All this may be avoided. The form of the feet should be taken in outline on a sheet of paper, and the prominent toes noted down at the time, and immediately after a pair of lasts made suitable in every way. But instead of this, hundreds of shoemakers in the country have been making all their lifetime, from some old misshapen pieces of wood, that perhaps had done service to their fathers and grandfathers, and been patched and altered to suit the wants of a whole parish. Even in town, where we have last-makers at our elbow, we have been far from doing what we ought in this matter. Instead of fitting the foot to the shoe, the business of the tradesman certainly is to shape his last so correctly that the shoe should fit the foot. Petrarch is said to have nearly lamed himself from the attempts he made, and the pinching he underwent, to display to his Laura a neat foot. Cases of this kind are frequently met with every day, where every sacrifice is made for this end, and pinching all over the foot may be tolerated, and no bad consequences ensue for a time; but the pinching at one place is the point which ought immediately to be “reformed altogether.” It is extremely amusing to witness, on the other side, the care some old gentlemen take to get their shoes made easy; while the Petrarch of the present day, orders his boots to be _smart_, and threatens his bootmaker that if he can get into them, he “won’t have ’em,” the old gentleman of experience and wisdom comes with two pairs of thick lamb’s wool stockings on, which his friend who accompanies him waggishly says, are-- “His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank;” he looks knowingly in return and whispers, that he put on two pairs of the thickest stockings he had, on purpose to deceive the shoemaker. In the early English translation of “Lazarillo de Tormes,” is this passage: “If you bid a shoemaker who has been thirty years at his trade make a new pair of shoes with broad toes, high in the instep, and tight about the heel, he must pare your feet before he pleases you”--a sly, but sarcastic allusion to the imperfect fitting of the shoemaker, and an admission of the pride of the wearer. Ladies and gentlemen, and even children, should have their own lasts, and be sure they are carefully and correctly made to the feet. It would, however, be expecting too much that for a single pair of shoes or boots, a shoemaker or bootmaker should make for his customer a pair of lasts, free of charge; as prices are now, he would be a considerable loser--the customer might never favor him with another order, he seeks a cheaper shop--goes abroad or dies. The lasts on which a skilful workman has been employed for perhaps a whole day, and which cost at least four or five shillings, are left on his hands perfectly useless.