but buttoning and
unbuttoning; and so he shot himself one morning in his dressing-gown and
slippers, before the intolerable burden of the day commenced.

Trousers are great levellers. The legs of Achilles and of Thersites
would share the same fate in them, and both would in modern London be as
well entitled to the epithet of "well-trousered," as the former alone
was to that of 'well-greaved' before Troy. Probably the majority of
mankind are but too well content with this result, as there are few who
could emulate Mr. Cruikshanks in James Smith's song of names, who

"----stepped into ten thousand a year
By showing his leg to an heiress;"

and the trouser is therefore likely to be a permanent article in the
wardrobe, so that its continued existence must be taken as a datum or
postulate in any discussion upon vestimentary reform. This, it must be
allowed, makes any reform to a very picturesque costume out of the
question; for not only is the loose trouser itself hostile to the fit
display of the lower limbs, but it interferes with the use of any such
dress as the military habit of the Romans, or the Highland kilt, or the
short tunic with which we are familiar on the stage in costumed plays,
where no particular accuracy as to place or time is affected. The effect
of the combination may often be noticed in the dress of little boys, who
may be seen wearing trousers under such a tunic, reaching to the knee or
a little above it. The horizontal line which terminates the lower part
of the kilt is seen in immediate contrast with, and at right angles to
the almost perpendicular lines of the trousers, which produces a most
disagreeable appearance; although it is well adapted, by the contrast of
a straight line with the graceful curves of the legs, to set them off to
advantage when uncovered.

Flowing robes after the classical or eastern fashion are of course not
to be thought of. They would be mightily out of place in railroad
carriages, or in omnibuses, or in walking the streets on muddy days.
Modern habits of activity and personal independence require the dress to
be tolerably succinct and unvoluminous; but some change in the right
direction has been lately made by the introduction of what are called
paletots, and other coats of various transitional forms between them and
the shooting-jacket proper. In these a good deal of the stiffness and
angularity of the regulation frock coat is got rid of, and they admit of
ada