mighty, wise, and head
of the species. Therefore, I think it highly necessary that you show us
the example first, and begin the reformation among yourselves, if you
intend your observations shall have any with us. I leave the world to
judge whether our petticoat resembles the dome of St. Paul's nearer than
you in your long coats do the Monument. You complain of our masculine
appearance in our riding habits, and indeed we think it is but
reasonable that we should make reprisals upon you for the invasion of
our dress and figure, and the advances you make in effeminency, and your
degeneracy from the figure of man. Can there be a more ridiculous
appearance than to see a smart fellow within the compass of five feet
immersed in a huge long coat to his heels with cuffs to the arm pits,
the shoulders and breast fenced against the inclemencies of the weather
by a monstrous cape, or rather short cloak, shoe toes, pointed to the
heavens in imitation of the Lap-landers, with buckles of a harnass size?
I confess the beaux with their toupee wigs make us extremely merry, and
frequently put me in mind of my favorite monkey both in figure and
apishness, and were it not for a reverse of circumstances, I should be apt
to mistake it for Pug, and treat him with the same familiarity."[140]

_IV. Extravagance in Dress_

To all appearances it was less safe in colonial days for mere man to
comment on female attire than at present; for the typical gentlemen
before 1800 probably wore as many velvets, brocades, satins, laces, and
wigs as any woman of the day or since. Each sex, however, wasted more
than enough of both time and money on the matter. Grieve, the translator
of Chastellux, the Frenchman who made rather extensive observations in
America at the close of the Revolution, says in a footnote to
Chastellux's _Travels_: "The rage for dress amongst the women in
America, in the very height of the miseries of the war, was beyond all
bounds; nor was it confined to the great towns; it prevailed equally on
the sea coasts and in the woods and solitudes of the vast extent of
country from Florida to New Hampshire. In travelling into the interior
parts of Virginia I spent a delicious day at an inn, at the ferry of the
Shenandoah, or the Catacton Mountains, with the most engaging,
accomplished and voluptuous girls, the daughters of the landlord, a
native of Boston transplanted thither, who with all the gifts of nature
possessed the arts of dress not