In 1711 Addison, in the “Spectator,” devoted a whole number to the subject of ladies’ head-dress, commencing with a declaration “that there is not so variable a thing in nature,” adding, “within my own memory I have known it rise and fall about 30 degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men” (allusion to the Commode). “I remember several ladies that were once very near seven feet high, and at present want some inches of five feet.” After about fifteen years the high Commode again came into fashion, but the startling novelty was the hoop-petticoat. It widened gradually from the waist to the ground, the gown being looped up round the body in front and falling in loose folds behind (Pl. 52, Fig. 1.). A writer of the time says of this fashion: “Nothing can be imagined more unnatural, and, consequently, less agreeable. When a slender woman stands upon a basis so inordinately wide, she resembles a funnel, a figure of no great elegancy.” About this time, ladies, particularly in their riding costumes, imitated the costumes of the men, wearing a cocked beaver hat and feathers, hair curled and powdered and tied like a man’s, coat and waistcoat like a man, with a petticoat below the waist. Sir Roger de Coverley, when looking at a young sporting lady, was about to address her as “Sir,” until he cast his eye lower and saw her petticoat. In contrast with the extravagance shown in the quantity and quality of the materials used for ladies’ dresses, how cheaply the poor could dress at this time may be gathered from an entry in some parish accounts in Norfolk in 1719: “Paid for clading of the Widow Bernard with a gown, petticoat, bodice, hose, shoes, apron and stomacher, 18s. 6d.” In the time of George I. there were few innovations in fashion set by the Court. In the reign of George II. the ladies still laced as tightly, and their hoops were as ugly and inconvenient as ever; but generally speaking, every lady dressed only as pleased herself, so that there was an enormous variety of costumes worn at all public assemblies. At the close of this reign there was a great rage for pastoral plays and Court masques, in which the ladies of the Court and the noblemen appeared as country-folk, shepherds, shepherdesses, milkmaids, &c. Their garments were cut in a simple style after the characters whom they represented, but they were of very costly materials, with diamonds and other precious stones as ornaments. Ladies often wore white muslin aprons similar to that of a modern waitress, and it is said that Beau Nash, the Master of the Ceremonies, and “King of Bath,” disliked them so much at social gatherings, that he took one off a Duchess at one of the assemblies, and threw it among the waiting women.