rial and the color of a chimney-pot.

"Every body who has worn a hat, has perceived it to be a nuisance,
although he may never have said any thing on the subject till the
present cry was raised. As soon as a man gets out of the streets of the
capital, or of his own accustomed provincial town, and sets foot in a
railway carriage or on board of a steamboat, his first care is to make
himself comfortable by disembarrassing his aching temples of his hat.
The funnel is put away, and a cap, more ornamental and a thousand times
more easy, is elevated to the place of honor, to the great satisfaction
of the wearer. Who ever wears a hat at the sea-side? One might as well
go to bed in a hat, as wear one out of the purlieus of the town. At the
sea-side, or in travelling, or sporting, or rambling over the hills, the
ordinary hat is utterly out of the question. Not only is the hat
unsightly, expensive, and incommodious;--not only does it offend those
_aesthetic_ notions which are so fashionable in our time, but it may be
safely alleged that it is hostile to all mental effort. Did any man ever
make an eloquent speech with a hat on? Could a painter paint a good
picture if he had a hat on while engaged at the easel? Could a
mathematician solve a problem? could a musician compose a melody or
arrange a harmony? could a poet write a song, or a novelist a novel, or
a journalist a leading article, with a hat on? The thing is impossible.
Would any man who respected himself, or the feelings of his family and
friends, consent to have his portrait painted with the offensive article
upon his cranium? It would be almost a proof of insanity, both in the
sitter who should insist upon, and the artist who should lend himself
to, the perpetration of such an atrocity. We have but to fancy one out
of the thousand statues of bronze or marble which it is proposed to
erect to the memory of Sir Robert Peel in our great towns and cities,
surmounted with a hat of marble or of bronze, to see, at a glance, the
absurdity of the thing, and the reasonableness of the demand for a
change. There is a very good bust of Chaucer, with a cap on, and there
is a still more excellent bust of Lorenzo de Medici, which has also a
cap; but we put the question to the most conservative of hatters, and to
the greatest stickler for the _etatus quo_ in head attire, whether he
would tolerate the marble or bronze portraiture of either of those
worthies with the modern hat upon its head?