At the beginning of the seventeenth century the dresses were tight at the waist, but begun to be made very full around the hips, by means of large padded rolls, which were still more enlarged by a monstrous arrangement of padded whalebone and steel. To both boots and shoes high heels were added, in place of the flat heels previously worn. About 1710 the hooped petticoat was introduced, and about 1740 they obtained enormous dimensions. When traced to their original sources, we find that all of the extremes of fashion were made to conceal some deformity of the figure, or to give to a part of it undue prominence, as in the case of the corset, which was first introduced when clothes were not wanted for the concealment of the person, but to make more prominent the curves and undulations of the figure. The ruff grew out of a scrofulous complaint on a royal neck; the hoop-skirt, to conceal the _enceinte_ condition of a French queen. =The Corset in History.=—Dr. Bouvier divided into five epochs the transformations undergone by the corset, or by that part of the clothing which took its place from earliest antiquity to 1853. The first epoch is that of antiquity; in this, as we have seen, the band or girdle, which was worn by the Greek and Roman ladies, was the forerunner of the corset. The second epoch comprises a great part of the Middle Ages. This was a period of transition which partook of the styles which preceded and followed it. At first there was an abandonment of the narrow Roman band, and later the introduction of the corsage fitting tightly about the body. The third epoch embraces the end of the Middle Ages and the first part of the Renaissance, which was marked by the general adoption of robes with a very tightly laced corsage. The fourth epoch is that of the whaleboned corset, which extended from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth. The fifth epoch is that of the modern corset. The busk, known since the fourth century, was introduced into France in the sixteenth century; men also wore busks or stomachers. The busk relates closely to the history of corsets. The middle of the sixteenth century is the epoch of transition from the corsage to the whaleboned waist, which constituted a sensible approach to the modern corset. We find that the reign of Queen Elizabeth was marked by the first use of the whalebone stays. These were much affected by her successor James, who insisted that all his courtiers, male as well as female, should cultivate the appearance of the wasp. The corset of George II, represented in Hogarth’s pictures, is said to have been one of the most harrowing forms of screw torture. We are told that the doughty warriors of Gustavus Adolphus wore stays almost to a man.