The Directory and Consulate saw all France seized with fury for the antique. These were the days of the _Romaines_ and _Atheniennes_, when David was toiling with the pencil to effect a reform of costume, and when Talma sought to introduce correct ideas of dress on the stage. The men of Paris still adhered to the English costume, which, fortified by their _fiat_, became that of the world. They compromised their English predilections, however, so far as to wear their hair _à la Titus_ or _à la Caracalla_, what that was may be seen from the following engraving. [Illustration] They seemed, however, to struggle to make this costume as unbecoming as possible, wearing the coats loose, the collars immense, the breasts small, and such pantaloons and _shocking bad_ hats as were never seen before or since. The costume of a dandy of 1798 consisted of a blue coat, a white waistcoat, open in the breast, a finely worked shirt-bosom, fastened with a diamond pin, a huge muslin cravat, Nankin pantaloons, with black stripes down the seams, and thrust into the boots. (In society the boot was replaced by a small and pointed shoe.) The everlasting bludgeon was as indispensable in the street as the boots and the hat. To young Thelusson, when thus dressed and armed, Madame de Stael, who wore an oriental _toilette_, said, “Citizen, you bear the sceptre of ridicule.” “Madame,” replied he, “you are certainly competent to award it to whom you please.” Never were there so many strange costumes seen in any one city as in Paris at that time, when _peruques_, powder, hair _à la Titus_, cocked and round hats all were mingled together. Costume was indeed republican if the government was despotic. [_Conclusion in our next._ * * * * * THE BEAUTIFUL OF EARTH. All Nature’s beauteous forms, of light, of earth, or air, or sky, Compare not with the flexile frame, the lustrous, speaking eye; The opening flower, the rainbow tint, the blue and star-lit dome, Are things of naught, in contrast with the angels of our home: All gentle acts, all noble thoughts, of Heaven-directed birth, Are centered in the fair and good, the beautiful of earth. * * * * * WILD-BIRDS OF AMERICA. BY PROFESSOR FROST. [Illustration: CAROLINA OR MOCKING WREN.]