English Costume Part 36

The running footman knocks on a certain door, and delivers to the pretty maid a note for her ladys.h.i.+p from a handsome, well-shaped youth who frequents the coffee-houses about Charing Cross. There is no answer to the note: her ladys.h.i.+p is too disturbed with household affairs. Her Welsh maid has left her under suspicious circ.u.mstances, and has carried off some articles. The lady is even now writing to Mr. Bickerstaff of the _Tatler_ to implore his aid.

This is the list of the things she has missed--at least, as much of the list as my mind remembers as it travels back over the years:

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Anne}]

A thick wadded Calico Wrapper.

A Musk-coloured Velvet Mantle lined with Squirrels'

Skins.

Eight night s.h.i.+fts, four pairs of stockings curiously darned.

Six pairs of laced Shoes, new and old, with the heels of half 2 inches higher than their fellows.

A quilted Petticoat of the largest size, and one of Canvas, with whalebone hoops.

Three pairs of Stays boulstered below the left shoulder.

Two pairs of Hips of the newest fas.h.i.+on.

Six Roundabout Ap.r.o.ns, with Pockets, and four strip'd Muslin night rails very little frayed.

A silver Cheese toaster with three tongues.

A silver Posnet to b.u.t.ter eggs.

A Bible bound in s.h.a.green, with guilt Leaves and Clasps, never opened but once.

Two Leather Forehead Cloathes, three pair of oiled Dogskin Gloves.

Two brand new Plumpers, three pair of fas.h.i.+onable Eyebrows.

Adam and Eve in Bugle work, without Fig-leaves, upon Canvas, curiously wrought with her Ladys.h.i.+p's own hand.

Bracelets of braided Hair, Pomander, and Seed Pearl.

A large old Purple Velvet Purse, embroidered, and shutting with a spring, containing two Pictures in Miniature, the Features visible.

A Silver gilt box for Cashu and Carraway Comfits to be taken at long sermons.

A new Gold Repeating Watch made by a Frenchman.

Together with a Collection of Receipts to make Pastes for the Hands, Pomatums, Lip Salves, White Pots, and Water of Talk.

Of these things one strikes the eye most curiously--the canvas petticoat with whalebone hoops. It dates the last, making me know that the good woman lost her things in or about the year 1710. We are just at the beginning of the era of the tremendous hoop skirt.

This gentleman from the country will tell me all about it. I stop him and remark his clothes; by them I guess he has ridden from the country. He is wearing a wide-skirted coat of red with deep flap pockets; his coat has b.u.t.tons from neck to hem, but only two or three--at the waist--are b.u.t.toned. One hand, with the deep cuff pushed back from the wrist to show his neat frilled s.h.i.+rt, is thrust into his unb.u.t.toned breeches pocket, the two pockets being across the top of his breeches. Round his neck is a black Steenkirk cravat (a black silk tie knotted and twisted or allowed to hang over loose). His hat is of black, and the wide brim is turned back from his forehead. His wig is a short black periwig in bobs--that is, it is gathered into bunches just on the shoulders, and is twisted in a little bob at the back of the neck. I have forgotten whether he wore red or blue stockings rolled above the knee, but either is likely. His shoes are strong, high-heeled, and have a big tongue showing above the buckle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Anne}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF QUEEN ANNE (1702-1714)

Notice that the fontage has become much lower, and the hoop of the skirt has become enormous. The hair is more naturally dressed.]

He tells me that in Norfolk, where he has come from, the hoop has not come into fas.h.i.+on; that ladies there dress much as they did before Queen Anne came to the throne. The fontage is lower, perhaps, the waist may be longer, but skirts are full and have long trains, and are gathered in loops to show the petticoat of silk with its deep double row of flounces. Ap.r.o.ns are worn long, and have good pockets.

Cuffs are deep, but are lowered to below the elbow. The bodice of the gown is cut high in the back and low in front, and is decked with a deep frill of lace or linen, which allows less bare neck to show than formerly. A very observant gentleman! 'But you have seen the new hoop?' I ask him. Yes, he has seen it. As he rode into town he noticed that the old fas.h.i.+ons gave way to new, that every mile brought the fontage lower and the hair more hidden, until short curls and a little cap of linen or lace entirely replaced the old high head-dress and the profusion of curls on the shoulders. The hoop, he noticed, became larger and larger as he neared the town, and the train grew shorter, and the patterns on the under-skirt grew larger with the hoop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Anne}]

I leave my gentleman from the country and I stroll about the streets to regard the fas.h.i.+ons. Here, I see, is a gentleman in one of the new Ramillies wigs--a wig of white hair drawn back from the forehead and puffed out full over the ears. At the back the wig is gathered into a long queue, the plaited or twisted tail of a wig, and is ornamented at the top and bottom of the queue with a black bow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Ramillies wig; Black Steenkirk; a hat for men}]

I notice that this gentleman is dressed in more easy fas.h.i.+on than some. His coat is not b.u.t.toned, the flaps of his waistcoat are not over big, his breeches are easy, his tie is loose. I know where this gentleman has stepped from; he has come straight out of a sampler of mine, by means of which piece of needlework I can get his story without book. I know that he has a tremendous periwig at home covered with scented powder; I know that he has an elegant suit with fullness of the skirts, at his sides gathered up to a b.u.t.ton of silver gilt; there is plenty of lace on this coat, and deep bands of it on the cuffs. He has also, I am certain, a cane with an amber head very curiously clouded, and this cane he hangs on to his fifth b.u.t.ton by a blue silk ribbon. This cane is never used except to lift it up at a coachman, hold it over the head of a drawer, or point out the circ.u.mstances of a story. Also, he has a single eyegla.s.s, or perspective, which he will advance to his eye to gaze at a toast or an orange wench.

There is another figure on the sampler--a lady in one of those wide hoops; she has a fan in her hand. I know her as well as the gentleman, and know that she can use her fan as becomes a prude or a coquette. I know she takes her chocolate in bed at nine in the morning, at eleven she drinks a dish of bohea, tries a new head at her twelve o'clock toilette, and at two cheapens fans at the Change.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Anne}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Anne}]

I have seen her at her mantua-makers; I have watched her embroider a corner of her flower handkerchief, and give it up to sit before her gla.s.s to determine a patch. She is a good coachwoman, and puts her dainty laced shoe against the opposite seat to balance herself against the many jolts; meanwhile she takes her mask off for a look at the pa.s.sing world. If only I could ride in the coach with her! If only I could I should see the fruit wenches in sprigged petticoats and flat, broad-brimmed hats; the ballad-sellers in tattered long-skirted coats; the country women in black hoods and cloaks, and the men in frieze coats. The ladies would pa.s.s by in pearl necklaces, flowered stomachers, artificial nosegays, and shaded furbelows: one is noted by her m.u.f.f, one by her tippet, one by her fan. Here a gentleman bows to our coach, and my lady's heart beats to see his open waistcoat, his red heels, his suit of flowered satin. I should not fail to notice the monstrous petticoats worn by ladies in chairs or in coaches, these hoops stuffed out with cordage and stiffened with whalebone, and, according to Mr. Bickerstaff, making the women look like extinguishers--'with a little k.n.o.b at the upper end, and widening downward till it ends in a basis of a most enormous circ.u.mference.'

To finish. I quite agree with Mr. Bickerstaff, when he mentions the great shoe-shop at the St. James's end of Pall Mall, that the shoes there displayed, notably the slippers with green lace and blue heels, do create irregular thoughts in the youth of this nation.

GEORGE THE FIRST

Reigned thirteen years: 1714-1727.

Born 1660. Married, 1682, Sophia of Brunswick.

THE MEN AND WOMEN

[Ill.u.s.tration: {1720: A woman of the time of George I.; a shoe}]

We cannot do better than open Thackeray, and put a finger on this pa.s.sage:

'There is the Lion's Head, down whose jaws the Spectator's own letters were pa.s.sed; and over a great banker's in Fleet Street the effigy of the wallet, which the founder of the firm bore when he came into London a country boy. People this street, so ornamented with crowds of swinging chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, with Mr. Dean in his ca.s.sock, his lacquey marching before him; or Mrs. Dinah in her sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladys.h.i.+p's great prayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (I remember forty years ago, as a boy in London city, a score of cheery, familiar cries that are silent now).

'Fancy the beaux thronging to the chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their periwig appearing over the red curtains. Fancy Saccharissa beckoning and smiling from the upper windows, and a crowd of soldiers bawling and bustling at the door--gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet with blue facings, and laced with gold at the seams; gentlemen of the Horse Grenadiers, in their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroidered on the front in gold and silver; men of the Halberdiers, in their long red coats, as bluff Harry left them, with their ruffs and velvet flat-caps. Perhaps the King's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pa.s.s.'

_The Four Georges._

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of George I.}]