Fashions, cleanly or otherwise, often come by the clever exercise of wit. Thus the Russian confraternity made little fortunes through a well-timed joke perpetrated by Count Rostopchin. And the joke was cut after the following fashion. The Emperor Paul had an undisguised contempt for Russian princes, and loved to lower their dignity. He was one day surrounded by a glittering crowd of them, attired in gold lace and dirty shirts, when he carelessly asked his favourite Count Rostopchin, how it happened that he had never gained the slight distinction of being created a prince. “Well, your Majesty,” said the Count, “it arises entirely from the circumstance that my ancestors, who were originally Tartars, came to settle in Russia just as winter was setting in.” “And what of that?” asked Paul. “Why,” answered the Count, “whenever a Tartar chief appeared at court for the first time, the sovereign left it to his option either to be made a prince or to receive the gift of a pelisse. Now as it was hard mid-winter when my grandfather arrived at court, he had sense enough to prefer the pelisse to the princeship.” This satire gave the fashion to the Rostopchin cloaks, of which our grandfathers who travelled in Russia used to tell long stories, that were not half so good as Rostopchin’s brief wit. Here was a fashion arising from a joke; but they have been as often “set” by very serious causes. Some two hundred and fifty years ago, the prevailing colour in all dresses was that shade of brown called the “couleur Isabelle,” and this was its origin. A short time after the siege of Ostend commenced in 1601, Isabella Eugenia, Gouvernante of the Netherlands, incensed at the obstinate bravery of the defenders, is said to have made a vow that she would not change her chemise till the town surrendered. It was a marvellously inconvenient vow, for the siege, according to the precise historians thereof, lasted three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; and her highness’s garment had wonderfully changed its colour before twelve months of the time had expired. The ladies and gentlemen of the court resolved to keep their mistress in countenance, and after a struggle between their loyalty and their cleanliness, they hit upon the compromising expedient of wearing dresses of the presumed colour finally attained by the garment which clung to the Imperial Archduchess by force of religious obstinacy—and something else. Mrs. Sherwood offers us, in her posthumous ‘Life,’ a fair picture of the fashion and simplicity of the good old country rector in the last century, as regards the adorning of the outer man. Her father, the Rev. Dr. Butt, was Rector of Kidderminster; he is the hero of the story, which Mrs. Sherwood shall tell herself. “My father was invited to dine at Lord Stamford’s, at his seat at Enville, not very distant from Kidderminster.