'On the lower shelf, one shoe, a pair of snuffers, a French Grammar, a mourning hatband; and half a bottle of usquebaugh.
'There will be added to these goods, to make a complete auction, a collection of gold snuffboxes and clouded canes, which are to continue in fashion for three months after the sale.'
In a description of men's dress, we will begin at his hat, and descend gradually to his boots. The hats were rather low crowned, made of felt, with very broad flapping brims—which were looped up, or cocked—very much at the fancy of the wearer—and the absence of this cocking denoted a sloven. 'Take out your Snuff Box, Cock, and look smart, hah!'[173] says Clodio to his bookworm brother Carlos; and their numerous shapes are alluded to by Budgell,[174] 'I observed afterwards, that the Variety of Cocks into which he moulded his Hat, had not a little contributed to his Impositions upon me.'
They were universally of black hue; at least I have never met with mention of any other colour, except in sport: 'I shall very speedily appear at White's in a Cherry coloured Hat. I took this Hint from the Ladies Hoods, which I look upon as the boldest Stroke that Sex has struck for these three hundred Years last past.'[175] They had a gold or silver lace hat band, but ordinary people seldom had their hats edged. A hatband was considered de rigueur for servants, and Swift's man, Peter, even bought a silver one for himself, rather than be without one. Feathers were only worn by military men. 'The Person wearing the Feather, though our Friend took him for an Officer in the Guards, has proved to be an arrant Linnen Draper,'[176] i.e. only in the train bands.
But it was in the periwig, the Falbala, or Furbelow, the dress wig of the age, that all care was centred, and in which all the art of dress culminated. Originally invented by a French courtier to conceal a deformity in the shoulders, either of the Dauphin, or the Duke of Burgundy, its use spread all over Europe; but, perhaps, the fashion never was so preposterous at any time, as it was in Anne's reign, if we except the wonderful wig of the spendthrift Sir Edward Hungerford (whose bust used to be in a niche in Hungerford Market) in the middle of the previous century, who is said to have given five hundred guineas for a wig! They were made from women's hair—or, at least, were so presumably. Of this we have many examples; take one: 'A noisie Temple Beaux with a Peruke of his Sister's Hair ill made';[177]
They made our Sparks cut off their Nat'ral Hair,
A d—d long W——'s Hair Periwig to wear.[178]
Women's hair was a valuable commodity, judging by the following: 'An Oxfordshire Lass was lately courted by a young man of that County, who was not willing to marry her unless her friends could advance £50 for her portion; which they being incapable of doing, the lass came to this City to try her fortune, when she met with a good Chapman in the Strand, who made a purchase of her Hair (which was delicately long and light), and gave her sixty pounds for it, being 20 ounces at £3 an ounce; with which money she joyfully returned into the Country and bought her a husband.'[179] Indeed, it was an article of general purchase and sale: 'We came up to the corner of a narrow Lane, where Money for old Books was writ upon some part or other of every Shop, as surely as Money for Live Hair, upon a Barber's Window.'[180]
Men used to travel the country on horseback and collect it, and it was not unfrequent for suspected highwaymen, when stopped and brought before the authorities, to declare they were dealers in hair, roaming about, following their avocation—although it could not have been a very remunerative one, if we can believe the advertisements for the apprehension of deserters from the army: 'said he was a dealer in hair' being frequently mentioned. Here is an advertisement which gives a graphic picture of one of these gentry: 'Lost on Tuesday Night last the 14th Instant, about 6 in the Evening, from behind a Gentleman in Piccadilly, a Pair of Bags, in which were three Bladders with Hair in, two Holland Shirts, Neckcloaths, and other Linnen, A Leather Bag with an Iron Instrument and Hair in it, a pair of small Perriwig Cards, with Read the Maker's Name in Flower de Luce Court in Fleet Street, and other small matters beside,'[181] etc.; and we may note that 'At the Sugar Loaf in Bishopsgate Street near Cornhil, is the House of Call, where Perriwig Makers can have Men, and Men may have Masters.'[182]
'Did you ever see a Creature more ridiculous than that stake of human nature which dined the other day at our house, with his great long wig to cover his head and face; which was no bigger than a Hackney Turnep, and much of the same form and shape? Bless me, how it looked! just like a great Platter of French Soup, with a little bit of flesh in the middle. Did you mark the beau tiff of his wig, what a deal of pains he took to toss it back, when the very weight thereof was like to draw him from his seat?'[183] And they must have been heavy. 'His Wigg I believe had a pound of Hair and two pounds of powder in't.'[184] And again, 'One Impudent Correcter of Jade's Flesh, had run his Poles against the back Leather of a foregoing Coach, to the great dammage of a Beau's Reins, who peeping out of the Coach door, with at least a fifty Ounce Wig on,' etc.[185]
The furbelow, or dress wig, was sometimes called a 'long Duvillier' (see Tatler 29), from a famous French perruquier of that name; and these wigs were not only long, but tall: vide the humorous advertisement in the Tatler (180): 'N.B. Dancing Shoes, not exceeding four inches in height in the heels, and periwigs not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the coach box gratis.' Not to have it in perfect curl was unendurable. 'I think standing in the Pillory cannot be a more sensible Ignominy to a Gentleman that wears tolerable Cloaths, than appearing in Publick with a rumpled Periwig.'[186] Pretty dears! they used to carry ivory or tortoiseshell combs, curiously ornamented, with them, and comb their precious wigs in public—ay, the most public places—walking in the Park, or sitting in the Beau's Paradise, the side box of the theatre, and when paying visits. But it seems to have been in anybody's power, by the exercise of a little trouble, to keep his wig in proper curl.[187] 'The Secret White Water to Curl Gentlemen's Hair, Children's Hair, or fine Wigs withal, that are out of Curl; being used over Night, according to Directions, it performs a Curl by next Morning as substantial and durable as that of a new Wig, without damaging the Beauty of the Hair one jot; by it old Wigs that look almost scandalous, may be made to shew inconceivably fine and neat, and if any single Lock or part of a Wig be out of Curl, by the pressing of the Hat or riding in windy or rainy Weather, in one Night's time it may be repaired hereby to Satisfaction. The Directions are so ample and large that Gentlemen's Men may perform the work with all the ease imaginable, the like thing never done before. Invented by an able Artist, and sold only at the Glover's Shop under the Castle Tavern, Fleet Street. Price 1s. a Bottle.'