opponents, the Parliamentarians, who, holding "love-locks" and "Absalom hair" to be sinful, shaved close, and earned the names of Crop-ears and Roundheads. In later days,

when time and misfortune had thinned and grizzled their hair, the Royalists were glad to take up with the peruke which Louis XIV., to give height and importance to a presence not naturally dignified, had made the vogue in France. Youth followed the example which age had set. To be a man of fashion it was indispensable to wear a wig. The perukes of the times of Charles and James the Second were of enormous size. The pictures of Lely and Kneller offer fine examples of these wigs. It has been said that the two painters may always be distinguished by their method of treating this important article of dress. Lely's portraits the wig falls down the shoulders in front; in Knellers it is tossed back and hangs over the shoulders behind. That these extravagant head-dresses had their devout admirers may be gathered from the story told of a country gentleman, who employed an artist to paint periwigs on the heads of several portraits of his ancestors, by Vandyck,-determined, it is presumed, that the departed worthies, though in their graves, should yet be in the fashion.

In

The Campaign Wig was imported from France some time before 1700. This was very full and curly, eighteen inches in length, with "drop locks." When sufficient human hair was not procurable for the purpose, a little horsehair was used in the parts least visible. The Protestant Mercury of July 10, 1700, relates a story of a provident Oxfordshire lass who was unwilling to marry without a sum of 50l. in hand by way of portion; her friends being unable to assist her, she came to town, "where she met with a good chapman in the Strand, who made a purchase of her hair (which was delicately long and light), and gave her 601. for it, being twenty ounces at 31. an ounce; with which money she joyfully returned into the country and bought her a husband." Features and faces were nearly lost sight of under these overpowering bushes of hair; as Swift says, "the beaux lay hid beneath the penthouse of a full-bottomed periwig."

In the Weekly Comedy (1690), quoted in Malcolm's "London," Snarl asks Brim: "How many bad women do you think have laid their heads together to complete that mane of yours? I'll warrant you now you are as proud of your fine capillament as a morrice-dancer is of his bells, or as the forehorse of a team is of a new feather. assure you it is a most ponderous piece of prodigality; pray what might it cost you a pound?" Brim. "I find, dear Captain, you

I'll

are pleased to be merry; but, indeed, I did not buy it by the pound. Pray, Captain, observe the make of it, and tell me how it becomes me. I assure you I have showed it to several gentlemen who dress extremely well, and are good judges of the French mode, and they guessed it to be Monsieur de la Cringlow's make, the King of France's periwigmaker. It is so finely shaped, and fits with that exactness, if you do but mind it, that, let me turn my head which way I will, the curls fall agreeably to my motion." Snarl. " Indeed, it is a most worshipful piece of art, it is a thousand pities but the man should be knighted that made it. It makes you look, in my mind, like an Essex calf peeping out of a thicket of brambles: for I can scarce see any part of your face but your mouth for periwig." Brim. "As slight as you make of my wig, sir, I would have you know, sir, it cost me fifty guineas; and if I was to tell you how it was made, I am sure you would think it was worth the money." In the Tatler, No. 54, when Phillis in a pet throws the periwig of Duumvir into the fire, "Well," says he, "thou art a brave termagant jade; do you know, hussy, that fair wig cost forty guineas?" Wigs of this value were well worth stealing. The Weekly Journal, of March 30, 1717, informs the public that the thieves have discovered a villainous mode of robbing gentlemen by cutting through the backs of hackneycoaches, and taking away their wigs, and also "the fine head-dresses of the gentlewomen." "So," says the Journalist, "a gentleman was served last Sunday in Tooley Street, and another but last Tuesday in Fenchurch Street, wherefore this may serve as a caution to gentlemen or gentlewomen that ride single in the night-time, to sit on the fore seat, which will prevent that way of robbing." Another way (to use a cookery-book phrase), is recorded in Gay's "Trivia ”.

Where the mob gathers, swiftly shoot along,
Nor idly mingle in the noisy throng,
Lured by the silver hilt, amid the swarm,
The subtle artist will thy side disarm.
Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn:
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy whose hand to rapine bred
Plucks off the curling honours of thy head.

The theft was rendered the more easy of accomplishment from the fact of the hat never being worn over these wigs, but simply carried in the hand or under the arm. Dryden speaks somewhere of the peruke of a Bow Street dandy, as one that "the touch of hat never profaned." The fops of Wycherly's age were especially noted for the splendour of their wigs. The sets of engraved tortoise - shell combs which the beaux carried in their pockets

A story is told of a large black wig with long flowing curls, which had been worn by King Charles II., coming into possession of Suett the comedian, a great collector of wigs. This particular wig was put up for auction at a sale of the effects of Mr. Rawle, Royal Accoutrement Maker, who died late in the last century. The wig, handed round to the company, was put on by Suett, who facetiously continued his biddings with the royal peruke on his head. The other bidders, greatly amused, declared the lot ought to be knocked down to the actor before he took it off; this was done in a moment; the wig was Suett's before he could remove it from his head. He played in it for some years in "Tom Thumb," and other plays, until it was burnt in a fire which destroyed the theatre at Birmingham. Suett was met the morning after the fire exclaiming disconsolately, "My wig's gone, my wig's gone! "

According to Lord Chesterfield "full-bottomed wigs were contrived for the Duke of Burgundy to conceal his hump-back."

"One

must see people undressed," writes his lordship, "to judge truly of their shape; when they are dressed to go abroad their clothes are contrived to conceal, or at least palliate, the defects of it." His advice to his son upon the subject of wig-wearing is sensible enough; he took care, however, not to practice what he preached. "Your own hair is at your age such an ornament, and a wig however well made such a disguise, that I will upon no account whatever have you cut off your hair."

But the profuse black peruke, which we may date from the Restoration, went out of fashion altogether in the course of George the Second's reign. Horace Walpole thus describes the dress of George I.: "A dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue ribbon over all." Tie-wigs had already become the mode, and grey the fashionable colour. In 1734 wigs "of right grey human hair," were advertised at four guineas each; "light grizzle ties" three guineas, and other colours in proportion down to twenty-five shillings. The long lappels in front dispensed with, and a tie of ribbon, gathering the hair together at the back, being introduced, many varieties came in vogue. The Connoisseur,

day with the obsolete penthouse periwigs,
says: "The fine gentlemen of Our time
not only oblige us with their full faces, but
have drawn back the side curls quite to the
tip of the ear." At the back the wig was tied
loosely in a club form, or was gathered into a
silken bag, or was tightly bound into a long
thin queue or pig-tail. The London Chronicle,
of 1762, discoursing upon wigs, sets forth
with the statement that " wigs are as essential
to everybody's head as lace to their clothes.”
It then gives a long list, by which it seems
that there were wigs suited to every condition
in life, and almost to every peculiarity of
character. The "Prentice Minor-bob, or
Hair cap," is worn short in the neck, to show
the stone stock-buckle, and nicely stroked
from the face to discover seven-eighths of
the ears;
"the "Citizen's Sunday Buckle
or Bob-major" bears several tiers of curls;
in the "Apothecary's Bush " the hat seems
to sink like a stone into a snowheap; the
"Physical and Chirurgical Ties carry much
consequence in their foretops, and the depend-
ing knots fall fore and aft the shoulders with
secundum artem dignity." "The Scratch or
the Blood's skull covering, is combed over the
forehead, untoupeed, to imitate a head of hair,
because these gentlemen love to have every-
thing natural about them." Lastly, the coach-
man, amateur or professional, adopted a wig
known as "the Jehu's Jemmy, or white and
all white," covered with small close curls, like
a fine fleece on a lamb's back. These nice
distinctions in the matter of wigs are also
pointed out in Colman's Prologue to Garrick's
"High Life above Stairs "-

Fashion, in everything, bears sovereign sway,
And words and periwigs have both their day;
Each have their purlieus, too,—are modish each
In stated districts, wigs as well as speech.
The Tyburn scratch, thick club, and Temple-tie,
The parson's feather-top, frizzed broad and high,
The coachman's cauliflower, built tier on tiers,
Differ not more from bags and brigadiers,
Than great St. George's or St. James's styles
From the broad dialect of broad St. Giles.

That upon these distinctions some stress was laid appears from Boswell's complaint, "There is a general levity in the age; we have physicians now with bag-wigs."

When George the Third came to the throne wigs were for a time less generally worn, especially by young men. The king then wore his own hair carefully dressed and powdered, drawn from the forehead and curled at the sides, apparently to look as formal and wiglike as possible, as may be seen in Woollett's engraving after Ramsay's portrait. In later years he was fond of a rather inelegant look

ing wig, worn without powder, and called after him " a Brown George." Dr. Johnson, in the early portraits, appears in a wig with five rows of curls, commonly called a story wig. But in general his wigs were very shabby, being much singed in front, from his habit of reading with the candle held close to him to assist his very defective sight. At one time,

room

however, as Boswell tells us, "he was furnished with a Paris-made wig of handsome construction." This was probably the wig kept at Mr. Thrale's house at Streatham, and with which Johnson was met at the diningdoor by the butler, who solemnly assisted him in the removal of his old, and the putting on of his dress wig. How indispensable he considered a wig may be gathered from his remark, "In England any man who wears a sword and a powdered wig is ashamed to be illiterate."

Goldsmith was noted for his small and slovenly wig. A peculiar wig, low on the forehead, with five crisp curls on each side, was brought into fashion by David Garrick, and was generally described as the "Garrick cut." But the great actor occasionally varied the mode of his peruke. The portraits by Wood, Sherwin, and Dance exhibit him in three different forms of wigs; and these, it must be understood, are the wigs of private, not professional life.

Fashion dearly loves extremes. Wigs having been worn as large as they could well be made, it next became a desideratum to have them as small as possible. Diminutive wigs and enormous buckles are thus referred to in Sheridan's Prologue to "The Trip to Scarborough," adapted from Vanbrugh's "Relapse," in 1777

Of former time that polished thing, a beau, Is metamorphosed now from top to toe : Then the full flaxen wig, spread o'er the shoulders, Concealed the shallow head from the beholders. But now the whole's reversed; each fop appears Cropped and trimmed up, exposing head and ears. The buckle then its modest limits knew; Now, like the ocean, dreadful to the view, Hath broke its bounds and swallows up the shoe; The wearer's foot, like his own fine estate, Is almost lost, the encumbrance is so great. Indeed, so far back as 1737, a writer in the London Magazine discusses the youth of his day, forgiving them "the unnatural scantiness of their wigs and the immoderate dimensions of their bags, in consideration that the fashion has prevailed, and that the opposition of a few to it would be the greater affectation of the two. Though," he goes on to say, "I very much doubt whether they or any of them gain by showing their ears, for 'tis said that Midas, after a certain accident, was the

judicious inventor of long wigs." And in a poetical effusion describing a beau's costume in the year 1755, may be found the linesCock his beaver neat and well,— Beaver size of cockle-shell; Let his wig be thin of hairs,

Wig that covers half his ears, &c.

The temporary abandonment of perukes on the accession of George the Third, produced quite a panic among the wig-makers. They hastened to present a petition setting forth their grievances; they professed to feel the utmost reluctance to prefer complaints, but were compelled so to do by the distresses they laboured under, and the certainty of these increasing in severity; they alleged that thousands of workpeople and manufacturers, such as ribbon-weavers, caul-makers, hair manufacturers, &c., depended entirely upon the peruquiers, and ran the risk of perishing miserably "unless some means could be speedily found to support their falling trade, fatally wounded by the present mode of fashion, which so generally prevails, of men in almost all stations wearing their own hair." This "mode,” they go on to say, pernicious enough in itself to their trade, is rendered excessively more so by swarms of French hairdressers already in these cities and daily increasing, who by artifice more than merit, as your Petitioners humbly presume, and by that facility with which your Majesty's British subjects are too much inclined to prefer French skill and taste in every article of dress (by which the most considerable manufactories in these kingdoms, as well as those of your petitioners, do greatly suffer), find means to get employment, to the privation of that pittance to your Majesty's natural subjects which the fashion itself would still leave in their power to obtain." They next complain that the fashion of not wearing wigs leads to irreligion, and to breach of the commands of God and man, and disobedience of his Majesty's proclamation, because, that Sunday "is to such of your Petitioners as can yet find employment the day of all others on which they are most hurried and confused." They allege that they tremble for the consequences which this involuntary Sabbath-breaking may entail upon themselves and their children. Finally, they pray for his Majesty's example and countenance to relieve “unimagined numbers" from "the deepest misery,” and "for such commiseration and relief as to his Majesty should seem meet." To this touching appeal the King most graciously made answer : "That he held nothing dearer to his heart than the happiness of his people, and they might be assured that he should at all times use his endeavours to promote their real

welfare." The petition had been signed by great numbers, and was carried, on February 11th, 1765, in solemn procession to St. James's Palace for presentation to the King. From the populace, however, the peruquiers received a treatment much less kindly and gracious than their sovereign's. Struck with the fact that many of these men who were petitioning that others should be compelled to wear perukes, the while they themselves wore none, the mob, with a humorous practicality, seized upon such of them as wore no wigs and forcibly sheared off their hair in the public streets.

That wisdom, or the semblance of it, pertained to a wig has been a supposition of long standing. Goldsmith writes, in the "Citizen 1 of the World," "To appear wise nothing more is requisite here than for a man to borrow hair from the heads of all his neighbours, and clap it like a bush on his own. The distributors of law and physic stick on such quantities that it is almost impossible, even in idea, to distinguish between the head and the hair." And Cumberland, in the "Choleric Man," says, "Believe me, there is much good sense in old distinctions; when the law lays down its fullbottomed periwig, you will find less wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of." Other advantages of wig wearing are mentioned by Sir John Sinclair in his "Code of Health" "Wearing a wig," he writes, "is an excellent practice for the old, the tender, and the studious; all persons after sixty ought to wear a wig." But, alike for old and young, wigs have now departed; and yet time was when they were so universal, that on behalf of the lad in his teens, a provision was inserted in his articles of apprenticeship that his master should find him in "one good and sufficient wig yearly, and every year for and during and unto the expiration of the full end and term of his apprenticeship."

What became of the old wigs? These of course fell from their high estate, were worn threadbare and ragged, fell into holes, were cast off as fashions changed. Yet there was a market for old wigs as for other abandoned garments. There were regular dealers in Rag Fair, as well as peripatetic merchants who called out "Old Wigs! Old Wigs!" in every street and at every door, as persistently as the better known "Old Clo' !" purchasers, who still remain, and will probably flourish till the end of time. There was a ready market for second-hand wigs; seafaring gentlemen and others much exposed to weather, were often heard to exclaim, "Well, the winter's coming on, I must go to Rosemary Lane and have a dip for a wig.'" This "dipping for wigs"

one.

You

was a simple and primitive sort of art. paid a shilling, and, in the dark, thrust your hand into a barrel full of wigs and pulled out It was a lottery; if you obtained a wig to your fancy, well and good; if not, you paid sixpence more and took another dip, and so on, sixpence each dip after the first, until you were suited. Curriers, too, were said to use old wigs for cleaning the waste, &c., off their leather.

But wigs went out at last with powder, and patches, and hoops. The French Revolution brought in new fashions. Men brushed up their hair straight from their foreheads, according to the Brutus fashion of the Republic. Women cut their hair short at the back, wearing little crisp curls that left the neck entirely free, with room for an imaginary axe to fall cleanly; this mode was called à la guillotine. For Fashion seldom approaches even the sensible; you must never expect her to be serious; she was not shocked into sobriety of demeanour even by the Reign of Terror. The scaffolds still wet and crimson, she instituted Bals à Victime, into which none were admissible but those whom the executioner had deprived of a relative or relatives, and every dancer was to wear a band of crape round the left arın. "Peace be to the dead, let us dance to their memory," as Mr. Carlyle puts it. Let no one after this expect to see Reason and Fashion walking hand in hand. DUTTON COOK.

THE PYTCHLEY HUNT.

FOX-HUNTING is a pastime so essentially English in its character, that we possess but two counties, Middlesex and Westmoreland, wherein the loud "Tally Ho" of the huntsman may not be heard ringing over the broad meadows and undulating plains, when

A Southerly wind and a cloudy sky Proclaim it a hunting morning. England, if we may trust the hunting maps, is divided into nearly one hundred fox-hunting and stag-hunting districts, exclusive of those devoted to hare-hunting, and when the season is at its height, that is, about January and February, the total number of huntsmen in the various "fields" equals that of a moderate-sized army.

The two principal hunting districts are those of the Quorn and Pytchley, so named from the township of Quorndon in Leicestershire, and the village of Pytchley in Northamptonshire. These two hunts, together with those of Belvoir, Atherstone, and Cottesmore, form what may be termed the aristocratic division of the English hunting system, and during the season display a series of "meets" unequalled

perhaps in the world for number, rank, and first-class animals. At present the Quorn hunt stands foremost in the estimation of the hunting aristocracy, the Pytchley occupying the second rank, but until the commencement of the present century it was otherwise. One cause of the change was the largely increased cost of maintaining a hunting establishment, which gradually compelled the local squires and farmers to abdicate their functions as members of the hunt, in favour of wealthier individuals who came from a distance. Yet, notwithstanding this, the fame of the Pytchley was so firmly established, that even the Quorn would not have obtained its yet contested supremacy, but for the vast sums of money expended by its members from time to time in maintaining and extending the high-class character of the Leicestershire hunt. Nor is this surprising, considering that "the land of the Pytchley" was famous as a hunting district so far back as the time of William the Conqueror, if not still earlier. In "Domesday Book "mention is made of a certain Alwyne the Hunter, who held the lordship of Pytchley, a little village situated between two and three miles from the busy town of Kettering in Northamptonshire. But there were hunters before the time of Alwyne, for when the village church was being restored some few years since, several ancient stone coffins were found buried in the churchyard, in one of which was a skeleton, having by its side a rudely formed spear-head and a boar's tusk. Northamptonshire in the days of Alwyne the Hunter and his predecessors was an immense forest, broken here and there by large plains, which formed the residence of the hunters, who gained a subsistence by killing the wild animals which abounded in the woods around them. These forests have since gradually disappeared, with the exception of small portions at Rockingham and Burghley, in which the wild cat may yet occasionally be found. The immediate successor of Alwyne the Hunter was William of Pightesley, or Pighteslea, as Pytchley was anciently spelt. This William and his successors held their lands "by the sergeantry of hunting the wolf whenever the king should order." In the sixteenth of Edward II., Nicholas Engaine held of the crown certain lands in Pytchley, by the service of finding, at his own expense, a proper number of dogs for 'the destruction of wolves, foxes, martrons (martens), and other vermin, within the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Bucks, Essex, and Huntingdon. Here we have the origin of the Pytchley Hunt. In the church of the adjoining village of Orlingbury is an ancient tomb containing the alabaster effigy of

an armed warrior, asserted by local tradition to be the figure of Jack of Batsaddle, who is popularly believed to have killed, somewhere between Orlingbury and Pytchley, the last wolf in England, a circumstance stated to have led to his death, he having-while heated with the conflict-partaken too copiously of cold water from a neighbouring spring.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the manor was in the possession of the Isham family, who held it on the same terms as the Engaines. Sir Euseby Isham, who lived about Elizabeth's time, erected the manor house or hall, afterwards so famous in connection with the meetings of the Pytchley Hunt. The old engravings of the building show it to have been a very good specimen of the old English manor house, such as may yet occasionally be met with in the more secluded parts of the county. The edifice was taken down in 1828, but the doorway is still preserved at Glendon, near Kettering; and the ancient Jacobean gateway now forms one of the lodge entrances to Overstone Park, near Northampton. It was during the middle and later portions of the last century that the Pytchley Hunt achieved its greatest reputation and stood without a rival, giving to Northamptonshire an imperishable name as a sporting county. The Hunt Club consisted of forty members, who, as the expenses increased, became more and more exclusive, until they formed the élite of the sporting aristocracy and gentry, their individual expenses ranging from 10001. to 5000l. per annum. "The Druid," in the celebrated sporting work "Silk and Scarlet," has related many anecdotes of the club at this period, especially when it was under the mastership of Lord Spencer, who thoughtfully occasioned a record to be made of every hunt which took place while he was master. Chace books thus formed are still preserved at Althorp, and contain many details interesting to the lovers of hunting. They occupy several MS. volumes, the handwriting being that of Lord Spencer himself, and the following entry will afford a fair specimen of the remainder.

The

Saturday, Nov. 27, 1773.-Frost and snow have prevented the hounds going out for a week. Out:Lord Spencer, Lord and Lady Jersey, Lord and Lady Charles Spencer, Colonel Mordaunt, Mr. Minchin, Mr. Samwell. Turned out a bag fox in the spinny, by Little Brington. He was seen going up the fields, as the hounds were coming to the spinny, towards Brington town, and they were laid upon the scent at the spinny. He went round those fields under the town, down to Chintwell, up the grounds to No-Bottle Wood, through that, and was killed at some distance, by the

side of the lane that leads to Duston: it was a burst of twenty-nine minutes. Found another fox at Harpole Hills, which broke cover towards No-Bottle Wood, but was headed back by a country boy into the furze, which he went directly through, and came out at the