He would never have worn them had he read Lampridius, and seen the opinion of the Emperor Alexander Severus as by that historian recorded: “in lineâ autem aurum mitti etiam dementiam judicabat, cum asperitati adderetur rigor.”
The word breeches has, I am well aware, been deemed ineffable, and therefore not to be written—because not to be read. But I am encouraged to use it by the high and mighty authority of the Anti-Jacobin Review. Mr. Stephens having in his Memoirs of Horne Tooke used the word small-clothes is thus reprehended for it by the indignant Censor.
“His breeches he calls small-clothes;—the first time we have seen this bastard term, the offspring of gross ideas and disgusting affectation in print, in any thing like a book. It is scandalous to see men of education thus employing the most vulgar language, and corrupting their native tongue by the introduction of illegitimate words. But this is the age of affectation. Even our fishwomen and milkmaids affect to blush at the only word which can express this part of a man's dress, and lisp small-clothes with as many airs as a would-be woman of fashion is accustomed to display. That this folly is indebted for its birth to grossness of imagination in those who evince it, will not admit of a doubt. From the same source arises the ridiculous and too frequent use of a French word for a part of female dress; as if the mere change of language could operate a change either in the thing expressed, or in the idea annexed to the expression! Surely, surely, English women, who are justly celebrated for good sense and decorous manners, should rise superior to such pityful, such paltry, such low-minded affectation.”
Here I must observe that one of these redoubtable critics is thought to have a partiality for breeches of the Dutch make. It is said also that he likes to cut them out for himself, and to have pockets of capacious size, wide and deep; and a large fob, and a large allowance of lining.
The Critic who so very much dislikes the word small-clothes, and argues so vehemently in behalf of breeches, uses no doubt that edition of the scriptures that is known by the name of the Breeches Bible.1
1 The Bible here alluded to was the Genevan one, by Rowland Hall, A.D. 1560. It was for many years the most popular one in England, and the notes were great favorites with the religious public, insomuch so that they were attached to a copy of King James' Translation as late as 1715. From the peculiar rendering of Genesis, iii. 7, the Editions of this translation have been commonly known by the name of “Breeches Bibles.”—See Cotton's Various Editions of the Bible, p. 14, and Ames and Herbert, Ed. Dibdin, vol. iv. p. 410.
I ought to be grateful to the Anti-Jacobin Review. It assists in teaching me my duty to my neighbour, and enabling me to live in charity with all men. For I might perhaps think that nothing could be so wrong-headed as Leigh Hunt, so wrong-hearted as Cobbett, so foolish as one, so blackguard as the other, so impudently conceited as both,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin. I might believe that nothing could be so bad as the coarse, bloody and brutal spirit of the vulgar Jacobin,—if it were not for the Anti-Jacobin.
Blessings on the man for his love of pure English! It is to be expected that he will make great progress in it, through his familiarity with fishwomen and milk-maids; for it implies no common degree of familiarity with those interesting classes to talk to them about breeches, and discover that they prefer to call them small-clothes.
But wherefore did he not instruct us by which monosyllable he would express the female garment, “which is indeed the sister to a shirt,”—as an old poet says, and which he hath left unnamed,—for there are two by which it is denominated. Such a discussion would be worthy both of his good sense, and his decorous stile.
For my part, instead of expelling the word chemise from use I would have it fairly naturalized.