flowers. A lady of this period, with a tippet like a child's, over the shoulders is seen in the cut. Ladies also wore their hair curled like perukes, as well as interlaced with strings of pearls. Earrings,necklaces, bracelets, and other jewels, were also much worn; and the arms and bosoms were uncovered. Laced handkerchiefs SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. resembling the large falling bands, worn by men, were also fashionable among the ladies; and this article of dress has been revived, and called a Vandyck, from its frequent occurrence in that painter's portraits. The civil wars and interregnum altered the national dress chiefly by the addition of armour for security in those troublous times, when hats were lined with plate iron to protect the wearers. The men usually wore long vests and cloaks of dark colours, with plain collars, called falling bands or turnovers. Puritanism forbad the females to wear lace, jewels, or braided hair; a severity in accordance with the puritanical anathema of dress. With the restoration of Charles II. appeared the first resemblance to the present costume of coats and waistcoats, then, however, generally worn on the Continent. The former were long and straight, having a long line of buttons down the front, pockets very low down in the skirts; while the waistcoat had large flaps and pockets. Full laced ruffles were worn loose at the wrists, with Holland sleeves; and a broad sword-belt of embroidered cloth was hung across the shoulders. The ladies' dresses now became extremely splendid, as if to compensate for their recent severity; the fashions of the head-dress, especially, were very fantastic. The bosom was in general covered only by lace, and frequently only by a pearl necklace; whilst the hair was arranged in a style particularly elegant and luxurious. The portraits of the beauties of the court of Charles II. in Windsor Castle are the best illustrations of the female costume of this period. This, however, had its enormities; for we find the quaint old Cowley censuring the dress of the time by asking, 66 Is any thing more common than our ladies of quality to wear such high shoes as they cannot walk in without one to lead them? And a gown as long again as their body; so that they cannot stir to the next room, without a page or two to hold it up?" Yet, the citizens' wives appear to have dressed with exemplary plainness, until about the year 1688, when it was observed that five hundred pounds given with a daughter sixty years back was esteemed a larger portion than two thousand pounds in those days. Gentlewomen were then considered well clothed in a serge gown, which a chambermaid would now be ashamed of; and besides the great increase of rich clothes, plate, jewels, and furniture, there were then one hundred coaches to one kept formerly. These facts must be allowed to bespeak a remarkable improvement in the condition of the English people. To sum up a few of the habits to the end of the reign of James II. Beaver hats were in high repute, and by a record of 1663, appear to have been then called castors, a name revived by the vulgar in our time. In an old song of the fashions occurs the following: The Spaniard's constant to his block, Charles 1. is painted with a broad-brimmed middling high crowned hat, worn slouched on one side, with a large flaunting feather. The high-crowned hat kept in fashion till the time of Charles II., and the broad-brimmed hat, surrounded with feathers, continued after the Revolution: yet we read of Charles wearing a greasy high-crowned steeple hat before the Restoration. Perukes were very fashionable towards the close of this century, and are called by a writer of the time, short bobs, heads of hair, and wigs with short locks and hairy crowns, and counterfeit hair-a custom " contrary to our forefathers, who got estates, loved their wives, and wore their own hair." The judge's wig came into general fashion in this century; and Archbishop Tillotson was the first prelate who wore a wig, which then was not unlike the natural hair, and worn without powder: but the best illustrations of clerical wigs are in the portraits of all the archbishops, from Laud to the present time, at Lambeth Palace: in these the gradual changes are well shown. Hair-powder was introduced from France in this century: it was worn of various colours, an absurdity only discontinued with the last century. The peruke of thick black hair, which had been introduced by Charles II. was still worn under William III. It was very long before, hung down in front, or rested upon the shoulders, though the colour was altered to suit the complexion; and combing these wigs at public places was an act of gallantry. The combs for this purpose were very large, of ivory or tortoiseshell, curiously ornamented, and were carried in the pocket as constantly as the snuffbox; whence our pocket-comb. At court, whilst walking in the Mall of St. James's Park, and in the boxes at the theatre, the beaux turned their wig curls over their fingers while in conversation. The ladies wore false locks and curls set on wires to make them stand out; and a head-dress of the year 1688 very closely resembled one of the present day. Next was introduced the large head-dress of the hair strained over a toupee of silk and cotton wool, and carried up considerably more than the length of the face, the whole being decorated with furbelows, and long lappets of Brussels or point lace, hanging from it. In a corresponding taste were the very long waists of this period, with stomachers of velvet covered with jewels. Under the house of Stuart, the shoe-rose gave way to the shoe-string. The beaux of that age wore double laces of silk, tagged with silver: the inferior classes wore laces of plain silk, linen, or even a thong of leather; which last" is still to be met with in the humble plains of rural life." Shoe-buckles, in size and shape resembling the horse-bean, were introduced at the Revolution. Flimsy Spanish leather-boots with spurs were also fashionable, and the beaux went in them to balls. The changes in costume in the eighteenth century will scarcely require such minuteness as the preceding eras, since the dress approximates with the time to our own fashions. Long wigs continued in fashion, though tie wigs had become the high court dress, from the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke having tied his wig up at court in the reign of William and Mary; upon which the queen observed he would " soon come to court in his nightcap." The broad-brimmed hat being found inconvenient, one flap was made to lift up, and was placed either in front, or the back of the head; soon after two flaps were turned up, and in the reign of Queen Anne, the third flap was introduced, thus forming the complete cocked hat, which, in the middle of the last century, was considered as a mark of gentility, and as a distinction from the lower orders, who wore round hats. In 1672, the average breadth |