WIGS AND NIGHTCAPS
When wigs were first abandoned the new fashion of wearing the hair was not by any means universally popular, and in some country districts old-fashioned parishioners were by no means enamoured of the change in their pastor’s appearance. A certain clergyman, for instance, who at the beginning of the last century determined to follow the new fashion, and having discarded his wig, appeared in the village street with a cropped head, was severely snubbed by a lady parishioner whom he had consulted as to the effect of this change in his personal appearance. Her remark was, “Once a man, twice a child.” For many years, indeed, people of the old school considered this innovation a most undignified change.
Nightcaps, which were once universally worn, have now pretty well gone the same way as wigs; in old days every one, not only men, but also women, wore them, and they were considered as indispensable as any other article of ordinary attire. There is a well-known story relating to the celebrated Dr. Burney which illustrates this.
Dr. Burney, whilst staying with Nelson at Merton, discovered that he had omitted to bring any nightcaps with him, and so borrowed one from the great admiral. Sitting up to study before retiring to bed, the cap somehow caught fire in a candle, the end portion of it being consumed, upon which Dr. Burney wrote out the following lines, which he sent with the remains of the cap to his host on the following morning:—
Take your nightcap again, my good Lord, I desire,
I would not detain it a minute;
What belongs to a Nelson, where’er there’s a fire,
Is sure to be instantly in it.
Amongst many relics of other days and ways I have several of those old-fashioned wedding and betrothal rings which almost invariably contained a motto inscribed upon their inner surface—posy rings as they were called. The word “posy,” it may be added, is simply an abbreviated form of “poesy,” which Richardson, in his Dictionary of Derivatives, defines as “a brief poetical sentiment,” especially one inscribed on a ring. The custom of inscribing a motto or posy upon brooches survived in Scotland up to comparatively modern times. Those known as Luckenbooth brooches were sold in the “Luckenbooths” round St. Giles’ church in Edinburgh, and were used as love-tokens and betrothal gifts. On them were inscriptions such as—
While lyfe is myne my heart is thyne,