as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening entertainment:
nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such Philosophies have
always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu
himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a hieroglyphical
prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven?--Let any
Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear such and such a
Garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am _here_, to wear and
obey anything!-- Much, therefore, if not the whole, of that same _Spirit of
Clothes_ I shall suppress, as hypothetical, ineffectual, and even
impertinent: naked Facts, and Deductions drawn therefrom in quite another
than that omniscient style, are my humbler and proper province."

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh, has nevertheless
contrived to take in a well-nigh boundless extent of field; at least, the
boundaries too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection being
indispensable, we shall here glance over his First Part only in the most
cursory manner. This First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous
learning, and utmost patience and fairness: at the same time, in its
results and delineations, it is much more likely to interest the Compilers
of some _Library_ of General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless
Knowledge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. Was it this Part
of the Book which Heuschrecke had in view, when he recommended us to that
joint-stock vehicle of publication, "at present the glory of British
Literature"? If so, the Library Editors are welcome to dig in it for their
own behoof.

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and Fig-leaves, and leads us
into interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical,
cabalistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content
ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still less have we to do