and yet prove how true it is that this apparent secession from all is but another name for a new sect. The Plymouth brethren profess to have given up sectarianism of every stamp, by constituting themselves into one of the most bigoted of all the sects. Let us hear the sweeping anathemas of this new Pope, this Infallible General Council: It is "What I denounce as antichristian is not this or that corruption in the establishment; nor is it the religious establishment of England, nor the religious establishment of Scotland, nor the religious establishment of Canada. the generic thing of a religious establishment. The thing, per se, cannot but be antichristian. The thing is a thing of this world; it is a thing of man's framing. And when such a thing is put forward as Christianity, Christians [i. e. the Plymouth brethren] are called to discern in it the man of sin usurping the prerogative of God." Let not the Dissenters, however, flatter themselves that the new sectarians are exactly full auxiliaries. They go so far; but they outstrip even Mr. Burnett of Camberwell "But there are dissenting churches, and are not they to be viewed with a more favourable eye? Not merely because they are dissenting churches. Presbyterians, for instance, are dissenters here, and Episcopalians of this country are dissenters in Scotland. Many dissenters would fain have their sect the establishment, if they could; and any religion that is capable of being esta blished by human legislature must be essentially different from the religion of Christ. If we look at the various dissenting communities, we find the same [query, vastly more ?] clerical assumption as in the establishment." Let any one read the following selfconceit, and doubt if the author has more than a modicum of charity: "Some, indeed, go very far in their preaching, in asserting something like the Gospel of Christ, for they find it necessary to keep up their characters as evangelical preachers; but having said enough for that object in one part of their discourse, they proceed more seriously then to clear themselves from the imputation of having really meant what they had seemed to say. They are in a hurry to bring forward the guards and qualifications of their Gospel; to prove that they did not intend to say anything joyful to the wicked and ill-disposed; and in their solicitude for the interests of human goodness-or, as they style it, holiness they manifest the most lively apprehension lest what they said at first should be understood as not asserting the necessity of this. Well, such preachers deceive many but we have the highest authority for being assured that they shall not be allowed to deceive the elect of God. And, indeed, to those who know the apostolic Gospel, it may be sufficiently evident that these men disbelieve it, however fairly they talk at times; otherwise, they would have no uneasiness lest it should produce bad effects in men's minds." Parkhurst, the Hebrew lexicographer, according to the sect, has "unblushing hardihood." Andrew Fuller "takes a lead in the work of perplexing and corrupting the Gospel." Cruden, in his Concordance," gives every meaning save the right one.' We have thus presented our readers a handful of trashpure trash, from beginning to end. We have given the authors a few salutary hints, and ourselves a little extra labour. CAPTAIN ORLANDO SABERTASH, ON MANNERS, FASHIONS, DRESS AND ADDRESS. WHEN the regiment, in which we began our military career, was stationed in Guiana, it was not unusual for parties of officers to make excursions into the interior of the country, by ascending some of the magnificent rivers which traverse that much-neglected and extraordinary land: for extraordinary it certainly is to the European eye. Fancy one vast alluvial plain, extending from the very roots of the Andes to the shores of the Atlantic, intersected by countless rivers, having more the appearance of slumbering lakes of endless length, than of rushing streams; and the soil covered with a richness, grandeur, and luxuriance of vegetation, that make the wanderer of the temperate zone fancy himself intruding into regions destined for beings of a loftier class than his own. Nature sports with her creative strength in those lands of the sun. Along the borders of the forest-clad rivers, trees of gigantic size are pressed, tree above tree, far into the bosom of the stream; creeping plants, of strength tremendous, link them together, as if to arrest their further intrusion upon the waters; while the thick underwood, filling up the intervals between the trunks, often forms the whole into one dark, solid, and impenetrable mass of living vegetation, extending for miles together. But then how still, tranquil, and solemn is the scene, where an opening admits you into the recesses of the forest! Trees of a mightier world raising their thickly fringed boughs high in air through those clear, azure, and transparent skies, surround you on every side; the creeping plants festoon them together at a wondrous elevation, and seem to form the very vaults of nature's temple. The stillness of ages that rests upon the wilderness is awful and oppressive; the voice of man hardly disturbs it, and even the reports of his deathdealing engines will not reverberate upon the air, but sink echoless, within the narrowest possible bound. I have stood beneath the gorgeous dome of St. Peter's and in the mouldering temples of Pæstum; I have seen in their splendour the noblest edifices raised by Christian piety, as well as those which the ivied hand of time has adorned, and rendered more heart-striking in decay than they had been in the brightest days of pagan glory but whatever emotions they may call forth-and few can behold them without being deeply moved -the impressions they occasion will be feeble, indeed, compared to those inspired by the tranquil sublimity of a tropical forest. The power and grandeur of nature is there impressed upon you by every object you behold: even the huge-leafed herbage of the scene is awful; it is not trampled scornfully under foot, but seems to debar your advance as an intrusion, to vie with you in height, and makes you see, as well as feel, the utter littleness of man. There is an humbling of the heart experienced in these silent solitudes, a consciousness of the vanity of all earthly pursuits, and a greater tendency to sink down in mute admiration of the mighty Creator of so beautiful a world, than in any other situation in which it is possible to be placed. But though silent, the region is full of life. When the tropical moon fails to pour its flood of light on the landscape, swarms of fireflies sparkle brightly through the darkness of night: by day, millions of brilliantly plumaged birds fill the air: they are tuneless indeed, but not voiceless, for thousands of chattering parrots and paroquets hail the rising sun and early morn from every grove and bush. The rivers swarm with living things, of all imaginable forms and sizes; from huge but harmless snakes, and monsters of unsightly shapes, down to the nimblest fish that swims, whose golden scales shine through the leaf-tinted water in which he sports along. The plain, the reeds, the grass, the bushes, the very soil is rife with life, and filled with creeping, crawling, and with bounding things, that must be displaced at every step, and cannot always be displaced without danger; for the treacherous snake hides his glittering scales beneath the many-tinted flower of the of The large water-snakes of Guiana, and, I believe, the small ones also, are considered perfectly harmless, Buy Jand several king wilderness, and the wily leopard crouches under the huge leaves of its gigantic herbage. Some will ask what the woods of Guiana can have to do with "Dress and Address;" but you know, that to the eyes of a philosopher nature is the same, whether in the forests of Demerara or in the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor Square; and that the wise of the world-and your contributors are necessarily the wisest of the wise-can discover coxcombry in a savage as easily as in a dandy, and illustrate the doings of a duchess even by the sayings of a squaw. During one of the excursions mentioned, a party of us were lingering in an Indian hut, the inhabitants of which were all men, women, and children, huddled together, half sitting, half lounging, in the large grass hammocks of the country, staring at us with the stupid phlegmatic stare for which the dull, but harmless Arowaque, is distinguished. Little was said on either side; and even the smile which the young girls could not altogether suppress, left the muscles of the face unmoved, and never extended beyond the eye as to the men, I never, I think, saw an Indian smile. You thus see that even in the woods women are, as I have often told you, superior to us lords of the creation: it was a light-hearted, buoyant disposition, a natural hilarity of feeling, that made the little brunettes smile; it was dulness, mixed up perhaps with some foolish notion of dignity, that kept the men immovedly grave. While thus engaged in nothing, one of the Indians, who was evidently a leading man among them, began to criticise my dress, and to point it out to his countrymen, who clearly agreed with him that it was a very stupid and useless attire. At last, examining my hat and taking hold of my jacket, he asked, through the medium of our interpreter, why I encumbered myself with all those things, and did not follow his example and grease myself over with red paint, like an Indian, and fill my hair with the blue dirt, which makes an Arowaque's head look exactly like a huge mop made of blue rags? I told him it was because our king had no taste in such matters, otherwise he would make his soldiers follow the Indian fashion, which was clearly the best. This satisfied all parties, and there the matter rested. Some months afterwards, this same chase; but it is not easy to bargain with these people, for they have no idea of relative value, and will as soon ask you for your best fifty guinea double-barrelled Manton as for a bottle of rum or a flask of gunpowder. On this occasion, however, the Indian took a fancy for the strangest decoration that was ever placed on the head of mortal man, and one that I would have done honor to Grimaldi himself. At the period of which I am speaking, cocked hats were still the regulation for the infantry officer; but in the West Indies they were always consigned to the moths and the cockroaches, and rational round hats, with feathers, substituted in their stead. My best Bicknell had been punched into wadding for my gun-(I no longer approve of felt-wadding, however; it is too hard)-but, from whim or accident, it was allowed to retain its cockade, shape, and gold tassels; being, in fact, as airy and transparent a hat as if it had been made even of a fisherman's net. It attracted the Indian's notice, and he asked what it was. I put it on his head, and told him that it was the very sort of hat King George himself wore in England. This was enough for the "stoic;" he insisted on having it as part of his bargain, and was no sooner in possession of the treasure than he sallied forth with it on his head, delighted himself, and envied and admired by the whole party of his countrymen. Now, please to admire this philosopher of the wilderness. He affected the greatest contempt for dress and ornament; but no sooner found the means of gratifying his fancy for show and display within reach, than he seized upon them with the utmost avidity. And so it is with a great portion of my "pensive public," who affect a stoical indifference to dress and outward appearance,—and sometimes study hard, nevertheless, to set themselves off to the best advantage,-whether by primness, plainness, slovenliness, or rags; for I have seen even rags and filthiness affected, though only by men of known fortune, who, being fools by nature, wished to be thought clever and profound by rags. The fact, is that people all wish to look well, and strive (and very properly so) to make themselves look well. The misfortune is, that few have any real taste and genius for dress; and become, therefore, the mere slaves of look frightful, and that more fashions have really been invented for concealing the deformities of leading individuals in the world of fashion, than for the purpose of setting off personal advantages. In this respect we are, perhaps, mending a little, as fashion is now an oligarchy rather than an absolute autocracy. At One time, princes and kings sat not only on the thrones of realms, but on the throne of fashion also. George IV., when Prince of Wales, was the leader of half the tasteless fashion of his time; but being totally destitute of taste, not having one gentlemanlike feeling or sentiment about him, he not only outlived his fashions, but lived to become unfashionable himself; and though aspiring, as his greatest glory, to be thought the first gentleman of the age, is now rightly considered to have been no gentleman at all. But though fashion is no longer ruled over by an autocrat,-unless when some one starts up like Brummel, and usurps the throne by mere force of genius, it is not more liberal and enlightened on that account; for the government is irresponsible, and, as all wish to be thought members of the executive, there is no real opposition: so that, owing to the mere necessity of submitting to the oligarchical despotism, men and women are content to disfigure and make frights of themselves, in more ways than I can stop to describe. A pretty young girl, with a slender and youthful figure, will, of course, be pretty in almost any costume; but taken in the mass, the fair sex never appeared to so much disadvantage as in the old-fashioned grandmamma dress which they attempted to revive a few years ago. I intended to have shewn it up at the time, and had written a paper for your magazine on the very subject; but some young ladies, who had just got new dresses for a ball, bought up the article, at a price for which I should be glad to write all my life. : Öf the influence of fashion on manners generally, I have often spoken before; at present, I have only to do with Dress and Address, as they ought to go together that they form a theme more difficult than any which can be discovered in the Kantean philosophy, I need not tell you. There are at present so many middling tailors about town, that most men of any figure may obtain the appearance of being what is called "well dressed;" but, then, there is a prodigious difference between the really and apparently well-dressed man; and though it may not be easy to make the difference intelligible by description, any judge will detect it at first sight. The really well-dressed man may not be dressed in the extreme of fashion, but his clothes will sit easily upon him; there will be nothing stiff, tight, or géné in their make, and they will be sure to harmonise, in cut as well as in colour, with the figure, size, and complexion of the wearer. There will be an absence of show and glitter, which never can be made to suit the natural simplicity of modern costume: all attempts at finery with the present dress evince bad taste; and whenever you see a coat attract more notice than the owner, you may safely declare the whole turn-out to be a complete failure. The well-dressed man will have neither chains, rings, brooches, nor gold spangles about him; he will wear neither open-worked stockings, white satin cravats, new-fashioned frills, nor embroidered shirt-fronts-no one will call attention to his dress; but in speaking of him it will often be remarked, "That is always a well-dressed man." "Some friends of mine have, I know, fine diamond brooches; and in a black satin stock I have no objection to see a fine brilliant worn, but not a fragment beyond a single stone; and even that can be tolerated only in a black satin stock, which is itself only tolerated for want of something better. I confess that, for my own part, I like to see a full quantity of white-brilliantly white shirt displayed at the breast; but am not well satisfied with any of the modes in which it has hitherto been shewn. As to the black satin stock, it is a stiff-looking affair; and stiffness and awkwardness are necessarily synonymous. I should therefore be glad to see it altered, and think that there must be some soft, fleecy, gauzy kind of black silk, corresponding in texture to the old white India muslin cravats which George IV. patronised, and which fell, as the first victims of Brummel's revenge, when the prince offended the dandy. The present tendency to tightness in dress is greatly objectionable, evincing a total want of taste, not to say of decency. No one who has ever been in the East, and had occasion to admire the graceful and flowing drapery of the Orientals, as it was at least before the late innovations of Sultan Mahmoud, would ever expose himself to be called a wearer of tight breeches ;" a regular 66 and deserved term of reproach all over the boundless East. Look at the costumes of the last half century, and see the graceless, angular, and indecent figures cut by the "bucks" of the latter years of George III., to which we are hastening back. Tailors find it easier to make tight trousers than wide flowing ones, a snip let out the secret in taking my measure, and they have more influence over fashion than is generally supposed; they therefore mould it to the form that suits them best, both as to profit and convenience, and the less cloth they give you the more they make by you. Besides, if you are in your tailor's debt, he is sure to give you short measure, knowing that you dare not remonstrate: if therefore you wish to be well dressed, take care to keep your tailor under command; that is, never let your bill outgrow your means of instantly discharging the rebel if he presumes to have a will or taste of his own. To be ill-dressed is not only discreditable to an individual, but, if bad taste becomes general, it casts a reflection on the age and nation to which the tasteless belong. Go into any family portrait gallery and look at the frizzled, powdered heads; the tight silk inexpressibles, of every colour, from black and blue to pea-green and pink; the long-lapelled, embroidered waistcoats, and spangled and singlebreasted coats to match,-and then compare the finical beings who thus made God's image ridiculous, with the men of the Vandyke age, and tell us what you think of the respective generations. Indeed, I have always considered the period which intervened between the last of the Christian beards,they went out about the end of the great civil and religious wars of the seventeenth century,-down to the fall of the pigtails, that died some twenty or thirty years ago, to have been a poor and shallow one, and well represented by the costumes its heroes seem to have worn. It was a period of clever little men, but not of great men; for you hardly ever see a first-rate countenance look out from beneath the full bottomed wig of Queen Anne's time, any more than from under the powdered toupée of George III.'s reign. On the other hand, what splendid faces are found rising above the beards of the olden time! Can any thing exceed the neated in the picture of Houbracken? And then, what a simple and elegant costume! Look at Vandyke's portrait of Wallenstein, and the greatest genius of his time and country, the man of unfathomable mind, the protector and the dread of kings, stands at once confessed to view. Turn to his great adversary, Gustavus Adolphus, painted by the same mighty master, and the chivalrous soldier, the Christian hero, honoured and admired even of his foes, is instantly recognized. The elegant attire in which our own unhappy Charles I. is painted, gives even a tinge of greatness to his handsome, pensive, but melancholy face and foredoomed look, Now an age should really be able to shew some faces of the kind, and properly set off by a respectable dress; but this is so far from being the case at present, that Sir Thomas Lawrence always tried to cloak his heroes, and keep them as much out of sight as possible. Some persons like to be painted in military uniforms;-strapped, sashed, buckled, belted, into the tight ungainly regulation-coats, though these are the most unhappy and disfiguring dresses that can possibly be assumed,— for they are all glare, stare, stiffness, and angularity;-the stiff, dog-collarencased-neck, would alone spoil an Adonis. As to the broad-topped'schako, with its round apple-dumpling tuft, it is as heavy to wear as to look at; and has, besides, the double advantage of leaving the head as completely exposed to sun, wind, and rain, as to the sabres of the enemy. This theory of uniforms is rather new, you will say; but it is true nevertheless: a modern uniform will perhaps set off an insignificantlooking man, and bring him up to the level of his betters; but a really goodlooking man always looks best in plain clothes. Women often desire to see you in uniform; I advise them, however, always to have a look at the dear man in plain clothes before they decide: "a word," not to the wise, "but from the wise." If uniforms do not, however, set off individuals, a sprinkling of redcoats sets off a ball-room to advantage, owing to the dark, dark, and ever dark hues of modern costume. It was to break this black spell which has come over society, that I formerly proposed that silk trousers, of whatever colour or pattern you you please, should be worn as |