"Just where the breath of life his nostrils drew, A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw The gnomes direct, to every atom just, The pungent grains of titillating dust." It is worthy of remark that in proportion as the use of tobacco in the form of smoking has increased with us, it appears to have diminished in the shape of snuffing. The few snuffers who remain carefully eschew the sorts of "dust" which were in general favor some years ago, such as Scotch rappee and Irish "blackguard," going in only for those moist "messy" powders which have at least the negative advantage of not setting the people in the vicinity of the snuffer a-sneezing, as was customary when the dry snuffs were in vogue. But the days of snuffers, whether dry or moist, are numbered. Even the Scotch Highlander, with snuff-horn in hand, now seldom stand in mimic guard at the shops of tobacconists; and at no distant date a snuff-box will probably be as great a rarity as a pair of snuffers. And by the way that calls to mind that there is another kind of snuffing which has quite gone out-candle-snuffing. Its disappearance is to be regretted only because it has put an end to a venerable old riddle,-What snuff is that of which the more you take the more will be left in the box? Candle-snuff to be sure. How seldom now-a-days one meets a man with a wig! There was a time within the memory of people not yet old, when men in affluent circumstances no sooner found their hair getting thin on the top than they hied them as a matter of course to the perruquier and ordered a wig, or if not that, a scalp. The practice was one of respectable antiquity, and was favored in bygone ages by canine as well as human heads, as appears clearly enough from the sublime poem commemorative of the affectionate proceedings of Old Mother Hubbard in respect of her dog. Do we not read that "She went to the barber's to buy him a wig, And when she came back he was dancing a jig?” Whether he put the wig on or not is a matter on which the poet has not vouchsafed to enlighten us, but in all probability he did. Be that as it may, wigs have now fallen into utter disesteem, both with dogs and their masters. The habit of wearing false hair appears to have grown odious to men, though not so to women. who never before used it to such an extent as at present You might walk from Putney to Poplar and back again without seeing a male head surmounted with an artificial coiffure. In fact, we men are now in pretty much the same condition as the wigless pig whom an anonymous traveller famed in nursery legend encountered on his way to Stonor, "Upon my word of honor, One cannot help wondering that a gentleman, doubtless of unsullied reputation, should have deemed it necessary to pledge his honor twice so vehemently in authentication of so exceedingly credible a statement. Were he now alive, he would find as many unwigged men as pigs at Stonor, and indeed anywhere else in England, for the matter of that. Official wigs survive now upon the Bench and at the Bar, and there alone, unless, indeed, we take into account the wigged coachmen whom one comes across now and then in Hyde Park or Regent Street during the London season. Formerly, the Bishops used to wear wigs, and a pleas.. ant joke upon the subject is preserved in the amber of Curran's wit. "Is there anything strange in this wig of mine, Mr. Curran ?" asked a conceited prelate. "Nothing but the head, my lord," replied the brilliant orator. It is sad to think that fashions cannot go out without taking with them the pleasant sayings they suggested. The wigs of barristers were formerly manufactured of human hair profusely powdered, and it was an old reproach against a briefless advocate that he did not earn enough to powder his wig withal. The legal perruque is now unpowdered, and made not only of tow and horsehair, but also in some degree of pigs' bristles, so that a barrister who stands out obstinately for his client may be said to be pig-headed in more senses than one. (Attorneys using this pun without the author's permission will be prosecuted.) It is satisfactory to observe that though ladies still affect the things called "pads," and wear other women's hair in unprecedented abundance, the hideous chignon" has gone out. Let us hope that neither it nor the still more horrible "crinoline " will ever again be permitted to disfigure Englishwomen, by the consent of all nations under the sun the most beautiful women in the world. It is also a matter of felicitation that the mustard-headed ladies one used to meet so frequently a year or two ago are becoming much rarer. We might well dispense with them altogether, for surely it cannot be supposed that the flesh-tints, whether of a "blonde "" or of a brunette, were ever meant by Nature to be associated with the yellow plumage of a canary. Male attire undergoes but little improvement. Men seemed doomed to wear for ever the same cut of clothes, and the chimney-pot hat will probably disappear with the male head, but not before. That consummation, however, may come at no distant date, for men are among the things that are going out, while women, heaven be thanked! grow more numerous every day. Still we have the benefit of some minor modifications of costume, which contribute to our comfort, and for which we are therefore bound to be grateful. Foremost among these small reforms must be ranked the abolition of straps, stocks, and those villanous standup shirt collars, with which in by-gone times our ears were in continual danger of being sawed off. I was shocked to see a man with strapped trousers in Hayling Island some weeks ago, as I told you at the time; and once in a blue moon one encounters a gentleman with a stock, precisely similar to that still to be seen round the throat of a waxen figure in a shop opposite Day & Martin's blacking manufactory in Holborn; but the stand-up collar is still patronized by Mr. Gladstone and, in all probability, by him alone of living Englishmen. Surely, if a deputation from the wives and daughters of his Greenwich constituents were to wait upon him, and with tears in their eyes to entreat him to discard an article so injurious to his good-looks, he could not find it in his heart to refuse. One Quaker in a drab suit and a broad-brim, which neither Fox nor Barclay need have disdained to wear, may still be seen sauntering about Lothbury and Lombard Street; and a hatter on Tower Hill assured me the other day that there is a wealthy old merchant in Tower street who to this day wears a beaver hat, a blue body-coat, with brass buttons, and a buff waistcoat. Shaving is going out gradually. The sooner it goes 66 out altogether the better, for no more nonsensical or more injurious practice ever prevailed in a civilized. country. "Zelim," says Lord Bacon, I was the first of the Ottomans that did shave his beard. A Bashaw asked him why he had altered the custom of his predecessors. He answered, 'Because you Bashaws may not lead me by the beard, as you did them.' "Zelim was some thing of a philosopher, and a trifle of a wag, but his logic, however pertinent in Turkey, has no force in England, where men would never suffer themselves to be led by their beards, though these beards were to grow to their waists. The day will assuredly come when posterity will stand aghast at the thought that their male ancestors could ever have been such simpletons as to take a sharp knife in their hands once every four-and-twenty hours and submit themselves to a tedious and painful operation, and all for what?-to make their faces look like the faces of women. A beard was given to a man at once for an ornament and a protection,-decus atque tutamen. To take it off were about as reasonable as to cut the mane off a lion,-a profitless and perilous experiment. But shaving is the last lingering remnant of the old cropping system, once prevalent from one end of the country to the other. Horses' tails, dogs' ears, and men's beards were alike remorselessly cropped, withthe effect of disfiguring all three animals in a manner horrible to contemplate. From horses to husbands the transition is possibly not very honorable to the former. The bearing-rein is going out, a fact which calls to mind my encounter with Mr. Beebumble the other day. I met him in Richmond Park, with a face as long as a fiddle. "Bless my heart, |