arranged in a multitude of curls, interspersed with pearls, and the long hair was left to float in negligent profusion over the shoulders.

Another head-dress, worn in the early part of 1700, was composed of pasteboard, lace, ribands, and gauze, as represented in the annexed cut. French hoods resumed their place in the annals of fashion about the year 1711. They, as well as many other parts of the female attire, are frequently mentioned, and we find that they were worn of all colours. It appears from the following passage from a popular writer of the time, that they usurped the place of the commode: "The ladies have been for some time in a kind of moulting season, with regard to that part of their dress, having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. As I was standing in the hinder part of the box (at the opera) I took notice of a little cluster of women, sitting together in the prettiest-coloured hoods that I ever saw. One of them was blue, another yellow, and another philomot, the fourth was of a pink colour, and the fifth of a pale green. * I am informed that this fashion spreads daily, insomuch that the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to hang out different colours, and to shew their principles in their head-dress.'

In No. 271 is a letter to the "Spectator," in which

the writer mentions an assembly of ladies, where there were thirteen different coloured hoods; and in another number occurs an advertisement from the parish vestry as follows: "All ladies who come to church in the new-fashioned hoods, are desired to be there before divine service begins, lest they divert the attention of the congregation."

We are further informed that the women let their hair grow to a great length, but tie it up in a knot, and cover it from being seen.

A ribbon head-dress is also spoken of as follows: "A lady of this place had some time since a box of the newest ribbons sent down by the coach. Whether it was her own malicious invention, or the wantonness of a London milliner, I am not able to inform you, but among the rest, there was one cherry-coloured ribbon, consisting of about half-a-dozen yards, made up in the figure of a small head-dress."

In 1715, we find the commode again alluded to, so that it must have reappeared; there is also a description of the feather head-dress: "I pretend not," says Addison, "to draw the single quill against that immense crop of plumes, which is already risen to an amazing height, and unless timely singed by the bright eyes that glitter beneath, will shortly be able to overshadow them. Lady Porcupine's commode is started at least a foot and a half since Sunday last.

But

so long as the commodity circulates, and the outside

L

of a fine lady's head is converted into the inside of her pillow, or, if fate so order it, to the top of her herze, there is no harm in the consumption, and the milliner, upholsterer, and undertaker, may live in an amicable correspondence, and mutual dependence on each other."

In a book of travels written about the same period, we find the following: "And now her ladyship brandishes the combs, and the powders raise clouds in the apartment. She trims up the commode, she places it ten times, unplaces it as often, without being so fortunate as to hit upon the critical point; she models it to all systems, but is pleased with none. For you must know, that some ladies fancy a vertical, others an horizontal position, others dress by the northern latitude, and others lower its point 45 degrees."

Hoops at this time swelled out the petticoats to an enormous extent, so much so that a writer of the day observes, "If the men also adopted the old fashion of trunk hose, a man and his wife would fill a whole pew in church."

In a letter to the "Spectator," we find the following account of hoops: "Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagancies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more. In short, sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the Spectator, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon for the modesty of their head-dresses; for as the humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, in

stead of being entirely banished, seem only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and contrary to all rules of architecture widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure."

A little farther on we read: "But as we do not yet hear of any particular use in this petticoat, or that it contains any thing more than what was supposed to be in those of scantier make, we are wonderfully at a loss about it. Among these various conjectures there are many of superstitious tempers, who look upon the hoop petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfall of the French king, and observe that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy."

In another letter to the "Spectator" we have the following: "I and several of your other female readers have conformed ourselves to your rules, even to our very dress. There is not one of us but has reduced our outward petticoat to its ancient sizeable circumference, though indeed we retain still the quilted one underneath; which makes us not altogether unconformable to the fashion."

Another writer gives an amusing account of the shape and varieties of hoops: "The hoop," he observes, "has been known to expand and contract itself from the size of a butter churn to the circumference of three hogsheads; at one time it was sloped from the waist in a pyramidal form; at another it was bent upwards like an inverted bow, by which the two angles, when squeezed upon both sides,

came in contact with the ears. At present it is nearly of an oval form, and scarce measures from end to end above twice the length of the wearer. The hoop has indeed lost much of its credit in the female world, and has suffered much from the innovation of short sacks and negligés."

The same writer proposes that there should be a female parliament to regulate matters relating to dress and ceremony; and after speculating upon the improvements that would be made by such judicious law-givers, he says, "And they would at least not suffer enormous hoops, to spread themselves across the whole pavement, to the detriment of all honest men going upon business along the street."

The petticoat of wide dimensions is also much censured: "Many are the inconveniences that accrue to her majesty's loving subjects from the same petticoats, as hurting men's shins, sweeping down the wares of industrious females in the streets," &c. &c. "The ladies among us have a superior genius to the men; which have for some years past shot out in several exorbitant inventions, for the greater consumption of our manufacture. While the men have contented themselves with the retrenchment of the hat, or the various scallop of the pocket, the ladies have sunk the head-dress, inclosed themselves in the circumference of the hoop-petticoat; furbelows and flounces have been disposed at will, the stays have been lowered behind; not to mention the various rolling of the sleeve, and those other nice circumstances of dress, upon which every lady employs her fancy at plea

sure."