The fundamental rule of dress we take to be the following--utility in all cases, ornament when practicable. The first should ever precede, and serve as the basis to the second; and it is the inversion of their due positions that causes so many applications of the _utile_ and the _dulce_ to end in sheer absurdity. The _usefulness_ of any article or system of dress depends entirely upon climate, modified of course by the occupation or pursuits of the wearer; the _beauty_ of it or the suitableness of the ornament to the character of the vestment. We defy all the editors of the _Recueils des Modes, Petits Courriers des Dames, Belles Assemblées_, &c., with even the poet-laureates of Moses and Son, Hyam and Co., with the whole host of Israelitish schneiders, to find out a better æsthetic definition of the law of dress than this. Who would have the effrontery to maintain that an Englishman, the very type of the useful at Calcutta in his cotton jacket and nankeens, would in the same habiliments be a suitably dressed man at St Petersburg? and however much a well-set ring may ornament an aristocratic finger, (though aristocratic fingers, like aristocratic hands, as Byron observes, need no ornament to tell their origin,) who but an Otaheitan would admire the application of them to the gouty toes of some "fine old English gentleman?" Usefulness first, then, and ornament afterwards; think first of what you actually want for your health or comfort; cut your coat upon that pattern, clap on your lace afterwards; but enrich it only to improve its appearance, not to interfere with, to conceal, or to alter its original destination.
To begin, however, methodically, let us take what are commonly understood by well-dressed English people of the present day, and let us criticise them from top to toe. And first, then, of a gentleman's head--_le chef_, as the French call it--and the _chapeau_, its present gear. What a covering! what a termination to the capital of that pillar of the creation, Man! what an ungraceful, mis-shapen, useless, and uncomfortable appendage to the seat of reason--the brain-box! Does it protect the head from either heat, cold, or wet? Does it set off any of natural beauty of the human cranium? Are its lines in harmony with, or in becoming contrast to, the expressive features of the face? Is it comfortable, portable, durable, or cheap? What qualities, either of use or ornament, has it in its favour that it should be the crowning point of a well-dressed man's toilet? The hat is, beyond all doubt, one of the strangest vestimental anomalies of the nineteenth century.