have daringly spurted from my goosequill by way of preface, and from its gravity you will think it no preface at all to so simple a matter as I have to narrate. But a kind friend will clearly see intelligence through obscurities of diction and difficulties of grammar; it will beam from his own eye on the paper, if there be little there before; and in your sight, and through your own brightness, my dear Eusebius, the letter of your friend becomes an illuminated missal.

Yet have missals of this kind been somewhat reduced in value; the golden age of letters has long departed— then came the silver-but now literary love and friendship are mere dross; the tenderest as well as most hostile communications to be had for fourpence, so the copper age of letters hath come upon us. "Etas mox datura progeniem vitiosiorem”—that is, the post-office will be nothing more than a Penny Magazine. This is a sort of "post obit" given by the ministry for their continuance in office. A truce with foolery, either theirs or my own, Eusebius, and let me come to the incident I have engaged to tell you; and if you publish my letter in Maga, as you have before done, I give you timely notice that we shall both be considered indecent characters, for I must use discarded words to speak about discarded things-things cast off-and that, but for a few remnants among the poor, would have been altogether brushed away from our vocabulary. For I must tell you of my being properly "breeched," and sent out into the world, that is, to a public school. Let others boast that they have lived in the age of Wellingtons and Greys; let us, Eusebius, rejoice that we were born in the age of breeches. And why should we be ashamed of that toga virilis, the first day of first assuming the which was in our time a day of honour, a white day, and marked with " both pockets?"

money in

You have always considered it a disgrace to the present generation that they should ever have discarded either the name or thing-and the substitution of "inexpressibles," as an immodest lie, unworthy the simplicity of manhood. We were the "Braccotorum pueri,” as Juvenal has it, sons of the breeched. Our fathers were

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breeched before us. Now old and young are fallen into the "lean and slippered pantaloon." Bracca-Anglicé, breeches. There is something sterling in the name, that comes not mincingly upon the tongue, but boldly, as it should, out of the mouth. Braccæ are of ancient origin -vide Ainsworth-" Vox Gallica,"-meaning that many have been galled who have worn them-and so let the galled jade wince. The laxa bracca were said to be shipmen's hose," so saith the same authority. Many have I seen unshipped, and for that purpose should rather be called "demissæ braccæ." For the laxx-vide Sir Charles Wetherill; for the demissæ—consult the Education Board, or rather Board of Education, not the modern, but a " chip of the old block," if there be such, as I have seen at the college of St. Mary's Winton, yet in these degenerate days existing. But of that ancient, sweet, and wholesome custom anon. At present I must maintain the respectability of breeches-they are Greek, as the very nane implies, βραχυς short—βραχείαι "shorts" -hence the Roman's Bracca-hence breeches.

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How then, Mr. Ainsworth, can you have the face to say that they are Gallic, vox Gallica,-for we all know the Gaels boast of philibegs? and wear no breeches; and if by Gallic you mean the French, they were, for a long period, Sansculottes, and are very little better now. There are, however, who deny the etymology, and assert the word is from ξακος, not βραχυς. "Paxos," saith the lexicon, a piece let in”- -"a rag." Now, though the piece let in may answer to very many braccæ, the word bracca would here lose the b, a very material part in formation; and it would be not a part, but a mere patch put for the whole. Certainly I have both seen and worn many that have been really rags; but, as I said before, there is a b in breeches, there was ever a b in braccæ, and there ever will be a β in βραχυς; for though βραχυς expresses "shorts," they have never been shortened yet to that pass, and it is to be hoped never will be; they might as well be taken away altogether.

I do not consider that I was properly breeched until I was between twelve and thirteen years of age; what I wore before that time I make no account of, the materials

were as often feminine as masculine, things really inexpressibles, made out of my father's, my mother's, and even sisters' garments. I took no note of them; I was not proud of them. The first virile pair I ever put on, were upon the occasion of my going to St. Mary's College at Winchester, and it happened thus that they came to be what they were. My father, who was a literary character, and entirely given up to books, happened to have in his hand one of those old books one sees in old respectable libraries, of most sombre appearance, when my mother abruptly asked him what colour John's new breeches should be. My father, who had forgotten all about me, my breeches, my schooling, and every thing else, held his book somewhat loosely a foot or two nearer my mother, whilst he looked in her face as only conscious of the interruption, not having an idea of the subject of it. My mother looked at the book. She had been accustomed to signs and dumb-show, and concluded my father to mean of this colour.

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That," quoth she," is a mouse-colour." "Yes," says he, "mouse-colour."

"And what material?" said my mother.

My father looked at the book and said "leather." Nothing more was said, and so it turned out that the first breeches, and with which I made my public appearance in the world, for such may be called the first going to a public school, were mouse-coloured leather; or, I think, according to the vocabulary of those days, I should say "leathers."

The present generation little know, that when their fathers were born the art of breeches-making was not confounded with the general cutting-out and trimming business of the tailor. It was a separate business, and the leather-breeches maker, in particular, was a man of considerable skill and importance.

I have heard dandies say that no man could make a pair of boots. The right foot must go to Hoby, the left to some one else. Luckily for the breeches-maker, his right and left made an indivisible pair. They were lovely and undivided.

This being the case, the morning after this scene in

the domestic pantomime, Mr. Flight, leather-breeches maker, was sent for to measure Master John Cracklatin for a pair of mouse-colour leather breeches. I do not think I had ever before been measured-it was, therefore, an epoch in my life, and well do I remember it— and Mr. Flight, too—a tall, robust man, marked with the small-pox, with a face like tripe; and I suppose it was the resemblance of his tripe-like skin to leather that made me ask him, as I looked into his face, if my leathers would be smooth. I never could help thinking that he punished me for this afterwards-but I must not anticipate the trying-on-and it may well be called a trial.

And here, my dear Eusebius, I cannot resist the temptation of making a digression to the times when we, as children, had no trials at all; and I do not believe there can be a greater contrast in life than was in those days felt and experienced by children male, in passing from the age of infancy to that of boyhood. You must have observed that mothers are much prouder of male than female infants. They stick a sort of rose in the cap, as a badge of dignity, that all the world may know what they are. And, I am sure, when they first begin to teach them to walk, and that is often much earlier than they should, they take great pains to show what they are. They shame us men out of all our proprieties, and make us turn away our modest faces. An infant male, then, is the greatest treasure and darling-is really a little idol -a "dumb idol" at first-but he is soon taught to lord it with a loud voice, a practice which some never are able to get rid of, and which, with a just retribution, they often pay back upon that sex from whom they have acquired it in indulgence. And it is curious that when the child female is taken to as the better pet, the indulged pampered boy is at once rudely cast off, and told abruptly that

"Girls must have white bread, and nice sugar sops;

Boys must have brown bread, and good hard knocks."

Neither you nor I, Eusebius, would venture to object to the doctrine, for rough discipline of some sort is necessary to those who have to go through a crooked perverse

world; but the time of the announcement, and the previous idolatry, make the lesson a somewhat cruel one. Now nothing could be greater than the contrast I suffered. I have a perfect recollection of myself in this idol state. I dare say I was a pretty, for all said I was a beautiful child. I remember my dress; and where will you find a finer idol, ready to step down from his pagoda-pedestal to walk the ground?-to walk it !-to dignify it with the pressure of his footstep. I well remember strutting in the finest nankeen dress, with a long and broad blue sash, a beautifully crimped frill, and a white hat and featherswas taken up and kissed wherever I was met, and fondled, and talked to in a language that must have much retarded my learning real English. How do children acquire their language when they are invariably addressed in a jargon? But they do and I learned the vulgar tongue, and used it too; and then, when the pampered, idolized child grows towards boyhood, he is told to know himself and how should he?-finery and flattery are no longer for him. The next stage of life is one of real hardship, for he has not only to learn but to unlearn. He is, or rather was, in our time, turned out of all favour. For kisses he had kicks; and, according to a vulgar saying, “more kicks than halfpence." The contrast was horrible from a pet to an outcast. I am told all is altered now, and that the fine gentleman commences with the baby. As to myself, I was a little good-for-nothing; half my time in tatters, which nobody noticed; and even at the more advanced period, when my mother asked the question of my father, it was unquestionably time I should have new breeches of some sort or other. There never passed a fifth of November, from the age of seven, that a hole was not regularly squibbed through whatever I had —a hole, do I say?—I should say many, if it was not that in a short time they all ran into one. I was, from that age, as unlike the sweet child in the nankeen dress, blue sash, and hat and feathers, as a dove is like a badger -not that I was as well clad as the latter. The first feeling of the young cast-off was desolate enough. Oh, unfortunate age! when the little urchin can receive impressions, and make none. I do not mean to say the