Two women of the time of George II.
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five saw theone-horse chairs introduced from France, called cabriolets, the first of our own extraordinary wild-looking conveyances contrived for the minimum of comfort and the maximum of danger. This invention captivated the hearts of both men and women. The men painted cabriolets on their waistcoats, they embroidered them on their stockings, they cut them out in black silk and patched their cheeks with them, horse and all; the women began to take up, a little later, the cabriolet caps with round sides like linen wheels, and later still, at the very end of the reign, there began a craze for such head-dresses—post-chaises, chairs and chairmen, even waggons, and this craze grew and grew, and hair grew—in wigs—to meet the cry for hair and straw men-of-war, for loads of hay, for birds of paradise, for goodness knows what forms of utter absurdity, all of which I put down to the introduction of the cab.
I think that I can best describe the lady of this day as a swollen, skirted figure with a pinched waist, little head of hair, or tiny cap, developing into a loose sacque-backed figure still whaleboned out, with hair puffed at the sides and powdered, getting ready to develop again into a queer figureunder a tower of hair, but that waits for the next reign.
One cannot do better than go to Hogarth’s prints and pictures—wonderful records of this time—one picture especially, ‘Taste in High Life,’ being a fine record of the clothes of 1742; here you will see the panier and the sacque, the monstrous muff, the huge hoop, the long-tailed wig, the black boy and the monkey. In the ‘Noon’ of the ‘Four Parts of the Day’ there are clothes again satirized.
A woman of the time of George II.; a shawl
I am trusting that the drawings will supply what my words have failed to picture, and I again—for the twenty-first time—repeat that, given the cut and the idea of the time, the student has always to realize that there can be no hard-and-fast rule about the fashions; with the shape he can take liberties up to the points shown, with colour he can do anything—patterns of the materials are obtainable, and Hogarth will give anything required in detail.
Reigned sixty years: 1760-1820.
Born 1738. Married, 1761, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Throughout this long reign the changes of costume are so frequent, so varied, and so jumbled together, that any precise account of them would be impossible. I have endeavoured to give a leading example of most kind of styles in the budget of drawings which goes with this chapter.
Details concerning this reign are so numerous: Fashion books, fashion articles in theLondon Magazine, theSt. James’s Chronicle, works innumerable on hair-dressing, tailors’ patterns—these are easily within the reach of those who hunt the second-hand shops, or are within reasonable distance of a library.
A MAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)
The full-skirted coat, though still worn, has given way, in general, to the tail-coat. The waistcoat is much shorter. Black silk knee-breeches and stockings are very general.
Following my drawings, you will see in thefirst the ordinary wig, skirted coat, knee-breeches, chapeau-bras, cravat or waistcoat, of the man about town. I do not mean of the exquisite about town, but, if you will take it kindly, just such clothes as you or I might have worn.
Eleven types of head-dress for women; three types of shoe
In the second drawing we see a fashionable man, who might have strutted past the first fellow in the Park. His hair is dressed in a twisted roll; he wears a tight-brimmed little hat, a frogged coat, a fringed waistcoat, striped breeches, and buckled shoes.
In the third we see the dress of a Macaroni. On his absurd wig he wears a little Nevernoise hat; his cravat is tied in a bow; his breeches are loose, and beribboned at the knee. Many of these Macaronis wore coloured strings at the knee of their breeches, but the fashion died away when Jack Rann, ‘Sixteen String Jack,’ as he was called after this fashion, had been hung in this make of breeches.
In number four we see the development of the tail-coat and the high-buttoned waistcoat. The tail-coat is, of course, son to the frock-coat, the skirts of which, being inconvenient for riding, had first been buttoned back and then cut back to give more play.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)
In the earlier half of the reign. Notice her sack dress over a satin dress, and the white, elaborately made skirt. Also the big cap and the curls of white wig.
In the fifth drawing we see the double-breasted cut-away coat.
Number six is but a further tail-coat design.
Number seven shows how different were the styles at one time. Indeed, except for the Macaroni and other extreme fashions, the entire budget of men as shown might have formed a crowd in the Park on one day about twenty years before the end of the reign. There would not be much powdered hair after 1795, but a few examples would remain.
A distinct change is shown in the eighth drawing of the long-tailed, full coat, the broad hat, the hair powdered, but not tied.
Number nine is another example of the same style.
The tenth drawing shows the kind of hat we associate with Napoleon, and, in fact, very Napoleonic garments.
In eleven we have a distinct change in the appearance of English dress. The gentleman is a Zebra, and is so-called from his striped clothes. He is, of course, in the extreme of fashion, which did not last for long; but it shows a tendency towards later Georgian appearance—the top-hat,the shorter hair, the larger neckcloth, the pantaloons—forerunners of Brummell’s invention—the open sleeve.
Fourteen styles of hair and hats for men
A MAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)
The cuffs have gone, and now the sleeve is left unbuttoned at the wrist. The coat is long and full-skirted, but not stiffened. The cravat is loosely tied, and the frilled ends stick out. These frills were, in the end, made on the shirt, and were called chitterlings.
Number twelve shows us an ordinary gentleman in a coat and waistcoat, with square flaps, called dog’s ears.
As the drawings continue you can see that the dress became more and more simple, more like modern evening dress as to the coats, more like modern stiff fashion about the neck.
The drawings of the women’s dresses should also speak for themselves. You may watch the growth of the wig and the decline of the hoop—I trust with ease. You may see those towers of hair of which there are so many stories. Those masses of meal and stuffing, powder and pomatum, the dressing of which took many hours. Those piles of decorated, perfumed, reeking mess, by which a lady could show her fancy for the navy by balancing a straw ship on her head, for sport by showing a coach, for gardening by a regular bed of flowers. Heads which were only dressed, perhaps, once in three weeks, and were then rescented because it was necessary. Monstrous germ-gatherers of horse-hair, hemp-wool, andpowder, laid on in a paste, the cleaning of which is too awful to give in full detail. ‘Three weeks,’ says my lady’s hairdresser, ‘is as long as a head can go well in the summer without being opened.’
1772: A woman of the time of George III.; two types of hat; 1775: A woman of the time of George III.; 1794: A woman of the time of George III.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III. (1760-1820)
This shows the last of the pannier dresses, which gave way in 1794 or 1795 to Empire dresses. A change came over all dress after the Revolution.
Then we go on to the absurd idea which came over womankind that it was most becoming tolook like a pouter pigeon. She took to a buffon, a gauze or fine linen kerchief, which stuck out pigeon-like in front, giving an exaggerated bosom to those who wore it. With this fashion of 1786 came the broad-brimmed hat.
Travel a little further and you have the mob cap.
All of a sudden out go hoops, full skirts, high hair, powder, buffons, broad-brimmed hats, patches, high-heeled shoes, and in come willowy figures and thin, nearly transparent dresses, turbans, low shoes, straight fringes.
I am going to give a chapter from a fashion book, to show you how impossible it is to deal with the vagaries of fashion in the next reign, and if I chose to occupy the space, I could give a similar chapter to make the confusion of this reign more confounded.
THE FIRST FORTY-EIGHT DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR, ANDTHE REMAINING TWELVE BY THE DIGHTONS,FATHER AND SON
1768: A man
1772: A man
1773: A man
1773: A man
1773: A man
1782: A man
1783: Two men
1786: A man
1787: A man
1789: A man
1791: A man
1791: A man
1793: A man
1793: A man
1793: A man
1793: A man
1795: A man
1795: A man
1797: A man and a boy
1797: A man
1803: A man
1770: A woman
1772: A woman
1775: A woman
1775: A woman
1775: A woman
1775: A woman
1776: A woman
1777: A woman
1783: A woman
1783: A woman
1783: A woman
1786: A woman
1787: A woman
1789: A woman
1793: A woman
1794: A woman
1794: A woman
1794: A woman
1794: A woman
1794: A woman
1795: A woman
1799: A woman
1800: A woman
1803: A woman
1810: A woman
1820: A woman
1830: A woman
The King.
The Navy.
The Army.
Pensioners.
The Church.
The Law.
The Stage.
The Universities.
The Country.
The Duke of Norfolk.
The City.
The Duke of Queensberry.
Reigned ten years: 1820-1830.
Born 1762. Married, 1795, Caroline of Brunswick.
Out of the many fashion books of this time I have chosen, from a little brown book in front of me, a description of the fashions for ladies during one part of 1827. It will serve to show how mere man, blundering on the many complexities of the feminine passion for dress—I was going to say clothes—may find himself left amid a froth of frills, high and dry, except for a whiff of spray, standing in his unromantic garments on the shore of the great world of gauze and gussets, while the most noodle-headed girl sails gracefully away upon the high seas to pirate some new device of the Devil or Paris.
Our wives—bless them!—occasionally treat us to a few bewildering terms, hoping by their gossamer knowledge to present to our gaze a mental pictureof a new, adorable, ardently desired—hat. Perhaps those nine proverbial tailors who go to make the one proverbial man, least of his sex, might, by a strenuous effort, confine the history of clothes during this reign into a compact literature of forty volumes. It would be indecent, as undecorous as the advertisements in ladies’ papers, to attempt to fathom the language of the man who endeavoured to read the monumental effigy to the vanity of human desire for adornment. But is it adornment?
Nowadays to be dressed well is not always the same thing as to be well dressed. Often it is far from it. The question of modern clothes is one of great perplexity. It seems that what is beauty one year may be the abomination of desolation the next, because the trick of that beauty has become common property. You puff your hair at the sides, you are in the true sanctum of the mode; you puff your hair at the sides, you are for ever utterly cast out as one having no understanding. I shall not attempt to explain it: it passes beyond the realms of explanation into the pure air of Truth. The Truth is simple. Aristocracy being no longer real, but only a cult, one is afraid of one’s servants.Your servant puffs her hair at the sides, and, hang it! she becomes exactly like an aristocrat. Our servant having dropped herg’sfor many years as well as herh’s, it behoved us to pronounce ourg’sand ourh’s. Our servants having learned our English, it became necessary for us to drop ourg’s; we seem at present unwilling in the matter of theh, but that will come.
To cut the cackle and come to the clothes-horse, let me say that the bunglement of clothes which passes all comprehension in King George IV.’s reign is best explained by my cuttings from the book of one who apparently knew. Let the older writer have his, or her, fling in his, or her, words.
‘CUROSY REMARKS ON THE LAST NEW FASHIONS.‘The City of London is now, indeed, most splendid in its buildings and extent; London is carried into the country; but never was it more deserted.‘A very, very few years ago, and during the summer, the dresses of the wives and daughters of our opulent tradesmen would furnish subjects for the investigators of fashion.‘Now, if those who chance to remain in London take a day’s excursion of about eight or ten miles distance from the Metropolis, they hear the innkeepers deprecating the steamboats, by which they declare they are almost ruined: on Sundays, which would sometimes bring them the clear profits of ten or twenty pounds, they now scarce produce ten shillings.‘No; those of the middle class belonging toCockney Islandmust leave town, though the days are short, and even getting cold and comfortless; the steamboats carrying them off by shoals to Margate and its vicinity.‘The pursuit after elegant and superior modes of dress must carry us farther; it is now from the rural retirement of the country seats belonging to the noble and wealthy that we must collect them.‘Young ladies wear their hair well arranged, but not quite with the simplicity that prevailed last month; during the warmth of the summer months, the braids across the forehead were certainly the best; but now, when neither in fear of heat or damp, the curls again appear in numerous clusters round the face; and some young ladies, who seem to place their chief pride in a fine head of hair, have such a multitude of small ringlets that give to what is a natural charm all thepoodle-likeappearance of a wig.‘The bows of hair are elevated on the summit of the head, and confined by a comb of tortoise-shell.‘Caps of the cornette kind are much in fashion, made of blond, and ornamented with flowers, or puffs of coloured gauze; most of the cornettes are small, and tie under the chin, with a bow on one side, of white satin ribbon; those which have ribbons or gauze lappets floating loose have them much shorter than formerly.‘A few dress hats have been seen at dinner-parties and musical amateur meetings in the country, of transparent white crape, ornamented with a small elegant bouquet of marabones.‘When these dress hats are of coloured crape, they are generally ornamented with flowers of the same tint as the hat, in preference to feathers.‘Printed muslins and chintzes are still very much worn in the morning walks, with handsome sashes, having three ends depending down each side, not much beyond the hips. With one of these dresses we saw a young lady wear a rich black satin pelerine, handsomely trimmed with a very beautiful black blond; it had a very neat effect, as the dress was light.‘White muslin dresses, though they are always worn partially in the country till the winter actually commences, are now seldom seen except on the young: the embroidery on these dresses is exquisite.Dresses of Indian red, either in taffety or chintz, have already made their appearance, and are expected to be much in favour the ensuing winter; the chintzes have much black in their patterns; but this light material will, in course, be soon laid aside for silks, and these, like the taffeties which have partially appeared, will no doubt be plain: with these dresses was worn a Canezon spencer, with long sleeves of white muslin, trimmed with narrow lace.‘Gros de Naples dresses are very general, especially for receiving dinner-parties, and for friendly evening society.‘At private dances, the only kind of ball that has at present taken place, are worn dresses of the white-figured gauze over white satin or gros de Naples; at the theatricals sometimes performed by noble amateurs, the younger part of the audience, who do not take a part, are generally attired in very clear muslin, over white satin, with drapery scarves of lace, barêge, or thick embroidered tulle.‘Cachemire shawls, with a white ground, and a pattern of coloured flowers or green foliage, are now much worn in outdoor costumes, especially for the morning walk; the mornings being rather chilly, these warm envelopes are almost indispensable. We are sorry, however, to find our modernbelles so tardy in adopting those coverings, which ought now to succeed to the light appendages of summer costume.‘The muslin Canezon spencer, the silk fichu, and even the lighter barêge, are frequently the sole additions to a high dress, or even to one but partially so.‘We have lately seen finished to the order of a lady of rank in the county of Suffolk, a very beautiful pelisse of jonquil-coloured gros de Naples. It fastens close down from the throat to the feet, in front, with large covered buttons; at a suitable distance on each side of this fastening are three bias folds, rather narrow, brought close together under the belt, and enlarging as they descend to the border of the skirt. A large pelerine cape is made to take on and off; and the bust from the back of each shoulder is ornamented with the same bias folds, forming a stomacher in front of the waist. The sleeves,à la Marie, are puckered a few inches above the wrist, and confined by three straps; each with a large button. Though long ends are very much in favour with silk pelerines, yet there are quite as many that are quite round; such was the black satin pelerine we cited above.‘Coloured bonnets are now all the rage; we are happy to say that some, though all too large, are in the charming cottage style, and are modestly tiedunder the chin. Some bonnets are so excessively large that they are obliged to be placed quite at the back of the head; and as their extensive brims will not support a veil, when they are ornamented with a broad blond, the edge of that just falls over the hair, but does not even conceal the eyes. Leghorn hats are very general; their trimmings consist chiefly of ribbons, though some ladies add a few branches of green foliage between the bows or puffs: these are chiefly of the fern; a great improvement to these green branches is the having a few wild roses intermingled.‘The most admired colours are lavender, Esterhazy, olive-green, lilac, marshmallow blossom, and Indian red.‘At rural fêtes, the ornaments of the hats generally consist of flowers; these hats are backward in the Arcadian fashion, and discover a wreath of small flowers on the hair,ex bandeau. In Paris the most admired colours are ethereal-blue, Hortensia, cameleopard-yellow, pink, grass-green, jonquil, and Parma-violet.’—September 1, 1827.
‘CUROSY REMARKS ON THE LAST NEW FASHIONS.
‘The City of London is now, indeed, most splendid in its buildings and extent; London is carried into the country; but never was it more deserted.
‘A very, very few years ago, and during the summer, the dresses of the wives and daughters of our opulent tradesmen would furnish subjects for the investigators of fashion.
‘Now, if those who chance to remain in London take a day’s excursion of about eight or ten miles distance from the Metropolis, they hear the innkeepers deprecating the steamboats, by which they declare they are almost ruined: on Sundays, which would sometimes bring them the clear profits of ten or twenty pounds, they now scarce produce ten shillings.
‘No; those of the middle class belonging toCockney Islandmust leave town, though the days are short, and even getting cold and comfortless; the steamboats carrying them off by shoals to Margate and its vicinity.
‘The pursuit after elegant and superior modes of dress must carry us farther; it is now from the rural retirement of the country seats belonging to the noble and wealthy that we must collect them.
‘Young ladies wear their hair well arranged, but not quite with the simplicity that prevailed last month; during the warmth of the summer months, the braids across the forehead were certainly the best; but now, when neither in fear of heat or damp, the curls again appear in numerous clusters round the face; and some young ladies, who seem to place their chief pride in a fine head of hair, have such a multitude of small ringlets that give to what is a natural charm all thepoodle-likeappearance of a wig.
‘The bows of hair are elevated on the summit of the head, and confined by a comb of tortoise-shell.
‘Caps of the cornette kind are much in fashion, made of blond, and ornamented with flowers, or puffs of coloured gauze; most of the cornettes are small, and tie under the chin, with a bow on one side, of white satin ribbon; those which have ribbons or gauze lappets floating loose have them much shorter than formerly.
‘A few dress hats have been seen at dinner-parties and musical amateur meetings in the country, of transparent white crape, ornamented with a small elegant bouquet of marabones.
‘When these dress hats are of coloured crape, they are generally ornamented with flowers of the same tint as the hat, in preference to feathers.
‘Printed muslins and chintzes are still very much worn in the morning walks, with handsome sashes, having three ends depending down each side, not much beyond the hips. With one of these dresses we saw a young lady wear a rich black satin pelerine, handsomely trimmed with a very beautiful black blond; it had a very neat effect, as the dress was light.
‘White muslin dresses, though they are always worn partially in the country till the winter actually commences, are now seldom seen except on the young: the embroidery on these dresses is exquisite.Dresses of Indian red, either in taffety or chintz, have already made their appearance, and are expected to be much in favour the ensuing winter; the chintzes have much black in their patterns; but this light material will, in course, be soon laid aside for silks, and these, like the taffeties which have partially appeared, will no doubt be plain: with these dresses was worn a Canezon spencer, with long sleeves of white muslin, trimmed with narrow lace.
‘Gros de Naples dresses are very general, especially for receiving dinner-parties, and for friendly evening society.
‘At private dances, the only kind of ball that has at present taken place, are worn dresses of the white-figured gauze over white satin or gros de Naples; at the theatricals sometimes performed by noble amateurs, the younger part of the audience, who do not take a part, are generally attired in very clear muslin, over white satin, with drapery scarves of lace, barêge, or thick embroidered tulle.
‘Cachemire shawls, with a white ground, and a pattern of coloured flowers or green foliage, are now much worn in outdoor costumes, especially for the morning walk; the mornings being rather chilly, these warm envelopes are almost indispensable. We are sorry, however, to find our modernbelles so tardy in adopting those coverings, which ought now to succeed to the light appendages of summer costume.
‘The muslin Canezon spencer, the silk fichu, and even the lighter barêge, are frequently the sole additions to a high dress, or even to one but partially so.
‘We have lately seen finished to the order of a lady of rank in the county of Suffolk, a very beautiful pelisse of jonquil-coloured gros de Naples. It fastens close down from the throat to the feet, in front, with large covered buttons; at a suitable distance on each side of this fastening are three bias folds, rather narrow, brought close together under the belt, and enlarging as they descend to the border of the skirt. A large pelerine cape is made to take on and off; and the bust from the back of each shoulder is ornamented with the same bias folds, forming a stomacher in front of the waist. The sleeves,à la Marie, are puckered a few inches above the wrist, and confined by three straps; each with a large button. Though long ends are very much in favour with silk pelerines, yet there are quite as many that are quite round; such was the black satin pelerine we cited above.
‘Coloured bonnets are now all the rage; we are happy to say that some, though all too large, are in the charming cottage style, and are modestly tiedunder the chin. Some bonnets are so excessively large that they are obliged to be placed quite at the back of the head; and as their extensive brims will not support a veil, when they are ornamented with a broad blond, the edge of that just falls over the hair, but does not even conceal the eyes. Leghorn hats are very general; their trimmings consist chiefly of ribbons, though some ladies add a few branches of green foliage between the bows or puffs: these are chiefly of the fern; a great improvement to these green branches is the having a few wild roses intermingled.
‘The most admired colours are lavender, Esterhazy, olive-green, lilac, marshmallow blossom, and Indian red.
‘At rural fêtes, the ornaments of the hats generally consist of flowers; these hats are backward in the Arcadian fashion, and discover a wreath of small flowers on the hair,ex bandeau. In Paris the most admired colours are ethereal-blue, Hortensia, cameleopard-yellow, pink, grass-green, jonquil, and Parma-violet.’—September 1, 1827.
Really this little fashion book is very charming: it recreates, for me, the elegant simpering ladies; it gives, in its style, just that artificial note which conjures this age of ladies with hats—‘in the charming cottage style, modestly tied under the chin.’
They had the complete art of languor, these dear creatures; they lisped Italian, and were fine needlewomen; they painted weak little landscapes: nooks or arbours found them dreaming of a Gothic revival—they were all this and more; but through this sweet envelope the delicate refined souls shone: they were true women, often great women; their loops of hair, their cameleopard pelerines, shall not rob them of immortality, cannot destroy their softening influence, which permeated even the outrageous dandyism of the men of their time and steered the three-bottle gentlemen, their husbands and our grandfathers, into a grand old age which we reverence to-day, and wonder at, seeing them as giants against our nerve-shattered, drug-taking generation.
As for the men, look at the innumerable pictures, and collect, for instance, the material for a colossal work upon the stock ties of the time, run your list of varieties into some semblance of order; commence with the varieties of macassar-brown stocks, pass on to patent leather stocks, take your man for a walk and cause him to pass a window full of Hibernian stocks, and let him discourse on the stocks worn by turf enthusiasts, and, when you are approaching the end of your twenty-third volume,give a picture of a country dinner-party, and end your work with a description of the gentlemen under the table being relieved of their stocks by the faithful family butler.
‘The affectation of a mole, to set off their beauty, such as Venus had.’
‘At the devill’s shopps you buyA dresse of powdered hayre.’
From the splendid pageant of history what figures come to you most willingly? Does a great procession go by the window of your mind? Knights bronzed by the sun of Palestine, kings in chains, emperors in blood-drenched purple, poets clothed like grocers with the souls of angels shining through their eyes, fussy Secretaries of State, informers, spies, inquisitors, Court cards come to life, harlequins, statesmen in great ruffs, wives of Bath in foot-mantles and white wimples, sulky Puritans, laughing Cavaliers, Dutchmen drinking gin and talking politics, men in wide-skirted coats and huge black periwigs—all walking, riding, being carried in coaches, in sedan-chairs, over the face ofEngland. Every step of the procession yields wonderful dreams of colour; in every group there is one who, by the personality of his clothes, can claim the name of beau.
Near the tail of the throng there is a chattering, bowing, rustling crowd, dimmed by a white mist of scented hair-powder. They are headed, I think—for one cannot see too clearly—by the cook of the Comte de Bellemare, a man by name Legros, the great hairdresser. Under his arm is a book, the title of which reads, ‘Art de la Coiffure des Dames Françaises.’ Behind him is a lady in an enormous hoop; her hair is dressedà la belle Poule; she is arguing some minute point of the disposition of patches with Monsieur Léonard, another artist in hair. ‘What will be the next wear?’ she asks. ‘A heart near the eye—l’assassine, eh? Or a star near the lips—la friponne? Must I wear agalanteon my cheek, anenjouéein my dimple, orla majestueuseon my forehead?’ Before we can hear the reply another voice is raised, a guttural German voice; it is John Schnorr, the ironmaster of Erzgebinge. ‘The feet stuck in it, I tell you,’ he says—‘actually stuck! I got from my saddle and looked at the ground. My horse had carried me on towhat proved to be a mine of wealth. Hair-powder! I sold it in Dresden, in Leipsic; and then, at Meissen, what does Böttcher do but use my hair-powder to make white porcelain!’ And so the chatter goes on. Here is Charles Fox tapping the ground with his red heels and proclaiming, in a voice thick with wine, on the merits of blue hair-powder; here is Brummell, free from hair-powder, free from the obnoxious necessity of going with his regiment to Manchester.
The dressy person and the person who is well dressed—these two showing everywhere. The one is in a screaming hue of woad, the other a quiet note of blue dye; the one in excessive velvet sleeves that he cannot manage, the other controlling a rich amplitude of material with perfect grace. Here a liripipe is extravagantly long; here a gold circlet decorates curled locks with matchless taste. Everywhere the battle between taste and gaudiness. High hennins, steeples of millinery, stick up out of the crowd; below these, the towers of powdered hair bow and sway as the fine ladies patter along. What a rustle and a bustle of silks and satins, of flowered tabbies, rich brocades, cut velvets, superfine cloths, woollens, cloth of gold!
See, there are the square-shouldered Tudors; there are the steel glints of Plantagenet armour; the Eastern-robed followers of Cœur de Lion; the swaggering beribboned Royalists; the ruffs, trunks, and doublets of Elizabethans; the snuffy, wide-skirted coats swaying about Queen Anne. There are the soft, swathed Norman ladies with bound-up chins; the tapestry figures of ladies proclaiming Agincourt; the dignified dames about Elizabeth of York; the playmates of Katherine Howard; the wheels of round farthingales and the high lace collars of King James’s Court; the beauties, bare-breasted, of Lely; the Hogarthian women in close caps. And, in front of us, two posturing figures in Dresden china colours, rouged, patched, powdered, perfumed, in hoop skirts, flirting with a fan—the lady; in gold-laced wide coat, solitaire, bagwig, ruffles, and red heels—the gentleman. ‘I protest, madam,’ he is saying, ‘but you flatter me vastly.’ ‘La, sir,’ she replies, ‘I am prodigiously truthful.’
‘And how are we to know that all this is true?’ the critics ask, guarding the interest of the public. ‘We see that your book is full of statements, and there are no, or few, authorities given for your studies. Where,’ they ask, ‘are the venerableanecdotes which are given a place in every respectable work on your subject?’
To appease the appetites which are always hungry for skeletons, I give a short list of those books which have proved most useful:
MS. Cotton, Claudius, B. iv.MS. Harl., 603. Psalter, English, eleventh century.The Bayeaux Tapestry.MS. Cotton, Tiberius, C. vi. Psalter.MS. Trin. Coll., Camb., R. 17, 1. Illustrated by Eadwine, a monk, 1130-1174.MS. Harl. Roll, Y. vi.MS. Harl., 5102.Stothard’s ‘Monumental Effigies.’MS. C. C. C., Camb., xvi.MS. Cott., Nero, D. 1.MS. Cott., Nero, C. iv. Full of drawings.MS. Roy., 14, C. vii.Lansdowne MS., British Museum.Macklin’s ‘Monumental Brasses.’Journal of the Archæological Association.MS. Roy., 2, B. vii.MS. Roy., 10, E. iv. Good marginal drawings.The Loutrell Psalter. Invaluable for costume.MS. Bodl. Misc., 264. 1338-1344. Very full of useful drawings.Dr. Furnivall’s edition of the Ellesmere MS. of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales.’Boutell’s ‘Monumental Brasses.’MS. Harl., 1819. Metrical history of the close of Richard II.’s reign. Good drawings for costume.MS. Harl., 1892.MS. Harl., 2278.Lydgate’s ‘Life of St. Edmund.’MS. Roy., 15, E. vi. Fine miniatures.The Bedford Missal, MS. Add., 18850.MS. Harl., 2982. A Book of Hours. Many good drawings.MS. Harl., 4425. The Romance of the Rose. Fine and useful drawings.MS. Lambeth, 265.MS. Roy., 19, C. viii.MS. Roy., 16, F. ii.Turberville’s ‘Book of Falconrie’ and ‘Book of Hunting.’Shaw’s ‘Dresses and Decorations.’Jusserand’s ‘English Novel’ and ‘Wayfaring Life.’ Very excellent books, full of reproductions from illuminated books, prints, and pictures.The Shepherd’s Calendar, 1579, British Museum.Harding’s ‘Historical Portraits.’Nichols’s ‘Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.’Stubbes’s ‘Anatomie of Abuses,’ 1583.Braun’s ‘Civitates orbis terrarum.’‘Vestusta Monumenta.’Hollar’s ‘Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus.’Hollar’s ‘Aula Veneris.’Pepys’s Diary.Evelyn’s Diary.Tempest’s ‘Cries of London.’ Fifty plates.Atkinson’s ‘Costumes of Great Britain.’
MS. Cotton, Claudius, B. iv.
MS. Harl., 603. Psalter, English, eleventh century.
The Bayeaux Tapestry.
MS. Cotton, Tiberius, C. vi. Psalter.
MS. Trin. Coll., Camb., R. 17, 1. Illustrated by Eadwine, a monk, 1130-1174.
MS. Harl. Roll, Y. vi.
MS. Harl., 5102.
Stothard’s ‘Monumental Effigies.’
MS. C. C. C., Camb., xvi.
MS. Cott., Nero, D. 1.
MS. Cott., Nero, C. iv. Full of drawings.
MS. Roy., 14, C. vii.
Lansdowne MS., British Museum.
Macklin’s ‘Monumental Brasses.’
Journal of the Archæological Association.
MS. Roy., 2, B. vii.
MS. Roy., 10, E. iv. Good marginal drawings.
The Loutrell Psalter. Invaluable for costume.
MS. Bodl. Misc., 264. 1338-1344. Very full of useful drawings.
Dr. Furnivall’s edition of the Ellesmere MS. of Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales.’
Boutell’s ‘Monumental Brasses.’
MS. Harl., 1819. Metrical history of the close of Richard II.’s reign. Good drawings for costume.
MS. Harl., 1892.
MS. Harl., 2278.
Lydgate’s ‘Life of St. Edmund.’
MS. Roy., 15, E. vi. Fine miniatures.
The Bedford Missal, MS. Add., 18850.
MS. Harl., 2982. A Book of Hours. Many good drawings.
MS. Harl., 4425. The Romance of the Rose. Fine and useful drawings.
MS. Lambeth, 265.
MS. Roy., 19, C. viii.
MS. Roy., 16, F. ii.
Turberville’s ‘Book of Falconrie’ and ‘Book of Hunting.’
Shaw’s ‘Dresses and Decorations.’
Jusserand’s ‘English Novel’ and ‘Wayfaring Life.’ Very excellent books, full of reproductions from illuminated books, prints, and pictures.
The Shepherd’s Calendar, 1579, British Museum.
Harding’s ‘Historical Portraits.’
Nichols’s ‘Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.’
Stubbes’s ‘Anatomie of Abuses,’ 1583.
Braun’s ‘Civitates orbis terrarum.’
‘Vestusta Monumenta.’
Hollar’s ‘Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus.’
Hollar’s ‘Aula Veneris.’
Pepys’s Diary.
Evelyn’s Diary.
Tempest’s ‘Cries of London.’ Fifty plates.
Atkinson’s ‘Costumes of Great Britain.’
In addition to these, there are, of course, many other books, prints, engravings, sets of pictures, and heaps of caricatures. The excellent labours of the Society of Antiquaries and the Archæological Association have helped me enormously; these, with wills, wardrobe accounts, ‘Satires’ by Hall and others, ‘Anatomies of Abuses,’ broadsides, and other works on the same subject, French, German, and English, have made my task easier than it might have been.
It was no use to spin out my list of manuscripts with the numbers—endless numbers—of those which proved dry ground, so I have given those only which have yielded a rich harvest.
‘A person, my dear, who will probably come and speak to us; and if he enters into conversation, be careful to give him a favourable impression of you, for,’ and she sunk her voice to a whisper, ‘he is the celebrated Mr. Brummell.’—‘Life of Beau Brummell,’ Captain Jesse.
‘A person, my dear, who will probably come and speak to us; and if he enters into conversation, be careful to give him a favourable impression of you, for,’ and she sunk her voice to a whisper, ‘he is the celebrated Mr. Brummell.’—‘Life of Beau Brummell,’ Captain Jesse.
Those who care to make the melancholy pilgrimage may see, in the Protestant Cemetery at Caen,the tomb of George Bryan Brummell. He died, at the age of sixty-two, in 1840.
It is indeed a melancholy pilgrimage to view the tomb of that once resplendent figure, to think, before the hideous grave, of the witty, clever, foolish procession from Eton to Oriel College, Oxford; from thence to a captaincy in the 10th Hussars, from No. 4 Chesterfield Street to No. 13 Chapel Street, Park Lane; from Chapel Street a flight to Calais; from Calais to Paris; and then, at last, to Caen, and the bitter, bitter end, mumbling and mad, to die in the Bon Sauveur.
Place him beside the man who once pretended to be his friend, the man of whom Thackeray spoke so truly: ‘But a bow and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur coat, a star and a blue ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt’s best nutty-brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth, and a huge black stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then nothing.’
Nothing! Thackeray is right; absolutely nothing remains of this King George of ours but a sale list of his wardrobe, a wardrobe which fetched £15,000second-hand—a wardrobe that had been a man. He invented a shoe-buckle 1 inch long and 5 inches broad. He wore a pink silk coat with white cuffs. He had 5,000 steel beads on his hat. He was a coward, a good-natured, contemptible voluptuary. Beside him, in our eyes, walks for a time the elegant figure of Beau Brummell. I have said that Brummell was the inventor of modern dress: it is true. He was the Beau who raised the level of dress from the slovenly, dirty linen, the greasy hair, the filthy neckcloth, the crumbled collar, to a position, ever since held by Englishmen, of quiet, unobtrusive cleanliness, decent linen, an abhorrence of striking forms of dress.
He made clean linen and washing daily a part of English life.
See him seated before his dressing-glass, a mahogany-framed sliding cheval glass with brass arms on either sides for candles. By his side is George IV., recovering from his drunken bout of last night. The Beau’s glass reflects his clean-complexioned face, his grey eyes, his light brown hair, and sandy whiskers. A servant produces a shirt with a 12-inch collar fixed to it, assists the Beauinto it, arranges it, and stands aside. The collar nearly hides the Beau’s face. Now, with his hand protected with a discarded shirt, he folds his collar down to the required height. Now he takes his white stock and folds it carefully round the collar; the stock is a foot high and slightly starched. A supreme moment of artistic decision, and the stock and collar take their perfect creases. In an hour or so he will be ready to partake of a light meal with the royal gentleman. He will stand up and survey himself in his morning dress, his regular, quiet suit. A blue coat, light breeches fitting the leg well, a light waistcoat over a waistcoat of some other colour, never a startling contrast, Hessian boots, or top-boots and buckskins. There was nothing very peculiar about his clothes except, as Lord Byron said, ‘an exquisite propriety.’ His evening dress was a blue coat, white waistcoat, black trousers buttoned at the ankle—these were of his own invention, and one may say it was the wearing of them that made trousers more popular than knee-breeches—striped silk stockings, and a white stock.
He was a man of perfect taste—of fastidious taste. On his tables lay books of all kinds in finecovers. Who would suspect it? but the Prince is leaning an arm on a copy of Ellis’s ‘Early English Metrical Romances.’ The Beau is a rhymer, an elegant verse-maker. Here we see the paper-presser of Napoleon—I am flitting for the moment over some years, and see him in his room in Calais—here we notice his passion for buhl, his Sèvres china painted with Court beauties.
In his house in Chapel Street he saw daily portraits of Nelson and Pitt and George III. upon his walls. This is no Beau as we understand the term, for we make it a word of contempt, a nickname for a feeble fellow in magnificent garments. Rather this is the room of an educated gentleman of ‘exquisite propriety.’
He played high, as did most gentlemen; he was superstitious, as are many of the best of men. That lucky sixpence with the hole in it that you gave to a cabman, Beau Brummell, was that loss the commencement of your downward career?
There are hundreds of anecdotes of Brummell which, despite those of the ‘George, ring the bell’ character, and those told of his heavy gaming, are more valuable as showing his wit, his cleanliness,his distaste of display—in fact, his ‘exquisite propriety.’
A Beau is hardly a possible figure to-day; we have so few personalities, and those we have are chiefly concerned with trade—men who uphold trusts, men who fight trusts, men who speak for trade in the House of Commons. We have not the same large vulgarities as our grandfathers, nor have we the same wholesome refinement; in killing the evil—the great gambler, the great men of the turf, the great prize-fighters, the heavy wine-drinkers—we have killed, also, the good, the classic, well-spoken civil gentleman. Our manners have suffered at the expense of our morals.
Fifty or sixty years ago the world was full of great men, saying, writing, thinking, great things. To-day—perhaps it is too early to speak of to-day. Personalities are so little marked by their clothes, by any stamp of individuality, that the caricaturist, or even the minute and truthful artist, be he painter or writer, has a difficult task before him when he sets out to point at the men of these our times.
George Brummell came into the world on June 7, 1778. He was a year or so late for the Macaronistyle of dress, many years behind the Fribbles, after the Smarts, and must have seen the rise and fall of the Zebras when he was thirteen. During his life he saw the old-fashioned full frock-coat, bagwig, solitaire, and ruffles die away; he saw the decline and fall of knee-breeches for common wear, and the pantaloons invented by himself take their place. From these pantaloons reaching to the ankle came the trousers, as fashionable garments, open over the instep at first, and joined by loops and buttons, then strapped under the boot, and after that in every manner of cut to the present style. He saw the three-cornered hat vanish from the hat-boxes of the polite world, and he saw fine-coloured clothes give way to blue coats with brass buttons or coats of solemn black.
It may be said that England went into mourning over the French Revolution, and has not yet recovered. Beau Brummell, on his way to Eton, saw a gay-coloured crowd of powdered and patched people, saw claret-coloured coats covered with embroidery, gold-laced hats, twinkling shoe-buckles. On his last walks in Caen, no doubt, he dreamed of London as a place of gay colours instead of the drab place it was beginning to be.
To-day there is no more monotonous sight than the pavements of Piccadilly crowded with people in dingy, sad clothes, with silk tubes on their heads, their black and gray suits being splashed by the mud from black hansoms, or by the scatterings of motor-cars driven by aristocratic-looking mechanics, in which mechanical-looking aristocrats lounge, darkly clad. Here and there some woman’s dress enlivens the monotony; here a red pillar-box shines in the sun; there, again, we bless the Post-Office for their red mail-carts, and perhaps we are strengthened to bear the gloom by the sight of a blue or red bus.
But our hearts are not in tune with the picture; we feel the lack of colour, of romance, of everything but money, in the street. Suddenly a magnificent policeman stops the traffic; there is a sound of jingling harness, of horses’ hoofs beating in unison. There flashes upon us an escort of Life Guards sparkling in the sun, flashing specks of light from swords, breastplates, helmets. The little forest of waving plumes, the raising of hats, the polite murmuring of cheers, warms us. We feel young, our hearts beat; we feel more healthy, more alive, for this gleam of colour.
Then an open carriage passes us swiftly as we stand with bared heads. There is a momentary sight of a man in uniform—a man with a wonderful face, clever, dignified, kind. And we say, with a catch in our voices:
‘The King—God bless him!’
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND