ard, upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks for three days."

It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a proclamation was
issued that no man should "weare his shoes above sixe inches _square_
at the toes." We have before seen that the attention of the grave and
learned members of the Senate, the "Conscript Fathers" of England, was
devoted to the due regulation of this interesting part of apparel,
when the shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to be tied
up to the waist ere the happy and privileged wearer could set his foot
on the ground. Now, however, "a change came o'er the spirit of the
day," and it became the duty of those who exercised a paternal
surveillance over the welfare of the community at large to legislate
regarding the _breadth_ of the shoe-toes, that they should not be
above "sixe inches square."

"Great," was anciently the cry--"Great is Diana of the Ephesians;"
but how immeasurably greater and mightier has been, through that and
all succeeding ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of flimsy
gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations as by a shackle of iron,
that shadowy, unsubstantial, ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting
deity--FASHION! At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth.
The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled
by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments;
and the dark-hued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced
by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of
England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.

And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity
exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming "men into monsters," and
women likewise--if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and
unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever, have ever numberless and
willing votaries. It was once the _fashion_ for people who either were
or fancied themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity of their
passion by the fortitude with which they could bear those extremes of
heat and cold from which unsophisticated _nature_ would shrink. These
"penitents of love," for so the fraternity--and a pretty numerous one
it was--was called, would clothe themselves in the dog-days in the
thickest mantles lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the winds
howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the earth with a freezing
mantle, they wore the thinnest and most fragile