The raiment of the Grecian women, of which the public generally obtain some idea from the remaining monuments of ancient art, may be said to have been regulated by the same laws of taste which presided over the developement of the national genius in sculpture and painting. Every article of their habiliment appeared to harmonise exactly with the rest. Nothing of that grotesque extravagance which in some of the fleeting vagaries of fashion transforms our modern ladies, with their inflated balloon sleeves and painfully deformed waists, into so many whalebone and muslin hobgoblins, was ever allowed to disfigure the rich contour of a Greek woman. As she proceeded lovely from the hands of nature, her pride was to preserve that loveliness. Her garments, accordingly, were not fashioned with a view to disguise or conceal her form, but by graceful folds, flowing curves, ornaments rich and tastefully disposed, to afford as many indications of its matchless symmetry and perfection as might be compatible with her sex’s delicacy and the severity of public morals. Consequently the art of dress, like every other conversant with taste and beauty, reached in Greece its highest perfection. A woman draped according to the prevalent fashion in the best ages of the Athenian commonwealth, was an object not to be equalled for elegance or grace. From the snow white veil which probably shaded her countenance and ringlets of auburn or hyacinth, to the sandals of white satin and gold that ornamented her small ankle, the eye could detect nothing gaudy, affected, or out of keeping. There was magnificence without ostentation, brilliance of colours, but a brilliance that harmonised with whatever was brought in contact with it; the splendour of numerous jewels and trinkets of gold, but no appearance of display, or of a wish to dazzle. Everything appeared to stand where it did, because it was its proper place.