53 



THE ORIGIN OF BALLOON SLEEVES, COMMONLY 

 CALLED GIGOT SLEEVES. 



THE capacious sleeves which are worn by all our 

 most amiable and lovely young ladies are unquestion- 

 ably amazingly genteel and set off their graceful persons 

 to the utmost advantage : the tout-ensemble of a fair 

 beauty is no doubt completed when to a height of five 

 feet she has added a latitude of five feet six. In mat- 

 ters of taste, so far as exterior decoration is concerned, 

 the ladies are always admitted to exercise an extremely 

 happy imagination, as they have the pleasing art of 

 making that which is useful serve also for ornament. 



When we consider the varied ingenuity which they 

 have displayed in different ages in presenting the ori- 

 ginal form that was bestowed upon them by nature, to 

 the eye of the admiring observer, under so many mo- 

 difications each one exhibiting such striking contrasts 

 to the others we cannot but regret that Praxiteles 

 was so devoid of all true taste as to consider that his 

 statue of Venus, which some people admire, would 

 exhibit more loveliness in the unadorned simplicity of 

 nature than if decorated with the adjuncts of dress : 

 Canova also displayed the same want of taste in some 

 of his female figures, his Venus coming from the bath, 

 and his Venus Victrix, are, no doubt, far less beauti- 

 ful than they would be had they been garmented in 

 fashionable raiment: wherever this artist has intro- 

 duced drapery on his best female figures, he has evi- 

 dently shown a desire not to alter or amend their natural 

 contour : alas ! that he never took a lesson from modern 

 young ladies, beneath whose elaborate swathing and 

 girding 



" Not a charm of Beauty's mould 

 Presumes to stay where Heaven placed it." 



It is interesting to trace the rise of important im- 

 provements, and to look back to the apparently trivial 

 origins of magnificent discoveries. We are told that the 

 NE PLUS ULTRA, steam first rate, (500 guns, 42 pound- 

 ers, on two decks,) lay in embryo in the Marquis of 



VOL. in. 1834. H 



