men's fashions little changed from
those of his great-grandfather's time, although his sixty years carry us
to the beginning of all the modern modes. The small wig long holds its
own. The coat begins to show the broad skirts cut away diagonally from
the waist to the skirt edge, and stockings are no longer rolled over the
knee. Perhaps the most remarkable fashion was that which distinguished
the Macaronis, travelled exquisites with whom the wig or long hair was
dragged high above the forehead in a tall "toupee" with two large rows
of curls at the side. This head-dress, clubbed into a heavy knot behind,
was surmounted by a very little hat. The coat with small cuffs was much
cut away before, the skimped skirts reaching midway down the thigh.
Waistcoat flaps were but little below the waist. Breeches, striped or
spotted like those of a Dresden china shepherd, were fastened at the
knee with a bunch of ribbon ends; a watch-guard hung from each fob. The
shirt-front was frilled and a white cravat was tied in a great bow at
the chin. Macaronis wore a little curved hanger, or replaced the sword
with a long, heavily tasselled cane, which served to lift the little hat
off the topmost peak of the toupee. The woman-Macaroni wore no hoop but
in full dress. Her gown was a loose wrapper, the sleeves short and wide
with many ruffles, the skirt pulled aside to show a petticoat laced and
embroidered with flowers. But her distinguishing mark was her
head-dress, which exaggerated the male fashion, towering upward until
the flowers and feathers at the top threatened the candelabra of the
assembly room. The Macaronis appear about 1772 and stay but a short
while, for the revolutionary fashions tread upon their heels.

[Illustration: FIG. 46.--An English Lady (c. 1730).]

Women's dress in this 18th century is dominated by the hoop-petticoat
which Sir Roger de Coverley recognizes in 1711 as a new fashion and an
old one revived. A stiff bodice laced in front, a gown, with short and
wide-ended sleeves, gathered up in folds above the petticoat, a laced
apron and a lace cap with hanging lappets, is the dress of the century's
beginning. So the women of fashion are compared with children in
go-carts, their tight-laced waists rising from vast bells of petticoats
over which the gown is looped up like a drawn curtain. By 1750 the
hoop-petticoat ringed with whalebone is so vast that architects begin to
allow for its passage up London stairways by curving th