220 THE ANTIQUARIAN. 



In the "Taming of the Shrew" he breaks out into 

 open invective, throug-h the channel of Petruchio, the 

 hero of the piece ; railing at a fashioner who had 

 offended him, this persona gives vent to such taunts 

 as— 



"Thou thread, thou thimble, 

 Thou yard, three quarters, half yard, quarter, nail. 

 Thou flea, thou nit." 



Such are the quips and quiddities with which the 

 inoffensive habit-makers have been unworthily assailed. 



And now this true and veritable sketch of the 

 tailorie, — a random fancy clothed and suited into a 

 lecture by the antiquarian resources, himself the best 

 index to them, of a valued friend, lies made up and 

 ready for your adoption or refusal. J have not, it is 

 admitted, in what might be the language of a Stultz, 

 received the vast honour of your obliging commands, 

 but rather, as an old clothesman in Monmouth Street, 

 ventured on producing and puffing off my friperie 

 whether you wanted them or no: happy if you have 

 found, rather otherwise than the poor scholar of San- 

 tillane, that je suis le suel fripier qui ait de la morale ; 

 I am the only writer who has, faithfully and honestly, 

 treated the biography of the fashioners in a manner 

 becoming its intrinsic importance. I have taken 

 care, it has been my foremost wish and last caution to 



" Nothing extenuate 

 Or set down ought in malice,*' 



But, bearing in mind the precept of the moral satirist 

 expende Hannibalem, have proceeded to unseal and 

 open the archives of the fraternity of St. John, in a 

 mood, not, as I fear many expected, of flippancy ; but 

 impressed with a wish, on behalf of the tailors, to 

 shame ignorance out of her contempt for them ; and 

 injustice to myself, to produce a lecture, not heavy 

 as a tailor's goose and flat like his sleeve-board, but 

 resembling, both in its style and matter, those more 

 active implements of our artizan's calling, his shears 

 and needle. In short, I have endeavoured, as far as 

 possible, to sink the tailor in the man. 



