Has been not less varied, or less subject to animadversion, than the
dress of the members of the universities. The fashion of wearing long
hair, so peculiar in the reign of Charles II., was called the APOLLO.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, the present Chancellor of
the University of Cambridge, "was an Apollo" during the whole of his
residence at Trinity College, says the _Gradus ad Cant_. Indeed his
royal highness, who was noted for his personal beauty at that time,
was "the last in Cambridge who wore his hair after that fashion." "I
can remember," says the pious Archbishop Tillotson, as cited by the
above writer, discoursing on this HEAD, viz. _of hair_! "since the
wearing the hair _below_ the ears was looked upon as _a sin of the
first magnitude_; and when ministers generally, whatever their text
was, did either find, or make, occasion to reprove the great _sin_ of
long hair: and if they saw any one in the congregation guilty in that
kind, they would point him out particularly, and _let fly_ at him with
great zeal." And we can remember, since wearing the hair _cropt_, i.
e. _above_ the ears, was looked upon, though not as "a sin," yet, as a
very vulgar and RAFFISH sort of a thing; and when the _doers_ of
newspapers exhausted all their wit in endeavouring to rally the
new-raised corps of CROPS, regardless of the late noble Duke (of
Bedford) who headed them; and, when the rude rank-scented rabble, if
they saw any one in the streets, whether time or the tonsor had
thinned his flowing hair, they would point him out particularly and
"_let fly at him_," as the archbishop says, till not a shaft of
ridicule remained! The tax upon hair-powder has now, however, produced
all over the country very plentiful CROPS. Charles II., who, as his
_worthy friend_ the Earl of Rochester, remarked,
---- never said a foolish thing;
Nor ever _did_ a wise one,
sent a letter to the University of Cambridge, forbidding the members
to wear _periwigs_, smoke tobacco, and read their sermons!! It is
needless to remark, that TOBACCO has not yet made its EXIT IN FUMO,
and that _periwigs_ still continue to adorn "THE HEADS OF HOUSES."
Till the present all-prevailing, all-_accommodating_ fashion of CROPS
became general in the university, no young man presumed to dine in
hall till he had previously received a handsome trimming from the
hair-dresser (one of which calling was a special appointment to each
college.) The following inimitable imitation of "The Bard" of Gray, is
ascribed to the pen of the late Lord Erskine, when a fellow-commoner
of Trinity College, Cambridge. Having been disappointed of the
attendance of his college-barber, he was compelled to forego his
_commons_ in hall. But determining to have his revenge, and give his
hair-dresser a good DRESSING, he sat down and penned the following
"Fragment of a Pindaric Ode," wherein, "in imitation of the despairing
Bard of Gray, who prophesied the destruction of King Edward's race, he
poured forth his curses upon the whole race of barbers, predicting
their ruin in the simplicity of a future generation."