perior. Roubiliac's statue of Sir John Cass, at Saint Botolph's, Aldgate, exhibits a particularly tasteful wig;* but, notwithstanding his skill displayed in that instance, he was not fond of introducing it, and endeavoured to persuade his sitters to take their wigs off. His busts of Pope, Lord Bolingbroke, Martin Folkes, Doctors Mead and Frewin, and numerous others of men of literature, are without wigs. Jonathan Richardson has etched his own portrait and that of Lord Somers in flowing wigs; and these two prints exhibit more flow of curl and spirit of needle than any I can instance. Indeed, they are complete specimens of tasteful flowing hair; and yet Richardson has also etched his own head, and many more of Lord Bolingbroke and Pope, without wigs; which proves that he preferred the natural shape of the head.

Nollekens's bust of Doctor Johnson is without his wig, but with very thick and heavy locks, which much displeased the Doctor, who insisted upon it that all persons should be pourtrayed as they are seen in company; adding, that though a man for ease may wear a night-cap in his own chamber, he ought not to look like one

* This fine statue has lately been most villainously painted of various colours, in order to make it appear as natural as life, or like the Westminster Abbey wax-work.

who had taken physic. I recollect that Wilkie, the Academician, once observed to an artist who was about to paint his own portrait without his cravat, with his shirt-collar thrown open to exhibit his neck, "Oh don't do that; you'll look as if you were going to be shaved."

In the representation of hair, the spirited Painter has a decided superiority over the most exquisite and dexterous Sculptor; not only in colour and texture, but also as to time. The former is enabled to produce in one hour with his elastic and oily pencil, as much as would take the latter six weeks with his chisel and drill; as may be seen in the beautifully flowing hair of Vandyke, Dobson, Lely, and Kneller, and the laboured works of the best Sculptors. The difference in a Lely wig from that of a Kneller, is, that the former generally falls down the shoulders in front, and the latter is thrown over the shoulders behind.

It must, however, be understood, that though Kneller and Lely thus differed, they did not paint all their sitters according to their own fashion of wearing their wigs. On the contrary, we find by Blooteling's print of Thomas Earl of Danby, that his wig was peculiar. At the bottom of the sides of the wig, which falls over the front of the shoulders, there are three

regularly distinct curls stiffly rolled up. But of all the wig-dandies of those days, the Duke of Ormond appears to have been the most fanciful; and I am supported in this conjecture by the four different portraits of that nobleman, engraven by Faithorne, Loggan, Williams, and White; which, though they all have large and flowing wigs, conspicuously vary in their modes of curling.

It may possibly be within the recollection of some few of my readers, when gentlemen indulged in an immensely expensive purchase of deep and flowing curled wigs, such as Wycherley and "Beau Fielding" wore; and I have been credibly informed, that the enormous sum of fifty guineas was given by the best-dressing men of the time for a truly fashionable wig of the above description. Such wigs continued to be worn by many men of the old school during the latter part of the profession of Zincke, the Enamel-painter, whose portraits exhibit many of them. of them. Sir James Thornhill and Jonathan Richardson wore flowing wigs, and so likewise did Sir James's son-in-law Hogarth, in the early part of his professional career. In the latter years of his life, he wore a Busbywig when dressed; though, whilst painting, he preferred a velvet cap. There are persons now

living, who recollect seeing the father of the late Mr. Prime, of Witton,* wearing a flowing wig, or what is better known in the Burletta of Tom Thumb, a Doodle and a Noodle. Mrs. Nollekens has frequently been heard to relate, that during the early part of Mr. Welch's magistracy, gentlemen were continually annoyed, and frequently robbed of their wigs in the open street and in mid-day. She stated that this method of wig-stealing was singularly daring, as well as laughably curious. A man dressed like a baker, bending beneath a large loaded bread-basket, which he had hoisted upon his shoulders, waited until the first gentleman wearing a costly wig was about to turn the corner of a street in a crowded thoroughfare; and then, just as an accomplice ran forcibly against him, a boy concealed in the baker's basket, knocked off the gentleman's gold-laced hat, and instantly snatched his, wig. Whilst the gentleman was stooping to pick up his hat, the fictitious baker made off, with his dexterous assistant, till he came to the first convenient turning, where he released the boy, who walked away with his booty neatly folded up in a school

* This gentleman resided in the house which had been the mansion of Sir Godfrey Kneller; the staircase of which, painted by that artist, remains perfectly in its original state.

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boy's satchel, which he threw carelessly over his shoulder, as if slowly going to school, with his round, shining, morning face;" leaving the baker with a loaf or two in his basket, pretending to be waiting at a customer's door, at which it was supposed he had knocked. After numerous depredations of this kind, the bakers' men, who were avoided by the Wycherleys,* were determined not to be mistaken; and no longer carried their baskets hoisted on their shoulders, but swung them over the arm, and have ever since carried them at their backs; so that the wearers of wigs might see the contents of their bread-baskets.

But to return to our Sculptor: in my opinion, Mr. Nollekens trusted more to the eyes,

* From Smith's portrait of Wycherley, engraven in 1703, we may conclude that he was, as reported, a very handsome man; and by the sleekness of the curls of his wig, that he took great pains with it; indeed, so much was it the fashion to attend to the easy grace of the curls, that it was his custom, while standing in the pit of the theatre conversing with ladies in the boxes, to comb and adjust his discomposed locks. Wigcombs, which were made of most beautiful specimens of tortoise-shell, and most fancifully engraven with representations of flowers and birds, and indeed sometimes inlaid with mother-of-pearl with their owners' names, were contained in a side-pocket case of the size of a thin octavo volume, for the purpose of having them always about their persons.