who set the fashion in courtly living. It was the planter's
agent in London or Bristol who usually selected his furniture, his
silverware, his clothing, and often even his books. When on Sunday he
went to church he listened to a minister who had been born and
educated in England. The shelves of his library were lined with books
from England, if he could afford it he sent his son to Oxford or
Cambridge.

When a Virginia planter visited England in the eighteenth century, he
was deeply impressed by the beauty and dignity of the great country
mansions there. As he viewed Longleat, or Blenheim, or Eaton Hall, he
must have resolved that he too would build a stately house on the
banks of the James. If he had never been to England, he might take
down an English book of architecture--Batty Langley's _Treasury of
Designs_, or Abraham Swan's _The British Architect_, or James Gibb's
_A Book of Architecture_--pick out a suitable design and model his
house on it. He might even send to England for an architect, as did
George Mason, when he engaged William Buckland to design beautiful
Gunston Hall. Westover, Carter's Grove, Mount Airy, Kenmore, Brandon,
all bear the stamp of the English Georgian.

If there was any doubt that the Virginia gentlemen followed the latest
English fashions in dress, a glimpse at their portraits would dispel
it. William Byrd II, as he appears in the painting by Sir Godfrey
Kneller would have made a fine figure in any assembly in England; no
English nobleman was better dressed than Robert Carter, of Nomini
Hall, as shown in the Reynolds portrait.

When a Virginian went to England he not only took the opportunity to
replenish his own wardrobe, but was charged by his relatives and
friends to make purchases for them. In a letter to Mrs. Thomas Jones,
in 1727, Mrs. Mary Stith asked: "When you come to London pray favor me
in your choice of a suit of pinners suitably dressed with a crossknot
roll or whatever the fashion requires, with suitable ruffles and
handkerchief." In 1752 Lady Gooch, wife of Governor William Gooch,
while in London bought for Mrs. Thomas Dawson a fashionable laced cap,
a handkerchief, ruffles, a brocade suit, a blue satin petticoat, a
pair of blue satin shoes, and a fashionable silver girdle. But it was
not always necessary to send to England for clothing, for there were
tailors in Virginia who advertised that they could make gentlemen's
suits and dresses for the ladies "in the newest and g