Any picture of social life of the period would lack colour which did not give some idea of the quaint dress of the day. Men thought as much about dress as women, and though it is impossible to follow all the vagaries of fashion as shown in the waxing and waning of wigs, the variations of cocked hats, coats, gold lace and sword hilts, yet we may note that men of fashion began to wear the full-bottomed peruke in the reign of George the First, and their ordinary attire consisted of ample-skirted coats, long and richly embroidered waistcoats, breeches, stockings, and shoes with buckles, and three-cornered hats. The beaux or “pretty fellows” of the day blazed out into silks and velvets, reds and greens, and a profusion of gold lace; they were distinguished not only by the many-coloured splendour of their attire, but by their scents of orange flower and civet, their jewelled snuff-boxes, their gold or tortoise-shell rimmed perspective glasses, and especially for their canes, which were often of amber, mounted with gold, the art of carrying which bespoke the latest mode. The ladies, naturally, were no whit behind the men in the variety and novelty of their attire. They bedecked themselves with the brightest hues, and their hair, piled up or flowing, with head-dresses high or low, as fashion decreed, arranged in ringlets or worn plain or powdered, went through as many fluctuations as their lords’ big-wigs, periwigs and perukes. The fan played a large part in conversation and flirtation, and patches and powder were arranged with due regard to effect. Muffs were a prodigious size. It is impossible for the mere man to give a particular description of the silks, velvets, jewels, laces, ribbons and feathers which formed part of the equipment of a lady of quality, or to follow the mysteries of commodes, sacks, _négligés_, bedgowns and mob-caps. But the walking dresses, if we may judge from the fashion plates, seem to have left an extraordinary amount of bosom exposed, to have been very tight in the waist, and to have carried an enormous number of flounces. The hoop, which gradually developed through the Georgian era, was the most monstrous enormity that ever appeared in the world of fashion. The lady who wore a hoop really stood in a cage, and when she moved, she did not seem to walk, for her steps were not visible, but she was rather wafted along. So stepped fair ladies from their sedan-chairs, or floated down the avenues of Kensington and Hampton Court. Servants wore clothes almost as fine as their masters and mistresses, and aped their manners and their vices. All great mansions supported throngs of idle servants in gorgeous liveries, and my lady often had her negro boy, who waited on her, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver collar around his neck.