No one accustomed to mix with the higher classes of society will be at all inclined to dispute the advantages arising from a genteel appearance; it therefore becomes necessary that the means of acquiring this distinction should be clearly demonstrated. An attentive perusal of the following pages will conduce to this desired effect.

“L’art de mettre sa Cravate est À l’homme du monde ce que l’art de donner À diner est a l’homme d’État.”

The Cravat should not be considered as a mere ornament, it is decidedly one of the greatest preservatives of health—it is a criterion by which the rank of the wearer may be at once distinguished, and is of itself “a letter of introduction.”

The most fastidious may in this book find a model for imitation, as not only the form, but the colour appropriate to each particular style, is described in the clearest and most comprehensive manner.

It can be incontrovertibly asserted that this work, far from being an ephemeral production, will be found to contain a mass of useful information, and may be termed an “EncyclopÆdia of knowledge.”

The question whether Cravats were worn by the ancients is satisfactorily decided.

It is fully proved that the Romans used a chin cloth, corresponding almost entirely with the modern Cravat; and that the collar of the ancient Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks was the origin of the Stock of the present day.

In the chapter on black and coloured silk Cravats, it is shewn that the former never obtained greater celebrity than in the last ten years of the eighteenth century, and the first ten of the nineteenth; that is to say, during a term of years replete with events of the greatest political interest.

The work is divided into easy lessons—the first gives a solution of the celebrated problem known as the Noeud Gordien, and is the key to all the others. The fifteenth lesson alone contains eighteen different methods of tying the Cravat: but lest any of our readers may be terrified at the idea of having so much to acquire at once, it may be necessary to observe that as they are derivations from the fourteen first described, they are necessarily short and easy of attainment.

The first and last lessons (Nos. 1 and 16) are undoubtedly the most important, on account of the precepts, opinions, and incontrovertible truths which they contain. In the concluding chapter the correct construction of the Cravat is proved to be of paramount advantage to the wearer; and the consequences arising from an ignorance of this important subject are pointed out in a manner which cannot fail to convince every enlightened mind.

To render the work complete in every respect, plates, drawn from nature, are inserted; these will clearly explain any difficulty a beginner may experience in comprehending our directions, and will enable him to judge whether he has produced the proper effect on his own Cravat.

In an age like the present, when the man of quality is so closely imitated by the pretender—when the amalgamation of all ranks seems to be the inevitable consequence of the “March of Intellect” now making such rapid strides amongst us, we think a more signal service cannot be rendered to the higher ranks of society, than by the production of such a work as this; and, in the hope of being really useful, we offer to a discerning public the “Art of Tying on the Cravat.”