It is a topic of inquiry worthy of the most acute philosophical research whether buckishness is a natural or acquired folly. Some who have argued upon the matter have taken the ground, that all such vanities are the consequence of the great fall, and that as the expulsion from Eden was followed by the assumption of apparel, good Mother Eve was tempted and overcome by the fascinations of dress. For support of this view of the subject it may be urged, that with the fall came dress, with dress came fashion, and with fashion came the Dandy. Others suggest that such an argument as this, going back beyond the flood, is far-fetched, and they profess to be able to assign a much better cause for dandyism. According to these philosophers every fop has “a soft place in his head,” which has been very beautifully described by the poet as “The greenest spot In Memory’s waste.” They affirm that this weak portion of a skull otherwise thick, is the chosen place of the “organ of dandyism,” and controls the habits of its possessors. If this were so, we might pardon a failing which cannot be remedied, but, with Combe in our hands, we in vain run over the head to find this organ, which is certainly not a hand-organ. None of the phrenological authorities—it is a striking fact—give the locality of this bump. No; “the milk of human kindness” which was “poured into Gall,” forbade him from making known the situation of the protuberance, and Fowler unfairly dodges the question. Nothing is to be made out of this inquiry, and after considering the matter with great gravity, we are driven to the conclusion that Dandyism is like a bad cold, caught nobody knows how, or when, or where, or why. Some may be afflicted because they have the pores of vanity open—others who sit in the draught of affectation, may suddenly be seized by a fashionable influenza—going suddenly from the warm room of common sense into the cold air of ostentation, may give the “_grippe_” to some—but with many it is chronic, having been acquired in childhood when their dear mammas tricked them out in fantastic velvets and fine caps, with feathers, making them juvenile dandies among the little boys of their neighborhood. But all this may be tiresome to the reader who desires to plunge at once in the middle of the subject. We must really get on with this important theme, and responding categorically to the inquiry, “how dandies are made?” respond: by eight honest mechanics, to wit, the tailor, hatter, boot-maker, linen-draper, haberdasher, glover, hosier and jeweler. Take away the articles fabricated by these men, what is he but a helpless mortal, a mere man and terribly unfashionable? We might once have added to the list of dandy manufacturers the barber—but our modern exquisites have so little to do with that artist that the claims of Figaro to the distinction would be strongly controverted.