d bugbears,
Our helmets, shields, and vizors, hairs and beards.

With the Restoration wigs came into general wear, and gradually the
beards and moustaches, which had literally flourished so remarkably
from the time of Elizabeth, were yielded to the razor. At this period
theatrical costume was simply regulated by the prevailing fashions,
and made no pretensions to historical truth or antiquarian
correctness. The actors appeared upon all occasions in the enormous
perukes that were introduced in the reign of Charles II., and
continued in vogue until 1720. The flowing flaxen wigs assumed by
Booth, Wilks, Cibber, and others, were said to cost some forty
guineas each. "Till within these twenty-five years," writes Tom Davies
in 1784, "our Tamberlanes and Catos had as much hair on their heads as
our judges on the bench." Cibber narrates how he sold a superb fair
full-bottomed periwig he had worn in 1695 in his first play, "The Fool
in Fashion," to Colonel Brett, so that the officer might appear to
advantage in his wooing of the Countess of Macclesfield, the lady
whom, upon unsatisfactory evidence, the poet Savage persistently
claimed as his mother.

But if the heroes of the theatre delighted in long flaxen hair, it was
always held necessary that the stage villain's should appear in
jet-black periwigs. For many years this continued to be an established
law of the drama. "What is the meaning," demanded Charles II., "that
we never see a rogue in the play but, odds-fish! they always clap him
on a black periwig, when it is well known one of the greatest rogues
in England always wears a fair one?" The king was understood to refer
to Titus Oates. But this custom was of long life. Davies describes
"certain actors who were cast into the parts of conspirators,
traitors, and murderers, who used to disguise themselves in large
black wigs, and to distort their features in order to appear terrible.
I have seen," he adds, "Hippesley act the First Murderer in 'Macbeth;'
his face was made pale with chalk, distinguished with large whiskers
and a long black wig." "Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces and
begin!" cries Hamlet to Lucianus, the poisoner; so that even in
Shakespeare's time grimness of aspect on the part of the stage villain
may have been thought indispensable. Churchill's friend, Lloyd, in his
admirable poem, "The Actor," published in 1762, writes on this head:

To suit the dress demands the actor's art,
Yet ther