their way, than these Picardy relics; fit for the cabinet, and worthy to
be preserved as dried specimens of a phasis of society which history will
never record.
The painted carriage was unknown in the time of Henry the IVth of France,
who tells Sully that he cannot visit him on a certain occasion, because
his wife had “_mon carrosse_,” the only carriage belonging to the royal
establishment. The fashion of splendidly decorating coaches, began in the
middle of Louis the XIVth’s reign, and it ended, in England, in the reign
of George the Ist. The most gorgeous carriage on record, was that which
the ingenious sycophancy of Bernini painted for Christina of Sweden, on
the occasion of her visit to Pope Alexander the VIIth, when she went to
Rome, to make a public abjuration of Lutheranism. “She was received,”
says a curious old work I picked up on a stall in the Piazza Navona in
Rome, “with unspeakable applause;” and among other “_regali_” presented
her by the Pope, were a coach, a litter, a sedan chair, and a hackney.
The description of these articles is curious, and belongs to times and
trades now no more.[6]
Some traces of the expense and magnificence of coach decorations still
remain in the state carriage of the Lord Mayor of London, which has
survived many more important monuments of the taste and the judgment
of our ancestors. Whether the painting of pictures on coach panels was
driven out by heraldic pride, or fell merely by the caprice of fashion, I
cannot say. It is most probable that the custom was itself an innovation
upon armorial bearings, to which it in turn gave place. In the early
period of the revolution, when the emblazoning of arms was forbidden,
some of the bolder members replaced their escutcheon on their carriages,
by the representation of the sun behind a cloud, with the motto—“_ça
reparoîtra_.”
Almost in our times, great has been the downfal of wig-makers, who, for
more than a century, engrossed so large a portion of the public money. In
the time of Queen Anne, thirty guineas was the price of a full fledged
perriwig, an enormous sum for those days. As the beaux laid down false
hair, the women seem to have adopted its use. Under the names of systems
and _têtes_, these filthy appendages maintained their ground in Ireland
to a late period. The last “system, _tête_, and peruke-maker,” I saw, was
in my childhood, in Connaught, and so I handed him over to the Miss Mac
Taafs, for their city of Craiggellan, where he figures in the person of
Gil-Duff O’Kirwan. The “system” was a high cushion of horse-hair. I saw
it worn by an itinerant schoolmistress, brought into my father’s house,
to teach me my letters, and to work a sampler, when I was about four
years old. Her figure and system got such a hold of my imagination, that,
“not on the book my eyes were fixed, but her.” “That fairy form,” (which
was six feet high,) “I have ne’er forgot”—.
The system was a most complicated affair. Men served an apprenticeship to
learn its architecture. The cushion was but a scaffolding, on which the
superstructure was supported, which rose by the foot; while curls, “_en
canon_” massy as rolling stones, were piled on each other, till they made
“Ossa like a wart.”
These adscititious monstrosities were beginning to disappear, when
Mr. Pitt, by the hair-powder tax, gave a death blow to the trade of
hair-dressing. It has been said, I know not with what truth, that the
idea of this tax originated with Lewis the actor, and that he was
handsomely rewarded for the invention. At this period, the Brutus head,
and the close-cropped _tête à la victime_, were adopted as tests of
republicanism in France; as the round head was made a mark of covenantism
in the English revolution; and this fashion aided and abetted the
destruction of the loquacious tribe of tale-bearers.
It is one of the blessed effects of the diffusion of knowledge, to render
men less dependent on others; and society seems to have rejoiced in its
emancipation from the tyranny of hair-dressing. Formerly the barber’s
knock was as well known, and as punctual as the postman’s. His important
visage, sagacious look, and his bag of apparatus, belonged as much to
the objects of daily vision, as the place in which he was received.
There, for one mortal hour at least, and that at the most precious and
active period of the day, sat the victim of fashion with its minister,
bound tightly up in a white cloth, like a baby in swaddling-clothes,
sometimes pulled by the nose, sometimes scored on the cheek, and often
in danger of an unlucky cut across the throat;—then again, smoked and
smothered with the vapours reeking from the curling iron, which dragged
up his hair by the roots; while his drawn-in breath, clenched hands,
closed lips, and puffed cheeks, spoke all the torture of his voluntary
suffocation. The whole sad scene terminated in a dense cloud of musty
powder, discharged from the notable puffing machine into every exposed
orifice, filling the ears, ascending the nostrils, and blinding the eyes
of the sufferer. Yet the wisdom of our ancestors looked upon this daily
martyrdom and perpetual disfiguration as indispensable to the appearance
of a gentleman. Even tradesmen gave up their time and persons to this
voluntary immolation; and assisted to people the good old times with
monsters, and to support trades, which, making no return, diverted
industry from more profitable channels.
Franklin, when ambassador to France during the American war, frequently
expressed his regret that the _corps de friseurs_ was not placed at
his disposition, to fight the English; and that the money expended on
hair-powder was not devoted to powder of more inflammable and explosive
properties. The use of hair-powder, however, encouraged the landed
interest,—a saving virtue; and if it raised the price of bread, there
was, as the French king has it, the charity of the nation to supply the
deficiencies of the poor—a right royal specimen of political economy.
Hair-dressing, moreover, had its indirect advantages, by encouraging
literary propensities; many worthy persons took the opportunity of lining
the inside of their heads, while the barber decorated its outward parts,
who would never otherwise have found leisure for “improving the mind.”
In those days, a play-book or a pamphlet was sure to be whitened, in
every third page, by the contents of the powder-puff. Hairdressers were
also serviceable to their species, by maintaining and diffusing a taste
for anecdote. Even ministers of state were occasionally indebted to the
_coiffeur_ for their principal knowledge of human nature, and for the
better part of their wit.
The ministerial influence of barbers has ever been considerable. The
grand sultan’s barber is, to this day, the pivot of affairs, the focus
of revolutions, the ladder of rising fortunes, and the Tarpeian rock of
functionaries on the wane. Under Louis the Fourteenth, the _coiffeurs_,
male and female, were important personages; and they figure largely in
the memoirs of that day. Martin la Vienne, and Mademoiselle la Borde,
have become historical characters, as much as the heroes and beauties
they dressed; and the “_coiffure à la paysanne_,” and “_les boucles de
Montgobert_,” form epochs in the history of nations. Under the regency,
an “_Encyclopédie Perruquière_” appeared, illustrating the mysteries
of the craft by one hundred and twenty engravings of different orders
of _perruques_, which gave the idea, some years afterwards, of a work
on the same plan, by _Le Sieur le Gros_, _coiffeur_ to the court of
Louis the Fifteenth. The solemn importance attached to this volume by
its author, who announced it to the great Catherine of Russia, is an
admirable satire on the frivolity of the day; the title was “_Livre
d’Estampes de l’Art de la Coiffure des Dames Françaises, gravés sur les
dessins originaux d’après mes accommodates, avec le Traité en abrégé
d’entretenir et de conserver les Cheveux naturels_.”[7]—And yet Madame de
Genlis says, “_Il y a quarante-cinq ans que les femmes auroient trouver
de l’indécence à se faire coiffer par des hommes._”[8] M. Le Gros gave a
still further dignity to the art, by opening an academy, which he divided
into the same number of classes as the academy of sciences at Paris; and
actually furnished it with thirty models, that were not exactly “_d’après
l’antique_.”
Under Louis the Sixteenth, the hair-dressers are said to have been
accompanied by _les physiognomistes_, who pronounced on the style to
be adopted on each head, according to the nature of the countenance.
One of these Lavaters of the toilet entering, with his employer, into
the dressing-room of a new patient, fresh arrived from England, threw
him into no small consternation by the earnestness of his scrutinizing
regard. Full of John Bullish notions, of French tyranny, _lettres de
cachet_, and, of course, of his own importance in the eyes of the
government, the Englishman saw nothing in the penetrating looks of the
artist, but _espionnage_ and “_à cul de basse fosse_:”—he was actually
preparing for a knock-down blow, and a run, when the solemn figure
relieved him from his fright, and left the room, exclaiming, “_Figure de
marron, marronnez Monsieur._”
The revolution came, and kings and _coiffeurs_ fell together.—Nature
vindicated her rights—hair-dressers lost theirs—and beauty and purity
resumed their privileges under the name of Greek costume.
The enameller was also, in former times, a profession of much profit and
occupation: not such enamellers as the Bones and Bates of the present
day, nor as the Petitots of the past; but good tradesman-like artists,
who kept shops well stored with enamelled snuff, patch, and rouge boxes,
and every article of domestic usage, to which they could apply their art.
Who, that ever rummaged her mother’s drawers, and found the watch-chains
of her grandmother, ponderous as jack-chains, and fastened with hooks
massy as flesh-forks, does not remember the enamelled trinkets suspended
from it—eggs, anchors, bird-cages, and watch-boxes, with bottles for
bergamotte, and beetles filled with thieves’ vinegar, (the _eau de
cypre_, and the _mille-fleurs_ of the _belles_ of the last century, who
always smelled like a pot of pomatum, or a pickled cucumber)?—the least
prized of the senses has its march of intellect, _tout comme un autre_,
and the strength of perfumes is no bad indication of the state of society.
But, alas, for the sciences! that they too should “bear but the perfume
and suppliance of a moment;” and be brought in and out of fashion, like a
_beret_ of Herbault, or a _robe_ of Victorine. Yet so it is, and was, and
ever will be, as the wants and exigencies of society have occasion for
the aid of different pursuits.
Towards the end of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, and the beginning
of that of Louis the Fifteenth, (including the regency,) astronomy,
taking the place of polemics, raged like an epidemic. Men, women, and
children, leaving this world to take care of itself, got into “other
and better worlds;” and wits, lost on earth, were all to be found, like
Orlando’s, in the moon. Women’s eyes were no longer the only lights that
helped poets to similes. Celestial bodies succeeded to terrestrial; Love,
no longer blind, never appeared without a telescope; rendezvous were
given in _bosquets_ and on terraces, to gaze on the “chaste cold moon;”
hearts and planets disappeared together; and ladies were so intently
engaged in studying the principles of Newton, that they forgot their own;
and gave practical demonstration that, in going astray, women’s “stars
are more in fault than they.”
But when Newton had ceased to act upon the imagination, by fresh
discoveries of striking and impressive import, the astronomers became
_mauvais ton_; and the Parisian women of fashion took to pet geometers,
as the _pendants_ for their pet monkeys. D’Alembert became the Coryphæus
of the French boudoirs; and the Tencins, and the Du Deffands fought for
the possession of the least gallant man and the first geometrician of his
age; who, in his turn, made way for chemistry and Lavoisier.
The English, who have been called a nation of shopkeepers, and who
mingle trade even with their love of science, took to chemistry with an
enthusiasm proportioned to its utility in the arts; much in the same way
as the kings and nobles of a former age had brought alchemy into vogue,
as an instrument of their avarice. Although natural history entered the
lists with its experimental rival, and canvassed for vogue in the library
of Sir Joseph Bankes, oxygen and hydrogen carried the field; and Sir
Humphry Davy, with his class of aristocratic beauties in the west, was as
much revered as the “_premier baron de la Judée_” is in the east.
Chemistry, however, has had its day; and the Ricardos and Malthuses have
succeeded, to turn the heads of those, whom nature intended only to
turn the heads of others—to be succeeded in the next generation by—God
knows what. In France, the once popular electricity of Franklin, and
the cognate study of the magnet, have given birth to the reigning folly
of Mesmerism; and in England, the popular labours of the Hunters have
terminated in the current vogue of craniology. Who can answer for it,
that the necessities of no-popery may not revive the witchcraft of King
James, and call to its aid the penal _dicta_ of some new Matthew Hale,
for the better putting down of dangerous papists?
Even the divine arts, which are of all ages, have experienced the full
versatility of human affairs. Protestantism made war upon the successors
of the Raphaels; and great pictures went out, with great cathedrals
and great palaces. Pitt dealt a severe back-handed blow to engraving;
while wealth, snugness, and personal vanity, combined to give currency
to portraits of gentlemen and ladies. Now, we have lithography opening
a new career to genius and industry; and every day teems with fresh
discoveries, all, more or less, influencing the destiny of the imitative
arts.
Neither are the learned professions built upon a more solid foundation.
Theology, notwithstanding the fashionable sanctity, is obsolete; law
is at a considerable discount, and physicians are set on one side, to
give place for the triumphal car of surgery. The fact is, that society,
like nature, bent on its own great purposes, steadily pursues the course
of its interests; and it sustains, for the moment, those pursuits, and
those only, for which it has an immediate and pressing occasion. It
is in vain that we look for the architectural skill which raised the
ponderous temples of Egypt, or the more graceful, but less substantial,
edifices of Greece. Mortar and Roman cement have substituted the Nashes
and the Wyatvilles, for the _protégés_ of the Ptolemys and Pericles; and
the reign of George the Fourth cannot, in physical possibility, become
the age of Augustus. The house of brick, will never become the house of
marble.
MR. OWEN’S TUNIC.
Talking the other day of small rooms and glaring lights, where all is
in evidence, I made them my excuse for indulging in a tendency to make
up my coterie of pleasant men and pretty women, and to keep out the
twaddles of both sexes, for which I am much abused. It is not long since
a philosophical friend of mine, one always deeply occupied in promoting
the highest and best interests of society, by perfecting science in its
most sublime and useful directions, called on me, and found me most
frivolously, but earnestly, employed in filling up cards for a very
small party. “I am come,” he said, “to ask a favour.” I started: for,
delighted as at all times I am to improve my society by enlisting him
amongst its members, I was yet terribly afraid he was going to ask leave
to bring with him some of those young disciples, who flock to his class
from all parts of Europe, but who (unless one could _ticket_ them) do
not answer quite so well for a fashionable party, as for a laboratory or
a dissecting room. I was really, therefore, never more relieved, than
when I found it was not a card for my _soirée_ he wanted, but only my
head, literally and truly my head;—that is, be it understood, when the
commodity should no longer be of use to its owner. I readily gave him a
_post-obit_ on the only productive estate I ever possessed, delighted to
save my “at home” even at so capital an expense.
It would, however, be a mistake, to accuse me of aristocratical leanings
with respect to society. Something I must have—worth, wit, rank, fashion,
beauty, notoriety, or an old friend. I will take even a diamond necklace,
or an hussar suit of regimentals, value one hundred pounds, with, or
without the wearer: but I do not want what musical cognoscenti call
“_perruque_;” because I have no spare space to fill up, no corners to
cram, like people who have large houses.
_À propos_ to an untenanted uniform and an unappropriated necklace—by way
of lion, I once hung up on the divisions of my bookcase a little tunic;
and it made the _frais_ of my party, by giving rise to an infinity
of fun, and some philosophical, though humorous, conversation. On the
previous morning, the most benevolent, amiable, and sanguine of all
philanthropists called on me, with a countenance full of some new scheme
of beneficence and utility. It was Mr. Owen, of New Lanark, whose visits
are always welcome in Kildare-street, though so “few and far between.”
As soon as we had sunk into our arm-chairs, and put our feet on the
fender, and before we had got on the usual topics of parallelograms and
perfectibility, New Lanark and a new social system, he began,
“My dear Lady Morgan, you are to have a party to-night.”
“To be sure, my dear Mr. Owen, and one made expressly for yourself. You
are my lion: I hope you don’t mean to jilt me.”
“By no means; but I have brought you a better lion than I could prove.”
“I doubt that; but who is he? where is he?”
“In my pocket.”
“You don’t say so: is it alive?”
“Here it is,” said Mr. Owen, smiling; and drawing forth a little parcel,
he unfolded and held up a canvas tunic, or chemise, trimmed with red tape.
“I want you,” he added, “to assist me in bringing into fashion this true
costume of nature’s dictation, the only one that man should wear.”
“But woman, my dear Mr. Owen?”
“Or woman either, my dear Lady.”
“Consider, Mr. Owen, the climate!”
“Your face does not suffer from it.”
“But then again, the decencies?”
“The _decencies_, as you call them, Lady M——, are conventional—they were
not thought of some years ago, when you were all dressed in the adhesive
draperies of antiquity, like that beautiful group on your chimney-piece.
You see there the children of Niobe wore no more voluminous garments than
my tunic;—that lovely child, for instance, which Niobe is endeavouring to
save from the shafts of Apollo. And yet none of your fine gentlemen or
ladies are shocked by the definition of forms, which have ever been the
inspiration of art. I assure you I have already got several ladies to
try this tunic on—”
“Oh! Mr. Owen!!!”
“On their little _boys_, Lady Morgan; and if I could only induce you to
try it—”
“Me, my dear Mr. Owen! You surely cannot suppose—”
“I don’t ask you to _wear_ it, Lady M——: all I beg for the present,
is, that you will give it a trial, by showing it off at your party
to-night—recommend it, puff it off!”
_Quitte pour la peur_, I promised to do so, to the utmost of my
appraising abilities; and so we suspended the little chemise from the
centre of my bookcase, under a bust of the Apollo.
“There!” said Mr. Owen, looking rapturously at the little model dress of
future perfectibility, “there it is worthily placed! Such were the free
vestments, that, leaving the limbs of the Greek athlete unrestrained,
produced those noble forms, which supplied models for the Apollo of
Belvedere.”
“It is certainly placed to great advantage, Mr. Owen,” I replied with a
sigh, “but it gives my pretty library very much the look of Rag-fair, or
a back parlour in Monmouth-street.”
“My dear Madam,” he replied, emphatically, “where the human race is to be
benefitted, no sacrifice is too great.” And this sentiment, which is the
governing principle of Mr. Owen’s life, may serve for his epigraph.
The little tunic, however, had a great success, and merited the
well-known eulogium of Tam O’Shanter to a similar garment—
“Weil loup’d, cutty sark.”
ODD CONJUNCTIONS.
The accidents and incidents of travelling sometimes produce very odd
conjunctions. When I arrived in Rome, I was in all the first bloom of
proscription, brought upon me by my work on France, “_Femme à pendre,
livre à brûler_;” and my introduction to the Buonaparte family, set the
seal on my transgression in the eyes of their deputed persecutor, the
Comte de Blacas, ambassador of France. Even the secretary’s secretary of
the representative of his most Christian Majesty, was afraid to turn his
diplomatic eyes to the side of the room where I stood, lest he should
happen to _se compromettre_ in a furtive glance. On the occasion of one
of the many splendid parties given by the Countess of C——, by which the
hospitality of Ireland was maintained in the ancient capital of the
Cæsars, his Excellency the Count de Blacas and myself got so wedged
together in the crush at the drawing-room door, that the Italian groom of
the chambers, in the breathless haste of his rapid annunciation, cried
out _de haute voix_, “_Son Excellence l’Ambassadeur de France, et Lady
Morgan._” “Holy St. Francis! what a _tête-à-tête_ was there!” The whole
room was in a titter.
PRINCESS BORGHESE.
I was seated at breakfast one bright Roman-winter morning with the
Princess Borghese, at her villa Paolina, near the Porta Pia, and within
view of the ruins of the Prætorian barracks, when letters from the
post were brought in. The Princess turned to the Chevalier ——, her
agent and chamberlain, and requested him to read and answer one of them
immediately; adding, “You know precisely what I ought to say, and will
say it better than I can.”—“The Chevalier,” I said, as he retreated to an
adjoining room, “appears to be an excellent person. It must be a great
advantage, in your Highness’s present position, to have so tried an
adherent of your family, to assist you with his experience and advice.”
“_Oui_,” she replied, “_c’est l’homme du monde le plus respectable.
C’étoit le Chancelier pour mon Duché, car mon frère ne m’a pas donné de
Royaume._”[9]
What a trait! How super-exquisite; but oh! for the careless _nonchalante_
air with which in the intervals of two sips of chocolate, “my brother did
not give me a kingdom,” was uttered!
“Do this, and this,
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchize that.”
I give this dialogue, exactly as it was uttered. A veracious recital of
the most ordinary conversation, goes beyond the effort of fiction; and
there is nothing in the doctrine of possibilities, however extravagant,
which is not equalled or surpassed by fact.
THE COUNSELLOR.
I was talking yesterday to a gentleman of the birth, parentage, and
education, of Mr. Canning; all of which have been for ever misrepresented
by the political enemies of that eminent man. “He was the grandson,” said
my informant, “of the well known Counsellor Canning of Garva, who, as an
Irishman, of ancient birth, large possessions, and as a member of the
Irish legislature, was a person of the very highest consideration.”
“Then why do you call him counsellor, as a title of distinction.”
“Because in Counsellor Canning’s day, it was a distinction. A papist
might have a noble descent, a large property, and an historical name, but
he could not be a counsellor.”