PERUKES AND PERIWIGS
T
o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric
reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head,
and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks,
when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the
important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the
eighteenth century.
In the great eagerness shown from earliest colonial days to acquire and
reproduce in the New World every change of mode in the Old, to purchase
rich dress, and to assume novel dress, no article was sought for more
speedily and more anxiously than the wig. It has proved an interesting
study to compare the introduction of wigs in England with the wear of
the same form of head-gear in America. Wigs were not in general use in
England when Plymouth and Boston were settled; though in Elizabeth’s
day a “peryuke” had been bought for the court fool. They were not in
universal wear till the close of the seventeenth century.
The “Wig Mania” arose in France in the reign of Louis XV. In 1656 the
king had forty court perruquiers, who were termed and deemed artists,
and had their academy. The wigs they produced were superb. It is told
that one cost £;200, a sum equal in purchasing power to-day to $5000.
The French statesman and financier, Colbert, aghast at the vast sums
spent for foreign hair, endeavored to introduce a sort of cap to
supplant the wig, but fashions are not made that way.
Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall. Governor and Reverend Gurdon
Saltonstall.
For information of English manners and customs in that day, I turn (and
never in vain) to those fascinating volumes, the _Verney Memoirs_. From
them I learn this of early wig-wearing by Englishmen; that Sir Ralph
Verney, though in straitened circumstances during his enforced
residence abroad, felt himself compelled to follow the French mode,
which at that period, 1646, had not reached England. That exemplary
gentleman paid twelve livres for a wig, when he was sadly short of
money for household necessaries. It was an elaborate wig, curled in
great rings, with two locks tied with black ribbon, and made without
any parting at the back. This wig was powdered.
Sir Ralph wrote to his wife that a good hair-powder was very difficult
to get and costly, even in France. It was an appreciable addition to
the weight of the wig and to the expense, large quantities being used,
sometimes as much as two pounds at a time. It added not only to the
expense, but to the discomfort, inconvenience, and untidiness of
wig-wearing.
Pomatum made of fat, and that sometimes rancid, was used to make the
powder stick; and noxious substances were introduced into the powder,
as a certain kind is mentioned which must not be used alone, for it
would produce headache.
Charles II was the earliest king represented on the Great Seal wearing
a large periwig. Dr. Doran assures us that the king did not bring the
fashion to Whitehall. “He forbade,” we are told, “the members of the
Universities to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, or read their sermons.
The members did all three, and Charles soon found himself doing the
first two.”
Mayor Rip Van Dam. Mayor Rip Van Dam.
Pepys’s _Diary_ contains much interesting information concerning the
wigs of this reign. On 2d of November, 1663, he writes: “I heard the
Duke say that he was going to wear a periwig, and says the King also
will, never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” It
was doubtless this change in the color of his Majesty’s hair that
induced him to assume the head-dress he had previously so strongly
condemned.
The wig he adopted was very voluminous, richly curled, and black. He
was very dark. “Odds fish! but I’m an ugly black fellow!” he said of
himself when he looked at his portrait. Loyal colonists quickly
followed royal example and complexion. We have very good specimens of
this curly black wig in many American portraits.
As might be expected, and as befitted one who delighted to be in
fashion, Pepys adopted this wig. He took time to consider the matter,
and had consultations with Mr. Jervas, his old barber, about the
affair. Referring to one of his visits to his hairdresser, Pepys says:—
“I did try two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to wear one, and
yet I have no stomach for it; but that the pains of keeping my hair
clean is great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but my mind was
almost altered from my first purpose, from the trouble which I foresee
in wearing them also.”
Weeks passed before he could make up his mind to wear a wig. Mrs. Pepys
was taken to the periwig-maker’s shop to see one, and expressed her
satisfaction with it. We read in April, 1665, of the wig being back at
Jervas’s under repair. Later, under date of September 3d, he writes:—
“Lord’s day. Up; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my
new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the
plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what
will be in fashion, after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for
nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it
had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.”
In 1670, only, five years after this entry of Pepys, we find Governor
Barefoot of New Hampshire wearing a periwig; and in 1675 the court of
Massachusetts, in view of the distresses of the Indian wars, denounced
the “manifest pride openly appearing amongst us in that long hair, like
women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own hair, or others’
hair made into periwigs.”
Abraham De Peyster. Abraham De Peyster.
In 1676 Wait Winthrop sent a wig (price £;3) to his brother in New
London. Mr. Sergeant had brought it from England for his own use; but
was willing to sell it to oblige a friend, who was, I am confident,
very devoted to wig-wearing. The largest wig that I recall upon any
colonist’s head is in the portrait of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop. He
is painted in armor; and a great wig never seems so absurd as when worn
with armor. Horace Walpole said, “Perukes of outrageous length flowing
over suits of armour compose wonderful habits.” An edge of Winthrop’s
own dark hair seems to show under the wig front. I do not know the
precise date of this portrait. It was, of course, painted in England.
He served in the Parliamentary army with General Monck; returned to New
England in 1663, and was commander of the New England forces. He spent
1693 to l697 in England as commissioner. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey
Kneller both were painting in England in those years, and both were
constant in painting men with armor and perukes. This portrait seems
like Kneller’s work.
Governor De Bienville. Governor De Bienville.
Another portrait attired also in armor and peruke is of Sir Nathaniel
Johnson, who was appointed governor of South Carolina by the Lords
Proprietors in 1702. The portrait was painted in 1705. It is one of the
few of that date which show a faint mustache; he likewise wears a seal
ring with coat-of-arms on the little finger of his left hand, which was
unusual at that day. De Bienville, the governor of Louisiana, is
likewise in wig and armor. In 1682 Thomas Richbell died in Boston,
leaving a very rich and costly wardrobe. He had eight wigs. Of these,
three were small periwigs worth but a pound apiece. In New York, in
Virginia, in all the colonies, these wigs were worn, and were just as
large and costly, as elaborately curled, as heavily powdered, as at the
English and French courts.
Archbishop Tillotson is usually regarded as the first amongst the
English clergy to adopt the wig. He said in one of his sermons:—
“I can remember since the wearing of 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.”
Dr. Tillotson died on November 24, 1694.
Daniel Waldo. Daniel Waldo.
Long before that American preachers had felt it necessary to “let fly”
also; to denounce wig-wearing from their pulpits. The question could
not be settled, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John
Wilson, the zealous Boston minister, wore one, and John Cotton (see
here); while Rev. Mr. Noyes preached long and often against the
fashion. John Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the Indians,
found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties to
deliver many a blast against “prolix locks,”—“with boiling zeal,” as
Cotton Mather said,—and he labelled them a “luxurious feminine
protexity”; but lamented late in life that “the lust for wigs is become
insuperable.” He thought the horrors in King Philip’s War were a direct
punishment from God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly
against wigs, calling them “Horrid Bushes of Vanity,” and saying that
“such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature, and to express
Scripture,” and that “Monstrous Periwigs such as some of our church
members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye
Bottomless Pit.”
Rev. George Weeks preached a sermon on impropriety in clothes. He said
in regard to wig-wearing:—
“We have no warrant in the word of God, that I know of, for our wearing
of Periwigs except it be in extraordinary cases. Elisha did not cover
his head with a Perriwigg altho’ it was bald. To see the greater part
of Men in some congregations wearing Perriwiggs is a matter of deep
lamentation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut off their
Hair or else not. If they had a necessity to cut off their Hair then we
have reason to take up a lamentation over the sin of our first Parents
which hath occasioned so many Persons in our Congregation to be sickly,
weakly, crazy Persons.”
Long “Ruffianly” or “Russianly” (I know not which word is right) hair
equally worried the parsons. President Chauncey of Harvard College
preached upon it, for the college undergraduates were vexingly addicted
to prolix locks. Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth’s sermon on the subject has
often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence
was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the general
court: that “the men wore long hair like women’s hair.” Still, the
Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were in small things, did riot
dare to force the becurled citizens of the little towns to cut their
long love-locks, though they bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in
1687, fined l0s. for a misdemeanor, but “in case he shall cutt off his
long har of his head into a sevill (civil?) frame, in the mean time
shall have abated 5s. of his fine.” John Eliot hated long, natural hair
as well as false hair. Rev. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very
unpleasant figure of speech, “The hair of them that professed religion
grew too long for him to swallow.” His own hair curled on his
shoulders, and would seem long to us to-day.
Reverend John Marsh. Reverend John Marsh.
A climax of wig-hating was reached by one who has been styled “The Last
of the Puritans”—Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. Constant references in
his diary show how this hatred influenced his daily life. He despised
wigs so long and so deeply, he thought and talked and prayed upon them,
until they became to him of undue importance; they became godless
emblems of iniquity; an unutterable snare and peril.
We find Sewall copying with evident approval a “scandalous bill” which
had been “posted” on the church in Plymouth in 1701. In this a few
lines ran:—
“Our churches are too genteel.
Parsons grow trim and trigg
With wealth, wine, and wigg,
And their crowns are covered with meal.”
John Adams in Youth. John Adams in Youth.
Bitter must have been his efforts to reconcile to his conscience the
sight of wigs upon the heads of his parson friends, worn boldly in the
pulpit. He would refrain from attending a church where the parson wore
a wig; and his italicized praise of a dead friend was that he “was a
true New-English man and _abominated periwigs_.” A Boston wig-maker
died a drunkard, and Sewall took much melancholy satisfaction in
dilating upon it.
Cotton Mather and Sewall had many pious differences and personal
jealousies. The parson was a handsome man (see his picture here), and
he was a harmlessly and naively vain man. He quickly adopted a “great
bush of vanity”—and a very personable appearance he makes in it. Soon
we find him inveighing at length in the pulpit against “those who
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, those who were zealous against an
innocent fashion taken up and used by the best of men.” “’Tis supposed
he means wearing a Perriwigg,” writes Sewall after this sermon; “I
expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwiggs in Boston pulpit by
Mr. Mather.”
Poor Sewall! his regard of wigs had a severe test when he wooed Madam
Winthrop late in life. She was a rich widow. He had courted her vainly
for a second wife. And now he “yearned for her deeply” for a third
wife, so he wrote. And ere she would consent or even discuss marriage
she stipulated two things: one, that he keep a coach; the other, that
he wear a periwig. When all the men of dignity and office in the colony
were bourgeoning out in great flowing perukes, she was naturally a bit
averse to an elderly lover in a skullcap or, as he often wore, a hood.
His love did not make him waver; he stoutly persisted in his refusal to
assume a periwig.
His portrait in a velvet skullcap shows a fringe of white curling hair
with a few forehead locks. I fancy he was bald. Here is his entry with
regard to young Parson Willard’s wig, in the year 1701:—
“Having last night heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a
very full head of hair) and put on a wig, I went to him this morning.
When I told his mother what I came about, she called him. Whereupon I
inquired of him what extreme need had forced him to put off his own
hair and put on a wig? He answered, none at all; he said that his hair
was straight, and that it parted behind.
“He seemed to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their
head, as off their face. I answered that boys grew to be men before
they had hair on their faces, and that half of mankind never have any
beards. I told him that God seems to have created our hair as a test,
to see whether we can bring our minds to be content at what he gives
us, or whether wewould be our own carvers and come back to him for
nothing more. We might dislike our skin or nails, as he disliked his
hair; but in our case no thanks are due to us that we cut them not off;
for pain and danger restrain us. Your duty, said I, is to teach men
self-denial. I told him, further, that it would be displeasing and
burdensome to good men for him to wear a wig, and they that care not
what men think of them, care not what God thinks of them.
“I told him that he must remember that wigs were condemned by a meeting
of ministers at Northampton. I told him of the solemnity of the
covenant which he and I had lately entered into, which put upon me the
duty of discoursing to him.
“He seemed to say that he would leave off his wig when his hair was
grown again. I spoke to his father of it a day or two afterwards and he
thanked me for reasoning with his son.
“He told me his son had promised to leave off his wig when his hair was
grown to cover his ears. If the father had known of it, he would have
forbidden him to cut off his hair. His mother heard him talk of it, but
was afraid to forbid him for fear he should do it in spite of her, and
so be more faulty than if she had let him go his own way.”
Jonathan Edwards, 2nd. Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.
Soon nearly every parson in England and every colony wore wigs. John
Wesley alone wore what seems to be his own white hair curled under
softly at the ends. Whitfield is in a portentous wig like the one on
Dr. Marsh (here).
In the time of Queen Anne, wigs had multiplied vastly in variety as
they had increased in size. I have been asked the difference between a
peruke and a wig. Of course both, and the periwig, are simply wigs; but
the term “peruke” is in general applied to a formal, richly curled wig;
and the word “periwig” also conveys the distinction of a formal wig. Of
less dignity were riding-wigs, nightcap wigs, and bag-wigs. Bag-wigs
are said to have had their origin among French servants, who tied up
their hair in a black leather bag as a speedy way of dressing it, and
to keep it out of the way when at other and disordering duties.
Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry.
In May, 1706, the English, led by Marlborough, gained a great victory
on the battle-field of Ramillies, and that gave the title to a new wig
described as “having a long, gradually diminishing, plaited tail,
called the ‘Ramillie-tail,’ which was tied with a great bow at the top
and a smaller one at the bottom.” The hair also bushed out at both
sides of the face. The Ramillies wig shown in Hogarth’s _Modern
Midnight Conversation_ hanging against the wall, is reproduced here.
This wig was not at first deemed full-dress. Queen Anne was deeply
offended because Lord Bolingbroke, summoned hurriedly to her, appeared
in a Ramillies wig instead of a full-bottomed peruke. The queen
remarked that she supposed next time Lord Bolingbroke would come in his
nightcap. It was the same offending nobleman who brought in the fashion
of the mean little tie-wigs.
It is stated in Read’s _Weekly Journal_ of May 1, 1736, in an account
of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, that the officers of the Horse
and Foot Guards wore Ramillies periwigs when on parade, by his
Majesty’s order. We meet in the reign of George II other forms of wigs
and other titles; the most popular was the pigtail wig. The pigtail of
this was worn hanging down the back or tied up in a knot behind. This
pigtail wig, worn for so many years, is shown here. It was popular in
the army for sixty years, but in 1804 orders were given for the pigtail
to be reduced to seven inches in length, and finally, in 1808, to be
cut off wholly, to the deep mourning of disciplinarians who deemed a
soldier without a pigtail as hopeless as a Manx cat.
“King” Carter. Died 1732. “King” Carter. Died 1732.
Bob-wigs, minor and major, came in during the reign of George II. The
bob-wig was held to be a direct imitation of the natural hair, though,
of course, it deceived no one; it was used chiefly by poorer folk. The
’prentice minor bob was close and short, the citizen’s bob major, or
Sunday buckle, had several rows of curls. All these came to America by
the hundreds—yes, by the thousands. Every profession and almost every
calling had its peculiar wig. The caricatures of the period represent
full-fledged lawyers with a towering frontlet and a long bag at the
back tied in the middle; while students of the university have a wig
flat on the top, to accommodate their stiff, square-cornered hats, and
a great bag like a lawyer’s wig at the back.
Judge Benjamin Lynde. Judge Benjamin Lynde.
“When the law lays down its full-bottom’d periwig you will find less
wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of,” says the _Choleric Man_.
This lawyer’s wig is the only one which has not been changed or
abandoned. You may see it here, on the head of Judge Benjamin Lynde of
Salem. He died in 1745. Carlyle sneers:—
“Has not your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins,
and a plush-gown—whereby all Mortals know that he is a JUDGE?”
In the reigns of Anne and William and Mary perukes grew so vast and
cumbersome that a wig was invented for travelling and for undress wear,
and was called the “Campaign wig.” It would not seem very simple since
it was made full and curled to the front, and had, so writes a
contemporary, Randle Holme, in his _Academy of Armory_, 1684, “knots
and bobs a-dildo on each side and a curled forehead.”
A campaign wig from Holme’s drawing is shown here.
There are constant references in old letters and in early literature in
America which alter much the dates assigned by English authorities on
costume: thus, knowing not of Randle Holme’s drawing, Sydney writes
that the name “campaign” was applied to a wig, the name and fashion of
which came to England from France in 1702. In the Letter-book of
William Byrd of Westover, Virginia, in a letter written in June, 1690,
to Perry and Lane, his English factors in London, he says, “I have by
Tonner sent my long Periwig which I desire you to get made into a
Campagne and send mee.” This was twelve years earlier than Sydney’s
date. Fitz-John Winthrop wrote to England in 1695 for “two wiggs one a
campane the other short.” The portrait of Fitz-John Winthrop shows a
prodigious imposing wig, but it has no “knots or bobs a-dildo on each
side,” though the forehead is curled; it is a fine example of a peruke.
I cannot attempt even to name all the wigs, much less can I describe
them; Hawthorne gave “the tie,” the “Brigadier,” the “Major,” the
“Ramillies,” the grave “Full-bottom,” the giddy “Feather-top.” To these
and others already named in this chapter I can add the “Neck-lock,” the
“Allonge,” the “Lavant,” the “Vallancy,” the “Grecian fly wig,” the
“Beau-peruke,” the “Long-tail,” the “Fox-tail,” the “Cut-wig,” the
“Scratch,” the “Twist-wig.”
Others named in 1753 in the _London Magazine_ were the “Royal bird,”
the “Rhinoceros,” the “Corded Wolf’s-paw,” “Count Saxe’s mode,” the
“She-dragon,” the “Jansenist,” the “Wild-boar’s-back,” the
“Snail-back,” the “Spinach-seed.” These titles were literal
translations of French wig-names.
Another wig-name was the “Gregorian.” We read in _The Honest Ghost_,
1658, “Pulling a little down his Gregorian, which was displac’t a
little by his hastie taking off his beaver.” This wig was named from
the inventor, one Gregory, “the famous peruke-maker who is buryed at
St. Clements Danes Church.” In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_ perukes are
called Gregorians.
John Rutledge. John Rutledge.
In the prologue to _Haut Ton_, written by George Colman, these wigs are
named:—
“The Tyburn scratch, thick Club and Temple tyes,
The Parson’s Feather-top, frizzed, broad and high.
The coachman’s Cauliflower, built tier on tier.”
There was also the “Minister’s bob,” “Curley roys,” “Airy levants,” and
“I—perukes.” The “Dalmahoy” was a bushy bob-wig.
When Colonel John Carter died, he left to his brother Robert his cane,
sword, and periwig. I believe this to be the very Valiancy periwig
which, in all its snowy whiteness and air of extreme fashion, graces
the head of the handsome young fellow as he is shown here. Even the
portrait shares the fascination which the man is said to have had for
every woman. I have a copy of it now standing on my desk, where I can
glance at him as I write; and pleasant company have I found the gay
young Virginian—the best of company. It is good to have a companion so
handsome of feature, so personable of figure, so laughing, care free,
and debonair—isn’t it, King Robert?
Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs. Campaign, Ramillies, Bob,
and Pigtail Wigs.
These snowy wigs at a later date were called Adonis wigs.
The cost of a handsome wig would sometimes amount to thirty, forty, and
fifty guineas, though Swift grumbled at paying three guineas, and the
exceedingly correct Mr. Pepys bought wigs at two and three pounds. It
is not strange that they were often stolen. Gay, in his _Trivia_, thus
tells the manner of their disappearance:—
“Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn;
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honors of the head.”
In America wigs were deemed rich spoils for the sneak-thief.
There was a vast trade in second-hand wigs. ’Tis said there was in
Rosemary Lane in London a constantly replenished “Wig lottery.” It was,
rather, a wig grab-bag. The wreck of gentility paid his last sixpence
for appearances, dipped a long arm into a hole in a cask, and fished
out his wig. It might be half-decent, or it might be fit only to polish
shoes—worse yet, it might have been used already for that purpose. The
lowest depths of everything were found in London. I doubt if we had any
Rosemary Lane wig lotteries in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston.
Rev. William Welsteed. Rev. William Welsteed.
An answer to a query in a modern newspaper gives the word “caxon” as
descriptive of a dress-wig. It was in truth a term for a wig, but it
was a cant term, a slang phrase for the worst possible wig; thus
Charles Lamb Wrote:—
“He had two wigs both pedantic but of different omen. The one serene,
smiling, fresh-powdered, betokening a mild day. The other an old
discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon denoting frequent and bloody
execution.”
All these wigs, even the bob-wig, were openly artificial. The manner of
their make, their bindings, their fastening, as well as their material,
completely destroyed any illusion which could possibly have been
entertained as to their being a luxuriant crop of natural hair.
No one was ashamed of wearing a wig. On the contrary, a person with any
sense of dignity was ashamed of being so unfashionable as to wear his
own hair. It was a glorious time for those to whom Nature had been
niggardly. A wig was as frankly extraneous as a hat. No attempt was
made to imitate the roots of the hairs, or the parting. The hair was
attached openly, and bound with a high-colored, narrow ribbon. Here is
an advertisement from the _Boston News Letter_ of August 14, 1729:—
“Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott, Barber, a light Flaxen Natural
Wigg parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a
Red Pink Color, the Caul is in rows of Red, Green and White Ribband.”
Another “peruke-maker” lost a Flaxen “Natural” wig bound with
peach-colored ribbon; while in 1755 Barber Coes, of Marblehead, lost
“feather-tops” bound with various ribbons. Some had three colors on one
wig—pink, green and purple. A goat’s-hair wig bound with red and
purple, with green ribbons striping the caul, must have been a pretty
and dignified thing on an old gentleman’s head. One of the most curious
materials for a wig was fine wire, of which Wortley Montague’s wig was
made.
Thomas Hopkinson. Thomas Hopkinson.
We read in many histories of costume, among them Miss Hill’s recent
history of English dress, that Quakers did not wear wigs. This is
widely incorrect. Many Quakers wore most fashionably made wigs. William
Penn wrote from England to his steward, telling him to allow Deputy
Governor Lloyd to wear his (Penn’s) wigs. I suppose he wished his
deputy to cut a good figure.
From the _New York Gazette_ of May 9, 1737, we learn of a thief’s
stealing “one gray Hair Wig, not the worse for wearing, one Pale Hair
Wig, not worn five times, marked V. S. E., one brown Natural wig, One
old wig of goat’s hair put in buckle.” Buckle meant to curl, and
derivatively a wig was in buckle when it was rolled for curling.
Roulettes or bilbouquettes for buckling a wig were little rollers of
pipe clay. The hair was twisted up in them, and papers bound over them
to fix them in place. The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they
could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated. The latter was not
favored; it damaged the wig. Moreover, a careless barber had often
roasted a forgotten wig which he had put in buckle and in an oven.
The _New York Gazette_ of May 12, 1750, had this alluring
advertisement:—
“This is to acquaint the Public, that there is lately arrived from
London the Wonder of the World, _an Honest_ Barber and Peruke Maker,
who might have worked for the King, if his Majesty would have employed
him: It was not for the want of Money he came here, for he had enough
of that at Home, nor for the want of Business, that he advertises
himself, BUT to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, that _Such a Person
is now in Town_, living near _Rosemary Lane_ where Gentlemen and Ladies
may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full-Bottoms,
Majors, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramalies, Tacks, cut and bob Perukes: Also
Ladies Tatematongues and Towers after the Manner that is now wore at
Court. _By their Humble and Obedient Servant_,
“JOHN STILL.”
Reverend Dr. Barnard. Reverend Dr. Barnard.
“Perukes,” says Malcolm, in his _Manners and Customs_, “were an highly
important article in 1734.” Those of right gray human hair were four
guineas each; light grizzle ties, three guineas; and other colors in
proportion, to twenty-five shillings. Right gray human hair cue
perukes, from two guineas to fifteen shillings each, was the price of
dark ones; and right gray bob perukes, two guineas and a half to
fifteen shillings, the price of dark bobs. Those mixed with horsehair
were much lower.
Prices were a bit higher in America. It was held that better wigs were
made in England than in America or France; so the letter-books and
agent’s-lists of American merchants are filled with orders for English
wigs.
Imperative orders for the earliest and extremest new fashions stood
from year to year on the lists of fashionable London wig-makers; and
these constant orders came from Virginia gentlemen and Massachusetts
magistrates,—not a few, too, from the parsons,—scantly paid as they
were. The smaller bob-wigs and tie-wigs were precisely the same in both
countries, and I am sure were no later in assumption in America than
was necessitated by the weeks occupied in coming across seas.
Throughout the seventeenth century all classes of men in American towns
wore wigs. Negro slaves flaunted white horsehair wigs, goat’s-hair
bob-wigs, natural wigs, all the plainer wigs, and all the more costly
sorts when these were half worn and secondhand. Soldiers wore wigs; and
in the _Massachusetts Gazette_ of the year 1774 a runaway negro is
described as wearing a curl of hair tied around his head to imitate a
scratch wig; with his woolly crown this dangling curl must have been
the height of absurdity.
It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court
the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing,
before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is
curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I
have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman
(and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three
little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent
was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754.
Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their
dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them
by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year
was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of
dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men
as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On
Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the
narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed
wigs ere sunset came.
No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the
hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had
their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath.
Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were
removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place,
or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in
the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered,
all men did not wear wigs. A writer in the _London Magazine_ in 1745
tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some
of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight
“all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people
wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland
linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds,
“It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.”
So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was
that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants,
bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false
pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports
were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of
dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a
wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner,
who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a
schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well
they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at
the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be
parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to
the surroundings of their day. In one thing they can be envied. Knowing
not of germs and microbes, dreaming not of antiseptics and fumigation,
they could be happy in blissful unconsciousness of menacing
environment—a blessing wholly denied to us.
Andrew Ellicott. Andrew Ellicott.
When James Murray came from Scotland in 1735 he went up the Cape Fear
River in North Carolina to the struggling settlements of Brunswick. The
stock of wigs which he brought as one of the commodities of his trade
had absolutely no market. In 1751 he wrote thus to his London
wig-maker:—
“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless
of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig
since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near
out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.”
Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account
of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald
from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:—
“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was
pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed.
This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would
probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in
this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of
either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my
sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by
the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My
friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going
home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.”
Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the
wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem
Tory, wrote a few years later:—
“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our
clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had
not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think
my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly
resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the
gentlest in his motions.”
Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off
in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his
negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing.