of thing.  It was not very new, it was not very
true, and nobody cared particularly about the
sentiment except as an excuse for singing a
song. If it had been the hills or the vales or
the back-gardens of merry England, we should
have equally taken it for granted that they were
beautiful.

At the time of which I speak, not quite
twenty years ago, the maids of merry England
were not so beautiful as they are at the present
time; at least, they were not so attractive.  It
was the time which immediately preceded the
introduction of crinoline; shoes and sandals
were in vogue, leg-of-mutton sleeves and high
waists had gone out, but bonnets were still
pokey, and the female figure was made up after
the clock-case model, which we are led to
believe ruled the fashions in Noah's ark.  There
was little shape or make about the maid of
merry England at that period. It was
impossible to see her profile without a background of
bonnet.  All the wealth of beauty that lay as
yet undiscovered in her hair, was plastered
down over her temples in formal sheets of
polished veneer, or tied up in a wisp and hid in a
box behind. The only variety was a bunch of
prim corkscrew curls which hung on either
side of her face like ornaments for your
fire-stoves. I almost fancy there was an idea that
in order to look modest, and maidenly, and
feminine, it was necessary to put the natural
beauties of the face and figure a little in the
shade.

Comparatively, the maids of merry England
were beautiful, but they seemed to be afraid of
being superlatively so. The manners of the
maids at that time partook of the sober and
rigid character of their costume. They were
apt to sit with their hands folded, to deny
themselves victuals and drink in support of the
genteel fiction that appetite was not maidenly,
to refrain from speaking save when spoken to,
and to have doubts about the propriety of
dancing. It was a complaint of the time that
the young ladies laced too tightly. That was
true in a double sense; their moral natures
were as tightly laced as their bodices.  It was at
about this time that the American ladies put the
legs of their pianos into trousers.

The great transformation scene took place
shortly after the International Exhibition of
1851. Harlequin Progress batted (technical
term for using his wand), and the old woman
in the cloak was suddenly transformed into
a fairy princess. The clock-case, and the poke
bonnet, and the flat shoes, disappeared through
the trap, and there was the princess in her
expansive gauze skirt and natty boots, crowned
with a cockle-shell. Before, she had hobbled
like an old crone; now, she is on one toe
pirouetting like a Peri!  I am not going to
enlarge, like a fashion book, on the graces of
crinoline. It is not always graceful, and it is
sometimes a nuisance—for it is proverbial that
you can have too much even of a good thing—
but I believe it is a fact that the adoption of
this article of female attire was the foundation
of all the elegancies of dress that have since
been built upon it.  It did away with the rigid
straight line, and introduced a graceful curve,
and from that moment it became necessary that
all things should be in an artistic concatenation
accordingly. The bell-shaped dress obviated
any necessity for tight lacing, by rendering the
natural form of the body harmonious and
compatible with the whole design. Under this new
impetus, elegance and comfort went hand in
hand.  High-heeled boots harmonised with the
embroidered petticoat (which was now an article
of ornament as well as use), and high-heeled
boots showed off a handsome foot, and at the
same time kept the handsome foot out of the
wet. Then followed the picturesque
burnous, and the elegant lace shawl, both so
superior in every way to the old three-cornered
Paisley, or Indian, blanket, and the dowdy silk
mantle that looked as if it were made out of
veneer.

The bonnet was a very stubborn thing to
deal with.  The original model—which our
women folks were too conservative to depart
from altogether—was radically wrong. It was
never adapted to any head whatever, and the
fashion of twisting the hair into a knot behind
rendered any attempt to reduce its proportions
only an aggravation of the discomfort it caused.
The front of the coal-scuttle admitted of various
more or less graceful modifications; but the
back remained an inexorable box, until some
one hit upon the happy idea of cutting the
back of the box out, and letting the great
wealth of beauty that lies in the hair, flow out in
natural luxuriance to delight the eyes of men.
It was only the other day that women discovered
the great treasure of beauty which lay in their
hair. Formerly, the primary object of their
dressing seemed to be to tie it up and plaster
it down and put it out of sight. I suppose
this prejudice—for it can be nothing else—
carne to us from the Puritans.  What a
long time we have been in outgrowing the
austere fashions of those gloomy people!

Mr. Ruskin, who is allowed to be a judge of
such matters, says that the present style of
female dress is the most graceful and artistic
ever worn. I quite agree with him, and I think
it has had almost a magical effect in bringing
out and setting off the beauty of the maids of
merry England.  There are no plain girls
now-a-days.  Positive ugliness is altogether banished
from the land. All the girls are pretty.
Walking in the streets, or driving in the Park, or
sitting in a box at the Opera, one is kept in a
state of continual admiration by the numbers
of pretty girls that meet the eye on every hand.
All this female beauty has of course existed at
any time; but I venture to think that it is only
lately that it has been shown off to the fullest
advantage. In these days of economics and
art training we know how to make the most
and the best of things. Mark what a mine of
beauty has been discovered in red hair. How
many years is it, since red hair was
contemptuously denominated "carrots"?  To be carroty