1745. The following description of Lady Lovat, wife of the rebel Simon, is a charming picture of a Scotch gentlewoman of the last century:—
"When at home her dress was a red silk gown with ruffled cuffs and sleeves puckered like a man's shirt, a fly cap of lace encircling her head, with a mob cap laid across it, falling down on the cheeks; her hair dressed and powdered; a lace handkerchief round the neck and bosom (termed by the Scotch a Befong)—a white apron edged with lace.... Any one who saw her sitting on her chair, so neat, fresh, and clean, would have taken her for a queen in wax-work placed in a glass case."—Heart of Midlothian.
Sir Walter Scott, whose descriptions are invariably drawn from memory, in his Chronicles of the Canongate, describes the dressing-room of Mrs. Bethune Balliol as exhibiting a superb mirror framed in silver filigree-work, a beautiful toilet, the cover of which was of Flanders lace.
Heart of Midlothian.
Statistical Account of Scotland. Sir John Sinclair. Edinburgh, 1792. Vol. ii., 198.
Edinburgh Amusement.