CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XIPERUKES AND PERIWIGSTo-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head, and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks, when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the eighteenth century.In the great eagerness shown from earliest colonial days to acquire and reproduce in the New World every change of mode in the Old, to purchase rich dress, and to assume novel dress, no article was sought for more speedily and more anxiously than the wig. It has proved an interesting study to compare the introduction of wigs in England with the wear of the same form of head-gear in America. Wigs were not in general use in England when Plymouth and Boston were settled; though in Elizabeth’s day a “peryuke” had been bought for the court fool. They were not in universal wear till the close of the seventeenth century.The “Wig Mania” arose in France in the reign of Louis XV. In 1656 the king had forty court perruquiers, who were termed and deemed artists, and had their academy. The wigs they produced were superb. It is told that one cost £;200, a sum equal in purchasing power to-day to $5000. The French statesman and financier, Colbert, aghast at the vast sums spent for foreign hair, endeavored to introduce a sort of cap to supplant the wig, but fashions are not made that way.Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall.Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall.For information of English manners and customs in that day, I turn (and never in vain) to those fascinating volumes, theVerney Memoirs. From them I learn this of early wig-wearing by Englishmen; that Sir Ralph Verney, though in straitened circumstances during his enforced residence abroad, felt himself compelled to follow the French mode, which at that period, 1646, had not reached England. That exemplary gentleman paid twelve livres for a wig, when he was sadly short of money for household necessaries. It was an elaborate wig, curled in great rings, with two locks tied with black ribbon, and made without any parting at the back. This wig was powdered.Sir Ralph wrote to his wife that a good hair-powder was very difficult to get and costly, even in France. It was an appreciable addition to the weight of the wig and to the expense, large quantities being used, sometimes as much as two pounds at a time. It added not only to the expense, but to the discomfort, inconvenience, and untidiness of wig-wearing.Pomatum made of fat, and that sometimes rancid, was used to make the powder stick; and noxious substances were introduced into the powder, as a certain kind is mentioned which must not be used alone, for it would produce headache.Charles II was the earliest king represented on the Great Seal wearing a large periwig. Dr. Doran assures us that the king did not bring the fashion to Whitehall. “He forbade,” we are told, “the members of the Universities to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, or read their sermons. The members did all three, and Charles soon found himself doing the first two.”Mayor Rip Van Dam.Mayor Rip Van Dam.Pepys’sDiarycontains much interesting information concerning the wigs of this reign. On 2d of November, 1663, he writes: “I heard the Duke say that he was going to wear a periwig, and says the King also will, never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” It was doubtless this change in the color of his Majesty’s hair that induced him to assume the head-dress he had previously so strongly condemned.The wig he adopted was very voluminous, richly curled, and black. He was very dark. “Odds fish! but I’m an ugly black fellow!” he said of himself when he looked at his portrait. Loyal colonists quickly followed royal example and complexion. We have very good specimens of this curly black wig in many American portraits.As might be expected, and as befitted one who delighted to be in fashion, Pepys adopted this wig. He took time to consider the matter, and had consultations with Mr. Jervas, his old barber, about the affair. Referring to one of his visits to his hairdresser, Pepys says:—“I did try two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to wear one, and yet I have no stomach for it; but that the pains of keeping my hair clean is great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but my mind was almost altered from my first purpose, from the trouble which I foresee in wearing them also.”Weeks passed before he could make up his mind to wear a wig. Mrs. Pepys was taken to the periwig-maker’s shop to see one, and expressed her satisfaction with it. We read in April, 1665, of the wig being back at Jervas’s under repair. Later, under date of September 3d, he writes:—“Lord’s day. Up; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what will be in fashion, after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.”In 1670, only, five years after this entry of Pepys, we find Governor Barefoot of New Hampshire wearing a periwig; and in 1675 the court of Massachusetts, in view of the distresses of the Indian wars, denounced the “manifest pride openly appearing amongst us in that long hair, like women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own hair, or others’ hair made into periwigs.”Abraham De Peyster.Abraham De Peyster.In 1676 Wait Winthrop sent a wig (price £;3) to his brother in New London. Mr. Sergeant had brought it from England for his own use; but was willing to sell it to oblige a friend, who was, I am confident, very devoted to wig-wearing. The largest wig that I recall upon any colonist’s head is in the portrait of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop. He is painted in armor; and a great wig never seems so absurd as when worn with armor. Horace Walpole said, “Perukes of outrageous length flowing over suits of armour compose wonderful habits.” An edge of Winthrop’s own dark hair seems to show under the wig front. I do not know the precise date of this portrait. It was, of course, painted in England. He served in the Parliamentary army with General Monck; returned to New England in 1663, and was commander of the New England forces. He spent 1693 to l697 in England as commissioner. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller both were painting in England in those years, and both were constant in painting men with armor and perukes. This portrait seems like Kneller’s work.Governor De Bienville.Governor De Bienville.Another portrait attired also in armor and peruke is of Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who was appointed governor of South Carolina by the Lords Proprietors in 1702. The portrait was painted in 1705. It is one of the few of that date which show a faint mustache; he likewise wears a seal ring with coat-of-arms on the little finger of his left hand, which was unusual at that day. De Bienville, the governor of Louisiana, is likewise in wig and armor. In 1682 Thomas Richbell died in Boston, leaving a very rich and costly wardrobe. He had eight wigs. Of these, three were small periwigs worth but a pound apiece. In New York, in Virginia, in all the colonies, these wigs were worn, and were just as large and costly, as elaborately curled, as heavily powdered, as at the English and French courts.Archbishop Tillotson is usually regarded as the first amongst the English clergy to adopt the wig. He said in one of his sermons:—“I can remember since the wearing of hair below the ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude, and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find or make occasion to reprove the great sin of long hair; and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly at him with great zeal.”Dr. Tillotson died on November 24, 1694.Daniel Waldo.Daniel Waldo.Long before that American preachers had felt it necessary to “let fly” also; to denounce wig-wearing from their pulpits. The question could not be settled, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John Wilson, the zealous Boston minister, wore one, and John Cotton (seehere); while Rev. Mr. Noyes preached long and often against the fashion. John Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the Indians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties to deliver many a blast against “prolix locks,”—“with boiling zeal,” as Cotton Mather said,—and he labelled them a “luxurious feminine protexity”; but lamented late in life that “the lust for wigs is become insuperable.” He thought the horrors in King Philip’s War were a direct punishment from God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, calling them “Horrid Bushes of Vanity,” and saying that “such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature, and to express Scripture,” and that “Monstrous Periwigs such as some of our church members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye Bottomless Pit.”Rev. George Weeks preached a sermon on impropriety in clothes. He said in regard to wig-wearing:—“We have no warrant in the word of God, that I know of, for our wearing of Periwigs except it be in extraordinary cases. Elisha did not cover his head with a Perriwigg altho’ it was bald. To see the greater part of Men in some congregations wearing Perriwiggs is a matter of deep lamentation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut off their Hair or else not. If they had a necessity to cut off their Hair then we have reason to take up a lamentation over the sin of our first Parents which hath occasioned so many Persons in our Congregation to be sickly, weakly, crazy Persons.”Long “Ruffianly” or “Russianly” (I know not which word is right) hair equally worried the parsons. President Chauncey of Harvard College preached upon it, for the college undergraduates were vexingly addicted to prolix locks. Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth’s sermon on the subject has often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the general court: that “the men wore long hair like women’s hair.” Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were in small things, did riot dare to force the becurled citizens of the little towns to cut their long love-locks, though they bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in 1687, fined l0s. for a misdemeanor, but “in case he shall cutt off his long har of his head into a sevill (civil?) frame, in the mean time shall have abated 5s. of his fine.” John Eliot hated long, natural hair as well as false hair. Rev. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very unpleasant figure of speech, “The hair of them that professed religion grew too long for him to swallow.” His own hair curled on his shoulders, and would seem long to us to-day.Reverend John Marsh.Reverend John Marsh.A climax of wig-hating was reached by one who has been styled “The Last of the Puritans”—Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. Constant references in his diary show how this hatred influenced his daily life. He despised wigs so long and so deeply, he thought and talked and prayed upon them, until they became to him of undue importance; they became godless emblems of iniquity; an unutterable snare and peril.We find Sewall copying with evident approval a “scandalous bill” which had been “posted” on the church in Plymouth in 1701. In this a few lines ran:—“Our churches are too genteel.Parsons grow trim and triggWith wealth, wine, and wigg,And their crowns are covered with meal.”John Adams in Youth.John Adams in Youth.Bitter must have been his efforts to reconcile to his conscience the sight of wigs upon the heads of his parson friends, worn boldly in the pulpit. He would refrain from attending a church where the parson wore a wig; and his italicized praise of a dead friend was that he “was a true New-English man andabominated periwigs.” A Boston wig-maker died a drunkard, and Sewall took much melancholy satisfaction in dilating upon it.Cotton Mather and Sewall had many pious differences and personal jealousies. The parson was a handsome man (see his picturehere), and he was a harmlessly and naively vain man. He quickly adopted a “great bush of vanity”—and a very personable appearance he makes in it. Soon we find him inveighing at length in the pulpit against “those who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, those who were zealous against an innocent fashion taken up and used by the best of men.” “’Tis supposed he means wearing a Perriwigg,” writes Sewall after this sermon; “I expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwiggs in Boston pulpit by Mr. Mather.”Poor Sewall! his regard of wigs had a severe test when he wooed Madam Winthrop late in life. She was a rich widow. He had courted her vainly for a second wife. And now he “yearned for her deeply” for a third wife, so he wrote. And ere she would consent or even discuss marriage she stipulated two things: one, that he keep a coach; the other, that he wear a periwig. When all the men of dignity and office in the colony were bourgeoning out in great flowing perukes, she was naturally a bit averse to an elderly lover in a skullcap or, as he often wore, a hood. His love did not make him waver; he stoutly persisted in his refusal to assume a periwig.His portrait in a velvet skullcap shows a fringe of white curling hair with a few forehead locks. I fancy he was bald. Here is his entry with regard to young Parson Willard’s wig, in the year 1701:—“Having last night heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a very full head of hair) and put on a wig, I went to him this morning. When I told his mother what I came about, she called him. Whereupon I inquired of him what extreme need had forced him to put off his own hair and put on a wig? He answered, none at all; he said that his hair was straight, and that it parted behind.“He seemed to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their head, as off their face. I answered that boys grew to be men before they had hair on their faces, and that half of mankind never have any beards. I told him that God seems to have created our hair as a test, to see whether we can bring our minds to be content at what he gives us, or whether wewould be our own carvers and come back to him for nothing more. We might dislike our skin or nails, as he disliked his hair; but in our case no thanks are due to us that we cut them not off; for pain and danger restrain us. Your duty, said I, is to teach men self-denial. I told him, further, that it would be displeasing and burdensome to good men for him to wear a wig, and they that care not what men think of them, care not what God thinks of them.“I told him that he must remember that wigs were condemned by a meeting of ministers at Northampton. I told him of the solemnity of the covenant which he and I had lately entered into, which put upon me the duty of discoursing to him.“He seemed to say that he would leave off his wig when his hair was grown again. I spoke to his father of it a day or two afterwards and he thanked me for reasoning with his son.“He told me his son had promised to leave off his wig when his hair was grown to cover his ears. If the father had known of it, he would have forbidden him to cut off his hair. His mother heard him talk of it, but was afraid to forbid him for fear he should do it in spite of her, and so be more faulty than if she had let him go his own way.”Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.Soon nearly every parson in England and every colony wore wigs. John Wesley alone wore what seems to be his own white hair curled under softly at the ends. Whitfield is in a portentous wig like the one on Dr. Marsh(here).In the time of Queen Anne, wigs had multiplied vastly in variety as they had increased in size. I have been asked the difference between a peruke and a wig. Of course both, and the periwig, are simply wigs; but the term “peruke” is in general applied to a formal, richly curled wig; and the word “periwig” also conveys the distinction of a formal wig. Of less dignity were riding-wigs, nightcap wigs, and bag-wigs. Bag-wigs are said to have had their origin among French servants, who tied up their hair in a black leather bag as a speedy way of dressing it, and to keep it out of the way when at other and disordering duties.Patrick Henry.Patrick Henry.In May, 1706, the English, led by Marlborough, gained a great victory on the battle-field of Ramillies, and that gave the title to a new wig described as “having a long, gradually diminishing, plaited tail, called the ‘Ramillie-tail,’ which was tied with a great bow at the top and a smaller one at the bottom.” The hair also bushed out at both sides of the face. The Ramillies wig shown in Hogarth’sModern Midnight Conversationhanging against the wall, is reproducedhere. This wig was not at first deemed full-dress. Queen Anne was deeply offended because Lord Bolingbroke, summoned hurriedly to her, appeared in a Ramillies wig instead of a full-bottomed peruke. The queen remarked that she supposed next time Lord Bolingbroke would come in his nightcap. It was the same offending nobleman who brought in the fashion of the mean little tie-wigs.It is stated in Read’sWeekly Journalof May 1, 1736, in an account of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, that the officers of the Horse and Foot Guards wore Ramillies periwigs when on parade, by his Majesty’s order. We meet in the reign of George II other forms of wigs and other titles; the most popular was the pigtail wig. The pigtail of this was worn hanging down the back or tied up in a knot behind. This pigtail wig, worn for so many years, is shownhere. It was popular in the army for sixty years, but in 1804 orders were given for the pigtail to be reduced to seven inches in length, and finally, in 1808, to be cut off wholly, to the deep mourning of disciplinarians who deemed a soldier without a pigtail as hopeless as a Manx cat.“King” Carter. Died 1732.“King” Carter. Died 1732.Bob-wigs, minor and major, came in during the reign of George II. The bob-wig was held to be a direct imitation of the natural hair, though, of course, it deceived no one; it was used chiefly by poorer folk. The ’prentice minor bob was close and short, the citizen’s bob major, or Sunday buckle, had several rows of curls. All these came to America by the hundreds—yes, by the thousands. Every profession and almost every calling had its peculiar wig. The caricatures of the period represent full-fledged lawyers with a towering frontlet and a long bag at the back tied in the middle; while students of the university have a wig flat on the top, to accommodate their stiff, square-cornered hats, and a great bag like a lawyer’s wig at the back.Judge Benjamin Lynde.Judge Benjamin Lynde.“When the law lays down its full-bottom’d periwig you will find less wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of,” says theCholeric Man. This lawyer’s wig is the only one which has not been changed or abandoned. You may see it here, on the head of Judge Benjamin Lynde of Salem. He died in 1745. Carlyle sneers:—“Has not your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a plush-gown—whereby all Mortals know that he is a JUDGE?”In the reigns of Anne and William and Mary perukes grew so vast and cumbersome that a wig was invented for travelling and for undress wear, and was called the “Campaign wig.” It would not seem very simple since it was made full and curled to the front, and had, so writes a contemporary, Randle Holme, in hisAcademy of Armory, 1684, “knots and bobs a-dildo on each side and a curled forehead.”A campaign wig from Holme’s drawing is shownhere.There are constant references in old letters and in early literature in America which alter much the dates assigned by English authorities on costume: thus, knowing not of Randle Holme’s drawing, Sydney writes that the name “campaign” was applied to a wig, the name and fashion of which came to England from France in 1702. In the Letter-book of William Byrd of Westover, Virginia, in a letter written in June, 1690, to Perry and Lane, his English factors in London, he says, “I have by Tonner sent my long Periwig which I desire you to get made into a Campagne and send mee.” This was twelve years earlier than Sydney’s date. Fitz-John Winthrop wrote to England in 1695 for “two wiggs one a campane the other short.” The portrait of Fitz-John Winthrop shows a prodigious imposing wig, but it has no “knots or bobs a-dildo on each side,” though the forehead is curled; it is a fine example of a peruke.I cannot attempt even to name all the wigs, much less can I describe them; Hawthorne gave “the tie,” the “Brigadier,” the “Major,” the “Ramillies,” the grave “Full-bottom,” the giddy “Feather-top.” To these and others already named in this chapter I can add the “Neck-lock,” the “Allonge,” the “Lavant,” the “Vallancy,” the “Grecian fly wig,” the “Beau-peruke,” the “Long-tail,” the “Fox-tail,” the “Cut-wig,” the “Scratch,” the “Twist-wig.”Others named in 1753 in theLondon Magazinewere the “Royal bird,” the “Rhinoceros,” the “Corded Wolf’s-paw,” “Count Saxe’s mode,” the “She-dragon,” the “Jansenist,” the “Wild-boar’s-back,” the “Snail-back,” the “Spinach-seed.” These titles were literal translations of French wig-names.Another wig-name was the “Gregorian.” We read inThe Honest Ghost, 1658, “Pulling a little down his Gregorian, which was displac’t a little by his hastie taking off his beaver.” This wig was named from the inventor, one Gregory, “the famous peruke-maker who is buryed at St. Clements Danes Church.” In Cotgrave’sDictionaryperukes are called Gregorians.John Rutledge.John Rutledge.In the prologue toHaut Ton, written by George Colman, these wigs are named:—“The Tyburn scratch, thick Club and Temple tyes,The Parson’s Feather-top, frizzed, broad and high.The coachman’s Cauliflower, built tier on tier.”There was also the “Minister’s bob,” “Curley roys,” “Airy levants,” and “I—perukes.” The “Dalmahoy” was a bushy bob-wig.When Colonel John Carter died, he left to his brother Robert his cane, sword, and periwig. I believe this to be the very Valiancy periwig which, in all its snowy whiteness and air of extreme fashion, graces the head of the handsome young fellow as he is shownhere. Even the portrait shares the fascination which the man is said to have had for every woman. I have a copy of it now standing on my desk, where I can glance at him as I write; and pleasant company have I found the gay young Virginian—the best of company. It is good to have a companion so handsome of feature, so personable of figure, so laughing, care free, and debonair—isn’t it, King Robert?Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs.Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs.These snowy wigs at a later date were called Adonis wigs.The cost of a handsome wig would sometimes amount to thirty, forty, and fifty guineas, though Swift grumbled at paying three guineas, and the exceedingly correct Mr. Pepys bought wigs at two and three pounds. It is not strange that they were often stolen. Gay, in hisTrivia, thus tells the manner of their disappearance:—“Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn;High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred,Plucks off the curling honors of the head.”In America wigs were deemed rich spoils for the sneak-thief.There was a vast trade in second-hand wigs. ’Tis said there was in Rosemary Lane in London a constantly replenished “Wig lottery.” It was, rather, a wig grab-bag. The wreck of gentility paid his last sixpence for appearances, dipped a long arm into a hole in a cask, and fished out his wig. It might be half-decent, or it might be fit only to polish shoes—worse yet, it might have been used already for that purpose. The lowest depths of everything were found in London. I doubt if we had any Rosemary Lane wig lotteries in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston.Rev. William Welsteed.Rev. William Welsteed.An answer to a query in a modern newspaper gives the word “caxon” as descriptive of a dress-wig. It was in truth a term for a wig, but it was a cant term, a slang phrase for the worst possible wig; thus Charles Lamb Wrote:—“He had two wigs both pedantic but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh-powdered, betokening a mild day. The other an old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon denoting frequent and bloody execution.”All these wigs, even the bob-wig, were openly artificial. The manner of their make, their bindings, their fastening, as well as their material, completely destroyed any illusion which could possibly have been entertained as to their being a luxuriant crop of natural hair.No one was ashamed of wearing a wig. On the contrary, a person with any sense of dignity was ashamed of being so unfashionable as to wear his own hair. It was a glorious time for those to whom Nature had been niggardly. A wig was as frankly extraneous as a hat. No attempt was made to imitate the roots of the hairs, or the parting. The hair was attached openly, and bound with a high-colored, narrow ribbon. Here is an advertisement from theBoston News Letterof August 14, 1729:—“Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott, Barber, a light Flaxen Natural Wigg parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a Red Pink Color, the Caul is in rows of Red, Green and White Ribband.”Another “peruke-maker” lost a Flaxen “Natural” wig bound with peach-colored ribbon; while in 1755 Barber Coes, of Marblehead, lost “feather-tops” bound with various ribbons. Some had three colors on one wig—pink, green and purple. A goat’s-hair wig bound with red and purple, with green ribbons striping the caul, must have been a pretty and dignified thing on an old gentleman’s head. One of the most curious materials for a wig was fine wire, of which Wortley Montague’s wig was made.Thomas Hopkinson.Thomas Hopkinson.We read in many histories of costume, among them Miss Hill’s recent history of English dress, that Quakers did not wear wigs. This is widely incorrect. Many Quakers wore most fashionably made wigs. William Penn wrote from England to his steward, telling him to allow Deputy Governor Lloyd to wear his (Penn’s) wigs. I suppose he wished his deputy to cut a good figure.From theNew York Gazetteof May 9, 1737, we learn of a thief’s stealing “one gray Hair Wig, not the worse for wearing, one Pale Hair Wig, not worn five times, marked V. S. E., one brown Natural wig, One old wig of goat’s hair put in buckle.” Buckle meant to curl, and derivatively a wig was in buckle when it was rolled for curling. Roulettes or bilbouquettes for buckling a wig were little rollers of pipe clay. The hair was twisted up in them, and papers bound over them to fix them in place. The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated. The latter was not favored; it damaged the wig. Moreover, a careless barber had often roasted a forgotten wig which he had put in buckle and in an oven.TheNew York Gazetteof May 12, 1750, had this alluring advertisement:—“This is to acquaint the Public, that there is lately arrived from London the Wonder of the World,an HonestBarber and Peruke Maker, who might have worked for the King, if his Majesty would have employed him: It was not for the want of Money he came here, for he had enough of that at Home, nor for the want of Business, that he advertises himself, BUT to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, thatSuch a Person is now in Town, living nearRosemary Lanewhere Gentlemen and Ladies may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full-Bottoms, Majors, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramalies, Tacks, cut and bob Perukes: Also Ladies Tatematongues and Towers after the Manner that is now wore at Court.By their Humble and Obedient Servant,“JOHN STILL.”Reverend Dr. Barnard.Reverend Dr. Barnard.“Perukes,” says Malcolm, in hisManners and Customs, “were an highly important article in 1734.” Those of right gray human hair were four guineas each; light grizzle ties, three guineas; and other colors in proportion, to twenty-five shillings. Right gray human hair cue perukes, from two guineas to fifteen shillings each, was the price of dark ones; and right gray bob perukes, two guineas and a half to fifteen shillings, the price of dark bobs. Those mixed with horsehair were much lower.Prices were a bit higher in America. It was held that better wigs were made in England than in America or France; so the letter-books and agent’s-lists of American merchants are filled with orders for English wigs.Imperative orders for the earliest and extremest new fashions stood from year to year on the lists of fashionable London wig-makers; and these constant orders came from Virginia gentlemen and Massachusetts magistrates,—not a few, too, from the parsons,—scantly paid as they were. The smaller bob-wigs and tie-wigs were precisely the same in both countries, and I am sure were no later in assumption in America than was necessitated by the weeks occupied in coming across seas.Throughout the seventeenth century all classes of men in American towns wore wigs. Negro slaves flaunted white horsehair wigs, goat’s-hair bob-wigs, natural wigs, all the plainer wigs, and all the more costly sorts when these were half worn and secondhand. Soldiers wore wigs; and in theMassachusetts Gazetteof the year 1774 a runaway negro is described as wearing a curl of hair tied around his head to imitate a scratch wig; with his woolly crown this dangling curl must have been the height of absurdity.It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing, before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman (and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754.Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed wigs ere sunset came.No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath. Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place, or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered, all men did not wear wigs. A writer in theLondon Magazinein 1745 tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight “all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds, “It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.” So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants, bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner, who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to the surroundings of their day. In one thing they can be envied. Knowing not of germs and microbes, dreaming not of antiseptics and fumigation, they could be happy in blissful unconsciousness of menacing environment—a blessing wholly denied to us.Andrew Ellicott.Andrew Ellicott.When James Murray came from Scotland in 1735 he went up the Cape Fear River in North Carolina to the struggling settlements of Brunswick. The stock of wigs which he brought as one of the commodities of his trade had absolutely no market. In 1751 he wrote thus to his London wig-maker:—“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.”Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:—“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed. This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.”Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem Tory, wrote a few years later:—“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the gentlest in his motions.”Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing.CHAPTER XIITHE BEARD“Though yours be sorely lugged and tornIt does your Visage more adornThan if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and launder’dAnd cut square by the Russian standard.”—“Hudibras,” SAMUEL BUTLER.“Now of beards there be such companyAnd fashions such a throngThat it is very hard to handle a beardTho’ it be never so long.“’Tis a pretty sight and a grave delightThat adorns both young and oldA well thatch’t face is a comely graceAnd a shelter from the cold”—“Le Prince d’Amour,” 1660.

o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head, and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks, when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the eighteenth century.

In the great eagerness shown from earliest colonial days to acquire and reproduce in the New World every change of mode in the Old, to purchase rich dress, and to assume novel dress, no article was sought for more speedily and more anxiously than the wig. It has proved an interesting study to compare the introduction of wigs in England with the wear of the same form of head-gear in America. Wigs were not in general use in England when Plymouth and Boston were settled; though in Elizabeth’s day a “peryuke” had been bought for the court fool. They were not in universal wear till the close of the seventeenth century.

The “Wig Mania” arose in France in the reign of Louis XV. In 1656 the king had forty court perruquiers, who were termed and deemed artists, and had their academy. The wigs they produced were superb. It is told that one cost £;200, a sum equal in purchasing power to-day to $5000. The French statesman and financier, Colbert, aghast at the vast sums spent for foreign hair, endeavored to introduce a sort of cap to supplant the wig, but fashions are not made that way.

Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall.Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall.

Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall.

For information of English manners and customs in that day, I turn (and never in vain) to those fascinating volumes, theVerney Memoirs. From them I learn this of early wig-wearing by Englishmen; that Sir Ralph Verney, though in straitened circumstances during his enforced residence abroad, felt himself compelled to follow the French mode, which at that period, 1646, had not reached England. That exemplary gentleman paid twelve livres for a wig, when he was sadly short of money for household necessaries. It was an elaborate wig, curled in great rings, with two locks tied with black ribbon, and made without any parting at the back. This wig was powdered.

Sir Ralph wrote to his wife that a good hair-powder was very difficult to get and costly, even in France. It was an appreciable addition to the weight of the wig and to the expense, large quantities being used, sometimes as much as two pounds at a time. It added not only to the expense, but to the discomfort, inconvenience, and untidiness of wig-wearing.

Pomatum made of fat, and that sometimes rancid, was used to make the powder stick; and noxious substances were introduced into the powder, as a certain kind is mentioned which must not be used alone, for it would produce headache.

Charles II was the earliest king represented on the Great Seal wearing a large periwig. Dr. Doran assures us that the king did not bring the fashion to Whitehall. “He forbade,” we are told, “the members of the Universities to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, or read their sermons. The members did all three, and Charles soon found himself doing the first two.”

Mayor Rip Van Dam.Mayor Rip Van Dam.

Mayor Rip Van Dam.

Pepys’sDiarycontains much interesting information concerning the wigs of this reign. On 2d of November, 1663, he writes: “I heard the Duke say that he was going to wear a periwig, and says the King also will, never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” It was doubtless this change in the color of his Majesty’s hair that induced him to assume the head-dress he had previously so strongly condemned.

The wig he adopted was very voluminous, richly curled, and black. He was very dark. “Odds fish! but I’m an ugly black fellow!” he said of himself when he looked at his portrait. Loyal colonists quickly followed royal example and complexion. We have very good specimens of this curly black wig in many American portraits.

As might be expected, and as befitted one who delighted to be in fashion, Pepys adopted this wig. He took time to consider the matter, and had consultations with Mr. Jervas, his old barber, about the affair. Referring to one of his visits to his hairdresser, Pepys says:—

“I did try two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to wear one, and yet I have no stomach for it; but that the pains of keeping my hair clean is great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but my mind was almost altered from my first purpose, from the trouble which I foresee in wearing them also.”

Weeks passed before he could make up his mind to wear a wig. Mrs. Pepys was taken to the periwig-maker’s shop to see one, and expressed her satisfaction with it. We read in April, 1665, of the wig being back at Jervas’s under repair. Later, under date of September 3d, he writes:—

“Lord’s day. Up; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what will be in fashion, after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.”

In 1670, only, five years after this entry of Pepys, we find Governor Barefoot of New Hampshire wearing a periwig; and in 1675 the court of Massachusetts, in view of the distresses of the Indian wars, denounced the “manifest pride openly appearing amongst us in that long hair, like women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own hair, or others’ hair made into periwigs.”

Abraham De Peyster.Abraham De Peyster.

Abraham De Peyster.

In 1676 Wait Winthrop sent a wig (price £;3) to his brother in New London. Mr. Sergeant had brought it from England for his own use; but was willing to sell it to oblige a friend, who was, I am confident, very devoted to wig-wearing. The largest wig that I recall upon any colonist’s head is in the portrait of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop. He is painted in armor; and a great wig never seems so absurd as when worn with armor. Horace Walpole said, “Perukes of outrageous length flowing over suits of armour compose wonderful habits.” An edge of Winthrop’s own dark hair seems to show under the wig front. I do not know the precise date of this portrait. It was, of course, painted in England. He served in the Parliamentary army with General Monck; returned to New England in 1663, and was commander of the New England forces. He spent 1693 to l697 in England as commissioner. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller both were painting in England in those years, and both were constant in painting men with armor and perukes. This portrait seems like Kneller’s work.

Governor De Bienville.Governor De Bienville.

Governor De Bienville.

Another portrait attired also in armor and peruke is of Sir Nathaniel Johnson, who was appointed governor of South Carolina by the Lords Proprietors in 1702. The portrait was painted in 1705. It is one of the few of that date which show a faint mustache; he likewise wears a seal ring with coat-of-arms on the little finger of his left hand, which was unusual at that day. De Bienville, the governor of Louisiana, is likewise in wig and armor. In 1682 Thomas Richbell died in Boston, leaving a very rich and costly wardrobe. He had eight wigs. Of these, three were small periwigs worth but a pound apiece. In New York, in Virginia, in all the colonies, these wigs were worn, and were just as large and costly, as elaborately curled, as heavily powdered, as at the English and French courts.

Archbishop Tillotson is usually regarded as the first amongst the English clergy to adopt the wig. He said in one of his sermons:—

“I can remember since the wearing of hair below the ears was looked upon as a sin of the first magnitude, and when ministers generally, whatever their text was, did either find or make occasion to reprove the great sin of long hair; and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly at him with great zeal.”

Dr. Tillotson died on November 24, 1694.

Daniel Waldo.Daniel Waldo.

Daniel Waldo.

Long before that American preachers had felt it necessary to “let fly” also; to denounce wig-wearing from their pulpits. The question could not be settled, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John Wilson, the zealous Boston minister, wore one, and John Cotton (seehere); while Rev. Mr. Noyes preached long and often against the fashion. John Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the Indians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties to deliver many a blast against “prolix locks,”—“with boiling zeal,” as Cotton Mather said,—and he labelled them a “luxurious feminine protexity”; but lamented late in life that “the lust for wigs is become insuperable.” He thought the horrors in King Philip’s War were a direct punishment from God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, calling them “Horrid Bushes of Vanity,” and saying that “such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature, and to express Scripture,” and that “Monstrous Periwigs such as some of our church members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye Bottomless Pit.”

Rev. George Weeks preached a sermon on impropriety in clothes. He said in regard to wig-wearing:—

“We have no warrant in the word of God, that I know of, for our wearing of Periwigs except it be in extraordinary cases. Elisha did not cover his head with a Perriwigg altho’ it was bald. To see the greater part of Men in some congregations wearing Perriwiggs is a matter of deep lamentation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut off their Hair or else not. If they had a necessity to cut off their Hair then we have reason to take up a lamentation over the sin of our first Parents which hath occasioned so many Persons in our Congregation to be sickly, weakly, crazy Persons.”

Long “Ruffianly” or “Russianly” (I know not which word is right) hair equally worried the parsons. President Chauncey of Harvard College preached upon it, for the college undergraduates were vexingly addicted to prolix locks. Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth’s sermon on the subject has often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the general court: that “the men wore long hair like women’s hair.” Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were in small things, did riot dare to force the becurled citizens of the little towns to cut their long love-locks, though they bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in 1687, fined l0s. for a misdemeanor, but “in case he shall cutt off his long har of his head into a sevill (civil?) frame, in the mean time shall have abated 5s. of his fine.” John Eliot hated long, natural hair as well as false hair. Rev. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very unpleasant figure of speech, “The hair of them that professed religion grew too long for him to swallow.” His own hair curled on his shoulders, and would seem long to us to-day.

Reverend John Marsh.Reverend John Marsh.

Reverend John Marsh.

A climax of wig-hating was reached by one who has been styled “The Last of the Puritans”—Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. Constant references in his diary show how this hatred influenced his daily life. He despised wigs so long and so deeply, he thought and talked and prayed upon them, until they became to him of undue importance; they became godless emblems of iniquity; an unutterable snare and peril.

We find Sewall copying with evident approval a “scandalous bill” which had been “posted” on the church in Plymouth in 1701. In this a few lines ran:—

“Our churches are too genteel.Parsons grow trim and triggWith wealth, wine, and wigg,And their crowns are covered with meal.”

John Adams in Youth.John Adams in Youth.

John Adams in Youth.

Bitter must have been his efforts to reconcile to his conscience the sight of wigs upon the heads of his parson friends, worn boldly in the pulpit. He would refrain from attending a church where the parson wore a wig; and his italicized praise of a dead friend was that he “was a true New-English man andabominated periwigs.” A Boston wig-maker died a drunkard, and Sewall took much melancholy satisfaction in dilating upon it.

Cotton Mather and Sewall had many pious differences and personal jealousies. The parson was a handsome man (see his picturehere), and he was a harmlessly and naively vain man. He quickly adopted a “great bush of vanity”—and a very personable appearance he makes in it. Soon we find him inveighing at length in the pulpit against “those who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, those who were zealous against an innocent fashion taken up and used by the best of men.” “’Tis supposed he means wearing a Perriwigg,” writes Sewall after this sermon; “I expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwiggs in Boston pulpit by Mr. Mather.”

Poor Sewall! his regard of wigs had a severe test when he wooed Madam Winthrop late in life. She was a rich widow. He had courted her vainly for a second wife. And now he “yearned for her deeply” for a third wife, so he wrote. And ere she would consent or even discuss marriage she stipulated two things: one, that he keep a coach; the other, that he wear a periwig. When all the men of dignity and office in the colony were bourgeoning out in great flowing perukes, she was naturally a bit averse to an elderly lover in a skullcap or, as he often wore, a hood. His love did not make him waver; he stoutly persisted in his refusal to assume a periwig.

His portrait in a velvet skullcap shows a fringe of white curling hair with a few forehead locks. I fancy he was bald. Here is his entry with regard to young Parson Willard’s wig, in the year 1701:—

“Having last night heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a very full head of hair) and put on a wig, I went to him this morning. When I told his mother what I came about, she called him. Whereupon I inquired of him what extreme need had forced him to put off his own hair and put on a wig? He answered, none at all; he said that his hair was straight, and that it parted behind.“He seemed to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their head, as off their face. I answered that boys grew to be men before they had hair on their faces, and that half of mankind never have any beards. I told him that God seems to have created our hair as a test, to see whether we can bring our minds to be content at what he gives us, or whether wewould be our own carvers and come back to him for nothing more. We might dislike our skin or nails, as he disliked his hair; but in our case no thanks are due to us that we cut them not off; for pain and danger restrain us. Your duty, said I, is to teach men self-denial. I told him, further, that it would be displeasing and burdensome to good men for him to wear a wig, and they that care not what men think of them, care not what God thinks of them.“I told him that he must remember that wigs were condemned by a meeting of ministers at Northampton. I told him of the solemnity of the covenant which he and I had lately entered into, which put upon me the duty of discoursing to him.“He seemed to say that he would leave off his wig when his hair was grown again. I spoke to his father of it a day or two afterwards and he thanked me for reasoning with his son.“He told me his son had promised to leave off his wig when his hair was grown to cover his ears. If the father had known of it, he would have forbidden him to cut off his hair. His mother heard him talk of it, but was afraid to forbid him for fear he should do it in spite of her, and so be more faulty than if she had let him go his own way.”

Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.

Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.

Soon nearly every parson in England and every colony wore wigs. John Wesley alone wore what seems to be his own white hair curled under softly at the ends. Whitfield is in a portentous wig like the one on Dr. Marsh(here).

In the time of Queen Anne, wigs had multiplied vastly in variety as they had increased in size. I have been asked the difference between a peruke and a wig. Of course both, and the periwig, are simply wigs; but the term “peruke” is in general applied to a formal, richly curled wig; and the word “periwig” also conveys the distinction of a formal wig. Of less dignity were riding-wigs, nightcap wigs, and bag-wigs. Bag-wigs are said to have had their origin among French servants, who tied up their hair in a black leather bag as a speedy way of dressing it, and to keep it out of the way when at other and disordering duties.

Patrick Henry.Patrick Henry.

Patrick Henry.

In May, 1706, the English, led by Marlborough, gained a great victory on the battle-field of Ramillies, and that gave the title to a new wig described as “having a long, gradually diminishing, plaited tail, called the ‘Ramillie-tail,’ which was tied with a great bow at the top and a smaller one at the bottom.” The hair also bushed out at both sides of the face. The Ramillies wig shown in Hogarth’sModern Midnight Conversationhanging against the wall, is reproducedhere. This wig was not at first deemed full-dress. Queen Anne was deeply offended because Lord Bolingbroke, summoned hurriedly to her, appeared in a Ramillies wig instead of a full-bottomed peruke. The queen remarked that she supposed next time Lord Bolingbroke would come in his nightcap. It was the same offending nobleman who brought in the fashion of the mean little tie-wigs.

It is stated in Read’sWeekly Journalof May 1, 1736, in an account of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, that the officers of the Horse and Foot Guards wore Ramillies periwigs when on parade, by his Majesty’s order. We meet in the reign of George II other forms of wigs and other titles; the most popular was the pigtail wig. The pigtail of this was worn hanging down the back or tied up in a knot behind. This pigtail wig, worn for so many years, is shownhere. It was popular in the army for sixty years, but in 1804 orders were given for the pigtail to be reduced to seven inches in length, and finally, in 1808, to be cut off wholly, to the deep mourning of disciplinarians who deemed a soldier without a pigtail as hopeless as a Manx cat.

“King” Carter. Died 1732.“King” Carter. Died 1732.

“King” Carter. Died 1732.

Bob-wigs, minor and major, came in during the reign of George II. The bob-wig was held to be a direct imitation of the natural hair, though, of course, it deceived no one; it was used chiefly by poorer folk. The ’prentice minor bob was close and short, the citizen’s bob major, or Sunday buckle, had several rows of curls. All these came to America by the hundreds—yes, by the thousands. Every profession and almost every calling had its peculiar wig. The caricatures of the period represent full-fledged lawyers with a towering frontlet and a long bag at the back tied in the middle; while students of the university have a wig flat on the top, to accommodate their stiff, square-cornered hats, and a great bag like a lawyer’s wig at the back.

Judge Benjamin Lynde.Judge Benjamin Lynde.

Judge Benjamin Lynde.

“When the law lays down its full-bottom’d periwig you will find less wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of,” says theCholeric Man. This lawyer’s wig is the only one which has not been changed or abandoned. You may see it here, on the head of Judge Benjamin Lynde of Salem. He died in 1745. Carlyle sneers:—

“Has not your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins, and a plush-gown—whereby all Mortals know that he is a JUDGE?”

In the reigns of Anne and William and Mary perukes grew so vast and cumbersome that a wig was invented for travelling and for undress wear, and was called the “Campaign wig.” It would not seem very simple since it was made full and curled to the front, and had, so writes a contemporary, Randle Holme, in hisAcademy of Armory, 1684, “knots and bobs a-dildo on each side and a curled forehead.”

A campaign wig from Holme’s drawing is shownhere.

There are constant references in old letters and in early literature in America which alter much the dates assigned by English authorities on costume: thus, knowing not of Randle Holme’s drawing, Sydney writes that the name “campaign” was applied to a wig, the name and fashion of which came to England from France in 1702. In the Letter-book of William Byrd of Westover, Virginia, in a letter written in June, 1690, to Perry and Lane, his English factors in London, he says, “I have by Tonner sent my long Periwig which I desire you to get made into a Campagne and send mee.” This was twelve years earlier than Sydney’s date. Fitz-John Winthrop wrote to England in 1695 for “two wiggs one a campane the other short.” The portrait of Fitz-John Winthrop shows a prodigious imposing wig, but it has no “knots or bobs a-dildo on each side,” though the forehead is curled; it is a fine example of a peruke.

I cannot attempt even to name all the wigs, much less can I describe them; Hawthorne gave “the tie,” the “Brigadier,” the “Major,” the “Ramillies,” the grave “Full-bottom,” the giddy “Feather-top.” To these and others already named in this chapter I can add the “Neck-lock,” the “Allonge,” the “Lavant,” the “Vallancy,” the “Grecian fly wig,” the “Beau-peruke,” the “Long-tail,” the “Fox-tail,” the “Cut-wig,” the “Scratch,” the “Twist-wig.”

Others named in 1753 in theLondon Magazinewere the “Royal bird,” the “Rhinoceros,” the “Corded Wolf’s-paw,” “Count Saxe’s mode,” the “She-dragon,” the “Jansenist,” the “Wild-boar’s-back,” the “Snail-back,” the “Spinach-seed.” These titles were literal translations of French wig-names.

Another wig-name was the “Gregorian.” We read inThe Honest Ghost, 1658, “Pulling a little down his Gregorian, which was displac’t a little by his hastie taking off his beaver.” This wig was named from the inventor, one Gregory, “the famous peruke-maker who is buryed at St. Clements Danes Church.” In Cotgrave’sDictionaryperukes are called Gregorians.

John Rutledge.John Rutledge.

John Rutledge.

In the prologue toHaut Ton, written by George Colman, these wigs are named:—

“The Tyburn scratch, thick Club and Temple tyes,The Parson’s Feather-top, frizzed, broad and high.The coachman’s Cauliflower, built tier on tier.”

There was also the “Minister’s bob,” “Curley roys,” “Airy levants,” and “I—perukes.” The “Dalmahoy” was a bushy bob-wig.

When Colonel John Carter died, he left to his brother Robert his cane, sword, and periwig. I believe this to be the very Valiancy periwig which, in all its snowy whiteness and air of extreme fashion, graces the head of the handsome young fellow as he is shownhere. Even the portrait shares the fascination which the man is said to have had for every woman. I have a copy of it now standing on my desk, where I can glance at him as I write; and pleasant company have I found the gay young Virginian—the best of company. It is good to have a companion so handsome of feature, so personable of figure, so laughing, care free, and debonair—isn’t it, King Robert?

Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs.Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs.

Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs.

These snowy wigs at a later date were called Adonis wigs.

The cost of a handsome wig would sometimes amount to thirty, forty, and fifty guineas, though Swift grumbled at paying three guineas, and the exceedingly correct Mr. Pepys bought wigs at two and three pounds. It is not strange that they were often stolen. Gay, in hisTrivia, thus tells the manner of their disappearance:—

“Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn;High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred,Plucks off the curling honors of the head.”

In America wigs were deemed rich spoils for the sneak-thief.

There was a vast trade in second-hand wigs. ’Tis said there was in Rosemary Lane in London a constantly replenished “Wig lottery.” It was, rather, a wig grab-bag. The wreck of gentility paid his last sixpence for appearances, dipped a long arm into a hole in a cask, and fished out his wig. It might be half-decent, or it might be fit only to polish shoes—worse yet, it might have been used already for that purpose. The lowest depths of everything were found in London. I doubt if we had any Rosemary Lane wig lotteries in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston.

Rev. William Welsteed.Rev. William Welsteed.

Rev. William Welsteed.

An answer to a query in a modern newspaper gives the word “caxon” as descriptive of a dress-wig. It was in truth a term for a wig, but it was a cant term, a slang phrase for the worst possible wig; thus Charles Lamb Wrote:—

“He had two wigs both pedantic but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh-powdered, betokening a mild day. The other an old discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon denoting frequent and bloody execution.”

All these wigs, even the bob-wig, were openly artificial. The manner of their make, their bindings, their fastening, as well as their material, completely destroyed any illusion which could possibly have been entertained as to their being a luxuriant crop of natural hair.

No one was ashamed of wearing a wig. On the contrary, a person with any sense of dignity was ashamed of being so unfashionable as to wear his own hair. It was a glorious time for those to whom Nature had been niggardly. A wig was as frankly extraneous as a hat. No attempt was made to imitate the roots of the hairs, or the parting. The hair was attached openly, and bound with a high-colored, narrow ribbon. Here is an advertisement from theBoston News Letterof August 14, 1729:—

“Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott, Barber, a light Flaxen Natural Wigg parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a Red Pink Color, the Caul is in rows of Red, Green and White Ribband.”

Another “peruke-maker” lost a Flaxen “Natural” wig bound with peach-colored ribbon; while in 1755 Barber Coes, of Marblehead, lost “feather-tops” bound with various ribbons. Some had three colors on one wig—pink, green and purple. A goat’s-hair wig bound with red and purple, with green ribbons striping the caul, must have been a pretty and dignified thing on an old gentleman’s head. One of the most curious materials for a wig was fine wire, of which Wortley Montague’s wig was made.

Thomas Hopkinson.Thomas Hopkinson.

Thomas Hopkinson.

We read in many histories of costume, among them Miss Hill’s recent history of English dress, that Quakers did not wear wigs. This is widely incorrect. Many Quakers wore most fashionably made wigs. William Penn wrote from England to his steward, telling him to allow Deputy Governor Lloyd to wear his (Penn’s) wigs. I suppose he wished his deputy to cut a good figure.

From theNew York Gazetteof May 9, 1737, we learn of a thief’s stealing “one gray Hair Wig, not the worse for wearing, one Pale Hair Wig, not worn five times, marked V. S. E., one brown Natural wig, One old wig of goat’s hair put in buckle.” Buckle meant to curl, and derivatively a wig was in buckle when it was rolled for curling. Roulettes or bilbouquettes for buckling a wig were little rollers of pipe clay. The hair was twisted up in them, and papers bound over them to fix them in place. The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated. The latter was not favored; it damaged the wig. Moreover, a careless barber had often roasted a forgotten wig which he had put in buckle and in an oven.

TheNew York Gazetteof May 12, 1750, had this alluring advertisement:—

“This is to acquaint the Public, that there is lately arrived from London the Wonder of the World,an HonestBarber and Peruke Maker, who might have worked for the King, if his Majesty would have employed him: It was not for the want of Money he came here, for he had enough of that at Home, nor for the want of Business, that he advertises himself, BUT to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, thatSuch a Person is now in Town, living nearRosemary Lanewhere Gentlemen and Ladies may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full-Bottoms, Majors, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramalies, Tacks, cut and bob Perukes: Also Ladies Tatematongues and Towers after the Manner that is now wore at Court.By their Humble and Obedient Servant,“JOHN STILL.”

Reverend Dr. Barnard.Reverend Dr. Barnard.

Reverend Dr. Barnard.

“Perukes,” says Malcolm, in hisManners and Customs, “were an highly important article in 1734.” Those of right gray human hair were four guineas each; light grizzle ties, three guineas; and other colors in proportion, to twenty-five shillings. Right gray human hair cue perukes, from two guineas to fifteen shillings each, was the price of dark ones; and right gray bob perukes, two guineas and a half to fifteen shillings, the price of dark bobs. Those mixed with horsehair were much lower.

Prices were a bit higher in America. It was held that better wigs were made in England than in America or France; so the letter-books and agent’s-lists of American merchants are filled with orders for English wigs.

Imperative orders for the earliest and extremest new fashions stood from year to year on the lists of fashionable London wig-makers; and these constant orders came from Virginia gentlemen and Massachusetts magistrates,—not a few, too, from the parsons,—scantly paid as they were. The smaller bob-wigs and tie-wigs were precisely the same in both countries, and I am sure were no later in assumption in America than was necessitated by the weeks occupied in coming across seas.

Throughout the seventeenth century all classes of men in American towns wore wigs. Negro slaves flaunted white horsehair wigs, goat’s-hair bob-wigs, natural wigs, all the plainer wigs, and all the more costly sorts when these were half worn and secondhand. Soldiers wore wigs; and in theMassachusetts Gazetteof the year 1774 a runaway negro is described as wearing a curl of hair tied around his head to imitate a scratch wig; with his woolly crown this dangling curl must have been the height of absurdity.

It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing, before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman (and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754.

Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed wigs ere sunset came.

No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath. Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place, or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered, all men did not wear wigs. A writer in theLondon Magazinein 1745 tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight “all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds, “It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.” So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants, bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner, who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to the surroundings of their day. In one thing they can be envied. Knowing not of germs and microbes, dreaming not of antiseptics and fumigation, they could be happy in blissful unconsciousness of menacing environment—a blessing wholly denied to us.

Andrew Ellicott.Andrew Ellicott.

Andrew Ellicott.

When James Murray came from Scotland in 1735 he went up the Cape Fear River in North Carolina to the struggling settlements of Brunswick. The stock of wigs which he brought as one of the commodities of his trade had absolutely no market. In 1751 he wrote thus to his London wig-maker:—

“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.”

Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:—

“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed. This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.”

Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem Tory, wrote a few years later:—

“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the gentlest in his motions.”

Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing.

“Though yours be sorely lugged and tornIt does your Visage more adornThan if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and launder’dAnd cut square by the Russian standard.”—“Hudibras,” SAMUEL BUTLER.“Now of beards there be such companyAnd fashions such a throngThat it is very hard to handle a beardTho’ it be never so long.“’Tis a pretty sight and a grave delightThat adorns both young and oldA well thatch’t face is a comely graceAnd a shelter from the cold”—“Le Prince d’Amour,” 1660.

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