Mayor Rip Van Dam.
Pepys’s Diary contains 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.”
