The _Connoisseur_, describing the reckless extravagance of one of these ladies, writes:--"The lady played till all her ready money was gone, staked her cap and lost it, afterwards her handkerchief. He then staked both cap and handkerchief against her tucker, which, to his pique, she gained." When enumerating the various causes of suicide, he proposes "that an annual bill or report should be made out, giving the different causes which have led to the act." Among others, in his proposed "Bill of Suicide," he gives French claret, French lace, French cooks, etc. The men, though scarcely coming up to the standard of Sir Courtly Nice,[1052] who has all his bands and linen made in Holland and washed at Haarlem, were just as extravagant as the ladies. {354}GEORGE II. "'How well this ribband's glass becomes your face,' She cries in rapture; 'then so sweet a lace! How charmingly you look!'" --Lady M. W. Montagu. _Town Eclogues._ For court and state occasions Brussels lace still held its sway. In the reign of George II. we read how, at the drawing-room of 1735, fine escalloped Brussels laced heads, triple ditto laced ruffles,[1053] lappets hooked up with diamond solitaires, found favour. At the next the ladies wore heads dressed English, _i.e._, bow of fine Brussels lace of exceeding rich patterns, with the same amount of laced ruffles and lappets. Gold flounces were also worn. Speaking of the passion for Brussels lace, Postlethwait indignantly observes:--"'Tis but a few years since England expended upon foreign lace and linen not less than two millions yearly. As lace in particular is the manufacture of nuns, our British ladies may as well endow monasteries as wear Flanders lace, for these Popish nuns are maintained by Protestant contributions."[1054] Patriotism, it would appear, did come into vogue in the year 1736, when at the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the bride is described as wearing a night-dress of superb lace, the bridegroom a cap of similar material. All the laces worn by the court on this occasion are announced to have been of English manufacture, with the exception of that of the Duke of Marlborough, who appeared in point d'Espagne. The bride, however, does not profit by this high example, for shortly after we read, in the _Memoirs of Madame Palatine_, of the secretary of Sir Luke Schaub being drugged at Paris by an impostor, and robbed of some money sent to defray the purchase of some French lace ruffles for the Princess of Wales. {355}It was of native-made laces, we may infer, Mrs. Delany writes in the same year:--"Thanks for your apron. Brussels nor Mechlin ever produced anything prettier."