e balusters
outward. Great variety of women's dress appears under George II., but
those in the height of the mode affected a shepherdess simplicity in
their walking clothes, wearing the flat-crowned or high-crowned hats and
long aprons of the dairymaid. At this time a new fashion comes in, the
_sacque_, a gown, sometimes sleeveless, open to the waist, hanging
loosely from the shoulders to near the edge of the hoop-petticoat.
George III.'s reign saw women's head-dressings reach an extravagance of
folly passing all that had come before it. Hair kneaded with pomatum and
flour was drawn up over a cushion or pad of wool, and twisted into curls
and knots and decorated with artificial flowers and bows of ribbon. As
this could not be achieved without the aid of a skilled barber, the
"head" sometimes remained unopened for several weeks. At the end of that
time sublimate powder was needed to kill off the tenantry which had
multiplied within. At the beginning of the last quarter of the century
the feathers grew larger, chains of beads looped about the curls, while
ships in full sail, coaches and horses, and butterflies in blown glass,
rocked upon the upper heights. Loose mob-caps or close "Joans" were worn
in undress, often as simple as the full dress was fantastic. Varieties
of the gown and sacque remained in fashion, the petticoat being still
much in evidence, flounced or quilted, or festooned with ribbons. Before
the 'eighties of this century were over, a new taste, encouraged by the
painters of the school of Reynolds, began to sweep away many follies,
and the revolutionary fashions of France, breaking with all that spoke
of the old regime, expelled many more. The age of powder and gold lace,
of peach-bloom brocade coats with muff-shaped cuffs, of bag-wigs and
three-cornered hats drew suddenly to an end. Mr Pitt killed hair-powder
by his tax of 1795, but before that time fashionable men, who since the
beginning of George III's. reign had been somewhat inconstant to the
wig, were wearing their own hair unpowdered and tied in a club at the
back of the coat collar. Before the century end the roughly cropped
"Brutus" head was seen. The wig remained here and there on some
old-fashioned pates. Bishops wore it until far into the Victorian age,
and it may still be seen in the Houses of Parliament and in the courts
of law. Even breeches were passing, tight pantaloons showing themselves
in the streets. The coat, cut away over the hips, beg