at any of the pictures of that day--look at the portraits of the
Conventionalists--look at the old prints of country gentlemen hunting
or riding races at Newmarket--remember the Sir Joshuas in many a noble
gallery; and you will not fail to remark that the choice spirits of
the day, the go-ahead lads of that time, had let down the flaps of
their cocked hats into slouching, and we must say, most slovenly
circular brims. There was a sort of free-and-easy look affected in
that day about the head, totally at enmity with the prim rigidity of
the cocked beaver; you might have taken off your _chapeau rond_, as it
then came to be called, and you might have sat on it--it would have
been never the worse; but not so with its stiff old father--no
liberties were to be taken with him; once sit upon him, and you would
have crushed him forever. This very difference of hats marked a
difference of politics--at least in France. There the old _chapeau a
trois cornes_ was the badge of the aristocracy: the _chapeau rond_ and
the _bonnet rouge_ were sworn brothers in the cause of democracy. The
times were getting unhinged; all fashions were relaxing; so were
public morals; so were private morals; so were men's hats: hats and
heads seemed to have a sympathy, and to have gone wrong together.

And what has been the history of the hat since that day?--the
civilian's hat we mean. Who remembers the overlapping crowns which
came into fashion soon after the great peace, at a time when Frenchmen
wore their brims extravagantly pinched up at the sides, and deeply
pulled down fore and aft? Sometimes the hat rose up in pyramidal
majesty; sometimes it was shut in like a telescope wanting to be
pulled out. And then every kind of fancy man had a fancy hat: there
was the Neck-or-nothing hat, the Bang-up, the Corinthian, the Jerry,
and the Logic; or else distinguished leaders of _ton_ lent their names
to it, and we had the Petershams, the Barringtons, &c. Through every
degree of absurdity has the _chapeau rond_ passed, until it seems to
have settled down into that quiescent state of mediocrity which marks
the decline of empires and of hats. The brim is no longer only half an
inch broad as it was once, nor four inches broad as we also remember
it: it seems to vary between the limits of one inch and two--a breadth
just sufficient to let the line of shade, when the head is erect, come
upon the eye-lids, and just sufficient to clear the ears. But if the
head be mo