character--and not times and customs--determines
the effectiveness of the sex. Matters of custom and of dress signify
little, and yet the Solons who passed the act of 1770 to lessen the
potency of woman's charms appear to have been utterly oblivious of
the important consideration that these do not rest in outward
circumstance, but in inward grace. This curious act prescribed: "That
all women, of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether
virgins, maids, or widows, that shall, from and after such Act, impose
upon, seduce, or betray into matrimony, any of his Majesty's male
subjects by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth,
false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, etc.,
shall incur the penalty of the law now enforced against witchcraft and
like misdemeanours, and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand
null and void." And this, too, just six years before the American
Declaration of Independence!

Allusion to this act proscribing aids to beauty leads to the
consideration of the matter of costume and adornment. This can be
summarized in the censure which was called forth from an Italian
visitor: "The ladies of England do not understand the art of
decorating their persons so well as those of Italy; they generally
increase the volume of the head by a cap that makes it much bigger
than nature, a fault which should be always avoided in adorning that
part." After this observation, the writer passes on to criticise
the length of the ladies' skirts, affirming that they wore their
petticoats too short behind, unlike the ladies of Italy and France,
for--and we are indebted to him for his explication of trains--these
ladies "pattern after the most graceful birds." By their failure to
emulate the peacock or the bird-of-paradise in the matter of their
splendid appendages, the English women are said to lose "the greatest
grace which dress can impart to a female." He continues, saying: "In
truth, not beauty, but novelty governs in London, not taste, but copy.
A celebrated woman of five foot six inches gives law to the dress of
those who are but four feet two.... This is not the case in Italy
and France; the ladies know that the grace which attends plumpness is
unbecoming the slender; and the tall lady never affects to look like a
fairy; nor the dwarf like the giantess, but each, studying the air and
mien which become her figure, appears in the most engaging dress that
can be made, to