ause his dragoons to charge inoffensive crowds, assembled by
invitation of their rulers to celebrate saint-days or national festivals.

Our author's general remarks on the state of Spain, of its people and
prospects, are acute and sensible; and they also coincide in great measure
with as much as has been said on those subjects by one or two recent and
intelligent travellers in the Peninsula. In short, setting aside a slight
occasional tendency to high colouring, more calculated, however, to amuse
than mislead, the principal fault we have to find with the book is its
title. After the deluges of Mysteries and Revelations that has been poured
upon the shoulders of the reading public during the last two or three
years, commencing with the rhapsodies of Sue and company, and continued
through countless varieties by writers of every degree on both sides the
Channel, we really cannot think that such a title as "Revelations" of any
thing will tend to prepossess the public in favour of the work it
designates. One frequently sees books of very small merit, or of none at
all, ushered into the world under some highly enticing name, conveying the
idea that the author has expended at his bantling's christening the whole
of his diminutive modicum of talent. Here, however, is an example of the
opposite mode of proceeding; a title that we must decidedly condemn, given
to a book of much interest and utility--a book which, from its liveliness,
and the amount of anecdote and light matter it contains, will be read by
many who would shrink from the perusal of a mere dry statistical work.

AESTHETICS OF DRESS.

NO. III.

THE CUT OF A COAT AND THE GOOD OF A GOWN.

So you have got a decent coat on your back, gentle reader! Well, we
congratulate you upon this fortunate circumstance, this honourable badge
of aesthetic distinction; but do not be too proud of it--there are coats,
and coats--_non ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius_, you know. Wait a bit till
we turn you round, and trot you out to see the cut of the thing, ere we
admit you to be a well-dressed, or even a sensibly-dressed man. But before
we enter into controversy on the superficial appearance of man in the
nineteenth century, let us hasten to recall attention to our definition of
good taste in all matters of dress--utility first and ornament afterwards,
but ornament always subservient to utility--and let us also appease the
indignation of the tailoring world by affirming, that in