"Make your petticoats short, that a hoop eight yards wide
May decently show how your garters are tied."
Indeed, the hoop of this period had attained to such enormous proportions that, as Fairholt observes, the figure of a lady was considerable; for they were now not only the better, but the larger, half of creation, and half a dozen men might be accommodated in the space occupied by a single lady.[16]
In a print entitled "The Review," of the latter part of the reign of George II., the inconveniences of the hoop petticoat are exhibited in a variety of ways, and various methods for their remedy are suggested. One of the most ingenious is that of a coach with a moveable roof and a frame with pulleys to drop the ladies in from the top, in order to avoid the disarranging of their hoops which would necessarily attend their entrance by the door.
Hoop petticoats disappeared early in the reign of George III., and the genius of extravagance then turned its attention to the head-dress.
"DON'T BE AFRAID, MY DEAR."
Engraved by Isidore-Stanilas Helman.
In the expiring years of the fifties of the last century the crinoline proper appeared. There had been hints of it earlier, not to say threats, in the bell-shaped skirts which obtained in about 1835, of which the charming creature in the London promenade dress ([p. 55]) provides an example.
The chief satirist of the crinoline is Punch, although, amongst others, an amusing skit on the difficulties and dangers of the crinoline appeared about 1870, with a number of coloured illustrations by "Quiz," now very rare.