Our national fault—want of taste in dress, and fondness for new fashions, however unsuitable—called forth the censure of an Italian visitor:—
“The ladies of England do not understand the art of decorating their persons so well as those of Italy; they generally increase the volume of the head by a cap which makes it much bigger than nature, a fault which should be always avoided in adorning that part.... They wear their petticoats too short behind, and not imitating the most graceful birds, as the ladies of Italy and France, in a trail of their robes upon the ground, lose the greatest grace which dress can impart to a female....
“In truth, not beauty, but novelty governs in London, not taste, but copy. A celebrated woman of five foot six inches gives law to the dress of those who are but four feet two.... There is nothing so common as to hear the ladies of this nation assure you that such a shape is quite out of fashion, and the present reigning mode is the slender or the large; as if the creative power, like the hands of mantua makers, had cut the human person by a new pattern and thrown away the old.... This is not the case in Italy and France; the ladies know that the grace which attends plumpness is unbecoming the slender; and the tall lady never affects to look like a fairy; nor the dwarf like the giantess, but each studying the air and mein which become her figure, appears in the most engaging dress that can be made, to set off her person to the greatest advantage.”
About the middle of the century quite an outcry arose about the introduction of so many French fashions, and the prints of the day are full of caricatures of French ways and costumes. It was the upper classes who were first seized with this mania for imitation, and the example being infectious, spread rapidly through all ranks of society. The fashionable world followed France, and the middle classes followed the fashionable world. The mode of life, the popularity of public gardens, to which high and low resorted, brought the ways of the gay world under the eyes of the staid folk who dwelt in the city.
“What was looked upon as the beau-monde, then lived much more in public than now, and men and women of fashion displayed their weaknesses to the world in public places of amusement and resort with little shame or delicacy. The women often rivalled the men in libertinism and even emulated them sometimes in their riotous manners.”[64]
In 1770 an Act was passed declaring—
“That all women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether virgins, maids or widows, that shall from and after such Act, impose upon, seduce, or betray into matrimony, any of his Majesty’s male subjects by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, etc., shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours, and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand null and void.”
Public morals were at a low ebb if we may trust the observation of that experienced traveller, M. Grosley, who says that the women of the town were bolder and more numerous in London than in Paris or Rome. They thronged the footpaths at night, and even in broad daylight accosted passers by, more particularly those whom they perceived to be foreigners.
Archenholz, who visited London some years after Grosley, says:—
“On compte cinquante mille prostituées à Londres, sans les maîtresses en titre. Leurs usages et leur conduite déterminent les différentes classes où il faut les ranger. La plus vile de toutes habite dans les lieux publics sous la direction d’une matrone qui les loge et les habille. Ces habits même pour les filles communs, sont de soie, suivant l’usage que le luxe a généralement introduit en Angleterre.... Dans la seule paroisse de Marybonne, qui est la plus grande et la plus peuplée de l’Angleterre, on en comptoit, il y a quelques années, treize mille, dont dix-sept cents occupoient des maisons entières à elles seules.”