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MEN AND COATS.

There is some peculiar influence which no doubt the reader has remarked in his own case, for it has been sung by ten thousand poets or versifying persons, whose ideas you adopt, if perchance, as is barely possible, you have none of your own there is, I say, a certain balmy influence in the spring-time, which brings a rush of fresh dancing blood into the veins of all nature, and causes it to wear a peculiarly festive and sporting look. Look at the 'old sun - how pale he was all the winter through! Some days he was so cold and wretched, he would not come out at all he would not leave his bed till eight o'clock, and retired to rest, the old sluggard at four; but lo! comes May, and he is up at fivehe feels, like the rest of us, the delicious vernal influence; he is always walking abroad in the fresh air, and his jolly face lights up anew! Remark the trees; they have dragged through the shivering winter-time without so much as rag to cover them, but about May they feel obligated to follow the mode, and come out in a new suit of green. The meadows in like

manner appear invested with a variety of pretty spring fashions, not only covering their backs with a bran-new glossy suit, but sporting a world of little coquettish, ornamental gimcracks that are suited to the season. This one covers his robe with the most delicate twinkling white daisies; that tricks himself out with numberless golden cowslips, or decorates his bosom with a bunch of dusky violets. Birds sing and make love; bees wake and make honey; horses and men leave off their shaggy winter clothing, and turn out in fresh coats. The only animal that does not feel the power of spring is that selfish, silent, and cold-blooded beast, the oyster; who shuts himself up for the best months of the year, and with whom the climate disagrees.

Some people have wondered how it is that what is called the season in London should not begin until spring. What an absurd subject for wondering at. How could the London season begin at any other time! How could the great, black, bilious, overgrown city, stifled by gas, and fogs, and politics, ever hope to have a season at all, unless nature with a violent effort came to its aid about Easter-time, and infused into it a little spring-blood? The town of London feels then the influences of the spring, and salutes it after its fashion. The parks are green for about a couple of months; Lady Smigsmag and other leaders of the ton give their series of grand parties; Gunter and Grange come forward with iced creams and champagnes; ducks and green-peas burst out; the river Thames blossoms with white-bait; and Alderman Birch announces the arrival of fresh, lively turtle. If there are no birds to sing and make love, as in the country places, at least there are coveys of opera-girls that frisk and hop about airily, and Rubini and Lablache to act as a couple of nightingales. lady of fashion remarked," says Dyson, in the Morning Post, that for all persons pretending to hold a position in genteel society I forget the exact words, but the sense of them remains indelibly engraven upon my mind for any one pretending to take a place in genteel society, two things are indispensable. And what are these? A BOUQUET AND AN EMBROIDERED POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF. This is a self

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evident truth. Dyson does not furnish the bouquets he is not a market-gardener he is not the goddess Flora, but a town man; he knows what the season requires, and furnishes his contribution to it. The lilies of the field are not more white and graceful than his embroidered nose-ornaments, and with a little eau de cent mille fleurs, not more fragrant. Dyson knows that pocket-handkerchiefs are necessary, and has an express from Longchamps to bring them over.

Whether they are picked from ladies' pockets by Dyson's couriers, who then hurry breathless across the Channel with them, no one need ask. But the gist of Dyson's advertisement and of all the preceding remarks, is this great truth, which need not be carried out further by any illustrations from geography or natural history, that in the spring-time all nature renews itself. There is not a country news-paper published in England that does not proclaim the same fact. Madame Hoggin informs the nobility and gentry of Penzance that her new and gigantic stock of Parisian fashions has just arrived from London. Mademoiselle Mc. Whirter begs to announce to the haut-ton, in the environs of John-o'-Groats, that she has this instant returned from Paris, with her dazzling and beautiful collection of spring fashions.

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In common with the birds, the trees, the meadows, common with the Sun, with Dyson, with all nature in fact, I yielded to the irresistible spring impulse; -homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum, etc.-I acknowledged the influence of the season, aud ordered a new coat, waist-coat and tr..., in short, a new suit. Having now worn it for a few days, and studied the effect which it has upon the wearer, I thought that perhaps an essay upon new clothes and their influence might be attended with some profit to the public and the

writer.

One thing is certain. A man does not have a new suit of clothes every day; and another general proposition may be advanced, that a man in sporting a coat for the first time is either

agreeably affected, or
disagreeably affected, or

not affected at all,

which latter case I do not believe. There is no man, however accustomed to new clothes, but must feel some sentiment of pride in assuming them no philosopher, however calm, but must remark the change of raiment. Men consent to wear old clothes for ever nay, feel a pang at parting with them for new; but the first appearance of a new garment is always attended with exultation.

Even the feeling of shyness, which makes a man ashamed of his splendour, is a proof of his high sense of it. What causes an individual to sneak about in corners and shady places, to avoid going out in new clothes of a Sunday, lest he should be mistaken for a snob? Sometimes even to go the lengths of ordering his servant to powder his new coat with sand, or to wear it for a couple of days, and remove the gloss thereof? Are not these manœuvres proofs of the effects of new clothes upon mankind in general?

As this notice will occupy at least ten pages (for a reason that may be afterwards mentioned), I intend, like the great philosophers who have always sacrificed themselves for the public good, imbibing diseases, poisons, and medicines, submitting to operations, inhaling asphyxifications, &c, in order that they might note in themselves the particular phenomena of the case, in like manner, I say, I intend to write this essay in five several coats, viz:

1. My old single-breasted black frock-coat, with patches at the elbows; made to go into mourning for William IV.

2. My double-breasted green ditto, made last year but one, but rather queer about the lining, and snowy in the seams.

3. My grand black dress-coat made by Messrs. Sparling and Spohrer, of Conduit Street, in 1836. A little scouring and renovating have given it a stylish look even now, and it was always a splendid cut.

4. My worsted-net jacket that my uncle Harry gave me on his departure for Italy. This jacket is wadded in-side with

a wool like that one makes Welsh wigs of; and though not handsome, amazing comfortable, with pockets all over.

5. MY NEW FROCK-COAT.

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Now will the reader be able to perceive any difference in the style of writing of each chapter? I fancy I see it myself clearly; and am convinced that the new frock-coat chapter will be infinitely more genteel, spruce, and glossy, than the woollen-jacket chapter; which, again, shall be more comfortable than the poor, seedy, patched William-the-Fourth's black-frock chapter. The double-breasted green one will be dashing, manly, free-and-easy and though not fashionable, yet with a well-bred look. The grand black-dress chapter will be solemn and grave, devilish tight about the waist, abounding in bows, and shrugs, and small-talk; it will have a great odour of bohea, and pound-cake; perhaps there will be a faint whiff of negus; and the tails will whisk up in a quadrille at the end, or sink down, mayhap, on a supper-table bench before a quantity of trifles, lobster-salads, and champagnes; and near a lovely blushing white satin-skirt, which is continually crying out, "O you ojous creature! » or «O you naughty satirical man, you!" And do you really believe Miss Moffat dyes her hair?» «And have you read that sweet thing in the Keepsake by Lord Diddle? Well, only one leetle leetle drop, for mamma will scold; » and «O you horrid Mr. Titmarsh, you have filled my glass, I declare!» Dear white satin-skirt, what pretty shoulders and eyes you have! What a nice white neck, and blueish-mottled, round, innocent arms! how fresh you are and candid! and ah, my dear, what a fool you are!

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I don't have so many coats now-a-days as in the days of my hot youth, when the figure was more elegant, and credit, mayhap, more plenty; and perhaps this accounts for the feeling of unusual exultation that comes over me as I assume this one. Look at the skirts as they are shining in the sun with

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