The bonnet poked its brim into an audacious spoon, tilting upwards to reveal a trimming beneath of quillings and ruchings in muslin or net, with a bow of ribbon and a bunch of feathers on the crown, whence fell the curtain at the back to the neck. The poke gradually decreased in height and width, eventually assuming a semicircle as close to the brow as the bonnet of a barge-woman, and the French ladies adopted this fashion, making the bonnets of straw and draping them with a green gauze veil. About 1860 the crinoline of horsehair and steels "swelled visibly," like another hero, and Leghorn hats took the place of bonnets. These, decked with ribbons and plumes, would bend low their brims over the face of beauty and ugliness.
Hair was permitted every license except the monstrous unhealthy misdemeanours of the Stuart and Tudor periods. In turn, it strained itself rigidly to the topmost point of the crown, where, coiled in plaits, it met the just reward of a disfiguring bunch of feathers; it puffed itself out in a mass behind the ears, or banded itself demurely over them. It merrily shook itself in ringlets from a centre parting, which knew such sorrow as Macassar oil and the controlling influence of the side comb; or, stuffed out with frisettes, it hid its insincerity in the meshes of the silk and chenille net; or it lay low in flat curls at the nape of the neck. At different times it placed the burden of its rolls and curls upon every inch of the crown—on top of it, in the middle of it, behind it, and in front of it, where, indeed, it once developed a frenzy of disorder, and hung in wild and fringed confusion to the eyebrow.
LADY BLESSINGTON.
LADY DALMENY.
This reminds me to note the royal conservatism of her gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra, who follows fashion at a dignified distance, lending her sweet personal enchantment to our view of her antedated coiffure, with its raised curls over her brow pointing slightly to the centre of the forehead. Royalty no longer seeks to lead fashions, nor, indeed, to follow them, the only exceptions to the rule of generality being the royal ladies of the houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and of Connaught, who all show a most delightful appreciation of, and a becoming sympathy with, every vagary of La Mode. Yet our supreme Royalty takes interest in the national aspect of the affairs of costume, and bestows much personal trouble in arousing loyalty towards Irish poplins, British-made silks, the tweed industries of Ireland and Scotland and Wales, and the lace manufactures of Devonshire and Bucks and Nottingham.
TWO COIFFURES.