullet and save his life; and
it has been more than hinted that Napoleon owed
the defeat of Waterloo to the fact that on that
great day he wore a white cravat, with a flowing
knot, "contrary to his custom."

His fall marked the beginning of a perilous
era in the history of the neckcloth. The
Restoration took to stocks. Stocks of velvet,
and even of morocco leather, were adopted. The
cravat was at the point of death, when some
clever chemisier gave it a galvanic spasm, by
attaching it to the stock. It was no longer free
to float in the air, however. Prodigious golden
pins held it fast, until after the revolution of
eighteen thirty, when it regained its liberty.
But it was clearly in its dotage, and to this hour
it remains in obscurity, dreaming of the glorious
time when it encircled the throat of the Great
Louis.

One of the practical sages of this practical
time has calculated that the man who wears a
neckcloth, and ties it properly, wastes four
thousand hours in forty years upon its knot!
This same sage vehemently panegyrises the loose
neck gear of the present time. Fond of figures,
he bids us enjoy a knowledge of the fact
(according to him), that six thousand workwomen
make a good living in Paris, in arranging
neckties for the civilised world.

Gr. de M.—to whom we humbly confess
ourselves indebted for some of the materials for a
serious history of the neckcloth (which we now
put at the service of any ambitious frequenter
of the British Museum reading-room who may
chance to read these lines)—Gr. de M. is not
equal to his subject. It overpowers him.

FACES IN THE FIRE.

I WATCH the drowsy night expire,
And Fancy paints at my desire,
Her magic pictures in the fire.

An island-farm 'mid seas of corn,
Swayed by the wandering breath of morn,
The happy spot where I was born.

The picture fadeth in its place;
Amid the glow I seem to trace
The shifting semblance of a face.

'Tis now a little childish form,
Red lips for kisses pouted warm,
And elf-locks tangled in the storm.

'Tis now a grave and gentle maid,
At her own beauty half afraid,
Shrinking, yet willing to be stayed.

'Tis now a matron with her boys,
Dear centre of domestic joys:
I seem to hear the merry noise.

Oh, time was young, and life was warm,
When first I saw that fairy form,
Her dark hair tossing in the storm;

And fast and free these pulses played,
When last I met that gentle maid—
When last her hand in mine was laid.

Those locks of jet are turned to grey,
And she is strange and far away,
That might have been mine own to-day—