POWDER AND PATCHES
‘The affectation of a mole, to set off their beauty, such as Venus had.’
‘At the devill’s shopps you buy
A 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 of England. 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 dressed à 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 a galante on my cheek, an enjouée in my dimple, or la majestueuse on 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 to what 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 venerable anecdotes 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.’
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.