as fine clothes. A splendid equipage, a magnificent house, may draw the
gaze of idle passers, and excite an occasional inquiry. But who, that
has entered taverns and coffeehouses, has not perceived that the ratio
of civility and attention from the waiter is regulated by the dress of
his various customers? Any stranger, elegantly and fashionably attired,
will find little difficulty in obtaining deference, politeness, and even
credit, in every shop he enters; whereas the stranger, in more homely,
or less modish garb, is really nobody. In truth, the gentleman is
distinguished in the crowd only by the cut of his trousers, and he
carries his patent of nobility in his coat-lap. And to whom does he owe
this index of his identity, but to his despised and much calumniated
tailor?

There is not a metamorphosis in all the pages of Ovid so wonderful as
that which the great magician of the shears and thimble is capable of
effecting. If there be the most unpleasant disproportions in the turn of
your limbs--any awkwardness or deformity in your figure, the enchantment
of this mighty wizard instantly communicates symmetry and elegance.
The incongruous and unseemly furrows of your shape become smooth and
harmonized; and the total want of all shape is immediately supplied
by the beautiful undulations of the coat, and the graceful fall of
the pantaloons. And all this is by the potency of your tailor. His
necromantic skill, unlike that of too many practisers of supernatural
arts, is exercised only for the benefit of the world: and whilst Circe
transformed the companions of Ulysses into brute beasts, the benevolent
enchanter of our day transforms brute beasts into handsome and
attractive men. Nay, had Olympus been furnished with a tailor, Brotheus
would have had no necessity to burn himself to death for the purpose
of escaping ridicule from the gods on account of his deformity.