G. Woolliscroft Rhead

"Truewit. A wise lady will keep guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatched at her peruke to cover her baldness, and put it on the wrong way.

"Clerimont. O prodigy!

"Truewit. And the unconscionable knave held her in compliment an hour with that reversed face, when I still looked when she should talk from the other side.

"Clerimont. Why, thou shouldst have relieved her.

"Truewit. No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another."

Ben Jonson, The Silent Woman, Act I. sc. 1.

---

COMB (ITALIAN, FOURTEENTH CENTURY).

IX
THE DRESSING OF THE HAIR, MOUSTACHIOS, AND BEARD

There was nothing new, even in the days of Solomon; wigs, curling irons, hair powder, and turned-up moustachios being no exception to the rule.

We have abundant evidence, both from the concurring testimony of authors and from the actual works which have come down to us, that heated irons were employed from a very early period for the purpose of curling the hair and beard. Both with the Assyrians, and the Greeks of the earlier period, the hair and beard were plaited in a series of symmetrical curls and ringlets, displaying the utmost degree of formality in their arrangement.

ASSYRIAN BAS-RELIEF.
Layard's "Nineveh."

The hair and beard of Belshazzar when he "made a great feast to a thousand of his lords," and received an intimation of an unpleasant character, conveyed to him in an unusual manner, were certainly curled in such wise, and probably dyed and powdered, as was the custom, the powder, however, being gold instead of flour, as in more recent days. As a matter of fact, gold was employed in various ways as an enrichment to the hair. The Kings of Egypt had their beards interwoven with gold thread.

Herodotus assures us that the skulls of the Egyptians were much harder than those of the Persians, owing to the national custom of shaving the heads of their children at a very early age. He adds, "In other countries the priests of the gods wear long hair; in Egypt they have it shaved. With other men it is customary in mourning for the nearest relations to have their heads shorn; the Egyptians, on occasions of death, let the hair grow both on the head and face, though till then they used to shave."

The ceremonies and customs relating to the beard are innumerable. The management of the beard formed a considerable part of the religion of the Tartars, who waged a long and bloody war with the Persians, declaring them infidels, though in other respects of the same faith as themselves, because they refused to cast their whiskers after the mode or rite of the Tartars.

BEARDED BACCHUS.
Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."

It has been recorded that the Greeks wore their beards until the time of Alexander, who, fearful lest the length of their beards should prove a handle to their enemies, commanded the Macedonians to be shaven, and the first who shaved at Athens ever after bore the addition of ?????? (shaven) on medals. Notwithstanding this statement, however, Philip, the father of Alexander, as well as Amyras and Archelous, his predecessors, are represented without beards.

According to Pliny, the Romans did not begin to shave until the year of Rome 454, when P. Titinius brought over a stock of barbers from Sicily. Pliny adds that Scipio Africanus was the first to introduce the fashion of shaving daily. It became the custom to have visits of ceremony at the cutting of the beard for the first time. The first fourteen Roman Emperors shaved until the time of the Emperor Adrian, who discontinued the practice and wore a beard, for the purpose, however, of hiding the scars on his face.

From Gregory of Tours we learn that in the Royal family of France it was for a long time the peculiar privilege of Kings and Princes of the blood to wear long hair, artfully dressed and curled; everybody else was polled, as a sign of inferiority and obedience. To cut off the hair of a son of France under the first race of Kings was to exclude him from the right of succession to the crown, and to reduce him to the condition of a subject.

French historians, however, tell us that Charlemagne wore his hair short, his son much shorter, and Charles the Bald, as his surname indicates, none at all.

Good Luitprand furiously declaimed against the Emperor Phocyas for wearing long hair, after the manner of all the other Emperors of the East, with the exception of Theophilus, who, being bald, enjoined all his subjects to shave their heads, like the fox of Æsop, who, having survived the experience of a trap by the sacrifice of his tail, harangued the other foxes on the inconvenience of tails in general, and endeavoured to persuade them to cut off theirs also.

GREEK HEAD-DRESSES.
Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."

In the Church, too, in spite of the beard of Aaron, "that went down to the skirts of his garments," the Nazarite law, and the reputed long hair of the founder of Christianity, the priesthood habitually condemned long hair as being inconsistent with the sacred character of the priest's office. Pope Anictus is supposed to have been the first to forbid the clergy to wear long hair. "The Holy Prelate, Wulstan, reproved the wicked of all ranks with great boldness but he rebuked those with the greatest severity who were proud of their long hair."[23] The Nazarite vow is an act of sacrifice in accordance with the terms of the law laid down in Num. vi. 1-21: "All the days of the vow of his separation shall no razor come upon his head"; "He shall be holy, and shall let the locks of his hair grow."

The Nazarite has been regarded as a conqueror who subdued his temptations, and who wore his long hair as a crown, the hair being worn rough as a protest against foppery. Another view, however, is that it was kept elaborately dressed, a proof of the existence of the custom being seen in the seven locks of Samson:—

"And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him" (Judg. xvi. 19).

Let us listen to the story in the quaint, silvery music of Chaucer:—

"This Sampson neyther siser dronk ne wyn
Ne on his heed com rasour noon ne schere
By precept of the messager divyn
For alle his strengthes in his heres were.

.....

Unto his lemman Dalida he tolde
That in his heres al his strengthe lay
And falsly to his foomen sche him solde
And slepying in hir barm upon a day
Sche made to clippe or schere his heres away
And made his foomen al his craft espien
And whan thay fond him in this array
Thay bound him fast and put out bothe his yen.

"But er his heer clipped was or i-schave
Ther was no bond with which men might him bynde
But now is he in prisoun in a cave
Ther as thay made him at the querne grynde
O noble Sampson strengest of al man kynde
O whilom jugge in glory and in richesse
Now maystow wepe with thine eyyen blynde
Sith thou fro wele art falle to wrecchednesse."

Monk's Tale.

ROMAN HEAD-DRESSES.
Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."

While the hair was the pride, the glory, and the strength of Samson, it was the bane of Absalom, for by the abundance of his hair he met his death. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy, therefore he polled it), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight."[24] Had he polled it at more frequent intervals he might have made good his succession to the crown, and Solomon never have been king, for Absalom had "stolen the hearts of the people of Israel."

As in a mighty river we may trace back its course to the little rill or rivulet which trickles from the mountain side, so we may often trace the origin of great events to very small beginnings. How might the face of both French and English history have been changed but for Peter Lombard's dislike of a beard! Louis VII. imagined it a matter of conscience to give an example of submission to the command of the bishops on the subject of long hair, and to atone for his many cruelties by being shaved in public. He reckoned, however, without his—wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, a jocose madcap, who rallied him upon his short hair and shaven chin. "I thought I had married a prince, but find I have wedded nothing but a monk." The breach occasioned by a bare face was widened, and the marriage dissolved. Six weeks afterwards Eleanor was again a wife—Henry, Duke of Normandy, who afterwards reigned as Henry II. of England, being the husband, who obtained with her fair Aquitaine with its three provinces. Hence arose those wars which ravaged France for near three centuries, in which upwards of three millions of Frenchmen perished on the fields of Cressy, Agincourt, and Poitiers, and on many a lesser field.

Henry I. issued an edict for the suppression of long hair, and as a natural consequence long hair immediately became the rage. This edict, however, was the result of a visit to Normandy, and the preaching of a prelate named Serlo, whose eloquence was such that the monarch and his courtiers were moved to tears. The astute priest, perceiving the impression he had created, immediately whipped a pair of scissors from his sleeve and cropped the whole congregation!

The patriarchal beard and long hair of Edward III., as exhibited in his effigy at Westminster, is in strict conformity with the general character of this serious minded monarch, strongly contrasting with the character of his successor, Richard of Bordeaux, who was the greatest fop of the day.

During the century which followed the reign of Edward III. beards were worn of every imaginable cut. There was the fantail beard, with its wadded nightcap for protection during sleep, of the stiffening which was applied. There was, as later, the cathedral beard, the spade beard, the stiletto beard, and there was an extraordinary curled tuft which resembled a corkscrew. There was apparently as much variety of colour as of form—

"I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow" ("A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act I. sc. 2).

Our Royal "Bluebeard" registered a solemn vow before the French Ambassador that he would never touch razor till he had visited "his good brother" upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the "good brother" making a similar vow. With characteristic "English perfidy" Henry broke his vow, while the Frenchman remained true; it was therefore found necessary for Sir Thomas Boleyn to apologise for his master's bad faith by saying that "the Queen of England felt an insuperable antipathy to a bushy chin."

Henry, indeed, not only shaved his own chin and wore his hair short, but commanded all his subjects to do the same. He granted the barbers a new charter, incorporated them with the surgeons, and became a member of their company.

It was found that the "science and connyng of Physyke and Surgerie" was practised by unskilful persons, "common artificers, as Smythes, wevers, and women,"[25] who "boldely and custumably take upon theim grete curis, and thyngys of great difficultie, in which they partely use socery and whichcrafte" to the grievous hurt of the Kyng's liege people. It was therefore enacted that none should practise as a physician and surgeon in London except by examination, duly approved by the Bishop of London or Dean of St. Paul's(!). As it seemed needful to provide skilful surgeons for the "helth of mans body whan infirmities and seckness shal happen," and as there are many surgeons in London who give instructions to students, who exercise of the said science "to the greate relief, comforte, and soccour of muche people, and to the sure savegard of their bodily helth, their lymmes and lyves," and as two companies of surgeons exist in London, one "the Barbours of London, and thother company the Surgeons of London," which company of barbours were first incorporated "undre the greate Seale of the late King of famous memory, Edwarde the iiijth, dated at Westminster the xxiiijth day of February in the first yere of his reigne," these two companies ought therefore to be united into one body, with a common seal, power to hold lands, and all the rights of both the old companies.

It was further found that surgeons were in the habit of taking diseased persons into their houses, where they "doo use and exercise barbery, as wasshing and shaving, and other feates therunto belonging," very perilous to the King's people. Now, "after the feast of the Nativitie of our Lorde God next coming," no barber in London shall practise surgery, "letting of bludde, or any other thing belonging to surgery, drawing of teth onelye except." And no surgeon shall "occupye or exercise the feate or crafte of barbarye or shaving," either by himself or by any other for him, to his or their use.

It was also provided that any person may keep a barber or a surgeon as his servant, who may practise in his master's house.

It would appear that the observance of the Lord's day was more strictly enforced in the seventeenth century than it is at present—

"Att the Councell Chamber on Ouze bridge at York ye xxth of June, A.D. 1676," it was declared and enacted that whereas barber surgeons have been shaving and cutting hair on the Lord's day, We order, that if "any brother of the said company tonse, barbe, or trim any person on the Lord's day, in any Inn," or other place, public or private, of which the Lord Mayor shall judge, he shall be fined ten shillings, and the searchers of the said company for the time being are to make diligent search in all public and private houses as aforesaid, for discovery of such offenders.

1745 was the fatal year of the separation of the barbers from their more dignified colleagues. Their wings were clipped, their privileges curtailed, the barber's pole and basin, however, still remaining, in silent, eloquent testimony of their former glory and greatness.[26]

In the reign of Good Queen Bess the campaign against long hair is continued. Philip Stubbes extols barbers to the skies: "There are no finer fellowes under the Sunne, nor experter in their noble science of barbing than they be." Barbers are necessary. "I cannot but marvell at the beastlinesse of some ruffians (for they are no sober Christians) that will have their hair grow over their faces like monsters, and savage people; rather like mad men than otherwise, hanging downe over their shoulders, as womens haire doth; which indeed is an ornament to them, being given them as a sign of subjection." In man it is a "shame and reproch, as the Apostle proveth."

During the reign of the Stuarts long hair was the vogue—with "love-locks" and "heart breakers."

The Great Oyer.

The absurd fashion of painting and patching the face, much ridiculed by the satirists, began in the reign of Elizabeth.

Quips upon Questions, 1600.

Chester's Love's Martyr, 1601.

By the reign of James I. this ridiculous fashion had become common. All sorts of curious devices were made use of—spots, stars, crescents, and in one woodcut a coach and coachman with two horses and postilions appear upon the lady's forehead. The fashion continued for a long period; in fact, during the greater part of the Georgian era, when it had degenerated into mere spots or small patches. At the close of the eighteenth century it had entirely disappeared.[27]

"Wherfor, faire doughtres, takithe ensaumple, and holde it in your herte that ye put no thinge to poppe, painte, and fayre youre visages, the which is made after Goddes ymage, otherwise thanne your Creatoure and nature hath ordeined; and that ye plucke no browes, nother temples, nor forhed; and also that ye wasshe not the here of youre hede in none other thing but in lye and water" ("Advice of the Knight of La Tour Landry to his iij doughtres").

THE INVINCIBLE PRIDE OF WOMEN.

Roxburghe Ballads, circa 1686.

Wigs of various kinds have been in use from very early periods, as the grace and ornament which the hair imparts to the human frame have always been generally recognised. The want of it has ever been deemed a subject of reproach, held in ridicule, in all climes; hence the constant recourse to false hair.

Strutt affirms that the beards of the Egyptians, as well as the coverings for the head, appear to have been made of false hair, and removed when the face was shaved. There is no doubt that the Egyptians wore wigs, as examples are to be seen in the British and other museums.

The wig given in the illustration is probably a woman's, and was found near the small temple of Isis at Thebes. It belongs to the seventeenth dynasty, about B.C. 1500; it is formed of natural curlings of the hair in the upper portion, and the lower portion, which was originally much longer, consists of long, thin plaits, a number of which have been broken off and decayed, the thin plaitings contrasting very happily with the natural curls.

Lamprideses describes the wig of the Emperor Commodus as powdered with scrapings of gold, and oiled with glutinous perfumes for the powder to hang by.

Wigs first appear in England during the reign of Stephen, but are seldom mentioned until the Tudor period. The "Maiden Queen" is popularly supposed to have had her head shaved, and to have worn a wig. Mary Queen of Scots had a most complete collection of wigs, and it is recorded that she wore one at her execution.

The periwig first appears in history as the headgear of a fool. In the privy purse expenses of Henry VIII. for December, 1522, occurs the entry: "For a peryke for Sexton the King's fool xx shillings." By the middle of the same century their use had become general, and it was dangerous for children to wander alone, as they were liable to be deprived of their hair for the manufacture of these articles.

The periwig blossomed out during the reign of Charles II., and attained enormous proportions; it was often gaily decked with ribbons and allowed to hang over the front and back for some distance.

The gossiping Pepys, complaining in his diary of October 30, 1663, of his extravagant purchases in wigs, clothes, &c., mentions, amongst other things, two periwigs, "one whereof cost me £3 and the other 40s. I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing."

Roxburghe Ballads, 1688.

Wigs when first worn were extremely expensive, costing as much as a hundred guineas, and their value often led to their being stolen from the head.

The different shapes which the wig assumed were innumerable, and the different classes of society were identified with particular shaped wigs. There were the clerical and the physical; the huge tie peruke for the man of law, the brigadier and the tremendous fox-ear or cluster of temple curls with a pigtail behind, for the Army and Navy. (The Army pigtail was shortened to seven inches in 1804, and in 1808 was cut off altogether.) The merchant, the man of business and of law affected the grave full-bottom; the tradesman was distinguished by the snug bob or natty scratch; the country gent by the natural fly and hunting peruke; "the coachman wore his, as do some to this day, in imitation of the curled hair of a water-dog."

There were also, as a writer in the London Magazine of 1753 informs us, the pigeon's wing, the comet, the cauliflower, the royal bird, the staircase, the ladder, the brush, the wild boar's back, the temple, the rhinoceros, the corded wolf's paw, Count Saxe's mode, the she-dragon, the rose, the crutch, the negligent, the chancellor, the cut bob, the long bob, the half natural, the chain-buckle, the corded buckle, the snail back, and many others.

"The Judge," says Fortescue, "while he sitteth in the King's Courts, weareth a white quoife of silke, which is the principal and chiefe insignement of habite wherewith Sergeants-at-lawe are dekked, and neither the Justice nor the Sergeant shall ever put off the quoife, no, not in the King's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse."

The coif-cap is still worn on occasions when the Judge passes sentence of death, but with the colour changed to black, the cap being worn over the wig.

Samuel Rogers in his "Table Talk" tells a good story of Lord Ellenborough's wig. On one occasion when the distinguished Judge was about to go on circuit, his Lady intimated that she would like to accompany him. He replied that he had no objection, provided she did not encumber the carriage with band-boxes, which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey, happening to stretch his legs, he struck his foot against something below the seat, and discovered that it was one of the detested band-boxes. Up went the window, and out went the band-box. The coachman stopped, and the footman, thinking that the band-box had tumbled out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was about to pick it up. "Drive on!" thundered his lordship. The band-box was accordingly left by the ditch. Upon his arrival at the court at which he was to officiate, and arraying himself for his appearance at the court-house, "Now," said he, "where's my wig?—where is my wig?" "My lord," replied the attendant, "it was thrown out of the carriage window!"

From 1770 onwards was the period of the highest blossoming of feminine head-gear. The bodies of these enormous creations were formed of tow, over which the hair was drawn in great curls, rolls, bobs, &c., with false hair added, the whole freely plastered over with powder, pomatum, &c., decorated with huge bows, ribbons, feathers, and flowers.

In the "Macaroni Dialogue"—a colloquy between Sir Harry Dimple and Lady Betty Frisky—in the Lady's Magazine, iv. 1773, which is illustrated by a picture of a lady and gentleman discussing with great animation the merits of the male and female costumes of this period, in which they are clad, the gentleman is presenting to the lady a nosegay, and she invites his interest in the excessively lofty coiffure which she is wearing.

"Permit me to present your ladyship with this boquet—it has been to Warren's, doubly perfumed and scented; so that positively, my lady, it has not the least of the vulgar odour of the flowers." "I vow, Sir Harry, you are a man of such nice sensations that you would do honour to nobility. I am surprised you have hitherto been overlooked in the creation of Lords." "To be sure, my lady, my taste has never yet been called into question. It was I who first dethroned those abominable monsters the Bucks, and established the reign of the Macaronies—who first improved upon the Poudre À la marÉchale by throwing in a dash of the violet. This hat your ladyship sees is of my own cocking—those barbarians the hatters have no more idea of 'de retrousser un chapeau' for a man of genuine taste, than they know how to wear it, and send it home with the smell of the dye, almost sufficient to make one faint. I always order my valet to give it a thorough perfume before it comes into my presence." "O! exquisite refinement—what do you think of my cap?" "Amazing, my lady, beyond description—yet, had it been but an inch higher, it would have been at the very summit of the mode—you would then have been unable to come into a room without stooping, or riding in a coach without the top being heightened." "You see, Sir Harry, I have anticipated you: that upon the table is two inches higher; I shall wear it to-morrow night at the Pantheon." "I hope I shall have the felicity of your ladyship's hand to walk a minuet. We shall have all eyes upon us, no doubt!" "I beg, Sir Harry, that your club may be increased in proportion to my head, else we shall not be fit partners." "My lady, I shall have it as large again—my toupee shall be heightened three inches." "You will then, Sir Harry, be the emperor of the Macaronies." "And you, my lady, their empress."

In a print of the period of the French lady in London, by J. H. Grimm, published by Carrington Bowles, who appears to have been somewhat of a wag amongst publishers, devoting himself to the curious and extraordinary, the lady is seen bowing as she enters the room, the head-dress reaching to the top of the ceiling. The good man of the house is so astonished and overcome that he falls to the ground, bringing the table with him. A large picture upon the wall represents the Peak of Teneriffe.

Another print, issued by the same publisher, representing the fashionable head-dresses for the year 1776, shows two ladies out walking, attended by their black servant, with head-dresses two yards high.

In the illustration given of "Ridiculous Taste, or the Lady's Absurdity," Monsieur le Friseur is mounted on a high pair of steps, and is operating upon the summit of the lady's coiffure; a gentleman is taking stock, and giving orders from below.

In the example given from "Jacquemin," the head-dress represents a ship in full sail.

In 1776 an etching appeared entitled "Bunker's Hill, or America's Head-dress." The enormous headgear of the lady represents the battle, with tents, fortifications, cannon, and battalions. From the crests of the three hills of the head-dress, which are duly fortified and defended with soldiery and cannon, three banners are flying, on which are figured, respectively, a goose, a monkey, and two ladies holding arrows. The lower portion of the head-dress represents a sea fight.

In the same year appeared "The New Fashioned Phaeton," a mezzotint representing a conveyance provided with springs, which lifts the lady and her headgear up to the first-floor window, and does away with the need for walking up and down stairs.

Another print issued by the same publisher is a "hint to the ladies to take care of their heads." The ladies' head-dress having caught alight from a chandelier hanging from the ceiling of a high room, and people are putting out the fire by means of large squirts.

A charming design for a fancy head-dress is entitled "Betty the Cook maids Head drest." It is in the form of a heart, the centre of which is occupied by a Cheshire cheese with mice, surrounded with a border of greengrocery, &c. On the summit is a stove, with fire alight and meat cooking. A monkey sits upon the stove, wearing a fool's cap and bells, and admiring himself in a mirror. On either side of the head-dress are two trophies composed respectively of a mop and fire-irons and a besom and cooking utensils.

The legend runs—

High plumes of feathers re-appeared in 1796. Gillray produced a caricature of a fashionable belle journeying to the Assembly Rooms at Bath in a sedan chair. The top of the conveyance is opened to accommodate the lady's head-dress, a monstrous feather projecting yards above the sedan—a parasol is fastened to a long pole strapped on the back of the hindermost portion and protecting the top.

During the feather period, a favourite idea was to represent attacks by ostriches, peacocks, and other interested birds. This occurs in a number of prints of the period. The print by John Collet, 1779, of "The Feathered Fair is a Fright; or, Restore the Borrowed Plumes," represents two girls attacked by ostriches:—

If the reader be curious in regard to the modus operandi of these astonishing creations, he (or more probably it will be she) is referred to "Plocacosmos; or, The Whole Art of Hairdressing," by James Stewart, 1782, wherein the mysteries of the art are set forth with great minuteness and elaboration, far too long to be explained here. The directions for the lady's "nightcap" may, however, be given:—

"All that is required at night is to take the cap or toke off, as any other ornament, and as you put them on, you can easily know how to take them off: with regard to the hair, nothing need be touched but the curls; you may take the pins out of them, and, with a little soft pomatum in your hands, stroke the hairs that may have started; do them with nice long rollers, wind them up to the roots, and turn the end of each roller firmly in to keep them tight, remembering at the same time the hair should never be combed at night, having always so bad an effect as to give a violent headache next day. After the curls are rolled up, touch them with your pomatumy hands, and stroke the hair behind; after that take a very large net fillet, which must be big enough to cover the head and hair, and put it on, and drawing the strings to a proper tightness behind, till it closes all round the face and neck like a purse, bring the strings round the front and back again to the neck, where they must be tied; this, with the finest lawn handkerchief, is night covering sufficient for the head."

"Heads" usually lasted a matter of three weeks, when—'twould be dangerous, madam, to delay longer the opening of your head. We get a glimpse of the possible state of a lady's head at the expiration of that time from the many recipes and advertisements for the destruction of insects in the magazines of the period, which reminds us of Julian, who likened his beard to a "forest grown populous with troublesome little animals."

Ben Jonson, The Silent Woman.

The apeing by the tradespeople of the manners of the great is amusingly told in the Lady's Magazine for August, 1782, in the form of a letter to the editor, purporting to be from a respectable greengrocer, who signs himself "Artichoke Pulse." He says: "I wish to God you would write something smart against fashion. My family is almost ruined by the article of dress." It appeared that his son Tom had worked himself into a gentleman's family as footman, and from this circumstance his troubles began. "You can scarcely conceive, my dear Sir, what an alteration this acquaintance with the great family has made. Sally, my eldest daughter, talks of taste and the mode, aye faith, and the dresses too. I will give you a description of her going to see the new comedy of the 'East Indian' the other night, in company with her brothers and sisters, and a lord's footman, who presented them with orders for the two-shilling gallery.

"Dick Dusty, the hairdresser's apprentice, who lives in a court near us, was sent for at two o'clock, and two pound of Sangwine's eightpenny-halfpenny powder being procured, with a proper quantity of grease, the operation of the head was begun among the cabbages, lettuces, turnips, carrots, peas, and beans that surrounded us. Dick, who was but a novice at his business, cut and slashed away until he had left just as much hair as he could conveniently dress, and then, having worked the grease and the flour into a kind of paste, he plaistered over the head, using his hand as a trowel, until it was fairly encrusted so as to hide the colour of the hair, or to deceive the eye into a belief that the head was a pudding bag turned inside out!

"As it was summer, my daughters chose to go without caps, and an artificial bouquet was stuck in the front of those puddings. The gowns were silk; but being purchased at a pawnbroker's they were not properly cut for the fashionable hoop. Hoops, however, were to be wore, and even my wife resolved for once, to figure away in one of those oval pieces of nonsense."

"Perhaps in nature, there was never such a figure! Only fashion to yourself a greengrocer's wife issuing from her cellar in Drury Lane, with a monstrous hoop, exposing a pair of legs, the ankles as thick as the calf, and the calf as thick as the modern waist; her hair bepuddened, her cheeks bedaubed with red, her neck of a crimson hue, her arms bursting through a pair of white gloves, the contrast between the two skins being almost the very opposite to each other; a thick-flowered silk exposing the whole front of a quilted petticoat that once was white, and then you have the appearance of my wife! Her daughters made as ridiculous a figure, and Will, I do assure you, was not the least remarkable in the group."

This sally, recounting the woes of the hapless "Artichoke," provoked an indignant reply from a champion of the women, which duly appeared in the next number:—

"I think it high time, then, for every female to exert the little knowledge she may be possessed of in the scribbling line, when the wits, under the characters of Green Grocers, dare to insult us, and speak of our hoops, and other parts of our dress, as freely as they exercise their authority over the ostlers at a country inn.

"The favour, dear Madam, we wish of you, is to remonstrate with these smart gentlemen, and, with us, tell them they are incapable of correcting the foibles in the ladies' dresses, till they have established a criterion for their own. Did they adopt no other fashions than useful and becoming ones, they might have some solid reasons for reprehending us; but how is this to be done? Can they point out of what use are the high-crowned hats, their shoes tied with strings, the number of buttons lately added to their coats: of what real service that ponderosity of their watches and canes? We will even attend to the Green Grocer, if he can defend them, and no longer despise the opinions of those scrutators of our dress; but till then we must insist that the hoop (the battery at which most of their present artillery is played off against), when of a moderate size, is an addition to the appearance of a fine woman; it is a finishing grace to their persons, and gives them that dignity of appearance that every woman in a genteel line of life has a right to assume."

Although Kings have often vainly endeavoured to impose their will upon the people in the matter of apparel it has often happened that monarchs have set the prevailing fashion of the period. This is especially noticeable in the Cavaliers of Charles I., numbers of whom adopted the short, pointed beard and moustachios and long hair of their master, in striking contrast to the close cropped and shaven round heads of the Cromwellians. It was so with the Bonapartists of the Third Empire, when the "imperial" became the vogue.

At a still more recent period, the illustrious personage who is figured here, and who, be it known, appears here strictly incognito (we would fain escape the dire consequences of lÈse-majestÉ), has imposed his imperious will, not only upon his own countrymen, but upon the world at large, in the matter of the turned up moustachio.

"When you come to be trimed, they will aske you whether you will be cut to looke terrible to your enimie, or amiable to your freend, grime and sterne in countenance, or pleasant and demure,—how their mowchatowes must be preserved and laid out, from one cheke to another, yea, almost from one eare to another, and turned up like two hornes towards the forehead" (Stubbes, "Anatomy of Abuses," 1583).

The angle at which it is pointed provides an index as to character, and of the degree of pugnacity of the wearer. At an angle of, say, 45 degrees forward we may expect to see its owner enter a crowded omnibus with the point of his umbrella held at the same angle, or as a soldier makes ready to present arms.

In the dressing of the hair, as in costume generally, the lowest depth of the commonplace has been reached during the nineteenth century. It is, however, extremely dangerous to indulge in any kind of sweeping generalities with respect to our own epoch; we are either, from long habit and custom, prejudiced in favour of a particular rÉgime, or we are afflicted with that contempt which is born of a too great familiarity. The chignon, in its many developments, is within the memory of most of us; the odious Piccadilly fringe still endures with those persons who are either slaves to habit or who find that the curling and frizzing of the hair of the forehead destroys its capacity for growth. Dundreary and mutton-chop whiskers are even now to be found in out-of-the-way country places. Goldsmith, in one of his delightful essays, tells a story of a traveller who, on his way to Italy, found himself in a country where the inhabitants had each a large excrescence depending from the chin—a deformity which, as it was endemic and the people little used to strangers, it had been the custom, time immemorial, to look upon as the greatest beauty. Ladies grew toasts from the size of their chins, and no men were beaux whose faces were not broadest at the bottom. It was Sunday; a country church was at hand, and our traveller was willing to perform the duties of the day. Upon his first appearance at the church door the eyes of all were fixed upon the stranger; but what was their amazement when they found that he actually wanted that emblem of beauty, a pursed chin! Stifled bursts of laughter, winks, and whispers circulated from visage to visage; the prismatic figure of the stranger's face was a fund of infinite gaiety. Our traveller could no longer patiently continue an object of deformity to point at. "Good folks," said he, "I perceive that I am a very ridiculous figure here, but I assure you I am reckoned no way deformed at home."

Lord Dundreary would have been impossible in any other epoch than the Victorian, although the Dundreary whisker is but a glorified development of earlier forms—

Canterbury Tales.

Dundreary, with his striped peg-tops, his eyeglass, and his drawl, exactly fitted his environment. His whiskers represent the very antithesis of the "Piccadilly fringe," also happily gone, or relegated to the coster fraternity, together with the bell-bottomed trouser with which it is in singular affinity.

The Piccadilly fringe was persistently condemned by artists, notably Mr. G. F. Watts, who pointed out that it obscured and destroyed the beautiful way in which the hair springs from the forehead. Mr. Watts, however, was not the first to warn the ladies against the sin of cropping short and pulling out the hair of the forehead. If there should, peradventure, be any fair readers who are enamoured of the beauties of either the Piccadilly or other fringe, or who should be smitten with the insane desire to pop, paint, or powder the face, let them listen to the sound advice and good counsel which the Knight of La Tour Landry gave to his daughters, and to the terrible "ensaumples" which he held up to them for their consideration and avoidance:

"Alas!" he exclaims, "whi take women non hede of the gret love that God hathe yeve hem to make hem after hys figure? and whi popithe they, and paintithe, and pluckithe her visage otherwise than God hath ordeined hem?" Why indeed! There was once a lady who died and suffered great tortures in hell, the devil holding her "bi the tresses of the here of her hede, like as a lyon holdithe his praie...." and the same "develle putte and thruste in her browes, temples, and forehede hote brenninge alles and nedeles"; and why was she subjected to all this torment? Because she had "plucked her browes, front and forehed, to have awey the here, to make her selff the fayrer to the plesinge of the worlde."

It is a very far cry from the good Knight of La Tour Landry to the wicked Mr. Punch of Fleet Street, who satirises the variations in the form of the short side whisker still beloved of butlers and ostlers, and which, in the early days of the Volunteer movement of the beginning of the sixties, became identified with particular regiments or companies:—

"Hairdresser: South Middlesex or Keveens, sir? (Customer looks bewildered.) Why, sir, many corpses, sir, 'as a rekignised style of 'air, sir, accordin' to the Reg—— (Customer storms.) Not a wolunteer, sir?—Jus' so, sir. Thought not, sir; leastways I was a-wonderin' to myself d'rectly I see you, what corpse you could a belonged to, sir."