s
the opulent Narragansett planters, and the rich merchants of Newport,
Salem, and Boston, spent large sums annually in rich attire. In every
newspaper printed a century or a century and a quarter ago, we find
proof of this luxury and magnificence in dress; in the lists of the
property of deceased persons, in the long advertisements of milliners
and mercers, in the many notices of "vandoos." And the impression must
be given to every reader of letters and diaries of the times, of the
vast vanity not only of our grandmothers, but of our grandfathers. They
did indeed "walk in brave aguise." The pains these good, serious
gentlemen took with their garments, the long minute lists they sent to
European tailors, their loudly expressed discontent over petty
disappointments as to the fashion and color of their attire, their
evident satisfaction at becoming and rich clothing, all point to their
wonderful love of ostentation and their vanity--a vanity which fairly
shines with smirking radiance out of some of the masculine faces in the
"bedizened and brocaded" portraits of dignified Bostonians in Harvard
Memorial Hall, and from many of the portraits of Copley, Smibert, and
Blackburn.

Here is a portion of a letter written by Governor Belcher to a London
tailor in 1733:

"I have desired my brother, Mr. Partridge to get me some cloaths
made, and that you should make them, and have sent him the yellow
grogram suit you made me at London; but those you make now must be
two or three inches longer and as much bigger. Let 'em be workt
strong, as well as neat and curious. I believe Mr. Harris in
Spittlefields (of whom I had the last) will let you have the
grogram as good and cheap as anybody. The other suit to be of a
very good silk, such as may be the Queens birthday fashion, but I
don't like padisway. It must be a substantial silk, because you'll
see I have ordered it to be trimm'd rich, and I think a very good
white shagrine will be the best lining. I say let it be a handsome
compleat suit, and two pair of breeches to each suit."

Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared
one noonday in 1782:

"He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the
last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the
velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white
stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoa