15 



ners of a well-formed mouth, and thence descending in semicircles 

 into a vast expanse of hair beneath the chin. 



Having mentioned Mr. Sponge's grooniy gait and horsey propen- 

 sities, it were almost needless to say that his dress was in the sporting 

 style — you saw what he was by his clothes. Every article seemed 

 to be made to defy the utmost rigour of the elements. His hat 

 (Lincoln and Bennett) was hard and heavy. It sounded upon an 

 entrance-hall table like a drum. A little magical loop in the lining 

 explained the cause of its weight. Somehow, his hats were never 

 either old or new — not that he bought them second-hand, but when 

 he got a new one he took its "long coat" off, as he called it, with a 

 singeing lamp, and made it look as if it had undergone a few proba- 

 tionary showers. 



When a good London hat recedes to a certain point, it gets no 

 worse ; it is not like a country-made thing that keeps going and 

 going until it declines into a thing with no sort of resemblance to its 

 original self. Barring its weight and hardness, the Sponge hat had 

 no particular character apart from the Sponge head. It was not 

 one of those punty ovals or Cheshire-cheese flats, or curly-sided 

 things that enables one to say who is in a house and who is not, by a 

 glance at the hats in the entrance ; but it was just a quiet, round 

 hat, without anything remarkable, either in the binding, the lining, 

 or the band, but still it was a very becoming hat when Sponge had 

 it on. There is a great deal of character in hats. We have seen 

 hats that bring the owners to the recollection far more forcibly than 

 the generality of portraits. But to our hero. 



That there may be a dandified simplicity in dress, is exemplified 

 every day by our friends the Quakers, who adorn their beautiful 

 brown Saxony coats with little inside velvet collars and fancy silk 

 buttons, and even the severe order of sporting costume adopted by 

 our friend Mr. Sponge, is not devoid of capability in the way of 

 tasteful adaptation. This Mr. Sponge chiefly showed in promoting 

 a resemblance between his neckcloths and waistcoats. Thus, if he 

 wore a cream-coloured cravat, he would have a buff-coloured waist- 

 coat ; if a striped waistcoat, then the stavcher would be imbued with 

 somewhat of the same colour and pattern. The ties of these varied 

 with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching 

 fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped 

 starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat, un- 

 pretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant, fly- 

 away, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His 

 coats were of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets out- 

 side, and generally either Oxford mixture or some dark colour, that 

 required you to place him in a favourable light to say what it was. 



His waistcoats, of course, were of the most correct form and 

 material, generally either pale buff, or buff with a narrow stripe, 



