About Breeches and Boots. 121 



homely blucher, which, like the " Albert hat," was never 

 popular, to our ally at Waterloo, who, after we had won 

 the battle, took the whole credit of the victory, and joined 

 us in the occupation of Paris, and wanted to " loot " the 

 city. The Napoleon boot, or a boot of that character, 

 without the high front, and somewhat curtailed in form, 

 and commonly called " the Butcher's boot," has been common 

 for the last seventy years, at various periods, to the tyrant 

 of Europe, to Mr. Gommersall, who " played Nap," in the 

 battle of Waterloo at Astley's, to our modern hunting-men, 

 our firemen, our soldiers, our butchers, our ostlers, and our 

 bishops. There is a deal of character in that Napoleon 

 boot and its family, according to the wearer. It looks very 

 workmanlike on the hunting-man, the fireman, and the 

 soldier ; but when trod down at the heels and looped up to 

 the back of the breeches, showing an interregnum of dirty 

 stocking, and worn by a slovenly butcher or ostler, it has a 

 dog-fighting, beery appearance, and ought to go to the 

 station-house. On a bishop's legs it looks as if it had been 

 consecrated with the horse and saddle at the same time as 

 his lordship, and was part of the trappings of a solemn pro. 

 cession. I don't see why a bishop's boots should not last 

 him until he becomes archbishop, or goes the way of all 

 flesh, as he gets on his horse at his own door, and only walks 

 up the floor of the House of Lords, or of some drawing-room, 

 in them, and nowhere else. I always wish when I see a 

 bishop riding in Rotten Row, which, by-the-bye, is a rare 

 circumstance now, that he would go to Ascot and the opera 

 sometimes, and go the "whole hog." Bishops seem to me 

 to dabble in the shallow waters of Vanity Fair, and want 

 to take a plunge but are afraid. They are somewhat like 

 the strict moralists (?) who put down the cards in the 

 middle of a rubber at midnight on Saturday, but who, if 

 they were sitting up, would not object to play a rubber the 



