acency; combing their wigs in
public was then the very spirit of gallantry and rank. The hero of
Richardson, youthful and elegant as he wished him to be, is represented
waiting at an assignation, and describing his sufferings in bad weather
by lamenting that "his _wig_ and his linen were dripping with the hoar
frost dissolving on them." Even Betty, Clarissa's lady's-maid, is
described as "tapping on her _snuff-box_," and frequently taking
_snuff_. At this time nothing was so monstrous as the head-dresses of
the ladies in Queen Anne's reign: they formed a kind of edifice of three
stories high; and a fashionable lady of that day much resembles the
mythological figure of Cybele, the mother of the gods, with three towers
on her head.[66]

It is not worth noticing the changes in fashion, unless to ridicule
them. However, there are some who find amusement in these records of
luxurious idleness; these thousand and one follies! Modern fashions,
till, very lately, a purer taste has obtained among our females, were
generally mere copies of obsolete ones, and rarely originally
fantastical. The dress of _some_ of our _beaux_ will only be known in a
few years hence by their _caricatures_. In 1751 the dress of a _dandy_
is described in the Inspector. A _black_ velvet coat, a _green_ and
silver waistcoat, _yellow_ velvet breeches, and _blue_ stockings. This
too was the aera of _black silk breeches_; an extraordinary novelty
against which "some frowsy people attempted to raise up _worsted_ in
emulation." A satirical writer has described a buck about forty years
ago;[67] one could hardly have suspected such a gentleman to have been
one of our contemporaries. "A coat of light green, with sleeves too
small for the arms, and buttons too big for the sleeves; a pair of
Manchester fine stuff breeches, without money in the pockets; clouded
silk stockings, but no legs; a club of hair behind larger than the head
that carries it; a hat of the size of sixpence on a block not worth a
farthing."

As this article may probably arrest the volatile eyes of my fair
readers, let me be permitted to felicitate them on their improvement in
elegance in the forms of their dress; and the taste and knowledge of art
which they frequently exhibit. But let me remind them that there are
universal principles of beauty in dress independent of all fashions.
Tacitus remarks of Poppea, the consort of Nero, that she concealed _a
part of her face_; to the end that, the i