Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
I do not exactly know how people dressed at that time; but I believe
that sacks, and negligees, and toupees were going out, and the pigtail
and the simpler modern style of dress coming in. I recollect hearing my
mother describe the misery of having her hair dressed two or three
stories high, and of lying in it all night ready for some visit or
spectacle next day. I think I also recollect seeing Wilkes himself in an
old-fashioned flap-waistcoated suit of scarlet and gold; and I am sure I
have seen Murphy, the dramatist, a good deal later, in a suit of a like
fashion, though soberer, and a large cocked-hat. The cocked-hat in
general survived till nearly the present century. It was superseded by
the round one during the French Revolution. I remember our steward at
school, a very solemn personage, making his appearance in one, to our
astonishment, and not a little to the diminution of his dignity. Some
years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots,
and a round hat, with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with
his hat off his forehead, and his nose in the air. Much about the same
time I saw his friend, the first Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking
old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. Fox, fat and
jovial, though he was then declining. He, who had been a "beau" in his
youth, then looked something quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored
clothes, a broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken,
white stockings. He was standing in Parliament-street, just where the
street commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two young
gentlemen laugh heartily at something which he seemed to be relating.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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