to the required shade when Nature had been
perverse, and given them chesnut for gold. They
oscillated between flowing curls, or smoother
tresses hidden carefully away under golden cauls
and hoods with long liripipes like monkeys'
tails, until Elizabeth's time, when, with one
accord, they concealed their locks beneath nets
and caps, save on their wedding-day, when the
tresses flowed free and wide, unconfined by coif
or caul. Elizabeth powdered her hair with gold-
dust, and rolled it over cushions, and heaped up
her head with jewels and finery, till she made
herself what women call a fright; but Marie
Stuart knew the alphabet of beauty too well
for that, and fashioned one of the prettiest
head-dresses ever worn. The ladies of James
the First's time, wore curls in inverted pyramids,
descending in huge waves of hairy increase down
to the falling band or collar; and the ladies of
Charles the Second's time took a simpler turn
and revelled in crève-cœurs, and favourites,
lovelocks, confidents, and ringlets, as we all know
by heart and Sir Peter Lely. Some dressed
their heads taure fashion: that is, bushed out at
the brow, like a bull's head; and some had wire
frames over which they rolled their hair, till
they made huge fat puddings at each side of the
face, then they put high plaited lace turrets on
their heads, towering in three stages; and then
came the monstrous ugliness of the eighteenth
century. Stiff with pomatum and powder,
strained and pinned and puffed out in all directions,
hung about with huge glass beads, and
ropes and coils of golden cord, and piled up
with ribbons and flowers and feathers, the women
framed their heads into objects of utter ugliness,
unlike anything in heaven or earth. A lady's
head at that time took many hours to dress, and
lasted from three to nine weeks unopened. It
is scarcely necessary to say in what state it was
usually found when that period of investigation
arrived. All sorts of strange things were worn then
as ornaments. A sow and litter of pigs in blown
glass, a coach, a chair and chairmen, a waggon,
two or three dishes of fruit—nothing was too
preposterous for a lady to wear lost behind the
curls, and in among the powder and pomatum
of her head; while a huge hat, top-heavy with
feathers and gauze, was stuck on all this
ugliness—the gauze lappets sometimes worked with
the aces of spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds,
which then gave the name of "quadrille heads"
to these conglomerations. The more fashionable
of both sexes used coloured hair powder;
and Charles James Fox went back to the time
of the Picts and Danes when he flourished
about town with his red-heeled shoes, chapeau
bras, and blue hair powder.

Many have been the head-dresses used for
covering these wonderful arrangements of hair,
some as wonderful as the hairdressing itself.
Square-cut hoods and diamond-shaped hoods,
like the lozenge windows of a church, immense
horns, with long hanging veils, now single, like
a unicorn, now double and cow-like;
horseshoes made of velvet and cloth of gold,
extinguishers, and turbans and hoods with
liripipes trailing to the feet, and hoods with no
liripipes at all, coifs sitting close to the face,
and small Marie Stuart hats, surely the
prettiest things to be had, flat straw hats spreading
wide, or tied under the chin à la Pamela and
virtue generally, monstrous baskets and
caleches to wear over the monstrous towers of
powder and pomatum just spoken of, feathered
hats and hats like smart chimney-pots, and coal-
scuttles, and helmets, pokes, fan-shaped hats,
rational and jaunty hats, as of late, and
irrational bonnets, as of late, meaning no bonnets
at all, with such a world of turbans, caps, and
toques as would take a moderate-sized encyclopædia
to describe. The horns were the most
extraordinary of all this assemblage, and
excited, perhaps, the most wrath. A certain
bishop encouraged the rabble to annoy every
woman met in the streets wearing this obnoxious
head-gear; and it was fine fun to the little
vulgar boys of the period to follow the long-
robed ladies, crying, "Hurte Belin," and
"Beware of the ram!" with the prospect of a ten
days' pardon into the bargain. Women were
always fair game to the satirists and moralists
of every age; and among the very earliest
records are to be found fierce onslaughts against
them, and graphic descriptions of what the
devils did with them when they died, as a
punishment for their paint and finery. One lady
took a little devil to church with her sitting on
her train, his especial place; because the long
train was then a new fashion, and the clergy did
not like it.

Among the more curious arts of adornment
was the custom of patches. Sun, moon, and
stars, and a coach and six horses, crosses,
circles, and cabalistic signs, artistically
composed, made a very pretty face picture; patches
on the one side signified Whig, on the other
side, Tory; and a stanch lady Tory made once a
sad mistake when, in her hurry, she patched the
Whig side of her face and went to a grand rout,
seeming to all the world the supporter of her
enemies. The fashion came in during the reign
of the first Charles, and was finely satirised. So
were the large ruffs, stiffened with that "devil's
liquor starche," rendered more abominable still
by being coloured blue or yellow. This fashion went
out early—after Mrs. Turner was hung at Tyburn
for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; she
went to the gallows in a lawn ruff dyed yellow.
Having been the inventor of yellow starch,
yellow starch did not survive her. Hoops
outlived the ridicule lavished upon them.
Pyramidal, bell-shaped, cylindrical, they neither
lessened nor collapsed, but held their own in all
strut and state, even to the confusion of the
well-disposed of our own times. But our ladies'
hoops are mere toys compared to the enormous
machines popular in the days of sacques, red
heels, and mighty heads; scarcely to be remembered
as of the same race, pigmies in the land
of deceased giants. Nothing, indeed, is so
outrageous as it was. Our most extravagant court
dresses are not equal to the rich bandekyns, the
cointoise mantles twelve yards round, with